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Lil Roberts With Xendoo

March 10, 2023 by Jacob Lapera

Innovation Radio
Innovation Radio
Lil Roberts With Xendoo
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Lillian Roberts, Founder & CEO of Xendoo.

A South Florida native, Lillian Roberts prides herself on building customer-centric companies that are built on teamwork, technology, and integrity. A serial entrepreneur with a passion for small business, she is known as an innovator with an enviable ability to foresee market trends. After a successful exit from the manufacturing industry, Lillian serves as CEO and Founder of Xendoo, a cloud-based Fintech company based in the Greater Miami Region. Xendoo specializes in online bookkeeping and accounting focused on small to medium businesses.

By leveraging technology and proprietary software, Xendoo CPAs and bookkeepers have increased the productivity of the traditional workforce by 500%. Xendoo’s accolades include 1st place grant for Village Capital’s Finance Forward, a 2019 finalist for Revolution’s Rise of the Rest, and a 2018 Startup Showcase finalist for eMerge Americas.

Connect with Lillian on LinkedIn and follow Xendoo on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Chatgpt and the impact on business
  • Digital Transformation for SMBs
  • Hiring in today’s Marketplace
  • SMB and Financial Visibility
  • Are you in the right business

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:01] You’re listening to Innovation Radio, where we interview entrepreneurs focused on innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. Innovation Radio is brought to you by the world’s first theme park for entrepreneurs the Livin center of innovation. The only innovation center in the nation to support the founder’s journey from birth of an idea through successful exit or global expansion. Now here’s your host, Lee Kantor.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:28] Lee Kantor here another episode of Innovation Radio. And we could not be doing this without the support of our sponsor, Leuven Center of Innovation. They are the key to making this happen, and I am so excited to be talking to today’s guests. Lil Roberts with Xendoo. Welcome, Lil.

Lil Roberts: [00:00:45] Thank you. Lee. I’m excited as well. You are quite a host. I’ve listened to your first couple of episodes and I just love it. So thank you for all you’re doing for our community.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:54] All right. Well, let’s get into it a little bit about Xendoo, if you don’t mind. Share your mission purpose, how you serving folks.

Lil Roberts: [00:01:02] Absolutely. So Xendoo is an online bookkeeping and accounting platform for business owners across the United States and in other countries that may happen to have a business in the US. So that’s usually it managed services and e-commerce. And as a serial entrepreneur, I just felt that it took too long to get the monthly financials from the accounting industry and I wanted to change that. So back in 2017, started building technology that allows us to deliver financial visibility to small business owners. And when I say small business owners, that’s anybody from, you know, a couple hundred thousand all the way up to 30, 40 million in size is still considered a small business. And we want to give them their financial visibility so they can make timely decisions and and have financial peace of mind.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:50] Now, was your background in kind of bookkeeping and finance like that, or was it were you had another business and you were realizing that this is a too much of a pain for what it should be?

Lil Roberts: [00:02:01] It’s the latter. And so my journey, I’ve had 8 or 9 different businesses and my journey has been from systems integration date myself a little bit here. Back in the 80 seconds, I was in Systems integration as an early mover in the publishing space. When desktop publishing came about, then had some product businesses. Then I went into manufacturing and I had several manufacturing businesses. And so when I exited the manufacturing business in 2015, I wanted to be very intentional about the next business that I built. And I wanted it to be a technology based business, and I wanted to help reshape an industry. And the audience I wanted to help was fellow business owners and entrepreneurs, because I feel we’re the backbone of the US economy, right? The backbone of many economies. If you think about it, Starbucks started as as a small business. It started as one location, right? And most businesses do start that way. So I wanted to set out to find out why the people in the accounting industry didn’t have the proper tools that they needed to be able to deliver in a timely way. So we have built those tools and but we also have the team of people besides the tools, and we help thousands of small business owners.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:14] And that’s great advice for our listeners that are our founders or in the startup community, focus in on the market first and then the idea just kind of make it bespoke to whatever the problem you’re trying to solve rather than have an idea and force it into a market that may or may not exist.

Lil Roberts: [00:03:34] So truly, you know, lots of times people ask me, Well, how did you come up with this concept? Or how did you decide what business to build? And I’m a big believer in scorecards. And so I built a scorecard on the front end, and the scorecard was based on that. I wanted to build a business to scale to 100 million and RR. I wanted it to be venture capital backed because I wanted to take that learning journey, whereas all my other businesses had been on my own back and the banks money and my money. And so I wanted to really build a high growth business that could help thousands of people. And then I said, the audience I love working with are entrepreneurs and business owners. And there is a difference, right? As we know. And I wanted to work with that audience with technology first to build something unique and reshape an industry. And then once I had that thesis, then it was time to go look for what industry. And so I was looking for an analog industry and at the time analog industries were that that would fit that that criteria were legal insurance and accounting and have feeling the pain firsthand in the accounting industry of not getting my financials in a timely way. And it would cost my company money because I didn’t have the visibility I needed. So I thought, let’s solve that problem. And it turned out to be a fun time. We’re helping a lot of people. We have been through a couple of rounds of funding and have some great investors and we love what we’re doing in the market that we’re helping.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:04] Now. When you’re working with other entrepreneurs, do you find that some of them haven’t even considered if they are truly in that right business?

Lil Roberts: [00:05:15] So true. So true. I find that a lot of people end up in a business that doesn’t necessarily serve their highest purpose. And what I mean by that is that they’re either in a business because they went in for maybe the wrong reasons. Right? You you you can’t go in business to make money if you’re you’re driving force is that you want to make a lot of money then that’s not the right reason to go and build a business. Right. You should build a business because you want to solve a problem and you want to provide an environment that has that serves customers and that also builds great team members internally. Right? So your team members, your your staff are your internal customers. And so when I find that business owners go in to to do that and typically business business owners will choose that. They’ll they’ll find out that, wow, this is much harder than what I thought. And then they don’t want to stay because it’s not serving their motive of getting in. And I’m not saying by any means that that’s the bulk of people. Sometimes people will just take over a family business and maybe their love is in some other area. And so what I always say to to friends and people that I meet that that want to go through that journey of finding out what’s the highest purpose for their what kind of business they should be in is first, find out what your passion is. If you do what you’re passionate about, whatever that may be. There’s always a business that aligns with that and you will find that. But do what you’re passionate about because when times are tough, it’s the passion that gets you through.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:50] Right? And but you also have to match that passion with a market.

Lil Roberts: [00:06:55] 100% like that goes without saying. Do your homework on the market first, right? Like say, okay, you know, how big of a market is it for me to sell whatever the widget may be? And then how do I prove before I invest a lot of time and money, how do I prove that the market wants it? You may love some product, but there may not be a big enough market. It may be too soon. Like Lee, you and I have seen this over and over. You know, think about when I was first starting to build Xendoo. It was 2017. And you know, Andreessen Horowitz, which is a huge name in the VC world, had invested something like 100 million plus in a drone company. That drone company never made it, and the reason being it was too early. So you have to take an idea, you have to test it, and then you have to look at the timing. And you could either be too early or too late and either one has the same result.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:52] Now, how do you advise entrepreneurs in today’s world where it seems like the technology landscape is changing so rapidly? And I don’t know how people can keep up and play in the in the new sandbox, like in this AI sandbox, for example. Um, you know, while they still have a day job, I know it’s important to always kind of keep your eye on the horizon and ahead, but it just seems like it’s changing so rapidly. How would you recommend that entrepreneurs kind of, you know, focus on on the work that they need to do today, but also keep an eye on the future?

Lil Roberts: [00:08:27] It’s a really great question. So there’s a couple of things. So to really be proficient in the AI space to understand, you need to invest 30 hours. And I’m loving like I’m absolutely loving what’s happening with chat GPT three and chat GPT four as Microsoft is using. That’s not even on the open market and it will change our worlds. And you know, there was an interesting thing from a billionaire that I read that said that during the Industrial Revolution, when machines started to replace humans on on some of the manual work they did, the humans first balked at it and didn’t want that. And then they found their way and and then they went to the next stage of it, right? And the next stage was that they were using these machines to be even more productive. And then the stage after that was that there was more automation and they were able to be even more productive. And I think with Chatgpt and AI, the same thing is going to happen if you invest the time in it. And your question is how do you find the time to invest? And I’m going to answer that for you. But if you invest the time in it, it’s going to accelerate what you do for your work.

Lil Roberts: [00:09:35] So you have to don’t when you go in, don’t just spend time reading a lot about other people’s opinions. That’s not the only way to inform yourself. You know, open up an account on open AI and and it’s free right now and start playing with it and asking questions. And then the creative mind that we all have that sometimes we put in a corner is going to allow you to understand how you’re going to be able to utilize that to then buy yourself more time and with the time you buy yourself by utilizing the tool, then take that time and reinvest it in learning more about what’s happening in the marketplace. And so really, to answer your question, it’s about reinvestment. You can’t manufacture time if we all can manufacture time that, you know, we would be major heroes because that’s what we all are running out of in today’s world is time. And but you have to figure out how you can utilize tools and accelerate your productivity to buy yourself time, essentially. And then with that, reinvest it and I think answer it for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:42] Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s an important thing you mentioned about not just reading about it. Roll up your sleeves, get in there and play with it, and you’re going to start connecting dots in ways that no one else can because you’re uniquely you and you have unique problems and challenges. And by playing in the in the sandbox, you’re going to that’s going to open your mind to things that you haven’t considered because you don’t know yet exactly what it can and can’t do 100%.

Lil Roberts: [00:11:13] And you have to be careful, right? Because the one thing about AI and Chatgpt and and look prior to that and business owners are just at the very beginning of this right now in the sector of 40 million and less businesses of revenue of the digital transformation. But with the AI, you have to be careful. So you have to inspect what you expect. You have to, you know, trust and verify, right or verify and trust. But you have to make sure that that you you check that. I’ll give you an example of where we use Chatgpt recently. And it was fantastic. So we needed to write a job description and I was chatting with my h.r. And normally, you know, it would take an hour, an hour and a half to write it. And I said, let’s check out this tool. And I spun it up and in natural language wrote what we needed, just two sentences. And it came back with the first draft That was unbelievable in less than a minute. And so from that first draft, fine tuned it and that was it. It was ready to go. So there’s an example of where, you know, 49 minutes, 54 minutes were saved.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:17] Right. And that’s, again, one of those things where people are quick to dismiss some technology because it isn’t perfect. And if you just kind of manage the expectation of, look, I’m not looking for chatgpt to solve the problem exactly. I’m looking for them to save me time and give me that good first draft or, you know, a lot of writers call it the crappy first draft. You know, the first draft is the thing that you’re procrastinating and not doing because it’s hard. And if you can just get that kind of crappy first draft out of the way, then you can edit it and it’s a lot faster. It moves faster from there. And if Chatgpt can give you that, you’re way ahead of the game.

Lil Roberts: [00:12:56] So well said. You hit it on the head. First draft is the hardest and we all can’t help it, but we put our own, you know, preferences or thoughts or ways we think about it in that. And what you really want is you want a first draft that is open minded as possible, um, to give, to spark the ideas, right? And, and that’s what Chatgpt does. So very interesting. I think that we are in for a very interesting next 3 to 5 years and if people. Race it. They’re going to be able to to glean ideas and things that we would have maybe thought weren’t possible before that are going to be possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:37] Yeah, I think it’s funny that I’m kind of old and I have a memory of when calculators were first introduced into the schools and how there was so much pushback of if these things are here, then that’s going to no one’s going to learn math and like, why learn math if these things are going to do all the work for you? And then over time you realize it’s just a tool and it helps you be better and get a deeper understanding of math. Having this tool and and you’re getting similar pushback with Chat, GPT and other AI services in a similar vein. You know, it may not be exact, but it rhymes.

Lil Roberts: [00:14:14] Oh, 100%. And you know what I say to people that may have hesitation about it? As I said, look, this is the opportunity to really hone and craft your critical thinking skills and what computers will won’t replace for. I won’t say never because everything’s possible. Right? But I would say for at least the next 15 years, they’re not going to replace the critical thinking skills that humans do, where we take many pieces of information and use that to make a decision. And, you know, the machine models have to be trained and they’re not always going to make the right decisions. And so the way to ensure your career path is be sure that you choose something that’s not a repetitive but that requires critical thinking and then and then do the work to craft and hone your skills. Read A lot of people don’t you know, they gave up on reading and they let everything do the thinking for them, whether it is Google search or any type of search engine, you have to, you know, spend some time away from technology and grow your mind and exercise your mind and make sure that you exercise your thinking.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:26] Right, because it’s your uniqueness and your unique experiences. Those are the things that can’t be replicated. That’s what you uniquely bring to the table. So you got to lean into that. You can’t try to just kind of be like everybody else. You really have to be truly yourself.

Lil Roberts: [00:15:43] 100%, 100% and look at all the great businesses that we have that are in today’s world that help us, right? Uber and Airbnb and and many of them, you know, right down to Google, all of that came from people being creative in their thinking and seeing a problem and saying, how do I go about solving that? And so us as humans, we need to never stop wanting to solve problems. We need to not be lazy. And the concern would be is that it’s very easy to let technology make you make you lazy, right? People don’t even know family members phone numbers because it’s in their phone. Well, what happens if their phone is dead and they’re stranded on the side of the road? They’ve got to at least memorize the basic couple of people, you know, lifeline people’s phone numbers, but they don’t think about it in those terms. And that is exercising your mind.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:37] Right. And that should never stop no matter your age.

Lil Roberts: [00:16:42] True. True. Be a lifelong.

Lil Roberts: [00:16:44] Learner. That’s one of my core values, is to always be a lifelong learner.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:48] Now, do you have any advice for folks that are in the job market today? On one hand, you’re hearing that, you know, unemployment’s at record low and then on the other hand, you’re hearing that it’s so competitive to get jobs in the areas that a lot of people are trying to get jobs in. What’s your take on the hiring in today’s marketplace?

Lil Roberts: [00:17:09] Well, I can speak a lot about it. It’s something that’s near and dear to me. I love to build teams and I love to to have an opportunity to have great team members come on and grow with the company and to continue to learn. So I would say that part of the challenge in today’s market is that a lot of people, you know, have grown up in the digital age, digital technology, and they may not I’m not saying everybody, so I don’t want to to have anyone upset here, but they may not be as strong as they need to be on soft skills. So, you know, competition is good and competition comes and goes. We’ve seen many cycles in the market, as you and I have been through many of them. So if we’re in a cycle where it’s it’s a competitive job market, the things that are going to make you stand out over the next person are things such as soft skills, know how to communicate in writing. And what I find is that that we haven’t done a good job on the last couple of, you know, let’s call it the last decade, have given people the opportunity to really understand, you know, how to write proper emails, how to connect, how to be relational, you know, on on texts. We do all these abbreviated words and we don’t say good morning or hello or hi or hope your day, hope this finds you having a great day. Those types of things are going to help people when they’re hunting for a job, when they can display and show a potential job opportunity that they do have great soft skills that’s going to help them to stand out.

Lil Roberts: [00:18:41] The other side of it is they have to make sure that they have all the technology skills as well. And then the third component of it is, you know, we’ve gotten somehow into a society where people look to just job, job change, you know, quickly job hop over, over pay. That’s the worst thing that you can do, right? Because you what happens is that it’ll work for a while. You end up working yourself into a position that you don’t have all the skill you need to be at that level of pay. And at some point it catches up. And you could probably speak to this because, you know, we’ve seen this happen in cycle after cycle, but a lot of times people don’t understand that there’s an investment. When you’re first coming out of college. There’s an investment that you need to make that will help you and pay off, you know, by multiples in your later years. And that investment is you need lived experience. You need to be mentored by other people and you need to work with them and learn. And if you rapidly advance your your role just because of pay, you’re going to end up in a cycle when there’s going to be a lot of people that have an opportunity that they can be hired and and they’ll have much more skill set than you may have.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:54] Right. They say at the beginning of your career, you focus on learning and then in secondarily, you focus on earning. And then if you kind of fast forward past the learning stage and you’re just on the earnings stage, you’re expected to be the one who knows things now. So if you haven’t picked them up now, you’re going to be in trouble and that’s going to, you know, kind of have some ramifications down the road.

Lil Roberts: [00:20:17] Oh, yeah. You may be thinking, you know, especially with the cycle we just came through, that you’re living large and the pay is out there. But we’re starting to see the early signs of it with all these layoffs and big tech companies that when the layoffs happen and they start to, you know, to reset their workforce internally, they’re going to they have a big choice of who to hire. And somebody may be standing right next to you and they have more experience. They’re going to get the job. So invest in yourself, get the experience. Don’t hop just for money. Find the place that’s going to teach you the most. And and that’s where you want to be first.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:53] So now regarding Xendoo, what is it that you need right now? How can we help you?

Lil Roberts: [00:21:01] Thank you very much. Um, we need team and we need customers. And so if anybody is listening and they’re in South Florida and they have a degree in accounting excuse me and have a degree in accounting, we would love to chat with them. So we are constantly hiring. We’re constantly growing. And if there’s also business owners and entrepreneurs that have businesses that they need somebody to handle their accounting, their tax. Fractional CFO Check out our website Xendoo.com.  Sorry, I have something in my throat here and and live chat in with us and let us know either that you’re interested in how can we work together to to help you with your business for the accounting side or like I said, if you’re local, we are an in-office company and we’re an in-office company because we believe in the swivel chair collaboration. And there’s a lot you know, we we take care of a wide range of businesses, from e-com to professional services to franchise groups to technology companies to medical companies, to retail companies, you name it, to trade services. And by having our team all under one roof, we can collaborate and solve problems very quickly. And and so we love it. And also, there’s a lot of learning that happens just when you’re all under the same roof versus being on Zoom.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:29] Now, do you also work with like your end customer is the business owner, but do you work with like accounting firms to help to get to their business, to help them in their business, you know, serve their clients better because they have better bookkeeping? Do you work collaboratively with like CPAs and other partner groups?

Lil Roberts: [00:22:47] We don’t actively pursue that. And we have, you know, and we have two, two CPAs that give us some of their bookkeeping customers because they don’t want to if the if the CPA practice is open to us having a relationship with their customer, then by all means we’re happy to take care of them. But if we’re working through a third party, I have not white labeled our software at this point. And so basically what we did is with my background in technology is I built a what somebody would call a CPA practice management software. I built it on what’s called the Knowledge Work cloud, which is data driven prioritization, workflow and measurement. And so we have a technology platform that wraps around Zero and QuickBooks Online that when our team comes to work, they come in and it feels like they’re running downhill. Instead of coming to work and feeling like they’re climbing uphill, which is typically what happens for accountants at CPA practices is that the information is in a lot of disparate places. And, you know, you have to constantly be thinking about where to find your information. Our team, it’s all sitting in their dashboard and in the platform and so they can come in and and just do what they love, which is to do the accounting.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:59] Now, I think there’s a lesson here for other founders. Can you share a little bit about that decision? Because it seems on the surface for somebody I’m not familiar with how your business works, obviously, but to partner with CPAs seems like a logical kind of in front of you, low hanging fruit choice to say, Oh, I’ll partner with them and then they have customers and then we all work together in our problem solves a problem that they probably have. But you chose not to do that and you chose to go to the end user and, and, and not pursue that. Can you talk about was that a consideration or was that something you eliminated initially? Because that I’m just trying to educate other founders where some things might look like they’re there for the taking, but there might be really a backstory of that might not necessarily be the best path 100%.

Lil Roberts: [00:24:52] And so, Lee, the danger is when you ask me a direct question, I have to give you the answer. So I usually tell people I come with a disclaimer. So it was it was an intentional decision. And so my lived experience throughout my life and in business was that the world is moving to a direct relationship right through. That’s one of the things technology brought us and that easily we could go out and we could probably, you know, scale at this level that I could take our platform white, label it and start to take it out and sell it to CPAs. And they would absolutely love it because there isn’t something that’s really great in the market that allows them to do their work. I did not want to be on the side of having to educate the the masses in the industry to change their thinking. I wanted to go to the people that feel the pain firsthand. And so the our problem is our ultimate goal is to deliver a financial peace of mind to small business owners. Right. And the way to solve that is to directly go to small business owners who have the pain point. They want their financials in a timely way.

Lil Roberts: [00:25:57] We deliver 65% of the monthly. Financials by the fifth business day. Unheard of in the industry. So imagine if I chose to take our platform to CPAs and say, Hey, you could deliver your financials to your customers by the fifth business day. They’ve been used to doing it for years where it’s delivered by the end of the following month. If anything, maybe by the 20th of the following month, but typically by the end of the following month or even into the month after. They don’t understand the the benefit of how that impacts the small business owner. I live that journey. I could not get my financials from the accountant company that I had. I constantly would have to, you know, hey, I really need my financials. Hey, where’s my financials? Hey, I need my financials. Um, and they didn’t understand that because they’re in the business of being a practitioner of, of what they do, of the accounting. And they, they don’t always understand the benefit that it delivers to the to the small business owner. So my decision was go to who’s in the pain and solve for the person who’s in the greatest pain.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:00] Yeah and that’s that’s kind of a great determinant if you have a good business, if if people, you know, need an aspirin and you’re the person with the aspirin, that’s a that you have a chance there as opposed to you have a vitamin that might help down the road. You should be solving urgent problems if you want to kind of run a successful business 100%.

Lil Roberts: [00:27:22] And that’s the challenge. People will stop at the point of what they feel they want to do instead of going all all the way to what solves the pain point. And and I’ll tell you, it’s much harder, right? So it’s much harder to go out and and find a thousand, 2000, 5000 at 15,000 customers will be at 100 million. Rr And and so it’s much harder to build at that where one could say, well, I could just go, you know, get 1500 accountants that all have, you know, 100 customers. And and so that’d be an easier 1st May think, well, that’d be a lot easier, but not necessarily. Not necessarily at all. And not to say that, you know, at three, 4000 customers we won’t bifurcate and take our platform to to also help CPAs because I know that they want to deliver the product in a timely manner to their customers. But I want to move as fast as we can. And the way to move as fast as we can is take your solution to the person who’s in the most pain.

Lee Kantor: [00:28:27] Now, before we wrap, do you mind sharing a little bit about your feelings about how the Levant center of innovation, how important it is to the South, Florida and the whole region’s ecosystem?

Lil Roberts: [00:28:40] Absolutely. So the Levant Center is not only important for South Florida and the region, it’s important for the globally. You know, John has spoke at in Dubai that they’re looking at our model, that other countries are looking at our model. It is the first center of its kind in the world where from beginning to end or cradle to grave, as I like to say, that it takes an entrepreneur’s journey all the way through and the tools, the programs, the community engagement and involvement that they have there. If you’re a founder that that wants to build a business and you’re just not sure what get involved in the Levant Center. If you’re a founder that has scaled and exited a business or that is at a point in your business where you’re not as hands on and you have an opportunity and time to give back, get involved at the Levant Center. And if you’re the general public that you maybe don’t want to build a business yourself or be a founder yourself, still get involved with the Levant Center because at least go and tour and take a look at it to see what tools are there. The the educational seminars and interesting workshops that they have going on are good for everybody of all ages. You know, we talk about chat GPT, they have robots that you can go to the van center and chat with their robots and see what’s possible and it’s amazing. And bring your kids, you know, bring children that are that are five years old to to 15 years old. They need to be exposed to this. This is going to be their world. And we need to have them learning and understanding and have their minds be creative by being around it.

Lee Kantor: [00:30:28] Well, Lil, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Lil Roberts: [00:30:34] Thank you so much. Lee. It’s a great honor to be here with you today, and I appreciate your time.

Lee Kantor: [00:30:38] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see y’all next time on Innovation Radio.

Intro: [00:30:43] This episode of Innovation Radio was brought to you by the world’s first theme park for entrepreneurs, the Levant Center of Innovation, the only innovation center in the nation to support the founder’s journey from birth of an idea through successful exit or global expansion. If you’re ready to launch or scale your business, please check out the Levant Center of Innovation by visiting Nova. Edu Forward Slash Innovation.

Tagged With: Lil Roberts, Xendoo

Tommy Thornburgh with Prime Corporate Services

March 9, 2023 by angishields

Prime-Corporate-Services
St. Louis Business Radio
Tommy Thornburgh with Prime Corporate Services
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Tommy-Thornburgh-headshotTommy Thornburgh, President of Prime Corporate Services, gives all the credit to his team for truly making a difference over the last 10 years he’s been at PRIME. Tommy is the brain and face behind all of the company’s webinars, presentations and events and oversees 50 Corporate Advisors.

Under his leadership, PCS has helped over 100,000 entrepreneurs structure their business properly. Tommy joined the team as one of three Corporate Advisors. Since then, he has grown his team to include 50 people that are helping more than 400 new entrepreneurs a day.

In addition to getting up on stage and presenting, Tommy takes a lot of pride in PRIME’s ability to grow and scale over the last several years. He started his self-employed career knocking doors and selling pest control and learned early on what it’s like to pay way too much money in taxes. Tommy worked in sales at Clearlink before taking on his role at PCS.

Tommy has brought on many friends and family to the team and is proud of fostering the close family culture that exists at PRIME today. In his free team, he loves spending time with his wife and one-and-a-half-year-old daughter and appreciates any chance he can get to play a round of golf.

Follow Prime Corporate Services on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Saint Louis, Missouri. It’s time for Saint Louis Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Phillip Hearn: [00:00:18] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Doc’s Discussions. My name is Dr. Phillip Hearn and you are listening to Saint Louis Business RadioX. So I always enjoy the different guests that we’re able to get to hang out with me, talk a bit about what they do, their business, their strategies, and today’s episode is no different. I’ve got Tommy Thornburgh, who’s the president of Prime Corporate Services, joining us for this episode today. Tommy, how are you?

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:00:44] I’m doing great. Thank you for having me. I’m excited about this.

Phillip Hearn: [00:00:47] Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to it. Glad to have you. Thanks for spending some time with us. So before we dig into all of the inner workings, tell our listeners a bit about you. Where’d you come from? How’d you get into this space? Give us a little bit more knowledge about who you are.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:01:03] Sure. Yeah. Let’s take it all the way back. Why don’t we? So my growing up, my parents split when I was very young and my mom was a real estate agent and my dad owned a real estate brokerage. And I joke now that I’m removed from it and can look back on it that the only thing they agreed upon is that their kids should be self-employed. So if they did anything right, they pushed my sister and I towards self-employment. And she’s actually part of the company with me here as well. So, um, from a very young age, I was introduced to real estate and I always thought that that was the route that I was going to go. And then I turned 18, tried to go the whole college route, went and knocked doors selling pest control. So I live in Salt Lake City, Utah. I drove all the way over to Raleigh, North Carolina, and 19 years old, started knocking door to door selling pest control at 19. In three months, I made about $40,000. Okay. I thought I was king of the castle. I came home, I said, Mom, you can’t tell me anything. Forget it. And then Uncle Sam wanted 10,000 in the form of taxes, right? That money was gone. I’d already spent that money. So I learned a very valuable lesson at a very early age in my business life that it’s not about what you make, it’s what you keep. And now here we are, just over ten years in business with Prime corporate, and that’s what we do. There was a niche in the market for start up entrepreneurs, for solopreneurs that are running their own business or for people that are just getting started looking for a side hustle that don’t have the means or the money to have a corporate financial plan or attorney CPAs. So we help with entity structure, business, credit taxes, as you know. And that’s that’s a little bit about me. Since then I’ve dabbled in real estate and have investments of my own. But Prime Corporate’s been my baby for the last ten years.

Phillip Hearn: [00:03:18] Wonderful. So with that experience, it sounds like that was kind of the early birth of of the idea for prime corporate services. Tell our listeners a bit more about what does what those markets a little bit deeper that they actually do serve.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:03:34] Sure. I’m a firm believer that everyone in the US should be self-employed to some extent. As you can tell, that’s rooted from my childhood, obviously. But the reason that I say it is because there’s over 70,000 pages of a tax code, right? And the majority of those benefit investors benefit entrepreneurs. So whether it’s a side hustle, a side business or full time self-employment. We try and make it as easy as possible from an entry point for people to feel comfortable, to start to invest or to start what their passion is, to be self-employed and to maximize from a tax savings standpoint, to create financial freedom and time freedom long term.

Phillip Hearn: [00:04:24] That’s awesome. That sounds great. So you mentioned within the services that are offered, you guys have everything from entity creation to the tax to the business credit. Tell us a little bit about, for instance, the entity creation. How does that process work? Kind of a quick synopsis from start to finish. So if somebody calls you and says, Hey, I need an entity done, I’m sure your team’s not just like, great, we’ll just make you an entity. There’s some pieces that go into that, that structure. And I’ve been lucky enough to work with your team on that, and they do a phenomenal job. But take our listeners into what that process may look like.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:04:57] Sure. We really like to make sure that it’s something that our client understands what they have and what they need, as opposed to it being some papers on a bookshelf or in your email that never get used, right? So fortunately, we’re able to help structure entities in all 50 states. And we really try and break down over 45 minutes to an hour. What are your needs? What type of business are you in? How concerned are you with having an amenity privacy protection? Because not all states are created equal when it comes to corporate law. Right. Delaware. Nevada. Wyoming. Their corporate haven states that have additional privacy and protection that other states don’t offer. So we really try and break down. Is an LLC best for you? Is an S corporation best for you? Do you need an additional holding or parent company for privacy and protection? So it’s not one size fits all. But what we really try and do is make sure you’re aware of what you have and why you have it. And we’re trying to accomplish three things for any of the listeners that take notes. This is for you. Number one is privacy and protection. Number two is tax benefits, profit and loss. And number three is showing yourself as a business not only to your clientele, but to banks and lenders as well for funding long term.

Phillip Hearn: [00:06:31] Yeah, and that’s extremely important to understanding all the pieces. A lot of people just go, Hey, create an entity, start your business. But it sounds like you and your team really take the time to go, okay, if you created here, here are going to be the potential benefits taxable benefit down the line. I know you’re not playing an accountant, so we’ll put that disclaimer in, but your team has enough knowledge to understand those tax laws in each state to be able to explain the process. It sounds like easier to folks who work with you all.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:07:01] Correct? Yes, absolutely. And that’s I appreciate you saying it. I am not a CPA. I’m not an attorney. As you said, I’m the president of prime corporate. However, I do have. Just about 100 accountants and CPAs total that file all the taxes now and got a full team of attorneys that do all the entity set ups and all the all the estate planning for us as well. So it’s nice to be able to talk to investors and talk to entrepreneurs, but still get the support of the CPAs and the attorneys. And I think that’s where the niche that we’ve created has really done us well over the last ten years.

Phillip Hearn: [00:07:42] So take us into that next step. So now that we’ve created the entity, there’s potentially the opportunity to work with your team on creating business credit and then also taking care of the dreaded taxes at the end of the year. Right. So take us through what that process kind of looks like because it sounds as if you can work through an all in one style solution with your organization and with your team. If I’m hearing that correctly.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:08:04] That’s the goal. Yeah. I mean, and it’s like I said earlier, not one size fits all. I think it’s important for everyone listening to understand the way that we were introduced was actually a mess up that we had on setup over there. So full transparency. We’re we’re not perfect, but as a as you can see, we’ve been able to mend the relationship by making things right. And if you can have the proper business structure, Mister Benjamin Franklin said it best. Two things that are certain death and taxes. Right all.

Phillip Hearn: [00:08:38] Day long. Yeah.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:08:39] And neither one are overly exciting to talk about. But if there were two pieces of advice that I could give anyone from a tax standpoint. Yeah. Number one, have a way to track your expenses, whether it’s an Excel spreadsheet, QuickBooks, a tax app of any sort. The best way to beat the IRS and the tax game is kind of like a, you know, death by a thousand paper cuts, right? I ask you this, dude, what did you have for lunch last Wednesday?

Phillip Hearn: [00:09:13] You better know every single thing. I had a burger, I had fries. It was a cheat day, so. Yeah, yeah, I’d better be able to adapt. I had three iced teas. They only charged me for one. Exactly.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:09:25] What what, what’s business related? Right. And that’s if you’re wondering to yourself, how do I know if something is business related? Ask yourself if it’s ordinary or necessary for your business, and if you can say yes to either one of those, then track those expenses. Number two, have a professional file your taxes. You know, obviously I’m biased. If you’re working with us, great. But if you hire a professional and you were to get audited, they should be able to back you in that audit situation. That’s why you go to the doctor, right, is to make sure that you’re fixing yourself up the right way. And. Track your expenses, hire or hire a professional. And we have a vast. Vast group of professionals that get to work together in all these different industries so that we can get back to our main tagline, which is it’s not about what you make, it’s what you keep, what you can reinvest back into your business. Well, you can put into your own retirement or what? You can throw off a bridge. I don’t care what you do with it, but I want you to be able to make that decision.

Phillip Hearn: [00:10:37] And so that that’s such a key component because as entrepreneurs and a lot of our listeners will be in kind of that bucket. We’re so used to doing things ourselves, right? So it’s just, hey, we got to get it handled. We got to get it handled right now. But it sounds as if having the correct team in this particular case can take a ton of stress or issues or just overall angst about the whole tax process. And you even talked about something as simple as managing your expenses, right? So what are some of the pieces? And again, you’re talking about a 70 000 page tax code, I think you just mentioned. What are some of those pieces that if they’re of course, working for the business and are used for the business, can be construed for tax credits or a write off, What are those things that people may be surprised about when they hear, hey, I can actually use this as a part of a tax credit towards what I’m doing.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:11:26] I love it. Yeah, absolutely. There’s a real. So one of the things that I’m trying to put together right now and I want to make a YouTube series about this, it’s one of my passions, right, that ever since I’ve got a little two year old daughter and I’ve got another another little baby girl on the way, I don’t even think I’ve told you that.

Phillip Hearn: [00:11:43] Congrats. Yeah, that’s breaking news. See, we break news here. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:11:48] But here’s here’s one of the things that I’ve become more passionate about since I’ve had my daughter. And that’s generationally how you can change the landscape of the financial future of kids, grandkids, loved ones, whatever that may be. And just to kind of walk you through some of what I’m doing, I pay my daughter $12,900 a year. It’s a deduction for me. She doesn’t have to show it on the taxes because she made under the standard deduction. So if you look it up on YouTube, they talk about paying your kids and all these sort of other areas. But where I’ve changed that is now if I put that 12,900 into a Roth IRA or into some sort of a vehicle where the money compounds, by the time she’s 25, she has $1 million in that account. Now, she can either invest it into a business, she can use it for college, she can buy a house, she can invest in real estate simultaneously. I’m adding her on to some of my credit where she’ll have an 800 credit score by the time she’s 18. So now, as long as I do a decent job helping her understand that life’s about choices, right? You got good choices, you got bad choices, you better not mess this up, because I worked really hard to get you an 800 credit score and $1 million in this account. Right. But I’m going to make that bet that as long as I can educate and help understand where that’s going to come from, hopefully she makes the best decisions possible. But tax tax wise, a lot of you listening to this are probably considered self-employed, home based entrepreneurs. There’s over 250 different deductible expenses, right? Things like your phone, your Internet. Your power, your electric bill. Portions of your rent or your mortgage for those of you that have the designated home office. How can you write off your vehicle? Have you spent money on softwares or on advisory to better your business for the future? Those are all things that can become tax deductible as long as you’re tracking them and you’re tying them back to your business.

Phillip Hearn: [00:14:10] And so that’s huge, too. So again, there’s so much in the tax code, so understanding some of those honestly simplistic ways of looking at it and how the benefit works out as well. And think you also mentioned that this is vertical or industry agnostic, right? So you can find this whether you’re in distribution, manufacturing, real estate, as you mentioned, it doesn’t matter. The industry, you guys, you and your team will work with folks that are in a lot of different industries. Am I hearing that right?

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:14:39] The only thing we try and stay away from is farming.

Phillip Hearn: [00:14:42] Other than to be a farmer. Okay. Well, you just you just made a couple folks mad on the on the off season. A lot of a.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:14:50] Lot of times farming Here’s depreciation is king when it comes to tax deductions. Right. That’s why so many very wealthy individuals invest into real estate and invest into a lot of these things that they can depreciate on their taxes if you have investment properties in your listening to this. There’s cost segregation studies. We had a client that off of two properties did an accelerated depreciation on a cost seg and it saved them $600,000 in taxes in one year. Now, obviously, this is a high income earner, real estate investments. But the point that I like to make there is even if you are just getting started. The more no one cares about your money more than you do. Correct. So the more that you understand how to protect yourself, how to maximize on your tax benefits, how to build personal credit and business credit, and then be able to reinvest back into different vehicles that will compound your wealth over time. It’s hard to lose if you’re playing the game to win based off of keeping more money in your corner from a tax standpoint.

Phillip Hearn: [00:16:04] And I love that cost seg tool. Right. So basically for folks who don’t know it definitely start to research and look it up. And again, I’m not playing an accountant either, but I have done my research on the cost seg. It’s a beautiful thing in terms of basically speeding up that depreciation schedule where let’s say you can tap into 70 to 80% of that depreciation within the first 5 to 7 years, maybe sooner, depending on programs that are out there. But that concept of no one teaches that, right. You know, so when we were growing up, no one’s teaching, hey, you should look into cost seg if you go buy a property. So that’s one of those things that is it’s it makes the property investment experience potentially so much greater than you might have thought by just looking at a couple hundred dollars in net operating income from rents or something like that. So that’s a huge, huge tool. So let me ask you this. We’ve got an interesting scenario in terms of environment right now, fiscal environment. You’ve got rates going up. You’ve got, you know, all the noise, if you will. How does a company like Prime help their clients cut through the noise? Because there’s so much of it, no matter where you look, interest rates, the Fed, all the decisions being made or not made, what what are you and your team do to help kind of get rid of the noise and keep people on their on their track and their plans?

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:17:22] Yeah, it’s a really it’s a really good question because there is a lot of uncertainty, even for myself, right? If I was to give you my honest opinion, there’s still uncertainty in what that looks like. No one knows. Everyone acts like they know. No one knows what’s going to happen, Right? So what I try and help people understand is there’s a huge difference between what is considered active and ordinary income money that you go and work for that’s taxed between 10 and 37%. And there’s a big difference between investments and long term passive income. Yeah. So the question that I ask even myself is what’s the goal? What’s the plan? What are you trying to do with this business and this income and these interest rates? Because historically, long term, you can’t lose. So if you’re in it for the long term, is a higher interest rate deterring you from the legacy play that you’re after? If it’s a short term, then you really have to be a little bit more calculated than previous years of making sure that you don’t lose. But what I will say is if those decisions for your business are calculated based off of how your taxes are going to impact your business overall, it’s really tough to lose if you understand the tax game. And I’ll give you an example. The last day of 2022. It was a Saturday. And I practice what you preach, I should say, right? I talk about taxes all year round. And here I am on the last day of the year, not planning ahead like I should, and like I preach to everyone else. Sure. You help everyone else before you help yourself.

Phillip Hearn: [00:19:06] Exactly.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:19:07] So I realized that I’ve got $100,000 of additional tax liability that I didn’t account for. So I called one of my good friends that’s a real estate investor and said. I need you to let me buy into one of your properties. And I bought $100,000 into a fourplex, which was 33% of ownership. We agreed to do a cost segregation study on it, which will accelerate that depreciation. Yep. It should save me 7 to $80,000 in taxes, and it’s a long term wealth play where I’ll be able to create residual income long term. So blindly making that decision, I probably don’t make that decision, but understanding how it’s going to benefit me from a tax standpoint. Calculated Risk says this is a no brainer for me long term.

Phillip Hearn: [00:19:58] Yeah, Yeah. And again, I think you hit it on the head. And the most important nugget that you gave is no one knows all aspects of the future, right? But at least having some idea and understanding and kind of consistent education. So you sound like like me. I’ve always trying to figure out that next what’s coming next, right. As best as you can. But that consistent education and understanding enough to go if I put my funds into this deal at the end of the tax year, I know we’ll try to preplan it better in 23, but at the end of the tax year, here’s then the potential residual benefit now and long term, it’s a beautiful way to think about and again, you being surrounded by all your team members, I’m sure you could also pick up the phone and go, hey, I’ve got this deal I’m looking at. Just double check me before I, you know, go ahead and go after that deal, too. So that that’s a nice advantage that you have. But then also those potential clients of will have when they’re getting toward the end of their tax year, it sounds like to.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:20:56] This is a shameless plug. This is a biased opinion and this is promoting my company. Full disclaimer here. But one of the things that I love about what we’ve created here at Prime Corporate is having the attorneys and the CPAs under one roof is very, very valuable for this reason. Oftentimes when you ask an attorney a question, you get 100 different variations of the answer and they tell you, Doc, you’re crazy. You’re going to get sued. Don’t you do it. There’s too much liability, right? You ask the accountant or the CPA, they say, Doc, I don’t care what you do, please just track the expenses. So you’re not losing on the taxes. Right. As an investor and as an entrepreneur and anyone that’s watching this, you know that truth is probably somewhere in the middle for you, right? So, yes, I’m an investor. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a business owner, and I like to take both opinions with a grain of salt and say I want to be protected, but I also want tax benefits and I also want to generate some income. So where can I find that fine line of making the best decision for my future and for my family’s future long term?

Phillip Hearn: [00:22:14] Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’ll give you a second. Shameless plug. You know, we’ve had an opportunity to work with you and your team, and it’s been. It’s been a very good experience. And even when we run into challenges, being able to pick your brain and work through any of those challenges, I highly recommend and I will also make sure that we share our referral link in the transcript at the end of this recording itself too. So there you go. You’re not the only one doing shameless plugs today. How about that?

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:22:41] Appreciate you. Thank you.

Phillip Hearn: [00:22:44] So last question for you and this will be completely off the topic of picks, but you have so much going on, you’re running a full team. You’ve got different divisions within that team. It sounds like there’s some some great growth taking place in 2023. What do you do when you need to recharge and reset to get away from the day to day of business, which it sounds like you’re very passionate about, but what do you do to recharge?

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:23:07] Yeah, it’s a good question. I wish I had a more direct answer, but this is what I’ll tell you I’ve tried to do, but before I had my before I had my kiddo, I really tried to find myself on the golf course as often as I could. Yeah. Ever since having my kid, I’ve really tried to spend time with her. I’ve tried to spend time with my family, whether it’s at the pool, whether it’s getting them into tennis, whether it’s hitting a golf ball in the backyard. And like I told you earlier, this is getting more personable with you. But my my parents split when I was young and I love spending time with my daughter. It’s something that has taken priority over golf, which I thought I would never say in my entire life. So if I can golf, that is my number one thing that I like to do. But ever since having my daughter, that is, that priority has changed to how can I spend time that’s meaningful with my family? And whether it’s sitting at the pool, whether it’s going on a vacation, I have the luxury of being able to get up and get out of town because I’ve worked my tail off and that’s really where it lies for me right now. That’s where the priorities could change tomorrow. But for now, that’s my answer. I’m sticking to it.

Phillip Hearn: [00:24:22] That’s a solid answer. And I also love that you were able to tap into your past to make the adjustments where you need to be now to. I think there’s so many times that as entrepreneurs and just humans in general, we don’t give ourselves enough grace to tap into that and use it as a positive long term. So kudos to you because again, you’ve got a ton of really good stuff going on over at and to be able to take a little bit of time away, although the golf thing, I know you’ll probably get back into it the older that the kiddos get too. So they’ll they’ll be a trade off at some point here just won’t be right away It sounds like that’s okay.

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:24:55] There will be there will be a time I joke I’ve got a very very supportive, amazing wife that I tell her and we joke all the time. Moderation is impossible, right? People tell you, you got to balance, You got to work a lot. I really care a lot about what I do. And having someone that’s supportive of that is I wouldn’t be able to do it without it. And my my word of the not so wise is that I think moderation is fake. If you’re going to do something, you got to do it right and enjoy yourself throughout the process. I genuinely enjoy helping business owners understand how to save money in taxes and how to build and grow a business. So it is a passion of mine that. I’ve enjoyed and I will continue to do so. I really believe that.

Phillip Hearn: [00:25:46] Well, you can just hear the passion you have about the work because it doesn’t even sound like work when you talk about it. Right. And most people would say taxes by themselves or work, let alone creating the right entity and everything else. So kudos to you and your team. How would our listeners find you and Prime Corporate Services? What should they do? Where should they go to check you guys out?

Tommy Thornburgh: [00:26:07] Yeah, great question. It’s prime corporate services on everything and I would recommend to everyone give give us a follow on Facebook or on Instagram. We try and do a tax tip of the week to keep you thinking about taxes throughout the year. To your point, it’s not the most exciting topic, but as I mentioned earlier, no one cares about your money more than you do. And if we can stay in front of you helping you understand what to be aware of, how to track your expenses, giving you a tax tip that’ll resonate with your business to hopefully save you hundreds if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars at the end of the year. That’s ultimately our goal. So prime corporate services, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and then also, I know we got you a link so that we know where you’re listening from and you can schedule a call to speak with us for a free 45 minute, two hour consultation around your entity structure around how we could potentially save you from a tax standpoint and the other services that we obviously offer.

Phillip Hearn: [00:27:16] Yeah, and again, personally, I highly recommend utilizing that 45 minutes to an hour. It is chock full of a ton of really detailed and solid information, but you’re walking away feeling like you know more about it and it’s not as overwhelming. It’s still overwhelming because it’s taxes and we try to figure it out. But like how you break it down throughout the year. But that 45 minutes to that first hour really gets you going on the right path. So I love it. And again, we’ll make sure that we share that link so our listeners can take advantage of that free session just to kind of get them going and and figure out what’s the best route for them moving forward. So, Tommy, it is always a pleasure to talk with you. I always enjoy the conversations. I now I’m going to have more questions for you because now we got to talk about the new little one and all that. So we’ll talk about that off there, but we’ll keep that conversation going. But our thanks again to Tommy Thornburgh, the president of Prime Corporate Services. You have been listening to Doc’s discussions. I’m Dr. Philip Hearn, and this is Saint Louis Business Radio X. Take care.

About Your Host

Phillip-HearnDr. Phillip Hearn Ed.D. is a results-driven entrepreneur, Senior Executive, Consultant, and Board Member with more than 20 years of success in business acquisition and real estate. His expertise in leveraging extensive experience with expansion, and financing, makes Phillip a valuable asset for companies, particularly in real estate, seeking guidance on growth opportunities and process improvement.

Phillip is the founder of Mid American Capital Holdings, LLC, an acquisition focused company. Current subsidiaries include Phillip Speaks, specializing in coaching, advising and public speaking engagements; Financial Center, consulting business owners on methods to implement business trade lines and credit to grow their operations, and other subsidiaries which continues to expand. Phillip also gives back via his non for profit Center for Communities and Economic Development.

Phillip has obtained an Ed.D. from Capella University and holds an Executive Masters in Health Administration (EMHA) from Saint Louis University; an MA in Marketing and a BA in Media Communication, both from Webster University, and Lean Six Sigma (Black Belt) from Villanova University. He has served as a Board Member for the National Sales Network St. Louis Chapter and Ready Readers, for which he has also served as the Governance Department Chair and President of the Board.

Phillip is a coach, advisor, key note speaker and podcast host on Business RadioX. Audiences benefit professionally and personally through his teachings of leveraging and application. His new book “Life Mottos for Success” exemplifies how positive words and thoughts can transform your life!

Connect with Phillip on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

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John Swolfs with Advisor Circle

March 9, 2023 by angishields

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St. Louis Business Radio
John Swolfs with Advisor Circle
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John-Swolfs-headshotJohn Swolfs was born and raised in Westchester (but now considers himself a Californian after a decade in San Francisco), where he played soccer for the Somers Express as a left-winger.

He attended the University of Albany, majoring in history and education. John eventually started his career in the front office of the Port St. Lucie Mets, working in the ticket office and as the game day mascot.

After nearly 15 years in the ETF industry in various roles, John left to co-found Advisor Circle, where he spends his time building and developing programs and platforms to help today’s outspoken financial advisors share their voices and views.

When he’s not cooking or out skiing, John enjoys rooting for struggling sports franchises like the NY Jets and Tottenham Hotspurs. He currently resides in London with his wife and two children.

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This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Saint Louis, Missouri. It’s time for Saint Louis Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Phillip Hearn: [00:00:18] Hello, great listeners, and welcome to Doc’s Discussions here on Saint Louis Business RadioX. My name is Dr. Phillip Hahn and we always strive to have really fun guests who are inventive and really taking over the leadership mantle in their space. And this episode is no different. So I’ve got with me the Chief Content Officer and co-founder for Advisor Circle, John Swolfs. John, how are you today?

John Swolfs : [00:00:44] I’m doing great, thank you for for having me. Excited to to be joining you today and really looking forward to our conversation.

Phillip Hearn: [00:00:50] I am as well. I’ve been looking forward to this. So thanks for thanks for joining us. So always like to get a background. We know where you are and we’ll talk a bit more about that in the discussion. But tell me more about your background and your upbringing. How did how did we get to the john of today? What does that look like?

John Swolfs : [00:01:06] Yeah, that’s I mean, that’s a great question and probably a super long question. So there’s a couple different ways to to tackle that. You know, probably first and foremost, I grew up outside of New York City, in Westchester, stayed in New York, you know, through through college, went to SUNY Albany, where I studied history. The minor in education kind of had a thinking that that maybe I wanted to be a teacher. My mom was a teacher for 30 plus years, the New York school system. So that was sort of the direction that I had traveled. But through that, I’ve always been a huge baseball fan. Whether that was playing the game, whether that was, you know, working in and around the game. So I decided that after college I wanted to try to become a professional umpire. So I went down to a school down in Florida. The Harry Wendelstedt School of Umpiring took the six week course that they have down there. About 180 folks go down to it. They select about the top 20, 15 to 20 or so, folks. And then you go on to to another level. I unfortunately was not selected while I was down there, so I didn’t get kind of through that that first round. But my my love of baseball and wanting to be a part of the game never diminished. So so come back up from Florida and figure out how I can can work in baseball and was lucky enough to have a family connection that knew the Wilpons who at the time were the the current owners of the New York Mets and they had a minor league team out in Brooklyn.

John Swolfs : [00:02:30] They said, Hey, throw your resume into the pile with everybody else. They’re getting ready to do their seasonal hiring. I was lucky enough to get selected and work a season out in Coney Island for the Brooklyn Cyclones. And while I was there, I just sort of asked the general manager of that squad like, Hey, how do you stay involved in baseball? They said, You got to go down to the winter meetings. I went to the winter meetings and then just through, you know, general connections with the Mets and stuff, they have a their spring training facilities in Port Saint Lucie. The general manager of Brooklyn was close friends with the general manager in Port Saint Lucie. He thought I’d be a good fit for that job, went down and worked for a year for the Mets in Port Saint Lucie, doing everything literally from, you know, selling outfield signs to writing game day agendas to to wearing the mascot suit for slander of the dog driving players to the airport. So you really get this amazing exposure to how businesses run and all of the things that that goes into to trying to make an operation, you know, look like it’s running smoothly to the public when behind the scenes, you know, I forgot to hire a game day staff that day to wear the mascot suit.

John Swolfs : [00:03:39] So so now I’m wearing the mascot suit in those sort of things. So, you know, from there I then, you know, I did that for a year. Long story short, my now wife was in New Jersey. I was down in Florida. Long distance relationship just felt like it was more important for me to be back up in the tri state area. So I went back up, moved to to New Jersey and started working in Merrill Lynch’s Financial advisory Center in Pennington, New Jersey. And then from there, you know, did like a year or two in the call center and then went on to the internal wholesaling job with iShares and BGI and then BlackRock. And from there I joined Index Universe in 2012 where I started writing agendas, writing content, being involved in events. And you know, ten years later, here I am, a co-founder of Advisor Circle, one of the leading events businesses in the industry, creating, you know, awesome types of events. With Futureproof, we helped create the exchange event that ran in February of 2023, a couple of weeks ago, as well as the inaugural one in April of 2022. So long story short, yeah, I started off in baseball and now I’m, you know, creating events for financial advisors so you can see the direct line and how one would end up here.

Phillip Hearn: [00:04:54] Yeah, exactly. It’s a it’s a complete direct line, right?

John Swolfs : [00:04:57] Yeah, absolutely. I’m surprised more people aren’t on the path.

Speaker4: [00:05:00] Yeah. I mean, what are they doing? Feel like they’re being slackers? No, I’m teasing.

Phillip Hearn: [00:05:03] So I did read up about you looking to become a major league. I’m kind of geeking out. So when I was in high school in college, I was an umpire. So I’ve heard of that actual school that you talk about. Harry Wendelstedt school. What? Take me a little bit. Let’s go back a step. Take me a little bit through that experience itself. How did you know you wanted to be an I know you said you had a love for baseball, but most people, when they say they have a love for baseball, they’re going, Hey, I want to be a pitcher or a center fielder or a shortstop, not I want to be the guy behind the plate or calling at the bases. What? Take me through how you got to that particular point.

John Swolfs : [00:05:37] Yeah. So I’ll paint a picture for for your audience. So those that that are unable to see me, I’m closer to 2582262. So one the physical size there to play any and all of those positions you mentioned wasn’t there. So after about sophomore year of high school, I sort of realized like, hey, you’re probably not going to be able to to play this sport sort of professionally. And from there, I just wanted to figure out how I sort of stayed involved with the game. And through that it just kind of became like, Hey, what’s something you can do? And umpiring was something that that became of interest to me. I started doing high school games, I started doing college games. I started doing, you know, summer woodbat men’s and college games, which were really exciting. And I felt that one, I was decent at it and two, I enjoyed it and I didn’t mind being out there. Obviously it does come with a little bit of grief, as we all know. You know, you’re always making 50% of the people upset. 50% of the people are happy with you. But but once you can move on from that and not really worry about it, the more you do it, it just becomes sort of second nature and reflexive. And that’s what I really liked about it. When I got to that point of really doing more of the sophisticated, you know, college games, they’re quick. It’s well played baseball and it’s a lot of fun. And that’s sort of what kind of cemented my interest to want to continue to do it and try to do it professionally.

Speaker4: [00:07:06] That’s amazing. I love it. I love it. Yeah.

John Swolfs : [00:07:08] And you want to hear about your your stories there, You know, What made you give it up or stop. Maybe you still do it.

Speaker4: [00:07:15] No. So I gave it up right after college myself, but I enjoyed it.

Phillip Hearn: [00:07:19] It was fun. So it was one of the summer jobs that I had when I turned 14. So you could be young enough to still be an umpire and an umpire game. So I’ve umpired everything from preschool games all the way through like freshman, you know, fall ball type games. So I enjoyed the process. I was still playing even during that time in high school. But again, I’m a big sports nut. So that was that was an easy job for me. And and they paid me. So I went, oh, okay, I get paid to talk and coach, you know, and umpire baseball. Excuse me. So I was like, this is a no brainer. Let’s do it. So, yeah, but you’re right, that 50% piece is 100% correct. You’re going to make someone mad. So it’s almost like you got a full crash course on conflict resolution, Right? Because someone was upset at almost every call that you made. So, yeah, it was it was definitely interesting, to say the least. So. So what all did you learn, uh, when when you look at baseball and again, you have a natural love for it, right? So growing up in the New York area, you’re a mets fans, not a mets fan, not a Yankee fan. So did pick that up?

John Swolfs : [00:08:27] Any fan? Let that be known. I am a Yankee fan. I think that’s what made it easier to work in baseball was the Mets. And not being a fan of the team. Now I support the Mets, having worked there in that sort of stuff, and I do like the organization. But you know, certainly if they were on the field playing each other, I would be, you know, pulling for the Yankees, you know, wholeheartedly.

Phillip Hearn: [00:08:45] Okay. All right. So, see, that’s interesting because you might be one of the only folks in the tri state area that that likes the Mets but still can root for the Yankees. So with all of your experiences in baseball, how did you take what you learned and that and you talked about that experience in Port Saint Lucie, where you’ve been everything from the game day staff to the mascot, which I’m going to need pictures for that. I’m just saying we’re going to have to keep this time. I don’t know.

John Swolfs : [00:09:10] If there’s any more slide of the dog pictures. And besides, I’d be behind the mask, so you’d never know. But we’ll see if we can dig something up for you.

Phillip Hearn: [00:09:17] Yeah, just to say we knew somebody in the suit, right? Yeah. Very true. So what what did you take from all of those experiences being basically in every position, working with that that minor league team with the Mets? How did you translate that into your passions and your focuses when you talk about business?

John Swolfs : [00:09:37] Yeah, absolutely. So I think there’s a couple things that you can take away from it. One is sort of the the humbling nature of it, right? That, you know, the no matter what the job is or what the role is, if you do it and do it well, it’s helping the organization and it’s helping to advance things. So, you know, don’t think that you’re ever above any sort of job that that may be offered. I mean, some of the jobs are super fun, like, you know, getting to go and, you know, drive a player to the airport. That’s a lot of fun because you’re talking to, you know, a professional baseball player, you know, taking some of the guys to the local elementary schools and those sorts of things. That’s a lot of fun. To do those sort of things. But then, you know, having to to do some of the stuff behind the scenes where, you know, a game starts at 7:00 at night, we worked a typical 9 to 5 and then between 5 to 7 we got ready for the game. So you understand it’s a really long day. So you really hone in on your work ethic. It’s something that you like to do. So it doesn’t always feel like work, even though you’re tired and exhausted. So there was that element that I really kind of as a first job out of college, was super long hours. So it helped establish a pretty strong work ethic from that standpoint.

John Swolfs : [00:10:48] So, you know, in business, anything that you’re doing, it’s going to take time, effort and energy. So you better be committed to that grind. If you’re not, it’s going to show. So that was something that you definitely saw and you saw it even like in taking inspiration from the players that you saw coming in at, you know, 9:00 in the morning to to work out and be around and at the field knowing they didn’t have a game until until 7:00 and what they were doing to grind to try to be a professional. You see that, you know, at every level or no matter what you’re doing that you have to you have to work hard. So there’s the humility part to it. The other thing that I learned from it is like, be excited about what you’re doing as well, right? So you can be humble about it, but you know, be excited. Be be a cheerleader for your own team. Be a cheerleader and try to get folks into the stands. Try to make sure that the folks are having a great time while you’re you’re there. And then the other thing that you take away from that is like the little things matter. So if you can help a fan out that might be having a a rough moment or something didn’t go their way and you can solve their problem no matter how big or small it is. It feels like the world to them.

John Swolfs : [00:11:53] And you’d be surprised, you know, like somebody’s having a bad experience or they thought they were supposed to have tickets here and they’re not together. And you solve that, you know, you’ll see them three weeks later at the game and they’ll come up and say, Hi, how you doing? Thank you again for that and those sort of things. So you understand that, you know, customer service really matters. You understand that if you treat every person and every individual as if their problem right there is the most important thing for you. They feel that. So those were kind of the three things that I really learned in being down in baseball and working there. And the other one is that it rains every day at about 4:00 in Florida. So you better get ready to run out in the field and pull the tarp on to to the field before it floods, which is never my favorite because it had like snakes and mice and stuff all wrapped up in it. And that stuff is not for me, but that’s part of doing the roles and jobs that you may not be all that excited for, but you know, you just got to get out there and do it because that’s what the the job requires. So yeah, a lot, a lot of different things. But most of it is, you know, very core business, basic things and a lot of attitude as well.

Speaker4: [00:12:57] Absolutely. And I love.

Phillip Hearn: [00:12:58] The humility and the customer service aspects that you talk about, too. I think a lot of people, again, would just hear that you worked in baseball, but you were in all the inner workings, including and not not excluding pulling out the tarp. Right? So, yeah, yeah. I don’t know if it’s got snakes and all that stuff in there. I think I’m out too. I think it’d be cool to pull out the tarp once just to say I’ve done it. But yeah, I’m with you. If it’s, if it’s got all that in there, I’m out.

Speaker4: [00:13:23] I’m good. I’d rather not.

John Swolfs : [00:13:25] Absolutely. It does. It does teach you a lot. And what you really learn is minor league baseball is nothing like the the big leagues and that sort of stuff. Like we had a permanent staff of maybe 6 to 7 people. And then we brought in like, you know, 20 plus workers to kind of help us get through the games to like take tickets and do those sort of things and be ushers and that sort of stuff. But it really was about 6 or 7 of us that were were doing a lot of the, you know, the heavy lifting to, to make sure that everything ran the way that it was supposed to, which was, you know, at times, you know, very trying and at times an amazing experience. I guess the one other takeaway I’d have from it is, I think, you know, after doing a season in Brooklyn and then a year in Port Saint Lucie, to me, I think I realized that, hey, if I wasn’t going to be on the field, I’d rather be in the seats and watching the game and being a fan of the game. And I think that’s really important as well because you don’t want to get stuck doing things that you might not enjoy because then those little customer complaints feel like they’re a nuisance to you and you don’t want to tackle them with the same zeal, energy and smile that you would. So it’s not one of those like, Hey, hang on to your dreams type of thing and it’ll come true. To me, it was more like, Hey, I think this is this has had its run and I enjoyed this quite a bit. But you know, the woman I’m in love with is, you know, 1800 miles away up in New Jersey. And I just think, you know, this has run its course type of stuff. And I don’t know that that’s necessarily a business lesson, but it was a very good life lesson for me as well.

Speaker4: [00:15:01] Well, I think that’s important, though, too. I mean, if you’re.

Phillip Hearn: [00:15:03] Losing the zeal, the zest for something and the zeal, as you mentioned, getting out of it when you understand that, I think is an extremely important piece, one that.

Speaker4: [00:15:13] I would say a lot of.

Phillip Hearn: [00:15:14] Maybe missed that.

Speaker4: [00:15:16] That opportunity or almost that calling to move to the next thing. Right. So I think.

Phillip Hearn: [00:15:20] That’s extremely important. So I’m really glad you shared that. So you make the transition from baseball now you head more into fiscally focused jobs, right? So you talked about your time at BlackRock. You talked about your time at Inside ETF. Tell us a little bit more about that transition, what that looked like and.

Speaker4: [00:15:39] What were some of those learning processes after leaving the baseball room?

John Swolfs : [00:15:43] Yeah, absolutely. So the first job I landed was with Merrill Lynch in their financial advisory center, and that was just a huge education and sort of understanding, you know, stocks, bonds, commodities, ETFs, an asset allocation, you know, understanding we’d be taking calls from inbound clients who typically, you know, may have been, you know, with an advisor in a branch that, you know, wasn’t quite the size that the advisor should be focusing on anymore. So, one, you had to learn to kind of ask the right questions, sort of understand what their goals, their objectives were. So I think I got a bit of a crash course in sort of what it was like to to be a financial advisor without having to, you know, go out there and try and grow my own book, but certainly understand a lot of those challenges. So what I learned there again, was one that kind of core investment, you know, time horizon outside of assets, risk tolerance, all of those sort of things. And what was really interesting is that when I went over to to iShares and internal wholesaling position, you know, I was sort of able to put my shoes very much into the or put myself in the shoes of the advisor that I was talking to on the phone and understanding some of the challenges that they may have had in their, their business. And in 2007, when you’re talking to an advisor with, you know, 25 years of experience and you’re telling them sell out of your mutual funds and buy ETFs, you know, they’re laughing you off the phone saying, John, you’re probably younger than my business is old right now.

John Swolfs : [00:17:06] Put my kids through college. What are you going to tell me about investing? And, you know, here we sit 15 years later and, you know, ETFs are gathering assets at record paces every single year, outdoing mutual funds. So it was really cool to be on the innovative side of finance as well and sort of leading the charge for for what is a you know, to some extent in my opinion, my opinion and my view, just a more efficient and better way to be invested in an ETF in general. So that was really interesting. And then you just learn again like, Hey, I covered advisors in the wirehouse in New York City. Then I had an opportunity to move to San Francisco and cover RIAs and understand that those worlds are completely different. So that when I got the opportunity to sit in the seat that I am now, whether that have been, you know, back in the days at Inside ETFs or now with the advisor circle and creating the future proof event is you can really understand the types of content and the types of challenges that those advisors have. And I think that’s one of the things that really helps set advisors circle apart from other traditional events companies, is we’ve had people that have come from the industry that have sat in those seats that understand those real life challenges that advisors are facing and want to provide real solutions rather than just create content.

Speaker4: [00:18:23] Yeah, that’s that’s absolutely.

Phillip Hearn: [00:18:25] Fantastic itself too. And and your unique experience of being in a full leadership position from the from going from that that crazy stretch of 2007 all the way to now. And at that particular point, being a VP and a CEO of Inside ETFs. I mean that that’s an interesting step just because you’ve got a chance.

Speaker4: [00:18:48] To kind of.

Phillip Hearn: [00:18:49] Re-experience what you did in baseball, it sounds like, too, right, in terms of really maximizing all the different components. You understood the business from soup to nuts By the time you got to getting into advisory circle from what it sounds like to me.

John Swolfs : [00:19:03] Yeah, absolutely. Certainly, you know, you know, everything from writing content to sourcing speakers to working with vendors to to everything that that you need to do in order to to bring an event to life. I’ve had the opportunity to, you know, see all of that and experience that in numerous different ways. So it did allow me to sit and in the advisor circle hat that I have now and really have confidence in what we’re doing and what we’re trying to do. And then part of that as a leader is understanding who are the right people to go out and support you, to do those sorts of things and making sure that you have the right team, the right people in place. And I think that, you know, far and away sometimes exceeds the knowledge that might be in one person’s head because, you know, one person can only do so much, but a team can do a whole lot. And I think that’s one of the best things that we’ve been able to do at Advisor Circle is bringing people with a great set of experience, a great set of skills that know and understand our industry as well as being able to complement those folks with the different skill sets that you need, whether that be on a creative side or whether that be on a sales side. Um, or whether that be on a logistical standpoint. You know, we’ve been able to, you know, add complementary pieces across the team over the past, you know, two plus years that we’ve been around now to get to a team of 12 that is a, you know, just one of the best teams in the industry that I can think of and excited to to be working with those guys every day.

Speaker4: [00:20:34] That’s amazing. I love it. So as you then talk.

Phillip Hearn: [00:20:37] About Advisor Circle, tell our listeners a bit more about the mission and the purpose of.

Speaker4: [00:20:43] The company. I know you talked a bit about it through our conversation so far, but we really want to drill down on that and have a better understanding because it sounds like you guys are doing amazing work.

John Swolfs : [00:20:52] Yeah, I think it can be really simplified. So one, we’re a product studio that’s looking to humanize financial services. So, you know, what does that mean? It means that, you know, financial services for for far too long sort of use the the oak desk and jargon to kind of keep a distance between themselves and their clients and making sure that sometimes, whether it be advisors or whether it even be the traditional asset managers, that they kind of kept the seat of authority. And we believe that, you know, the culture around finance is changing. It’s tech driven, it’s more inclusive, it is going in a more human direction. And we just want to bring out that that human connection, whether that be in how you interact at an event, whether that be how you speak at an event, whatever it might be. We want it to feel like it’s part of your DNA, that it’s not forced and that we can help people make this human connection. So I know it probably sounds, you know, a little like pie in the sky and that sort of stuff, But but you’d be surprised how quickly you can humanize something just by being your authentic self. And that’s really what we’re trying to do. And we just want to help financial services get there a little bit quicker.

Speaker4: [00:21:57] Absolutely. That’s fantastic.

Phillip Hearn: [00:21:59] So let me ask you the direct question in your current position. So you’re a co-founder, chief content officer. What motivates you in your current position and responsibilities?

John Swolfs : [00:22:11] Yeah. So one obviously, like I said, is the team that we have, right? Obviously, you know, when you’re a leader, you feel that pressure to not want to let folks down and make sure that you’re doing the best for the business and the best for them. So so that’s that’s motivating. And then I do think that right now we’re we’re in a seat where, you know, folks have seen that we were able to innovate and do something different. So that motivation drives me to make sure that we continue to to widen that moat, if you will, and continue to be the trendsetter, the tastemaker, those that the industry is looking to, to learn from and follow. And that’s really, really motivating from where I sit is, you know, you want to continue to make sure that you you hold your spot as a as an industry leader and that that can really, really wear on you or it can really motivate you. And our team really has a way of using that to motivate ourselves and not let that be a barrier. But, but more of a motivation tool.

Speaker4: [00:23:03] That’s fantastic. That’s really cool. Again, it sounds like you guys have some great things.

Phillip Hearn: [00:23:07] Going and something that’s actually coming up is your next future proof event.

Speaker4: [00:23:11] Can you tell our listeners a bit more about it, the dates, what it all will entail?

John Swolfs : [00:23:16] Yeah, absolutely. So September 10th through the 13th, we’re in Huntington Beach, California. It’s a beautiful setting. It’s all outdoors. So we take over a half mile of a parking lot right next to the beautiful Pacific Ocean and we build all of the facilities outside. So you have this half mile boardwalk, if you will. It’s bright, it’s colorful, it’s airy. It feels like you’re at a festival, not at a B2B event. So it allows folks to be, again, their true, authentic selves. So you saw more people walking around in shorts and a golf shirt than you did in suits. You saw people wearing hats of the college that they went to, you know, or teams that they might support that helped spark some conversation. We created a very open environment that that led to people wanting to share. So, again, it’s September 10th through the 13th in Huntington Beach. You can register at Futureproof Dot Advisor circle.com, go ahead and get your ticket. But we continue to to innovate each year. So I’m currently working on, you know, the set of speakers that we’re going to have this year. We just closed our apply to Speak window.

John Swolfs : [00:24:23] We had over 350 applications come in in about a month window. So I have one the unenviable task of going through all of those. But I also have the amazing task of getting to see just how amazing our community is and just what great thought leaders that we have out there, which is really exciting, I would say. And I don’t want to do a commercial, but we do have a price break that ends on Friday. So I think between now and Friday is the the lowest price ticket you have the opportunity to purchase. So I would suggest that folks go and take care of that right away and get themselves in. Our hotel block will sell out. We take over for hotels. They all face the Pacific Ocean. So they’re they’re all fantastic venues. But we did sell out last year. We expect to sell out this year. We’ll probably have, you know, over 3200 attendees on site as well. So you’re going to want to act quick and get your your ticket and your hotel room before the they’re all gone.

Speaker4: [00:25:17] That’s awesome. No, that’s great information.

Phillip Hearn: [00:25:19] So it sounds like that block runs out or that pre ticket sale excuse me runs out on March 3rd. So here just in a few days from this recording itself, correct?

John Swolfs : [00:25:29] Absolutely. March 3rd. Yes.

Speaker4: [00:25:31] Awesome. Sounds good. Very good.

Phillip Hearn: [00:25:33] So last question for you and really thank you so much for your time. This has been a lot of fun. How do our listeners find you and connect with you? What are those ways that they can reach out and and chat with you if they’re interested in learning more about your organization and more about what you’re doing?

John Swolfs : [00:25:48] Yeah, absolutely. So there is LinkedIn. You can just, you know, John Smoltz, you can find me there. That’s Swolfs for those that that are looking for me. Same thing on Twitter. John Swolfs at Twitter, you can find me there. You can find more about Advisor circle at Advisor circle.com and you can certainly email us all from there. And then again, if you go to futureproof dot advisor circle.com, if you have any questions around the content or anything that we’re creating, there’s email addresses there where you can reach out. It comes directly to me. Like I said, we’re we’re a smaller organization, so we, we, you know, personally get involved in all of these sort of things. So that’s a couple different ways that that folks can can reach out to me. I’m happy to connect you on LinkedIn and Twitter. You know, I don’t want to say all day, every day, but but a few times a day. So won’t take long for me to get back to you.

Speaker4: [00:26:38] That’s awesome. John. It’s been a lot of fun to getting to know more about you.

Phillip Hearn: [00:26:42] And and your rise with with working at Advisor Circle. So thank you so much for your time.

Speaker4: [00:26:47] Really appreciate it.

John Swolfs : [00:26:49] Oh, appreciate it. And I guess one last thing I should mention. I might as well do a commercial while I’m here is this Wednesday at 3 p.m. Eastern. We’ll be doing a live Twitter spaces, sharing updates around Futureproof and just having a really great conversation and giving people an opportunity to see sort of some of the early results and sort of some of the things we’ve been working on as we get to. Of that six month out window from futureproof. So 3 p.m. Eastern. It’s a Twitter spaces hosted by futureproof.

Speaker4: [00:27:19] Absolutely. Yeah. So listeners definitely check that out. This coming Wednesday, 3 p.m. on Twitter spaces. That sounds like it’ll be a very good time. So thank you, John, for sharing.

Phillip Hearn: [00:27:29] And this has been another episode of DAX Discussions. I’m Dr. Philip Hearn and from all of us at Saint Louis Business RadioX, We appreciate it and we’ll see you next time. Thanks.

About Your Host

Phillip-HearnDr. Phillip Hearn Ed.D. is a results-driven entrepreneur, Senior Executive, Consultant, and Board Member with more than 20 years of success in business acquisition and real estate. His expertise in leveraging extensive experience with expansion, and financing, makes Phillip a valuable asset for companies, particularly in real estate, seeking guidance on growth opportunities and process improvement.

Phillip is the founder of Mid American Capital Holdings, LLC, an acquisition focused company. Current subsidiaries include Phillip Speaks, specializing in coaching, advising and public speaking engagements; Financial Center, consulting business owners on methods to implement business trade lines and credit to grow their operations, and other subsidiaries which continues to expand. Phillip also gives back via his non for profit Center for Communities and Economic Development.

Phillip has obtained an Ed.D. from Capella University and holds an Executive Masters in Health Administration (EMHA) from Saint Louis University; an MA in Marketing and a BA in Media Communication, both from Webster University, and Lean Six Sigma (Black Belt) from Villanova University. He has served as a Board Member for the National Sales Network St. Louis Chapter and Ready Readers, for which he has also served as the Governance Department Chair and President of the Board.

Phillip is a coach, advisor, key note speaker and podcast host on Business RadioX. Audiences benefit professionally and personally through his teachings of leveraging and application. His new book “Life Mottos for Success” exemplifies how positive words and thoughts can transform your life!

Connect with Phillip on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

Tagged With: Advisor Circle, Future Proof

Lindy Earl with TurnAbout 180, Christine McCartney with Sorrow to Strength and Charlie Derrien with Charlie’s Angels Movers

March 6, 2023 by angishields

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Charitable Georgia
Lindy Earl with TurnAbout 180, Christine McCartney with Sorrow to Strength and Charlie Derrien with Charlie's Angels Movers
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Lindy-Earl-bwLindy Earl is a Certified Chaplain, working with the nonprofit organization, TurnAbout 180. Lindy’s background includes her entrepreneurship as a Speaker, Consultant, and Author. She has written in 4 genres: Business, Christian, Relationship, and IT. Lindy holds an MBA from The College of William and Mary and a BS from Virginia Tech.

Lindy’s passion and strength is her ability to listen to people. As a Chaplain she works one-on-one with people who are dealing with angst or grief, maybe through the death of a loved one or a divorce. Lindy especially enjoys working as a Corporate Chaplain, where companies have her into the workplace on a regular basis to make herself available to employees.

Great relationships develop and the company’s retention soars while absenteeism drops. Companies develop a strong corporate culture, improved employee satisfaction, and decreased attrition.

Lindy has multiple books in publication and continues to write blogs and record videos on a weekly basis. You can learn more at www.TurnAbout180.org or contact Lindy at ChaplainLindy@gmail.com.

Christine-McCartney-bwChristine McCartney was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada and in 1993 she and her husband moved to Georgia so he could attend Life University.  Her husband, Dr. Larry, and I opened our clinic, Lake City Chiropractic in Acworth in 2000.

Unfortunately in 2015 he passed away from cancer, and after a year of running the practice, Christine sold it and took time to grieve. After some time she decided she wanted to help people who may be going through the same grief and went back to school to become a certified Grief Life Coach.   She wanted to help individuals find joy once again in their lives.

Someone who has lost a loved one can sometimes get “stuck” and they don’t know how to move forward. Grief comes in different forms, not only loss of loved one. It could be a divorce, loss of a job, an illness, death of a pet, or life as we know it after Covid. Let Christine help guide you to a new life of joy and get “Unstuck”.

Connect with Christine on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can also reach her through Sorry to Strength at Christine@sorrowtostrength.com

Charlie-Derrien-bwOnce upon a time Charlie Derrien was working 60 hours/week in unrelenting corporate America management.  In late 2012, God and Charlie made a decision together that it was time to leave the corporate world. She thought and prayed long and hard and said, “God, allow me to use all this formal training that I went to school for (she was a business major at Shorter University) to begin my entrepreneurial journey.”

Charlie prayed for an idea, a catalyst. Then the light bulb came on, and she began her grueling research of logistics as a whole, with a special interest in residential moving. Charlie had moved all across the United States throughout her childhood and young adult life, due to her father’s military background as a medic in the United States army, so the concept of this moving business was not foreign to her.

Now, one of Charlie’s passions in life is EXCELLENCE in customer service and it has been since the moment she walked into her very first job at McDonald’s. She was committed to “hot fries” and service with a smile. All these years later, Charlie still lives by the same fundamental creed. While she no longer serve french fries, she still strongly believes that regardless of the business you are in, the differentiator must be the EXCELLENCE in service that you consistently deliver and provide.

That said, what fascinated (and frustrated) her the most about this industry, is how broken it truly is. She couldn’t believe that clients like herself would call on a company for help in assisting them with this very important life change, entrusting this company around their families, children, pets, irreplaceable antiques, expensive furniture and china, only to be met with huge disappointment and heartache.

Christine read review after review from hundreds of moving companies, from small businesses to the big players in the game. She read horror stories about moving companies that didn’t show up for a clients’ scheduled move, theft of a clients’ merchandise, carelessness with the clients’ things, damages beyond repair, holding a clients’ items hostage, physical altercations on the job sites, hours late for their scheduled move start time, and the list kept going.

After months of building a core team, coaching, meetings, trainings, setting expectations and goals…it was time to launch…and BOY, did they LAUNCH! The calls starting pouring in with people just like Christine that weren’t asking for the moon and stars, they simply needed a service handled professionally, competently, at a fair price and with a smile and willingness to serve.

That’s who Charlie’s Angels Movers really is, and who we strive hard to be every single day, on every single job. Excellence in service matters here. Our clients matter here. Christine’s team takes pride in what they do and she’s honored to work with such an extraordinary group of men.

Christine asks her team at every meeting, “How do we feel about competition?” And the unanimous response is “There is none.” Simply because when you know what you bring to the table of an organization and you know you work hard to deliver on the expectation, it doesn’t matter how many other people are doing the same thing around you. When you conduct good, fair business, the clients will come.

To all of our prospective clients that made it a point to stop by here first and read Christine’s story, thank you so much.  Your time is valuable and we appreciate that. We’re EXCITED to partner with you on your upcoming move and we look forward to making your move a heavenly experience!

Follow Charlie’s Angels Movers on Facebook.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta. It’s time for Charitable Georgia. Brought to you by B’s Charitable Pursuits and Resources. We put the fun in fund raising. For more information, go to B’s Charitable Pursuits. Dot com. That’s B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. Now here’s your host, Brian Pruitt.

Brian Pruett: [00:00:45] Good, fabulous Friday morning to you out there in the listening world. We got three more fabulous folks. I have to apologize for my voice. First of all, the pollen is early on me this year, so it’s kind of kicking my butt at the moment. But for those of you first time tuning in, this is Charitable Georgia. It’s stories about individuals, businesses, nonprofits doing great things in the community. So welcome to Charitable Georgia. My first guest this morning is Chaplain Lindy Earle from Turnabout 180. Chaplain Earl. Thanks for being here. Good morning.

Lindy Earl: [00:01:13] Thank you for inviting me.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:15] So you and I have talked a little bit. I’ve heard some stuff that you presented on what you do and why you do it. But give us a little background. First of all, tell us about Turnabout 180 and how you got there and why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Lindy Earl: [00:01:27] Okay. Well, why I’m doing what I’m doing is it goes back to my childhood. And when I was a little girl, I was raised in a very religious home. And I wanted to grow up to be a pastor. And I was told, you can’t. And back then you couldn’t. And life went on. And so I got into the business world. I was a college professor. I was vice president of marketing. I was an entrepreneur. And then one day I got a phone call and this guy on the other side side on the other end of the line said, We’d like to hire you as a chaplain. I said, Well, that’s great, but I’m not a chaplain. I have an MBA, not a theology degree. And he said, No, we’ll train you. And I said, What does it cost? He says, We’ll pay for it. And I’m like, This is just too good to be true. And sure enough, they put me through the training and got me certified and I became a chaplain. But I worked for a nonprofit where our focus is helping other people, whether they’re dealing with childhood angst, grief, just not not waking up happy every day like we should. We’re meant to be, you know, live this life as well as we can. Life is very, very short. And so at turnabout 180, the whole goal is to take you from where you are. If you’re not in a very happy path to where you can be. And we do this through seminars, through Bible studies and through one on one. And we work both with individuals, but we love to work with business chaplains, so we love to work with companies.

Lindy Earl: [00:03:03] And so we have clients who invite us in and once or twice a month it can be as often as once a week. We go into companies and we give a Bible study or we give a presentation. Brian You were there for my presentation on communication where we talked about both. I’m sorry. We talked about. The different ways to communicate and how you accidentally communicate very often and what you don’t mean to say. And so we go in and we give these seminars to employees and then we make ourselves available for one on one interaction. People can talk about anything from their childhoods to not liking their bosses to what’s going on in the world today because we’re there for what we meet you where you are. And a lot of people are still dealing with grief. Might might have been their mother died ten years ago. Might have been. They had a break with a family member and they’ve never dealt with it. Or it could be that they need a new job. We have counseled people through I hate my job. I’m not happy here. Okay, well, rather than just quitting, why don’t we work to see work with your employer to see how we can make you happy? One of the benefits of having a chaplain in your office is that retention increases greatly. Attrition therefore drops, absenteeism drops, workplace violence drops, employee conflict drops, employee satisfaction improves, which means customer satisfaction improves. What a great benefit is that you have happier customers because you invested with the benefit of having a chaplain in house.

Brian Pruett: [00:04:51] So when you do that with the businesses is are you there particular times during the day or are you there? Does somebody bring you on for a certain amount of time during the month or how does that work?

Lindy Earl: [00:05:00] Well, normally they choose a couple times a month. They’ll say, okay, we want you here every Tuesday morning from eight to noon or we want you here on Wednesday afternoons from 1 to 5. And you can find the prices for this on turnabout 180.org and you can have us there for the entire day. Most people have us in twice a month. That’s the norm.

Brian Pruett: [00:05:27] So when you and I talked, you have some in common with myself that you were a marketing professor at KSU. I took marketing classes at KSU, but I didn’t have you. So how is this how do you see the difference from the marketing aspect, or has it helping you, having that marketing background doing this?

Lindy Earl: [00:05:43] The marketing background has definitely helped me with the social media side. I understand the importance. I’m very sad how few people understand what marketing really is. They confuse advertising with marketing, sales, with marketing, you know, true marketing is learning what the customer wants, finding a way of providing that at a price affordable to them, but profitable for the company. That’s true marketing. And when companies understand this and stop calling sales, marketing sales is a very important function. But it’s not. It’s not marketing. So that’s one of the joys when I’m talking to C levels and they want to talk about, okay, I can’t decide what to do. I have a business background, so I understand. Well, what are the ramifications and what’s your return on investment and what’s, you know, I get it all. I get the marketing, I get the the accounting, the finance operations. You know, this is going to have an effect on your personnel. What is that going to mean? So from that perspective, my business background has been very beneficial in working with clients because I can definitely understand now if I’m meeting with an engineer and they want to talk about the first derivative of, I don’t know, speed being, whatever it is, I don’t even remember what those were. No, I can’t go there because in the business world, the first derivative of total cost is marginal cost. That’s how I understand it. But it’s great to talk to people without a business background and say, Well, have you considered this? And I’m doing it from a Christian point of view because we’re business chaplains. The chaplaincy is as important as the business.

Brian Pruett: [00:07:26] So you also work with individuals, correct?

Lindy Earl: [00:07:28] Absolutely.

Brian Pruett: [00:07:29] And you’re able to do weddings as well as funerals and counseling and that kind of stuff. So I’m sure there’s a plenty of difference between working with a business and an individual. But can you walk us through that process a little bit?

Lindy Earl: [00:07:41] Yeah, I often meet people who their company does not offer this benefit, but they realize I’m not as happy as I should be or I’m having marital problems or I, like I said, don’t like my job and they just need somebody to talk to them about it. A lot of divorce situations and my goal is always to keep relationships as intact as possible. If they’re thinking, I want to quit my job, I want to leave my spouse, what can we do to, you know, see it from every point of view? So we meet, we can meet by Zoom, we can meet in person, or we can meet by phone. And a lot of people want phone. They like the anonymity and that’s fine with us, whatever works. And we can offer different genders of chaplains. We have male chaplains as well.

Brian Pruett: [00:08:31] Are you guys national or are you just here in Georgia? Whereas whereas the turnabout 180.

Lindy Earl: [00:08:37] We are located locally, but yes, we are national. We’ve had out-of-state clients many times.

Brian Pruett: [00:08:43] So I have to ask every time I see you at a networking event, you’re carrying around baskets of mints. What’s the what’s the story behind that?

Lindy Earl: [00:08:49] Okay. The story behind my candy basket is when I was first introduced as a chaplain at companies. There are 100 employees in this company. And I’m walking up and down the hall saying, Hi, I’m your new chaplain. And they were kind of like, okay. And some people were very receptive. We know you’re coming, this is great. But I just found that if I had a candy basket. I would say hi. Would you like a piece of candy? Now I’m in their office, so obviously I’m safe. And they would say sure. And as they were taking their candy, I would say, by the way, I’m Chaplain Lindy. I’m one of the benefits your company offers. And it was a great introduction to being able to talk to people because very few people want to pass up candy. And even if they do, they’ll at least still talk to you and say thank, you know? And when they go, I don’t need you know, it’s too early in the morning. I’m like, are you going to have coffee breath in half an hour? Yeah, I’ll take one for later. So that’s how it started. And so when I started attending network events, which is where Brian and I met, I just thought, you know what? If it works with the companies, it’ll work in the networking world. And it’s become a joke.

Brian Pruett: [00:09:57] And like Stone, you don’t turn down food, but I’m sure you don’t turn down candy either.

Stone Payton: [00:10:00] Absolutely. And I did learn. My dad taught me. If someone offers you a mint, take it. Yes.

Lindy Earl: [00:10:06] People ask me that all the time and they’ll ask, are you trying to tell me something? And I’m like, No, no, no. I’m just being nice.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:13] Yeah. So if somebody wanted to get a hold of you for your services, for business or individual, how can they do that?

Lindy Earl: [00:10:20] Admin at turnabout 180.org. We’ll get you directly to me. You can also go to Chaplain Lindy at gmail.com.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:28] Awesome. Well, Chaplain Lindy, I appreciate your time this morning. You mind sticking around? Listen to these next two stories. Looking forward to it. Awesome. Now we are going to move over to Ms.Christine McCartney, who has got an incredible story herself. But you’re with sorrow, strength, grief coaching. And tell us why you went. Because there’s all kinds of different coaching. There’s business coaching, there’s marketing coaching, you know, but you’ve decided to kind of take it to the next level with the grief coaching because you’ve had personal experience. But if you don’t mind, can you share your story and why you’re doing it?

Christine McCartney: [00:10:59] Absolutely. Brian. First of all, thank you for inviting me. I appreciate this. So, yeah, my story is kind of an odd story, how it goes back to my life. I was originally from Canada. My husband and I came from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and we came down to Georgia and he went to chiropractic school at Life College. He and I were together for 30 years. We started our own business. We owned Lake City Chiropractic here in town in Acworth. And in 2015, he was diagnosed with stage four esophageal cancer and passed away in five months. So now we had a business. We had two young girls. They were 16 and 12 at the time. And so I knew that whatever, whatever I had to do, I had to do for my kids. And so I ran the business for about a year and then realized this was not my dream, this was his dream. And that I. Decided I was going to sell the business, which I did. Took time off to grieve, and I did not go to one of those grief support groups. Like I never did anything like that. I just kind of convalesced at home and did everything myself and made sure my kids were okay. And as I said, I took time for myself, made sure the kids were okay. But then I decided it was a God thing because for about a month you probably don’t even know this, but for about a month, every night I was getting like a push push. I felt it and I was like, You need to start a widow’s group, a grief group. And and I am not I am not a leader per se, but I knew that God was wanting me to do something.

Christine McCartney: [00:12:50] So I went to my pastor and I said, You know me, this is not me. But I feel like God is telling me I need to start a widow’s group. But I don’t want to just do widows. I want to do widows and widowers. And he goes, Yes, we need that. So this is how sort of strength started at that point. Then I decided I wanted to go to school to become a life coach. And the incident went back to school. And, you know, everyone’s as you said, there’s different coaching. There could be health coaching, physical, you know, all business coaches and stuff. And I knew immediately what I wanted to do and that my niche was going to be grief. And I remember the professors there were saying, You have no idea how much this is needed. And I said, Well, I’m just doing this because if I could help one person go through peacefully, what I’ve gone through that is that would make my heart feel great. And so hence, that’s how I started sort of strength and and now grief. I can help people because grief is not just a loss of a loved one. It could be any kind of loss. It could be a divorce. It could be a loss of a job. As chaplain had said, it could be a pet. It could be any kind of change or any of us who have gone through COVID. Our whole lives have changed during COVID. So I can help people kind of guide them to get find joy back in their life again and how to take those steps.

Brian Pruett: [00:14:28] I like the your the name SAALT strength because it takes a lot of strength to go through what you did and then start this and help others. Because going through something personal like that, obviously being a man of faith, I don’t think there is anything coincidence wise, but God, you know, takes you through things. And it’s for that reason to help other people. As you mentioned, you know, it could be a loss of a spouse. It could be loss of a job. You know, the way you handle grief needs to be talked about because a lot of ways, a lot of people don’t handle grief the right way.

Christine McCartney: [00:14:59] Oh, a lot of people don’t even it’s taboo. It’s like it’s expected that, oh, you know, well, it happened six months ago. You should be over it. And but every individual is different. Everyone has to go through the process. There’s all these different levels of grief and that you could be stuck in one level and not know how to move forward. And that’s where I can kind of come in and let you have the steps. Now, there is a difference between counseling and coaching. So counseling, they help get the person’s mind wrapped around the tragedy and understanding and everything like that. What I do is I acknowledge that and I can tell if they are ready to move forward because you have to be ready to move forward in your life. Otherwise this won’t work. But I kind of help them move forward. Get unstuck is kind of my term that I use.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:55] I like how you talked about people. Six months, get over it. So be 23 years in June that my dad passed away of unexpectedly heart attack at my cousin’s wedding reception. Oh my goodness. And my mother was working. I won’t say where, but she was still working at a place and her boss came to her three weeks afterwards and said, you know, it’s been three weeks, get over it. And the interesting thing was a couple of weeks later we had to have our dog put down. And he was so more in tune of saying, Well, you should go be with the dog. And my mom looked at him and said, you know, Wow. Anyway, um, so do you work just in a particular area or where all can you know.

Christine McCartney: [00:16:37] I do most of my sessions either on phone or Zoom or I can meet somebody. So with that, with Zoom, I mean, I could have a client in Egypt, it doesn’t matter because it’s over the telephone. So I can have anybody that’s dealing with with loss anytime, any.

Brian Pruett: [00:16:58] Anywhere. If somebody’s listening to you right now and they are going through something, can you just give a brief nugget of what somebody might be able to do to, you know, we’ll get to how they can get in touch with you, but gives you a brief nugget of somebody who might be going through something.

Christine McCartney: [00:17:09] Yeah, absolutely. One of the things and this this is something that I tell my clients a lot is because you’re struggling, you’re struggling with. How to go forward. One of the biggest things that I want everyone to kind of do, and you don’t even have to be going through grief to do this is called It’s a joy Journal. A lot of people forget how to be happy. Every day. I want you to think about at the end of the day, what is the one thing that made you smile? Write that down. What this does is every day you do that, you start reading it and you realize that now you are starting to look around to see what makes you smile. And it could be anything silly. It could be a dog walking down the street, pooping on the sidewalk. I mean, whatever makes you smile, jot it down because then that is going to retrain your brain to find joy, happiness, laughter And then soon enough, you’re going to start seeing more things like, Oh, wow, look at those flowers today. Those are beautiful. They’re shining there, you know, Oh, look at this little boy. You know, So there’s there’s lots of things. That’s that’s one thing that I kind of tell all my clients is that’s the first step to start finding joy again.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:30] Awesome. Thanks for that. So you had something exciting happen just before the holidays, right? I did. Yeah, well.

Christine McCartney: [00:18:36] Oh, yeah. Sorry. I’m like, What was that? Yes, I got engaged. So, yeah, my husband, like I said, was gone for seven years. And. And, you know, it’s like the whole dating world was crazy. But I found a wonderful man, and we’re getting married in 2025, so we got some time. There you go.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:57] Well, congratulations on that. Thank you. So if somebody wants to get a hold of you, you learn about more about your services or schedule something. How can they do that?

Christine McCartney: [00:19:04] You can call me at or call or text at 404, 5421229. My email is Christine at zero two strength.com. My website is W WW dot soar to strength.com as well.

Brian Pruett: [00:19:22] Awesome. Well Christine thanks for coming and sharing a little bit about your story and do you mind sticking around? Absolutely. We are now moving over to Miss Charlie Derrien from Charlie’s Angels movers. Charlie, thank you for being here this morning.

Charlie Derrien: [00:19:32] Thank you, Brian. I appreciate the invite.

Brian Pruett: [00:19:35] So you do a lot within the community and we’ll talk about all that. But I have to ask, first of all, you’ve told me a little bit about your story of why you started your business. But I was a fan for many reasons for Charlie’s Angels on TV. Yes.

Charlie Derrien: [00:19:49] I get that a lot. Right.

Brian Pruett: [00:19:51] So share a little bit about your story and Charlie’s Angels movers.

Charlie Derrien: [00:19:55] So it all started ten years ago. I was looking for a moving company because I was planning a personal move out of my house. Suddenly, I couldn’t find one that I would want to do business with. So in reading reviews East Coast to West Coast, I’m like, Man, this is really broken. Like on a different level, broken. So I thought, Hmm, that’s interesting. Simultaneously, what was happening at my full time corporate job in the corporate world was I was being passed up on two promotions, six months apart. So when it happened the first time, I thought, Oh, let me do what Charlie does, which is go back to the drawing board and work harder and do better. Even though there was kind of a hush over the crowd, like everybody was like, you know, but it was her. But she was next in line. And it was just a known thing. It was a given. So when it didn’t happen, I was like, okay, very upset, but let me work harder. Six months later, they promoted her sister instead of me. And so I thought, this is this is real. This is you know, I’m being overlooked and looked over. And I went home and had a nervous breakdown for about a good week. I was very upset that it happened a second time. And I was crying and I was in my living room and I got down on my knees and I said, God, give me anything. Give me anything. Put Sorry. Sorry, I said. God. Give me anything. Put it in my head. Just give me an idea and I’ll take it from there. And I don’t know what else to say other than the whole it all came together with the combination of What about moving? I didn’t know anything about moving, right? I knew business.

Charlie Derrien: [00:21:34] I knew client service. I know customer service. I’ve been doing that for a long time. I didn’t know anything about moving other than military background. My father was a medic in the Army, so we moved a lot, but I wasn’t participating in it at that time, so I just ran with the idea. I printed, literally printed some business cards that were free with Vistaprint. If you guys remember, Vistaprint printed some business cards and they were very generic. I made a very generic website on Wix, if you remember Wix. I don’t know if Wix is still around. And I started showing up at places that might need movers like storage companies and different things. I started sending them pizza every week and just defining my presence and just showing up. I started networking and plugging into networking events. I made a t shirt because that’s what I could afford. I had $200 in the bank when this all started, right? I made a t shirt that said Charlie’s Angels Movers. I scribbled out my logo one night at 2:00 in the morning and I sent it to somebody that was much better at drawing than me, and they made it all come together my box with wings. And I left my corporate job two months later, as it were. My phone was ringing enough. I started at the right time. It was during the moving seasons, the moving industry’s peak season. So my phone was just ringing to the point where I thought if I leave the 60 hours here and devote it to this, I think I’m going to make this go.

Charlie Derrien: [00:22:56] I feel like God gave it to me and I said to God, give it to me and I’m going to take it from here. So I was committed to that. So I left my corporate job, handed them my resignation. They said, Charlie, please don’t go. Please don’t go. Now is what they said. It was a critical time. I said, Oh, I’m already gone. And and that was it. So it started there and I spent the next three years, I was the only person at the helm other than my field team of movers. So I spent the first year working on all my trucks. So if a client hired a four. Man Three Man two man team, I was one of 2 or 1 of 3 or 1 of four. So sometimes I’d show up and be met with, looks like you’re, you’re moving us. So I got that in the beginning. But then when they saw that, yes, I was very serious about it as the guys were, I could lift anything. They could lift. I was up and down three flights of stairs, just like they were on the sofas. I was doing it at the same level, but primarily because I had to learn this. I had to dig in. I felt like I needed to just really dig in and be in it. So I did that for the first year, and then after the first year I didn’t have to work on my trucks anymore.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:00] Well, it’s, you know, don’t don’t apologize for showing up because when God speaks to you and you listen and you do what you what he thinks you do, it’s amazing what he does. I mean, we all have the stories of why we’re doing what we’re doing, and it’s just really cool to learn more about stuff that you because, I mean, just recently you were gone because it was from the Super Bowl and the NBA all star game. You got some gigs for that?

Charlie Derrien: [00:24:23] Yes. Got a.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:24] Contract? Yeah. You know, so that’s that’s amazing. So you’re based in Acworth, right? But do you do all over? We do.

Charlie Derrien: [00:24:29] So we’re local, regional, national moving will facilitate anything out of state. We do like commercial now because any of our clients that we’ve moved residentially, if they have a business, they always call us and say, But Charlie, I know you don’t do commercial, but and so we always say, Of course we would thank you for choosing us again. And yeah, of course we’ll do it.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:47] But you also just opened up an office in Texas, correct? We did.

Charlie Derrien: [00:24:51] So we franchise started franchise in Houston at the top of the year. So I have one of my brilliant CFOs out there to CFOs with my company. One’s my brother that you mentioned, Stone That’s Brad. And then the other one is Corey, and he’s opening up operations out in Houston for us, moved there. His fiance was already over there, runs a very large real estate company, her and her father. So it just seemed like the perfect fit of what we’ve had going on. So we’ve been talking about it for at least the last two years and finally launched, and we’re ready to ready to move on it in a big way and hopefully just sort of explode in the Houston area as the objective marketing standpoint.

Brian Pruett: [00:25:30] Congratulations on that. So I have to ask this, too, because every time I see a picture of you, you got your little dog. Yes. Tell me about your dog.

Charlie Derrien: [00:25:39] Thanks for asking about my dog. That’s biscuit. So Biscuit is actually my child, right? He’s definitely an extension of biscuit. Everywhere I travel, I do a lot of traveling business, and otherwise biscuit goes everywhere that I travel to. He. I got him as a puppy. He’s six years old this year. He’s obviously something of a mascot has become. Right. He comes to the office with me. Everybody loves him. He doesn’t deal with everyone. That’s just but but for the people that he does deal with, he’s you know, he’s just a great little road dog and companion and my little furry love. And he was hit by a car in 2018. I don’t know if it’s such a good story. Well, it’s kind of long to tell it, but the short version is I don’t know if you guys know Toby Carmichael at the Lake City Animal Hospital.

Christine McCartney: [00:26:29] He’s my vet.

Charlie Derrien: [00:26:30] So Toby has so many levels of fantastic. But I met Toby because my dog was hit by a car. I showed up in my raggedy old at the time I had Charlie’s Angels. Charlie’s Angels charity truck, where I was doing things with homeless people. We were doing haircuts and feeding them and doing different things. So I came in my raggedy old 15 foot box charity truck that I didn’t even know was going to start. So I let my door accidentally swing open, and I heard him before I saw him, heard him. And I went out there and he was just broken. Like I could tell his back something was devastatingly wrong, back was broken. His legs were just hanging. He was limp. And I’m looking at him and knew he was dying. So I have this truck that I just pulled from storage, my charity truck, because I’m getting ready to put it back on the road and we’re doing some things and I’m like and I knew it wasn’t going to start because it hadn’t been starting. So I was waiting for the mechanic or whatever. I went out. I was frantic. I was hysterical. I was the only one home. I didn’t know what to do, panic, go outside. And I’m like, I just wasn’t in my right mind. I called two vets, Toby’s office answered and said, Come on, we’re yeah, technically, you know, we’re getting ready to leave, but come. How far away are you? Come on. So I was like, I’ll do it. I call Uber, I go out and I just start. I just turn the truck over.

Charlie Derrien: [00:27:40] I start straight away, which I was like, Thank you. I go to you know, I was thinking God about that, right? So I drive to the vet, he meets me out in the parking lot and he’s like, Are you Charlie? And I said, I am. And, you know, I’m crying. I’m trying to make my way through the tears. I’m holding him. He takes him out of my hands. He’s like, I see your I see your signs, you know, Nice to meet you. And tell me what happened. I explain. Goes back in the room. He’s gone for about 15 minutes and he comes back out and he’s like, you know, I don’t know how because he saw him, too. So I’m looking at him reading him like I know what’s bad. And he comes back out of the room 15 minutes later and he’s like, I don’t know quite how to say this, basically, but he’s fine. Like, there’s no internal and then he just brings him out and he walks over to me and I’m just like, What do you mean? Like Toby? You saw Doctor Carmichael, You saw that he wasn’t fine. Like how? Like, that’s just so many levels of. And in that moment. I needed my dog to live through that in that moment. I was going through some other critical things in my life and just a bad, bad time. So it was it just all worked for good. And I have an amazing relationship with Dr. Carmichael now. I see him everywhere, networking all over the city. And he’s just that’s my buddy.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:50] That’s amazing what God shows up when he does my little biscuit. Yes. What kind is biscuit?

Charlie Derrien: [00:28:55] Biscuit is a maltese Yorkie.

Brian Pruett: [00:28:56] Okay. Yeah. You also have some kids as well. I do.

Charlie Derrien: [00:29:00] I have I have three kids, Caden, Dane and Kennedy, 24, 16 and 13. My oldest son is was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis at three weeks old. So he deals with a lot of things physically, a lot of physical, handicapped and mental handicap. So, you know, we deal with with sort of the special needs side of things and which is why I don’t know, I know that, you know that I do a lot of things from a community standpoint. So and I’m really just following the things that speak to me, specifically the horizon, the gala tonight I’ll be attending the gala. So somebody was good enough to get me tickets after I missed my deadline and I thought I was well ahead of the curve. But but I did get a couple of tickets. I’ll be at the gala just to support and, you know, give back to that. Of course, the Acworth Community Garden is another one of my loves because I’ve learned to plant things in the last couple of years. And miraculously, they’re growing. They never grew before. But I’m just like, God, could you help me out here with this one? And, you know, and, and and everything’s just growing.

Charlie Derrien: [00:29:59] So I guess they like the energy in my place and some of the things that I’m doing. So Acworth Community Garden, I’m learning some things from there. They didn’t know that it was kind of double double edged for me. So yes, I want to come and help and do the things. But also there’s master gardeners in there that are teaching. I’m asking all these questions, so I’m getting educated. And and then I had a lunch yesterday with I don’t know if you guys know Jimmy Durham, but good friend of the mayor’s Tommy Ellegood, if you know Tommy. And it was just an amazing lunch where I learned about Kenya Connect Kenyan connections. I don’t know if you guys know this program. Mars Hill Church is plugged into it, as I understand it. But anyway, really passionate about being able to. The idea of going over and helping orphaned kids over in Africa. And so they’re planning a trip for July. So really excited about hearing more about that and seeing how me and my children can maybe go over and, you know, lend something to that from a working and helping them build.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:50] That’s awesome. We’ll circle back around to what you’re doing in the community, but I wanted to also you have one of your children was on American Idol, right? Yes, he was. We’ll share that experience.

Charlie Derrien: [00:30:58] Yeah, sure. So Dane, my middle 16 year old, he’s a brilliant in his craft. He is a performer and an all around entertainer. So he dances, he acts now and he’s doing some theater and he’s a phenomenal singer. So now I’m getting him to the point where he’s writing and encouraging that and the things that are coming out with just him writing is just brilliant. But he was on American Idol at 14 two years ago. Lionel Richie said, Yes, absolutely, yes. Luke Perry and or Luke Bryan and Katy Perry said, Come back in two years. Your voice sounds young. Come back in two years. So he may be back in two years or he may be a star by by the end of this year.

Brian Pruett: [00:31:35] He just needed that little boost. Who knows?

Charlie Derrien: [00:31:36] Yeah, but. So we’ve had many auditions since then. The next big boy band that you guys will probably all come to learn in the next year or so. So while he didn’t make that audition, it was so much fun that they flew us out to LA and he got to go through the whole experience and Fox Studios were there. Simon Cowell’s people, NBC studios like it was just a big we have we’re just he’s literally just dipping his toe in and dipping his toe has been in just some very big projects. So we’re we’re just excited and all the support that I can give him. And of course, you you presented something to me that one of the events that you have going on and I’m always one to say, hey, if you have a spot for my kid to just do a song, you know, the crowd would be pleased.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:15] Yeah, we’re still working on that too. So, um. All right. So before I get to all the community stuff, you also you’ve started another venture, right? Don’t you have something with used cars?

Charlie Derrien: [00:32:25] I do. So. So actually, a couple. So, Brian, there’s a few things that we’ve only talked, I guess to a certain point, but I do have Charlie’s Angels chariots, used car sales, so which really just stemmed from my field team when I would hire people for the moving company, 1 in 3 people wouldn’t have vehicles. So I’m just like, how do you you know, this was a thing this I’m noticing that this is a thing to the point where can I fix that? So I’m always looking at things from a can I solve this problem or can I lend something to this to make it better? Leave things better than I found it. So I thought, well, how how labor intensive is this to start a car dealership? Let me just start the process. It turns out it’s very labor intensive. It’s starting a whole nother business. Right. Took me about a year back and forth with the city and licensing things. Anyway, we were finally there. Charlie’s Angels Chariots is just a sweet number in my office. So now it turns out everybody wants a car, right? So it went from just my field team and being able to give them an option that wasn’t buy here, pay here where they were getting not a good deal.

Charlie Derrien: [00:33:26] Right. But based on their credit and their circumstance, whatever, this is just what was happening. So now if you work here, it’s an extra incentive to retain. In my people as part of it. So if you work here, I have a car program for you, a car buy program for you. But stay the course. Stay out of trouble. I deal with a lot of young men that didn’t have that just didn’t have structure growing up. You as I learned them, they didn’t have they don’t have mom and dads. They come from broken homes. So there are things not not all of my field team, but a lot of them. And so, yes, I’m the boss. Yes, I’m the CEO. Yes, I’m the owner, but I’m also a momma bear. And I also it’s important to me when they come on board and don’t have their license, driver’s license. I have young 20 year olds, 25 that don’t have their driver’s license. Well, I want to know about that. Why didn’t you ever drive? Do you know how to drive? Yes. You know how to drive. But no one’s ever they didn’t have parents that were teaching them type of thing.

Charlie Derrien: [00:34:23] So they just never it just fell to Now you’re 20, 25 and you don’t have a driver’s license. We can help you with that. I have a course right here in my parking lot. Let’s teach you how to drive. So at least two guys, you know, we’ve moved on to getting their driver’s license, and we always celebrate those kind of wins, too. Just so it’s important with my field team, with all the training that I do, what I the message that I really convey is that you can’t be in my space and not level up. You can’t be around me in my presence and not get better in some capacity. Right. Because because of your energy to me, I’m getting better. You’re giving me something too. So I have a responsibility almost to give that back to you. So. So I’m just doing that in all sorts of ways. So yeah, the car dealership also, I’m building out a venue, Heaven on Earth event venues I’ve incorporated, so that should probably be. In. People will be staying there and wanting to stop by and see what’s happening probably at the end of this year. But it’s on schedule for 2024.

Brian Pruett: [00:35:17] Well, maybe we can do some events there.

Charlie Derrien: [00:35:18] We can absolutely do some events there. We haven’t even gotten to that part yet, but I’m excited to talk to you about it.

Brian Pruett: [00:35:22] Awesome. Yeah. Well, all right. So we’re going to move into because you do a lot for the community. I mean, you’ve shared a lot already, but you and I were introduced by a mutual friend, Melissa Pearson from the Barter Company. Yes. And my favorite redhead. Yes. I love giving her a hard time. She gives it right back. But when I came into your office after you asked me to come speak with you, you were already on a thing for karaoke.

Charlie Derrien: [00:35:43] Yes. I’m the title.

Brian Pruett: [00:35:44] Sponsor. So you’re also my title sponsor for something I’m doing all year long with trivia that’s rotating 12 charities all year long. So again, thank you for that. But absolutely, you just give back so much to the community and it’s awesome to hear. I mean, again, we all have great stories and why you do what you do, but why is it important to not only be a part of the community, but give back?

Charlie Derrien: [00:36:07] You know, some things, definitely. When it comes to helping people, I have a special place in my heart for elderly people and animals. Anybody that doesn’t have a voice necessarily or can’t use their voice or doesn’t know how, like that, those are kind of the things that speak to me. Jeez, you’re pulling on my heartstrings this morning, Brian. Like, what are we doing here? It’s important to me because my childhood was very broken, very broken. And, you know, my brother, who was my CEO, we have a good story just in our childhood that we came from very little and it was a struggle. And now we’re here and we don’t struggle. We still struggle. Everybody struggles, but we struggle different. And so it’s important for me to not forget where I came from. And it just help people like it’s in my heart.

Brian Pruett: [00:37:02] Well, I appreciate that. And I know you’re fine. I mean, this is why the show is around. I mean, I can’t get inspiration from the three of you or people I’ve had in the past. Then there’s something wrong with them. I don’t know. But no, it’s just incredible the amount that you do that all of you do. So I’m going to circle back around to you in a second because I ask everybody this towards the end. But I want to go back. I’m going to kind of go back this way to Christine. You do a lot and I see you a lot in networking. You do a lot of stuff, too. Why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Christine McCartney: [00:37:37] As I said earlier, if I can help one person to find peace and go through what I did, that would make my heart feel good so that that is my goal. It’s not about money. It’s not about people knowing who I am or anything like that. It’s just it’s for my own self in peace.

Brian Pruett: [00:37:57] Chaplain Lindy, why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Lindy Earl: [00:38:00] I think that some people are definitely called to mission fields across the country, across the world. I really believe our mission fields starts as soon as we step outside our front door and we start. And you can affect somebody’s life every single day with a smile, a kind word, a compliment. I love walking past somebody and just saying cute shoes and guys really like it. They’re like, Wow, you noticed my shoes? I love guys socks. Guys wear the greatest socks and it just means something to be noticed. People need to be loved. They need to be appreciated. And we can do that on a daily basis with very little effort on our own part. Mostly we just need to be aware.

Brian Pruett: [00:38:44] Well, thank you. So. All right, Charlie, coming back to you for a second. So I guess if you ask Brad, he can tell you from the first night. I like putting stuff together and having fun. And I know Brad had a pretty good time with. He had a great time. They told me all about it.

Charlie Derrien: [00:38:57] I’m sorry I missed it.

Brian Pruett: [00:38:58] Yeah, well, hopefully you’ll be back two weeks. Yeah, Week and a half. Actually. I’m there for. This one’s for the Pettit Preserve. For those of you wanting to be part of that was going to be for the Pettit preserve this time. All right. So if somebody wants to get a hold of you for your moving for your cars, whatever, how can they do that?

Charlie Derrien: [00:39:15] They can call six, seven, 85235353. Really our primary number I do have a separate number for the car dealership as well. But you call the primary number. Everything’s out of the same office. So you can just kind of tell whoever’s answering the phone what service that you’re looking for. Also, Charlie’s Angels movers.com is our website. Charlie’s Angels movers at Gmail is our email address. And you can Google us and we’re kind of everywhere.

Brian Pruett: [00:39:39] Lots of well on the billboards, too. You can’t miss them. Yeah, the billboards all over the place. You know, I love it. Like, I just love the picture with you and biscuits. It’s awesome. So real quick, before we wrap up with the last question, can you share about karaoke? Can you tell us about that? Yes, thank.

Charlie Derrien: [00:39:52] You. Arioch is a The Fallen Heroes project. So basically anybody that needs resources still or could use some resources, their families from 9/11 and what sort of transpired from nine over 11 proceeds go to support that. So it’s something that let’s see, this is the this will be the third year for me as the title sponsor of karaoke. So we’re building on it. It gets bigger and bigger. My very good dear friend Chuck Berg, it’s his baby and his brainchild. And when he brought it to me for the first time, I said, That’s really fun. That’s a great concept to have a charity event at the airport, airport hangar, and just how we kind of tied it together and all the ideas that he had. But it’s it’s the Fallen Heroes project. The money goes for a very good cause. I like the fact that it stays local. So I like to support charities that are in either our city or in our state so that the money stays local. Doesn’t have to be that way. I do other things too, but but I do like to support that. And it’s going to be at the Strand, the on Marietta Square this year, September the we were playing with the dates but the 30th. I’m pretty sure that’s the date. I’ve been unplugged from the meetings because I’ve had this project that I’ve been working on. But I think the last that we heard that, we did confirm the 30th, but it’s going to be a great event. You guys should buy tickets. My son will sing. There’s a conflict, so he can’t actually because I’m the title sponsor, he can’t participate in the contest where there’s going to be at least a $1,500 prize winner is what it was last year. It might go up this year, but definitely buy tickets early. We’re going to sell out. It was such a fun event last year and you know, we hope to have the support.

Brian Pruett: [00:41:30] And how did you guys move from the airport to the Strand?

Charlie Derrien: [00:41:34] We kind of got kicked out. Oh, because some people sometimes you guys know this, they don’t always follow the rules, right? So if it’s an airport, if the airport says you can’t smoke cigarets outside over there next to the things that will explode and make you go boom. Oh, yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:41:49] Yeah, I can see.

Charlie Derrien: [00:41:49] That, right? You can’t do that, right? So they don’t they take that very seriously as well they should. And said because you had certain people, those rascals that weren’t following the rules. Yeah, we don’t know if we can do this again here. So we just had to be innovative and find something else. We had to pivot.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:06] There you go. All right. One last question for the three of you before we wrap this up. I always like to end the show this way. We’ll start again. Back with you, Chaplain Lindy. But I like for the three of you to share at least one nugget, one phrase, one word quote or whatever. People can live today and the rest of 20, 23 and beyond with.

Lindy Earl: [00:42:26] I would say intentionally live every day of your life.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:31] Christine.

Christine McCartney: [00:42:34] Fall into your grief. It’s okay to be sad, but you need to find a way to come out of it.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:42] Charlie.

Charlie Derrien: [00:42:44] I’m going to quote one of my brilliant mentors, Zig Ziglar, if you know who that is, if you help. He taught me 12 years ago now. And this was a pivotal moment. It changed the trajectory of my entire life. If you help enough other people get what they want by default, you always get what you want. I, I grabbed that and got my head around it and shifted all my steps. Will let me focus on Brian. And then by default, things will fall into place for me. And I promise you, that’s exactly how things have gone since.

Brian Pruett: [00:43:15] Most people will learn more that we actually use that as a motto for the Castle Business Club. So it’s great. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Well, again, guys, I really appreciate you coming and sharing your stories. Being a part of this show. Everybody out there listening, let’s remember. Let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.

 

Tagged With: Charlie's Angels Movers, Sorrow to Strength, TurnAbout 180

Mickey Markoff With Hyundai Air & Sea Show

March 2, 2023 by Jacob Lapera

South Florida Business Radio
South Florida Business Radio
Mickey Markoff With Hyundai Air & Sea Show
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DTLLogo-Blue-Bannerv2Mickey Markoff, Executive Producer of Hyundai Air & Sea Show.

He is well known for his accomplishments and economic help to Fort Lauderdale with the Air and Sea show is working on new and innovative products. After the success of the much heralded Air & Sea show, Mickey has been busy working on new and innovative products that impact our daily lives. The announcement of the new products will be coming soon. On a personal note, he was awarded the commander award by the U.S Air Force.

The Commander’s Award for Public Service is the fourth highest honor the United States Department of the Army can bestow upon a civilian. Military personnel are not eligible for the Commanders Award. Civilians not employed by the Armed Forces, Armed forces contractors, Federal Government officials at the policy development level, and technical personnel who serve the armed forces in an advisory capacity or as consultants are eligible. AR672-20 regulates the award. he was awarded this honor because of his hard work in bringing forth a patriotic celebration to the US Armed forces.

Connect with Mickey on LinkedIn and follow Air and Sea Show on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The upcoming 2023 Hyundai Air & Sea Show on Memorial Day Weekend
  • Working with the 5 Branches of the Military
  • How local businesses can get involved

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:01] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in South Florida. It’s time for South Florida Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here another episode of South Florida Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Diaz Trade Law, your customs expert today on South Florida Business Radio. We have Mickey Markoff with the Hyundai Air and Sea Show. Welcome.

Mickey Markoff: [00:00:33] Hey, thanks, Lee, for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] I am so excited to hear more about this great event. Tell us about the Hyundai Air and Sea Show. How did it get started and is it everything you dreamt it could be?

Mickey Markoff: [00:00:46] Yes, it is. And we’re excited about it. There is no better time than Memorial Day weekend to pay tribute to the men and women of our US military and those that protect us, those that have paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedom. Memorial Day become a holiday here in America where people are going out and buying a mattress or having a barbecue, or if you live up north, it was the first day of summer and people forgot about the fact that there’s over 2 million people that have paid the ultimate sacrifice, gave their lives. Kids that don’t have fathers and parents that don’t have children, also that we can have the freedom and freedom isn’t free. So that’s why we brought this national salute to America’s heroes, to Miami Beach. And of course, it’s taking place this year on May 27th and 28th. So we’re excited about the fact that we’re doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:39] Lee So what was kind of the genesis of the idea? Because it sounds very logistically complex to pull off an event like this?

Mickey Markoff: [00:01:48] Well, it’s a multi dimensional jigsaw puzzle for sure. It’s the largest gathering of military equipment in our country. It’s all free to the public to come down to South Beach off of Ocean Drive. We do reroute all the air traffic out of the international airport. We shut down miles of the ocean and we’re bringing in equipment from all over the country. Many of the items like the B-2 stealth bomber, the B-1 bombers, a lot of our fighter jets, they never land here. So they have to be time over target within six seconds. And so it is it’s definitely a logistical jigsaw puzzle. But, you know, we have a great team and we’re working really closely with all the governmental agencies. And, you know, when we all come together, it’s we’re you know, we’re baking quite a cake. But again, I think the reason we’re doing it is to is to make sure that people understand, as I told you earlier, that freedom isn’t free. And we just want people to come out and meet their military. You know, people don’t humanize the fact that these people are here. You know, you might see them in an airport and say thanks for your service or something, but here’s a chance to come out and see all of the most incredible technology.

Mickey Markoff: [00:02:57] Meet the people, five city blocks of military displays right there off of Ocean Drive between 10th and 14th Street. And then, of course, you can view the show all the way from, you know, government cut. They’re down at where the port is all the way up to 22nd Street where the one hotel is. The best viewing area, of course, is between 10th and and 14th, just east of that big display village that we have with all the equipment. And and then, of course, it’s televised, you know, internationally and nationally. We have three one hour television specials and 11,000 radio commercials promoting it. So I think, you know, it’s going to be quite the extravaganza. And again, it’s family oriented. It’s free, it’s wholesome, it’s patriotic. So, you know, it’s just I think it’s a it’s a signature event here for South Florida. And we’re just honored to be able to work with everyone to put it on.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:51] Now, you mentioned that all five branches of the military are involved in this. This isn’t just one branch. Why was that important to you to include everyone?

Mickey Markoff: [00:04:01] Well, you know, the Department of Defense and our military is, you know, the obviously the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Coast Guard. And then, of course, we even bring in homeland security. The purpose of this event is not like your normal air show you’d go see at some airport. Yes, it is a remote show and it’s located on the beautiful shores of Miami Beach. But the idea of this event is to show actual capabilities, exercises from each branch of the military. So the US Coast Guard is doing an air sea rescue demonstration. The US Air Force is doing a full para rescue demonstration. They’ll have all the big gun ships up in the sky. Then they’ll have the A-10 fighter jets at a lower level than they have the the the helicopters and their guys jumping out just as if they were saving a pilot in harm’s way. Then you have US customs doing a drug interdiction, good guy boat chasing the bad guy boat with the helicopters above them. Army is coming in with a special operations capabilities exercise. 54 people, they’re going to be dropping boats out of the helicopters, inflating them, coming right up on the shore, invading the beach. So each of these different capabilities exercises showcase what the opportunities are, what these people do to protect our freedom. And the reason we do it, Lee, is because the US military has incredible opportunities for today’s youth.

Mickey Markoff: [00:05:30] People don’t understand that. They think it’s like carrying a rifle or you’re going to war. That is not what these military is all about. You know, there’s 150 career opportunities alone in the US Army. And, you know, anything you want to do in your life, you can do it for real if you join the service. You know, you like playing with with drones or you like playing video games or you like, you know, doing sports things like, you know, um, you know, I have a son who does motocross. I mean, the type of stuff you can do with, with, with equipment that you can play with, you know, flying fighter jets. So there’s just incredible opportunities for the kids today to look at the opportunities that the military offers them, not only in the way of career, but education, health insurance and health benefits. They have signing bonuses now in the tens of thousands of dollars. And so there’s just real opportunities for you to meet your military and see if the military is the right thing for you to do. You know, great core values, integrity, excellence, incredible amount of camaraderie that if you join in the military. So a lot of good a lot of good people involved in the military. And they’re they’re just it’s a really good group of people to be involved with.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:50] Now, is there an opportunity for local business people to participate as well, or is this primarily a military function?

Mickey Markoff: [00:06:59] Yeah. So what we’ve done is we’ve created this national salute to America’s heroes, and we have these corporate partnerships and corporations get involved and they’re able to salute the men and women of our military. And each of the activities that we have, that we bring in to build the event, we allow a corporation to put their name on it. So, for instance, Monster Energy Drink has come on board inside the display village. We’ve got their monster energy motorcycle team and they’re doing motocross, they’re doing jumping 300ft. We’ve got guys doing double backflips on motorcycles in that area. So if a corporation wants to have a display space where they can sample their products or showcase their products or talk to people, you know, tens of thousands of people walk through that display area. Other corporations get involved because they want to entertain their clients or their employees. And we have these corporate chalets where you’re sitting there, right there in the private area of the beach, right at the landing zone, You know, air conditioned restrooms, fully catered, you know, food and and drink right at the like I said, right at the landing zone. So it’s all, you know, beautiful corporate chalet. We’ve got skyboxes that corporations have. We have little cabanas for 14 people. If a corporation wants to entertain, you know, some employees, you know, maybe they have veterans that they want to bring out in their families. So you’ve got the opportunity for either hospitality, for display and then like different corporations can own different activities. We have companies that own the the Beach club area.

Mickey Markoff: [00:08:38] We have companies that have, you know, different names, for instance. Cigaret offshore powerboats. They’re a major partner of ours. They’re doing a whole offshore powerboat racing demonstration with all their state of the art race boats and they’ll be running through before the air show portion of it starts. And they have a corporate chalet where they’re entertaining, you know, people and it’s called the cigaret offshore powerboat racing demonstration. We’ve got veterans. Florida has gotten involved and they’re doing the fireworks show. The Veterans Florida fireworks extravaganza. So, you know, the show takes place both Saturday and Sunday. And all of the activities surrounding the event have corporate partners that are attached to them. So, you know, you’ve got Yuengling beer and you’ve got Jack Daniel’s and you’ve got, you know, Coca Cola products and you’ve got so all these companies, there are about 35 corporations. There’s certainly room for more. And they all get an incredible amount of benefit because we have they get radio, they get newspapers, they get PR, they get social media, they get, you know, just an incredible amount of media exposure as well as all the value on site, you know, signage and PR announcements and the big screens. And so there’s a lot of value for corporate America to be involved in this. Um, the return on investment is very, is very, very large compared to, you know, other events that of course we produce major events all over and this is probably the highest return on investment of any event in the sense that we have so much value that we can offer.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:20] Is there going to be music as well?

Mickey Markoff: [00:10:23] Yeah. So I’ll tell you what’s really exciting. You know, as we were starting to grow this event and not only be Miami Beach and the military and and and Memorial Day weekend, but then we started to add music. And, you know, last year we had concerts with three doors down and we’ve had flowrider. But I’ll tell you what’s really exciting and you’ll be the first to know is that the US Army has joined us now and we’ve created a new leg on the stool, so to speak, and it’s called the US Army Salute Fest and the US Army Salute Fest. It’s going to have three major musical talent acts throughout the day and into the evening, mixed in with the RNC show. And like I say, we’re going to be televising it. We have Peter Berg, you know, arguably one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, and he’s going to be producing a television special from the event. And we’re going to be airing that right after the event. So it’ll be live to tape and it’s going to be really exciting. So it’ll be some very, very significant musical talent here this year. And, you know, with the Army, maybe it’s the Golden Knights jumping in and introducing the act or the Apache attack helicopter pilots introducing an act from their helicopter while they’re sitting off shore, you know, staring at the crowd. So there’s going to be some pretty big excitement going on with major music. And then we’ve added a major drone show this year. It’ll be 500 drones doing a nighttime drone show going into the big fireworks extravaganza as well on Saturday night. So, um, you know, it keeps getting bigger every year. And this year, of course, with the, the US Army. A salute fest is part of the Hyundai Air and Sea Show and part of the big music Explosion concert on Sunday night as well. So it’ll be two nights of concerts and fireworks and a whole lot of added attractions besides the Hyundai Air and Sea Show during the day.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:19] And then if somebody wants to learn more, maybe get the event schedule so they know when to come and what interests them. Is there a website?

Mickey Markoff: [00:12:28] Absolutely. It’s USA salute.com. Usa salute.com. You can learn all about the event there. Tickets will be going on sale for that whole VIP beach club area for anybody who wants to get some general admission tickets to be right there by the landing zone. You can do that. You know, we’re really honored to have Hyundai coming back for their seventh year as our title partner. They really authentically understand that, you know, they probably wouldn’t even exist. They’re back due to the Korean War. You know, our military was so supportive there in the Korean War. And so there have been a big title sponsor of ours. And like I said, with all the other partners that we have, every time we bring in a new partner, we bring in a new activity. And it just makes the show bigger and better and exciting. So incredible opportunity for corporate America again, public can come out and just have an incredible family day out there on Miami Beach. There’s no place better. The city’s been incredibly cooperative. The county, of course, very, very cooperative. All the governmental agencies have been just a pleasure to work with because everyone understands that, you know, we’re doing the right thing. I mean, what what what better than to say thank you and recognize that, you know, we live in a great country and freedom isn’t free. And these are the people that are at the tip of the spear protecting us and keeping us so that we can do just the freedom of speech we have right now being on this radio station with you. So.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:53] Well, Mickey, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you one more time. The website USA silhouet.com. Mickey Markoff making it happen. Thank you again for sharing your story.

Mickey Markoff: [00:14:08] Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:10] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on South Florida Business Radio.

Tagged With: Hyundai Air & Sea Show, Mickey Markoff

Christine Wetzler With Pietryla PR & Marketing

March 2, 2023 by Jacob Lapera

Chicago Business Radio
Chicago Business Radio
Christine Wetzler With Pietryla PR & Marketing
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Firmspace-sponsor-bannerChristine Pietryla Wetzler, Founder and President of Pietryla PR & Marketing.

She has been a consultant since 2002. She founded a Chicago public relations firm specializing in communications strategy and media relations for packaging, CPG, and professional services clients. She has assisted clients with significant M&A and funding announcements, product launches, strategic thought leadership programs, and directed policy-changing public affairs campaigns. She is a proven strategist who generates consistent, widespread media coverage and manages significant press events. She has tremendous experience accurately integrating public relations, social media, and digital marketing to achieve desired messaging outcomes.

Throughout her career, she has spearheaded publicity efforts for larger clients like Dow Chemical, 3M, Rexam Beverage Can Americas, International Truck and Engine Corporation, and Hyster Company, as well as newer or disruptive companies like Footprint, National Coal Corp (Nasdaq: NCOC), Servidyne (Nasdaq: SERV), SPSS and Continental Broadband.

Since 2002, she has been in private practice with clients like Cask & Kettle, Pregis Packaging, Calia Stone, Vapiano, United Federal Credit Union, TCS Education System, and Oval Fire Products, among others, in both the B2B and B2C industries. Christine’s thought leadership has evolved into regularly serving as a guest or contributing writer. She is currently an active contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Packaging Technology Today, and PFFC magazines. Christine received her bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Florida.

Connect with Christine on LinkedIn and follow Pietryla PR on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Pietryla PR and the problems she’s solving for her clients
  • Local client success stories
  • Active Campaign and how it helps her grow her business
  • Automation to save time

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Chicago, Illinois. It’s time for Chicago Business Radio. Brought to you by Firm Space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm spacecom. Now, here’s your host.

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey, everybody. And welcome back to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kantor. And before we get started, as always, today’s show is sponsored by Firm Space, thanks to Firm Space because without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And we got a good one for you today. On today’s show, we have the founder and president of Pietryla PR and Marketing. So please welcome to the show, Christine Wetzler. Welcome to the show, Christine.

Christine Wetzler: [00:00:46] Thank you. Glad to be here.

Max Kantor: [00:00:48] I’m excited to talk to you about everything you’re doing. So let’s jump right in. Tell me a little bit about Pietryla PR and marketing.

Christine Wetzler: [00:00:55] Well, we’ve been here in Chicago for 20 years. I can’t believe it’s been that long. It’s gone so fast. But it has been. I have lived in Chicago a little bit longer than that. Worked downtown at a couple of PR firms prior to starting this one and for the last 20 years have been working with clients on both the B2B and B2C sides of the packaging, plastics and food and beverage brand side of things.

Max Kantor: [00:01:27] So what inspired you to start your own PR firm?

Christine Wetzler: [00:01:32] It’s actually kind of interesting because when I did it in 2002, there weren’t a lot of people. The gig economy wasn’t really a thing yet, and freelancing wasn’t really ubiquitous yet. So. So it was a little different. I started I had gotten laid off at an agency and that was happening at the time to too many different agencies. And the one thing that was kind of strange was our agency had a lot of different kinds of capabilities and PR was one of them. And so our staffing wasn’t as robust as I had seen at other agencies. So I was dealing with a lot of clients kind of on my own, which kind of made me realize, Wow, I’m I’m one person that can handle a lot of a lot of project management here. And then when I started interviewing for new jobs, I interviewed for one at a software company and they said, you know, well, this job really isn’t full time, but we can pay you part time. And they offered to 1099 me, which was kind of a new concept. And that just kind of melded those two things together and thought, well, gosh, if I could get 2 or 3 more of these, you know, I could run a successful business. So I reached back out to some of the clients that I had prior because they had nowhere to go. I mean, our agency was out of business and and picked some of them back up and and it just kind of rolled from there. It was, it was an, uh, you know, opportunistic. Two things just kind of came together and kind of clicked in my head. And, and then, of course, after a few years, everybody started getting the same idea. And now we have, you know, freelancing and starting your own business is something that is pretty fundamental, I think, for for most people Now.

Max Kantor: [00:03:32] What are some challenges a business would have to be facing for them to go, You know what, I could use Christine’s help.

Christine Wetzler: [00:03:39] I think, um, the biggest challenge is there are things about marketing and PR that are very difficult to understand. Um, and I think that it’s a very simple task. It’s kind of like when you look at somebody playing a game, you can look at it and say, Wow, that looks like a simple game, but then you start playing it and you realize it’s not as simple as it seems. And I think PR is one of those things where, you know, some people have a talent for it. They can be a little bit better at it than other people just naturally. But it is something that you have to practice over time and you have to develop the relationships over time and and know how to approach people. And I think that a business owner. Can very easily because of the way that they are kind of wired to want to be ambitious and to want to do everything can feel like I can do this myself, I can I can do this. And and I would say that when you get to the point where you realize, I need help with this, this is not something I can do myself. We’re the firm that bridges that gap because we do not function as a huge firm where we’re going to ask for, you know, $20,000 a month for a 12 month contract and and everything like that. We’re we’re going to come in small handful of people and say, okay, let’s talk about what you really want to accomplish.

Christine Wetzler: [00:05:17] Let’s focus on the things that really need to happen in order to push your business forward. And then let’s let’s work together to make those things happen. Um, you know, you’re working with me, you’re working with other senior leaders that have done this. We’re not, um, we’re not coming in with a team of young people who have to ask permission to do things before they do it. We’re coming in and really being helpful to an owner or to a brand owner. Um, the other thing that we, we offer and we do this a lot is because content has become so much, so much a big part of what we offer, um, is that we’re very quick studies, particularly in the industries that we service. And so when you, when you work with us, you know, you don’t have to get us up to speed over a couple months. Um, you know, we can write content and create content within a matter of days that resonates so because we already know what we’re doing. So, so it’s, it’s pretty, I think just to kind of the too long didn’t read version of your the answer to your question is we are the skilled kind of bridge between a much, much bigger agency and a very uh, very detailed single. Consultant. We offer the best of both of those things so we can we can help kind of ease you into doing this on a bigger scale.

Max Kantor: [00:06:57] Now, you talked a little bit about content creation and and writing copy. What are some other services that you kind of provide to your clients when they come to you for help?

Christine Wetzler: [00:07:08] Yeah, the content is a big one because that’s really. King Right now with with everything we’ve seen open up into social media and influencers and developing relationships with those kind of content creators as well as reporters. Um, but we’ve also seen, uh, different kinds of marketing. Right now we’re, we’re seeing people go back to more of the traditional basics. Um, email marketing, which sounds very old and traditional, but when we do it, it’s more personalized. It’s more segmented and fundamental. So we’re not recommending that people blast out 5000 emails to people. We’re recommending that they, they segment them into, um, bits of, you know, ten, 15, 20 contacts at a time and send personalized content to those folks and then use a, an automation system or a segmenting system like active campaign or, or, you know, there are myriad of them. But the one that we use is active campaign to make sure that you can do that at scale even if your list is 5000 people. Um, so we’ve been incorporating email, we’ve been incorporating Google ad campaigning, Um, and we’ve been, we’ve been doing quite a bit of keyword searching and creating content with the intent of getting people online to pay attention to what’s happening to.

Max Kantor: [00:08:48] So what it sounds like to me is like every time a business comes to you, you guys are really putting in the work to give them that unique experience that’s going to help their growth in a in a unique and specific way through research, through education, to introducing them to programs, like you said, active campaign or Google ads. You guys are really putting in the work to help each client individually.

Christine Wetzler: [00:09:12] Absolutely. Absolutely. And we’re helping them develop their own skill set, too. Um, you know, we’re agnostic, so I know I mentioned active campaign. That’s the one we like best, but we don’t need to work with any one specific software. I like to tell people, you know, we sit down with you. If you give me a problem, we’re going to help you fix it in the best way possible. And if that means that it’s a it’s another, you know, solution, then that’s what it means. We’re going to help you get up to speed with it or it might not be software at all. It could just be that maybe we need to help you reorganize your time and the the team that you have in place in house so that we can create more content in house. There’s a lot of folks that are that have the resources. They’re just not being used properly or they’re being used in a way that everyone kind of said, Oh, this is the way you need to do it, but it’s not moving the needle. And they don’t understand why we come in and say, well, this is why.

Christine Wetzler: [00:10:17] So let’s let’s focus more on, you know, doing this instead of doing what what everyone kind of told you you should be doing instead. Because at the end of the day, all of this is supposed to sell whatever it is that you need to sell. So, you know, it should be fun and it should be entertaining and it should be fun to work on. And ultimately, that’s what we all want out of what we do every day. But at the same time, it’s supposed to sell. So you want to sell your product, you want to sell the skills of your team. You want you want to create a culture that that draws people in is compelling. You can do that with content and you can you can radiate your company culture with content, but there isn’t a silver bullet for it. You know, you do have to sit down and give some thought to what the best way to do that is. And it is different for everybody just because everybody’s different, you know, there is no out of the box way to do it.

Max Kantor: [00:11:25] Can you share a success story that’s come out of you working with a client?

Christine Wetzler: [00:11:30] Oh, absolutely. We have one right now. We’re we’re just finishing up a really successful lead generation program for a company called Secure Applications. They’re women owned business manufacturer’s representative for security packaging solutions. So when you are, you know, say, like Intel, you’re shipping a bunch of pallets of computers, you need to have, you know, RFID packaging. You need to have certain kinds of shrink wrap solutions, you know, like tape solutions and things like that on the cargo to make sure that nobody steals anything while it’s sitting in the cargo bays and things like that. This company makes that. People don’t really understand that until they need it or it’s mandated by somebody to have. So they have an audience that is educated after the fact, which is really tough because they don’t know what they don’t know. So we came in and created a new website, created some content. We’ve been able to create a little bit of content on social media to help to help create some forward education, like why you would need this, how simple it is to enact where the point in the process is to start thinking about, you know, implementing some of these security measures and and why it’s important.

Christine Wetzler: [00:13:06] And then and then also just case studies talking about when other people do it so that, you know, people aren’t thinking about it when they’ve been told, hey, it’s a regulation, you have to have this kind of label on your palate before we can store it. We want them thinking about it before that. And so we’ve been able to basically overhaul their entire lead system. And they’ve not only gotten more leads, but very high level leads out of it. So we’re very pleased with the results of that program. Um, and as we roll out their new website, I’m, I’m expecting it to be even better the lead quality once that that happens. So you know and that kind of thing really wasn’t unattainable. It wasn’t something that costs an arm and a leg. It just was just a tweak. It was a couple tweaks and a re shifting of how we talked and how we communicated with people online.

Max Kantor: [00:14:12] So, Christine, that story is a perfect kind of transition into my last question for you. This is a question I ask every guest that comes on Chicago Business Radio for you. What would you say is the most rewarding part of what you get to do?

Christine Wetzler: [00:14:28] Oh, that for sure. I mean, that business. Like I said, Gina, the owners woman-owned business, I know that it had the capacity and the opportunity to help a lot of people, you know, protect their assets. Um, you know, she works with people in a way that’s very similar to us, very principled, very, very nice and welcoming. You know, she’s the kind of person when somebody calls her and they say, what can I do? She’ll stay on the phone with you forever and tell you what all the different ways you can do things and and find the least expensive and the easiest way for you to do it. And so helping her improve the quality of the leads she was getting, helping her expand her business, she got to the point where she could hire a salesperson. That was amazing. Just feeling like that was something that we had a hand in helping with was, I mean, I can’t even describe that. That’s just such a good feeling. And so, yeah, I mean, I think we have we have it’s different with every client, but we have a moment like that with almost all of our clients where, you know, there’s there’s opportunity to be had. And we finally get to that point where they’re realizing it and it’s just a nice little celebration point. And it’s it’s fun. That’s that’s what makes us worth worth all the hard work every day.

Max Kantor: [00:15:56] Now, if someone wants to work with you guys or learn more about all the services that you provide, what’s a good website or maybe social media where they can do that.

Christine Wetzler: [00:16:06] Mhm. Well, um, this is how we used to spell our name when we were little kids. It’s pi. Try a pr.com. So that’s petrilla.com is our website. Everything’s on there. You can also just email me directly. Um, I usually answer everything directly. It’s Christine at petrilla pr.com. And again that’s just pi try la pr.com and then you can also call us at (312) 612-0283.

Max Kantor: [00:16:41] Awesome. Well Christine, it was such a pleasure talking with you today. I mean, hearing you share all your stories, you’re so passionate about what you’re doing. And it was just a pleasure to learn more about your business and everything you guys are doing for the community. We appreciate you.

Christine Wetzler: [00:16:54] Oh, thank you. I appreciate you asking all these questions. It was lovely to share some.

Max Kantor: [00:17:00] Of it, of course. Well, thanks to you for listening to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kanter, and we’ll see you next time.

Intro: [00:17:11] This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com.

Tagged With: Christine Wetzler, Pietryla PR & Marketing

Stephanie Wilson-Coleman with The Champagne Connection

March 2, 2023 by angishields

St. Louis Business Radio
St. Louis Business Radio
Stephanie Wilson-Coleman with The Champagne Connection
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Stephanie-Wilson-ColmanFeatured in UpJourney Online Magazine, Authority Magazine, The Crusader, N’digo Magazine, MetaMonthly Magazine, Dr. Stephanie E. Wilson-Coleman is a Holistic Life Coach turned Executive Coach, author of 4 books, host of the popular podcast, A Sip of Inspiration, and Founder and CEO of The Champagne Connection.

Dr. Stephanie has an Executive M.B.A from the University of Chicago Booth, Ph.D. in Holistic Life Counseling, and a Behavioral Finance Certification from Duke University.

Her story is filled with conflict, villains, roadblocks, moral dilemmas, and spiritual awakenings. The Empowerment Doctor is a teenage mother, a survivor of sexual molestation, gang rape, homelessness, and a basal skull fracture.

Dr. Stephanie has the uncanny ability to help others transform obstacles into stepping stones to living their dreams. She has an insatiable appetite for helping others rethink the impossible. Her superpower: Transforming Lives. Teeth-rattling, soul-shaking experiences vaporize at her command.

Let Stephanie help you find the winning strategy in the cards life has dealt.

As she always says “Life is too short to drink cheap champagne. Trust Your Greatness, Embrace Your Power”.

Connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Saint Louis, Missouri. It’s time for Saint Louis Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Phillip Hearn: [00:00:18] Hello, good people, and welcome to Doc’s discussions here on Saint Louis Business RadioX. I am so excited about our guest today. Too many accolades to name. I will probably miss some. I don’t want to offend this fantastic human being, so I’m just going to get right into the introduction of Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman. Dr. Wilson- Coleman. How are you?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:00:40] I am doing absolutely fantastic and no worries, because I am not easily offended. Okay. Okay, good, good.

Phillip Hearn: [00:00:49] Well, then you’re on the right show. Yeah. I’m gonna try not to offend you, but I’m glad to know that I’ve got a little leeway. So this is. Yeah, you got some leeway. I appreciate having you here today. Like I said, I’ve been looking forward to this interview for a while. You were nice enough to. To have me on your show. A sip of inspiration, which we’ll dive into here later in our show. But I’m definitely excited to see you again and connect with you again. It’s a good spirit. It’s a good energy. So I’m looking forward to this.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:01:15] Okay. I am too.

Phillip Hearn: [00:01:16] Awesome. So I’ve had a chance to read through your story and being very lucky to do so and come away with the feeling that you are a survivor. You’re a fighter in your life. Your story is extremely inspirational. Can you tell us and my viewers more about your past, where you come from? How do we get to the the Dr. Wilson Coleman that we have today? I know you’ve you’ve overcome a few things, to say the least.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:01:42] Oh, yeah, to say the least. As a matter of fact, I used to say that any day I did not consider suicide was a good day. So that’s how I managed to decide whether it was a good day or not. I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. Everything you’ve heard about it is probably true. And then started planning My Escape from Little Rock when I was like 14. I was a teen mom, pregnant at 14, had my child at 15, and it wasn’t pleasant in a small town like Little Rock, Arkansas. So you lost all your friends. You lost supposedly. You supposed to lose all hope. But hope has been the one thing that I have leaned on. So luckily, I didn’t lose hope. So I graduated at the top of my class, graduated from college early, and not because I was trying to prove anything, but because I was constantly told that I was going to have to take care of myself. No one’s going to take care of someone that has a baby already. So I knew I had to get busy. So I graduated college, then eventually got married and moved to Florida, and that seemed like a happy ending. But it was at the end of the marriage where I ended up homeless. Okay, I suffered a basal skull fracture. And that’s where you rattle the brain stem. And 96% of the people at that time did not recover from basal skull fractures. So I tell people when you want to, the one good thing that happened to me was that near-death experience, because they told me I was going to die.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:03:18] And what I have learned is when people tell you you’re going to die, you get real clear about what you want to do. So all of those people that you’re afraid to let go of that are dragging you down, Trust me, somebody tells you you’re going to die. You are not afraid of that anymore. Everybody has to go. And you learn that. You don’t even have to explain why they have to go. You just stop calling them or answering their calls. I usually joke that God created call waiting for that purpose. So when the negative people called you see who’s calling. You don’t have to answer the call. There’s nothing that says you have to answer the call. So fast forward. Um, I ended up my son graduated from Jackson State University. Um, so that was a success. And I went further in the education, now in the homelessness part and then being told you’re going to die too, you know, you’ve got to get busy that So that’s the quickest way to get rid of people who are dragging you down. You do have to learn what. What your purpose is. Why did you get here? So you learned. I learned the hard way to ask the right questions. You know not why is this happening to me? Because that’s a question that no one can answer. Okay. But the question is, what do I do next? What have I learned? Those are questions that you can answer.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:04:45] So what did I learn? So I learned that you can’t spend all of your money. Okay? Because with the divorce, you know, we were we were two incomes and he was making great money. And then when he left, he took all the money out of the bank and stole the money from the sale of the house. So I didn’t have any place to stay. I mean, all of that. So I learned you can’t spend all of your money. And that’s that was a harsh way to learn it. But I also learned that for me to move forward, I needed what I call the cosmic two by four. Okay? So so don’t seem to get moving when it’s a friendly reminder, right? Yeah, Right. So I wasn’t that person. So, so. So I had to get near death before said oh okay. That’s what you were trying to tell me. Universal. Yeah, but I’m listening now. So I started to journal and my first book was, Is anybody listening? Okay. And I journaled about the, the experiences I had, the different experiences and the spiritual awakenings because there will be a spiritual awakening. People don’t always call it that, but you know, not to offend anyone. There will be a spiritual awakening because you will you will find out that you’re not doing it by yourself, that there’s something greater than you in this universe that will help you through those things. If you trust it, there’s something that will let you know what the next step is if you listen. So you’ve got to learn how to listen, and you’ve got to learn how to trust.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:06:26] So that’s what I found out in the book. It wasn’t that people weren’t listening to me. That’s what I thought. People were not listening to me. I wasn’t listening to the universal presence. I wasn’t listening and looking at the signs that were all around me that this thing that I was living called a life was going to, like burn up. Okay? I was going to crash and burn. I wasn’t listening to it. So when I started to listen to it, I promised God. I said, okay. You get me out of this, I will never be back here again. Okay? I promise you that I will never be back again. So I started by literally, what can I do now with what I have? And that is probably the most important thing anyone listening can do. What can you do right now with what you have? And if you don’t have anything, there’s a whole lot you can do. You can get out a piece of paper. You can start writing down what you’re grateful for, because if you are on this side of the ground, you can make some changes. So even be grateful for that. Okay? You need to do some forgiveness too. So I had to let go some of that residue that I was carrying around about people who did me wrong. So I generally talk about our they did me wrong stories. Everybody got it. They did me wrong story. Okay, everybody all right?

Speaker4: [00:08:00] Of course. Yeah.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:08:01] You got to let them go. Okay. Okay. Figure out what you learned. Figure out what you could have possibly done different if it happens now. And don’t beat yourself up for for where you are now, because that’s like driving your car in a rearview mirror. You can’t change that back there. That happened. Just write down what you learned. Write down what you now know never to do again. Okay? Okay. And those then become like your values and your morals and don’t ever break them. Okay, So for instance, I had to figure out money, so I figured out money. So there’s some type. I don’t care what’s happening. I tied. And the thing about tithing is people get caught up on the 10%. They don’t have it. So if you’ve got 1% tithe 1%, right. Okay. It’s the actual action. That changes the thought process. It’s not the amount of money. It’s not the percentage. It’s the action that you need to take to get where you need to go and forgive yourself because we can forgive other people easily. Yeah, but forgive yourself and take full responsibility. So I did. So I took a job. I actually took a job in another state. And then they told me they couldn’t pay me after a week. So I was homeless again. So I said, okay, God, now there is some place you want me to be and I’m just not there. Where is that place? Right. Right. And in an hour or so later, after that prayer, my aunt from Chicago called and said, You know, if you can get her, you can stay with me. Now, fast, you know, let’s go backwards a little bit, because I visited her some years before all that happened to me and I was on the beach and the little voice said, you need to move to Chicago. I lived in Florida and I said, It’s too cold in Chicago. I’m not going.

Phillip Hearn: [00:10:08] But it is too cold. I mean, let’s just be honest with the listeners. It is a little too cold. But no, keep going. Right.

Speaker4: [00:10:14] Still cold. It’s still cold.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:10:16] I’m used to 80, 90, 120 degree. Take 120. But I can take 27. Okay. Yes. And the message said no, you’re going to Chicago.

Speaker4: [00:10:26] I’m not going to Chicago.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:10:28] So fast forward, everything fell apart for me in Florida, and this universal presence got me where I needed to be, which was in Chicago. Okay. I took a job where they asked me what I needed to make. Okay. And okay. And it was it was a gaming company. So they asked me if I could work at home or if I wanted to work in the office. And things just started going. My career reached its height. Employer paid for my master’s degree, my MBA from the University of Chicago. Didn’t have to pay for it. So this is where I was supposed to be to do the work that I needed to do. And I got here and it was nearly magical. Now, not say didn’t have to work, you know, I applied for everything. I still had to study. I still had to do the work. But the finances, I paid off $65,000 in debt and no time. I started to tithe ten, 15%. I was able to put money in savings, all of that because the universe got me where they wanted me to be, to do the work that the universe wanted me to do for it. We forget sometimes that we didn’t come here just to live out our fans, our fantasies and do what we want to do. We were created by a higher being and we will do what that higher being needs us to do. And you will go kicking or screaming. But I recommend that you go peacefully.

Speaker4: [00:12:05] Because I’ve done it kicking and screaming part.

Phillip Hearn: [00:12:07] Yeah, yeah. The kicking and screaming that that’s the truest statement of it all. And you definitely dropped some knowledge for us with that too. So I want to tap a little bit into that timeframe of Chicago. Right? So part of your background, an executive MBA, a PhD in holistic life counseling. Take us through what those processes, you know, and and those achievements, right? So a life of achievement. But those particular achievements, especially in that timeline, what did that do for you? I mean, that that’s part of your overcoming roadblocks and conflicts of the past. That sounds like a crossroad point. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:12:48] So it was a crossroad point and it was something that I’d always wanted to do younger. I always wanted to go to an Ivy League school. I don’t know why I had the GPA. I had the intelligence, as they said. But, you know, back then I was pregnant, had a baby, and that.

Speaker4: [00:13:06] Just wasn’t happening. Right, Right.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:13:08] So when I got here, I had a great job at a gaming company. They were eventually bought out by Microsoft and moved to Seattle. Well, you know, I just got to Chicago. It’s cold. I’m still missing 100 degree weather.

Speaker4: [00:13:23] I am not going to Seattle. Right. And when I even got.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:13:27] That job, this is a cute thing, is when took that when I was looking for work says God, you know.

Speaker4: [00:13:32] Everything is far around here. I can’t drive 20 minutes. I am not getting on a train to go to work and this job.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:13:39] So I turned down jobs because they didn’t meet my requirements. This job was 20 minutes from work.

Speaker4: [00:13:48] Free parking. I can pick my hours, okay? And they pay me what I wanted to pay so was really clear. So then the universe. Yeah. So then when they went says, God, you know, I’m not going to rainy, dark weather, I’m, I’m still missing that.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:14:05] So I took a they gave me a buyout.

Speaker4: [00:14:09] And my 401. My 401.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:14:12] Was fantastic that I.

Speaker4: [00:14:15] Didn’t even have to contribute.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:14:16] To Microsoft. Was that good of an employer. So he took all that with me and then had a friend that worked for a temp agency and says, Go over here and apply for me. Right? I went over there. I didn’t like it, didn’t like the people. They didn’t.

Speaker4: [00:14:29] Like me. I went home. Right. But then they called back and said.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:14:35] We want you to to we want to interview you. We want you to interview for this position. So would you apply for it? So I said, okay. And and then they offered it to me. So I gave them this a ridiculous salary and they said okay. I said.

Speaker4: [00:14:51] Oh, oh.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:14:53] Okay. But it was temporary, no problem. And then a permanent position came up and they the HR called and said, You didn’t apply for this. I hadn’t planned on applying, but I applied. Right? Yeah. So I applied. I got the salary I wanted and then I got bored after a couple of years and my boss said, Why don’t you go to look at one of the graduate schools? You know, you’re really good at that.

Speaker4: [00:15:18] You could you would really do well with an MBA. Look at one of the top graduate schools.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:15:23] So in Chicago, that would be University of Chicago and Northwestern applied.

Speaker4: [00:15:28] Got involved too, but.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:15:30] University of Chicago was closer to the office and closer to where I live. So says, I’m gonna take that. Okay, I’ll take that back.

Speaker4: [00:15:37] I have not.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:15:37] Never I have never worked so hard in my life.

Speaker4: [00:15:40] And I came out of that.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:15:42] I came out of the University of Chicago experience saying I used to think I was really smart because they always said I had a great IQ. But when your first week of classes are with all of the Nobel Prize winners, you realize.

Speaker4: [00:15:55] Just how smart you’re not.

Phillip Hearn: [00:15:57] Okay, so you’re saying you just got to bump up your standard just a little bit? Oh, yeah, just.

Speaker4: [00:16:01] Just a little bit. Okay. So I ended up working.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:16:04] Still full time. And then my process was they give you all of your books before the class. So I would read everything before that semester even started temp the homework. And then we had we worked in groups. It was it was tough. But the great thing is we did intern, we did a ten day intern in Singapore and to, to study financial instruments and to actually study the the, the system where how we move goods and services throughout the world because they have one of the best trucking industries and over there to move goods. So we studied that and financial instruments and then went to Barcelona. So that was a matter of understanding that the gift was given. The work was hard. I still had to work. I still had to do that. I learned more quicker than I ever thought. And my staff, though, because I use them as my guinea pig. So as I would learn new concepts, I take that back to work.

Speaker4: [00:17:03] This is what we’re going to do, this is how we’re going to run this.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:17:07] So my staff would say.

Speaker4: [00:17:08] We’re going to tell you, you can’t go to any more classes and you can’t go to any more conferences because you work us to death. But as a result of it.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:17:18] I was able to share that knowledge with people who worked for me, and it even inspired some of them to go back and get more education and start start living their dreams too. So because I obviously have proven that.

Speaker4: [00:17:33] If you can make it when the people tell you you’re going to die, okay, I think everybody needs a near-death experience because all them people y’all say y’all going to stop talking to and y’all going to leave alone. Y’all have a hard time, but let somebody tell you you’re going to die, okay? Right. Right. It’s the easiest thing to do. So it helped them with knowing.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:17:53] That they could do more, too, that it’s never too late to do more. So the staffs.

Speaker4: [00:17:58] I’ve always had.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:17:58] Have I’ve always encouraged them to do their best at work and make sure they’re sharing all of their ideas and to make sure that if we have to rearrange some schedules or something so that they too can get some additional education so that they can start to live their dreams to see what they actually can do. We don’t trust ourselves enough to step out there, but hopefully and some of them say to this day, I gave them I gave them the the the strength. And I was so confident in that they could do it. And then they’d come back to work and we’d talk about what they talked about, what they learned, and we talk about how we could use that in our actual environment at work. And as a result, all out of I always had the highest scores of team excellence of happy people because they allowed them, I, I allowed them to grow. I insisted that they grow, that they didn’t stay where they were because I don’t think that that’s what the universal presence wants from us. It wants us to change. It wants us to make mistakes. It wants us to learn more about ourselves. Yeah. So then I realized not using money, right, was my problem. So I started coaching people about how to find out what their real beliefs are. See, when you look into your money.

Speaker4: [00:19:26] You know what you believe. Okay?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:19:29] You just.

Speaker4: [00:19:30] Know how.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:19:31] Do you spend your money? So we break it out in categories. So did you spend money on your your own development, your own self development? And usually people don’t. You’ll be surprised how smart that how small that budget is. But they spent money getting people out of debt, lending money they’re never going to get.

Speaker4: [00:19:48] Back eating out.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:19:49] We do so much eating out and then we wonder where our health is bad. So once we can get those categories together and have you look over at 420 days, you can see for yourself. What you believe and.

Speaker4: [00:20:04] What you think.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:20:04] And then I work with you to.

Speaker4: [00:20:06] Actually change.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:20:07] That, but did get to a point in life where I needed to know more about not just the mechanics of how people handled money, but how they thought about it, which is why I went back to do the holistic life coaching degree so that way I could tap into what you’re thinking about, what you’re thinking about spiritually or and some people don’t think they have a spiritual belief, but any beliefs you have generally will go back, would go back to what you believe spiritually. So I could identify any lack of consciousness so we could work on things that would help them start to understand that they too could create an abundance starting right where they are.

Phillip Hearn: [00:20:49] I love it. I love it. There’s not a lot of people that I’ve been lucky enough to come across where even as you’re reading their bio, the words literally jump off the page, right? So as I was reading through your stuff and preparing for today. I got excited, even more excited. So of course I know you then get a chance to read your bio. And then I’m like, okay, I got ten other questions. I’m going to ask an assumptive question. Okay. How have you been able to make peace with your past? So this will be one of the last things I asked, looking back as we now will dig into moving forward. But I think it’s an important question because you tapped into a couple of things early in the conversation of being able to get away from kind of the excess and the mess of life. Right? That’s probably the easiest way to put it. But you just strike me as someone who’s been able to understand the lessons of the past. Right? You talked about that, but also to a point, make some peace with it. So I’m assuming that. But how have you been able to make peace with your past?

Speaker4: [00:21:51] Well, the first thing is.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:21:53] If you take a.

Speaker4: [00:21:55] Real good look at.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:21:57] What you’ve been able to experience where you are now, how you got there.

Speaker4: [00:22:02] Then you look at the path that it took.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:22:05] Understanding that everybody’s path is different and you can’t believe everything you hear and say on social media now. Okay. Because they are skipping over a whole lot of stuff to get to where they are. And everyone defines success and how they how they have actually accomplished things differently. So. Right. One of the things that held me up for a long time is I was a victim of sexual molestation and I was raped 23 times. And I know because I counted them. So what I did was it looks like you’re frozen. Okay. We’re still recording. So so as I was saying. I was a victim of sexual molestation.

Phillip Hearn: [00:23:04] So. Dr. Wilson Coleman and again, I’m going to ask an assumptive question here. As I’ve read through your bio, like I said, your energy, your the works that you’ve done, the achievements that you’ve had in your life, just bounce off the page. There’s not a lot of people that I’ve been lucky enough to kind of follow and dig into that. I feel that way about where I read it and I get excited by reading your stuff right. So I’m going to ask the assumptive question and tell me if it is or and also tell me your thoughts. But how have you been able to make peace with your past? There’s so many layers to who you are as a person. There’s for every it seems like if you said universal push, right, you kind of put it out into the ether. There’s been some equal and opposite reactions that have almost led you to those pushes, but you just seem to have and carry yourself with a really good energy and a peace. How have you been able to make peace with your past?

Speaker4: [00:24:00] Well, one of the most.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:24:01] Important things I had to do and this was some important work for me, is growing up, I was sexually molested and raped 23 times. I know, because I counted them. Okay. I had to. Okay. So how I made I had to make peace with that.

Speaker4: [00:24:19] So. I understand.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:24:22] I understood that we’re all here for a reason and we’re all here to do things. And some of some people have a really good ride and some people don’t. And that’s just the luck of the draw. It’s not personal. That’s just, hey, somehow.

Speaker4: [00:24:37] Maybe in multiple lifetimes before needed to atone for something. Who knows? Right.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:24:43] So I wrote all of those instances down and then did what I call a burning bowl. So I took a pot. Okay.

Speaker4: [00:24:53] I actually use a cauldron now, so.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:24:55] And I wrote them down. I wrote how I felt, and I put them in there and I burned them up. Okay. Okay. And then I took the. And I love the water. I love water and mountains. So the one good thing about moving to Chicago is at least I got to keep the water.

Speaker4: [00:25:12] Right, So. So I took them to.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:25:16] Lake Michigan and I released it. Okay. Okay. I just released it. I released it to whatever it it was I was supposed to learn. I’ve now learned. So this experience would not be repeated. So the one thing that I did learn from that is. When you are a caretaker in any situation, children when you’re supervisor or you’re working with other people, you have to make sure that you are giving them what they need.

Speaker4: [00:25:51] So that they can.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:25:51] Be their best self and not to take away anything to make them feel worse about anything. So I got I got that message really loud and clear. So as a result of that, I’m all I always work with people, make sure they’re trying to be their best self, help them release the things they need to release, step into their goodness and their greatness. And you can only focus on one.

Speaker4: [00:26:17] Thing at a time.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:26:18] To So gratitude list a very important. So if any of that other stuff starts to come up, I.

Speaker4: [00:26:26] Go to gratitude. I forgive myself.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:26:29] For reaching back into the past and trying to live there.

Speaker4: [00:26:33] But you can’t live in.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:26:34] The past, right? And and become really grateful for the fact that I know I can even do that. And the fact that that’s not happening now, there are great things happening in my life. I try to stay focused on those things, and if I have a bad.

Speaker4: [00:26:52] Day, I have a bad day. Go take a nap. Okay. That’s what I do. I go take a nap. I mean, I literally I have gone to bed. And taking a nap at 11:00 in the morning because says, you know what? You didn’t bring the best Stephanie here today, so you need a nap, child. So go take a nap. Okay.

Phillip Hearn: [00:27:13] And I’m only chuckling because I just had this conversation with some friends go There are a couple days where you just don’t bring your fastball and you go, we got to reset. We need a 20 minute nap. We need we need to just recalibrate some things. Yeah. So I’m chuckling because of that. That’s too close to home.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:27:29] You just got to recalibrate, that’s all.

Speaker4: [00:27:31] Don’t get mad about. Don’t get mad about it. It doesn’t do any good to keep talking about your They did me wrong story because guess what? You know, they’re not going to undo it. So why are you still talking about it?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:27:44] Absolutely.

Speaker4: [00:27:44] So take take a nap. Okay. If you have to kick something, kick something plastic so you don’t have to break thing. Okay? You got to punch something, punch the pillow. But do what you need to do.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:27:58] Exercise helps to get out. Get out around nature.

Speaker4: [00:28:02] And you don’t see the tree crying. And because it lost its leaves, you know, it just gets busy making new leaves. Oh, you have got to figure out what you can do.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:28:15] To reset because you can’t take that energy into next project because the next project will reflect that energy.

Phillip Hearn: [00:28:22] I love it.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:28:23] I love it. And forgive yourself.

Speaker4: [00:28:24] And if people and some people are waiting for other folk to come and say, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, that is just not happening. So I say, go to the mirror and do what I call mirror work. So everybody, when you go to pass a mirror, you look at that mirror and you say the best things possible. You can think about yourself in that mirror.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:28:44] Okay, do some mirror work. Remind yourself how wonderful you are because you’ve survived that stuff. Don’t put yourself down and say, Oh, if this hadn’t happened, because if that hadn’t.

Speaker4: [00:28:57] Happened, you wouldn’t.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:28:57] Be the you you are today.

Phillip Hearn: [00:29:00] Absolutely love that. The two big pieces, that first piece about grace, right. When we’re talking about ourselves personally, professionally, especially, we don’t seem to give ourselves grace. Right. Right. It’s the old motto, and I’ve talked to you about it. When I was on your show, my grandmother used to say, You do the best you can with what you have at that point in time. Nobody’s telling you to be perfect. Nobody’s telling you to have all the answers. But giving yourself some grace I think is extremely big. And also the mindset piece. So I just heard an old Simon Sinek talk, right?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:29:33] I love Simon Sinek, right.

Phillip Hearn: [00:29:35] And he goes, It’s very difficult for people to actually think the negative. He goes, Watch this. He goes, I’m going to say something to you. Let’s see if it works. He goes, Don’t think about an elephant. He goes, Congratulations. You just thought about an elephant. I’m telling you, don’t do it. But you’re thinking about it, right? So it’s all that mindset of if you’re if you’re putting positive ideas and thoughts out there, you’re usually going to get them back. And again, you’re living proof. So my, my, my listeners and viewers don’t have to hear me. They can just listen to Dr. Wilson Coleman because you cut all the you know, you’re the white paper in this whole thing, right? Like we can see the actual result here. So that’s but I love it. I absolutely love that. So I want to dive into something a little more fun. Currently what you’re doing. So tell me more about how the Champagne connection and your show a sip of inspiration. So you got a bunch of things going on. But these two things again, I was again lucky enough to be a guest on your show, dug into the Champagne connection. Tell our listeners, how did these two ideas and projects come about and how have you gotten to gotten both to where they are today?

Speaker4: [00:30:48] So I believe that.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:30:50] Life is too short for you not to have or experience anything you want to experience. We get an average of what, about 77, maybe 80 years in good.

Speaker4: [00:31:02] Health, and.

Phillip Hearn: [00:31:03] That’s usually women. The guys only get to about 70 because we dump stuff. So between now and then.

Speaker4: [00:31:08] Right. So life is.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:31:09] Just too short not to have what it is you have. So hence the champagne connection, champagne standing for experiencing and having all of the good things that you actually want in your life come true. But the problem is, is we spend a lot of time thinking about what we don’t want or what or did they did me wrong story. So we don’t spend any time thinking about what is it we want to experience Now, Steve Harvey has a thing going through, I think TikTok now about sit down and write 300 things that you want. And the genius in that is once you start writing, you realize you don’t want 300.

Speaker4: [00:31:47] Things, right?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:31:48] You realize that there’s just really about 10 or 15.

Speaker4: [00:31:53] Things that you really want in your.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:31:54] Life.

Speaker4: [00:31:55] And we we do that a lot.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:31:57] To help you find your purpose. As everyone says. So there’s, there’s a bunch of tests you can take for that. So once we identify that, then we literally set up a steps and plans for you to take to start.

Speaker4: [00:32:10] To live.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:32:11] Your life, to start to have that champagne life as the song says. So it’s and it there are easy steps. People are awfully, awfully surprised if you can stop.

Speaker4: [00:32:22] Feeling bad about.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:32:23] What happened and forgive yourself if you can.

Speaker4: [00:32:26] Stop just hating all the folk and forgive them. You just freed up a whole bunch of time, right? Right. Well, you can work on your stuff.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:32:35] So people don’t work on their stuff. So help them work on their stuff, create fun ways and games for them to get there. As a matter of fact, I created a your top values game that people love to this day because it’s more than people say, Well, what are your top values?

Speaker4: [00:32:50] No, we got a game for that. Okay? Then you end up with with these values and you say, Oh my God, that’s right. That’s me. That’s what I do. So now how do we use.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:32:59] Them and then help people go through their go through the day where doing your day, you do 1 or 2 things just for you toward your dreams. Okay? And you will be surprised if you can start little how big that is. So and then a sip of inspiration started because people used to say, you got to share this stuff because you do a whole bunch of stuff, right?

Speaker4: [00:33:23] You just got to do a whole bunch of stuff into the platform. So I started as a cable access.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:33:28] Television show locally and would do things, and that was fun. I love TV, so that was fun. And we would have guests on because I’m not the only person in the world that’s overcome stuff. There are a lot of people like me, okay, and think that you need to be introduced to those people. It’s not just me. We all use different techniques and I like to talk about the different techniques so people can see that it’s not one, 1 or 10 things that you do. It’s millions of things that people. Do that will get you to the same place. It’s just.

Speaker4: [00:34:01] What can you do now? Not what Stephanie.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:34:05] Can do.

Speaker4: [00:34:05] Now. What can you do now?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:34:07] And maybe what you can do now is. As I always say, is look at how you spend in your money and determine.

Speaker4: [00:34:16] Those feelings that went with that dress you bought that you don’t have any place to wear it to. Okay. That’s what we really need to talk about. Okay. So maybe that’s where we can start. So those are some of the things that I do. So.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:34:30] Okay, so.

Speaker4: [00:34:32] What’s the experience with the two days, the two time of day Starbucks? What’s the experience? Okay. You’re trying to save money, so but what are you getting out of the experience.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:34:44] Of buying the dress, of spending too much money on coffee or eating.

Speaker4: [00:34:48] Out every day.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:34:48] When you can cook something? What is the experience? What’s the.

Speaker4: [00:34:51] Emotional payoff?

Phillip Hearn: [00:34:54] Let’s see. That part right there, I think is the most powerful piece of it, right? You’re doing something in the moment and you’re not thinking of even the emotional payoff that that is. I love that. Okay. Okay.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:35:07] And so when when they find out what.

Speaker4: [00:35:10] The emotional payoffs are, then we talk about other ways that you can actually get the same emotional good feel. But you’re not breaking the bank.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:35:22] You’re saving money.

Speaker4: [00:35:23] You’re you are putting money toward.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:35:25] Your kid’s college or toward that vacation you want to take or you’re working to be debt free. So then we can find ways for you to do that, to get emotional payoffs. So I’m asking people to pay attention to that in everyday things that they do.

Phillip Hearn: [00:35:41] That’s awesome. That’s fantastic.

Speaker4: [00:35:43] How how do you feel when you do that? Yeah. How do you feel?

Phillip Hearn: [00:35:48] And like you said, if it goes back just to the mindset piece of it, right? Understand the mindset and the why behind it. I always say that if we’re doing it right, we all should sound like five year olds. Why? Why are we doing this? Right. As is happening? Why is this the response I’m giving or getting? Right. Right. So just simplifying the process in terms of the why behind it opens up a lot more of of the of potentially the better mindset of where you’re trying to get to. Right. I love it, actually. Love it. So again, you’ve got champagne connection. You’ve got sip of inspiration. I mean, we are talking to a doctor, so I’m not surprised. Right. Of how this all speeds up. But you’ve also just written your fifth book, correct?

Speaker4: [00:36:30] Yes, my fifth book.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:36:32] Yes. Yes. For parents and their children. So. Right. Self esteem your superpower ways parents can improve children’s self-esteem. And I wrote it. It’s only like 41 pages. It’s really simple. It includes really.

Speaker4: [00:36:47] Easy to use techniques because I believe if.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:36:51] The techniques aren’t easy to use, people are not going to use them. Okay. That’s that’s anything change in your life? You know, something sound really, really daunting when you talk to some professionals, but if we keep it simple, so first you’re going to pay attention to things that your children do and talk about that in the book. One of the things is conversations. We don’t talk to our kids about conversations because we don’t think we have anything to talk about. So we ask the question, How was your day? How was school? So you get that one word answer. It’s like, okay. It was good. Okay.

Speaker4: [00:37:29] That’s what you get.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:37:30] So I am quite the Enquirer now. So, you know.

Speaker4: [00:37:35] I’ve done a little.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:37:36] Research, so I would say things like, okay, do my kids like to pick them up? What’s your favorite thing to.

Speaker4: [00:37:44] Do when you’re riding in the car?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:37:46] You know, so my son would say, what was his favorite thing to do was? I’d say, well, why?

Speaker4: [00:37:51] How did you come up with that?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:37:53] And that’s a whole conversation.

Speaker4: [00:37:54] So now we’re talking.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:37:55] About stuff.

Speaker4: [00:37:57] That started off with what does he like to do in the car to everything else and.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:38:01] Just keep the.

Speaker4: [00:38:02] Conversation going? Okay.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:38:04] Right. And sometimes I just ask.

Speaker4: [00:38:06] Stupid questions, right? Like.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:38:08] Okay, we’re going to the grocery store.

Speaker4: [00:38:10] If you could buy the groceries, what would we buy? What would you buy and what would we be eating tonight for dinner? Okay. And then with my kid, we would actually buy that and then we would actually would actually.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:38:22] Go home.

Speaker4: [00:38:23] And we would.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:38:24] Fix that. And that would be.

Speaker4: [00:38:25] What we would eat. Yeah. Okay, so you’re engaging them all the time.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:38:31] So. And I like I can deal more with emotions better with emotions than I can with words because when you ask them how their, you know, their words, people don’t mean the same thing when they say the same word. But emotions are really telling. So I can ask, well, you know, he played sports and remember, he loved he loved baseball. That was number one. And and football was number two. But there was this thing about basketball.

Speaker4: [00:39:04] And everybody was playing basketball. So I said, how does it feel when you play basketball? And he said, All that running up and down the court just with two points makes no sense to me. So we talked about the feeling. How do you feel? He told me what the problem was.

Phillip Hearn: [00:39:25] Yeah, yeah, he sure.

Speaker4: [00:39:27] Did. So it’s like, okay, well, okay, so I’m gonna stop. I’m gonna stop pushing you about basketball now. So. So where are we going to stick to?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:39:36] He says baseball.

Speaker4: [00:39:37] He says it is just.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:39:40] Baseball is just more satisfying.

Speaker4: [00:39:43] You either did your part or you didn’t do your part. And you know, right away.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:39:48] Says, okay, baseball it is it. Wow. So you’ve just got to figure out. And so in the book, the self-esteem thing book, talk about that. I talk about setting aside some playtime with your kids and play with them. Sit in the floor if that’s what they need to do, sit in the floor when they come home from school or whenever they come in the door. You’ve got to be excited. You’ve got to be just don’t say.

Speaker4: [00:40:11] How was your.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:40:12] Day? I used to say, Oh my God, I’m so glad.

Speaker4: [00:40:15] To see you. Look at.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:40:17] You.

Speaker4: [00:40:17] And just compliment them about things. And then what.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:40:21] Happens is they’re excited to see.

Speaker4: [00:40:24] You. They’re excited to be home with you because.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:40:28] You’re excited about them.

Speaker4: [00:40:29] And then if they have.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:40:31] Problems in school, just found ways to help them to do that, you know? So we would read together. So like I’d get books that were just outside anything they was reading at school. Some of them are my own. When I had my stepdaughter, I used to.

Speaker4: [00:40:50] Tell her, You can’t tell your teacher we read this book, but she she read a lot. So we would read the books.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:40:55] We would talk about them and they would be mysteries or horror stories or serial.

Speaker4: [00:41:00] Killers. But we talk about it. The books, it would be totally off. And then I would buy.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:41:05] Magazines and leave them in the living room and on the table.

Speaker4: [00:41:10] Of their favorite things. So I.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:41:11] Would take.

Speaker4: [00:41:12] Subscriptions and then, yeah, I would. And then in the mornings at breakfast, they’d all.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:41:18] Have they both have to get a magazine and we would each read something to each other from our magazine.

Speaker4: [00:41:23] It’s like, love it. You just have to be creative. And when you’re doing stuff like that, it would be one it. They just love coming home. So if they had a bad day, they were the first one to tell me what happened.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:41:36] You know, this.

Speaker4: [00:41:37] Is what happened and this is what that did and this is what they did. And I know I wasn’t supposed to do this part, but this is how I felt about it. And then we would replay the situation. So talk to your kids, but play games with them, too.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:41:51] So. And color. Nobody likes to color anymore color.

Speaker4: [00:41:55] Go to the dollar tree. Those things are a buck 25. Yeah. Color with them. And once you do that, they’re learning more. Then they will begin to tell you the real things about.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:42:07] What’s going on. So-and-so hit me.

Speaker4: [00:42:11] Or they said.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:42:12] This or.

Speaker4: [00:42:13] The teacher didn’t do this. And then you can help them with ways to handle that.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:42:18] And then of course, you marched right up to the school and talk to the teachers and the principals too. But you don’t take that.

Speaker4: [00:42:24] Combative attitude with you because nobody wants to work with you.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:42:29] Right. If you are combat combative, try to see all sides of the story. And true enough, somebody is probably more wrong than the other. But go with. Go with that sense that everybody in this room is important and at the end of the day, want everyone to have learned what they need to know so that tomorrow they’re we’re all better people.

Phillip Hearn: [00:42:55] I absolutely love this. The funny part, as you’re telling the story of the book, it almost sounds like we could be using this as adults, right? Somebody walks into the room you haven’t seen in a while. Just just a nice welcoming energy smile, you know? And again, it’s just that relation piece because it almost is the version for the parents of how to win friends and influence people. You remember that, right? Dale Carnegie. Right. That kind of vibe of if I give you the safe spaces to feel like you can interact with me openly, you’re going to want to tell me stuff, right? People like to talk about themselves, even kids. So that’s. That’s so good. And the writing is huge.

Speaker4: [00:43:36] Find something. Find something in everyone that you like. And if there’s nothing that you like, you don’t need to talk to those people. You all are not friends. Let them go. Okay.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:43:51] That’s the.

Speaker4: [00:43:51] Message from.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:43:51] God. But there’s something.

Speaker4: [00:43:53] That you like and focus.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:43:55] On that understanding. Everybody is having issues. Everybody is experiencing some because we’re here to grow. So everyone’s having some kind of growth pains. Everybody. Okay. So find something that you can compliment, something that you like about them and say what you mean.

Speaker4: [00:44:13] So if I say.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:44:15] I can give me a call, I’ll help you. You need to help the.

Speaker4: [00:44:19] People when they call.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:44:21] No doubt. Okay. Because that’s another part of this thing too, is if you don’t keep your word to yourself. Then who’s going to keep their word.

Speaker4: [00:44:31] With you.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:44:32] When you need something? You’ve got to. You have got to understand that. Yeah.

Phillip Hearn: [00:44:37] Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love this. This is so fun. Here’s a question for you. And this actually taps into something you mentioned earlier in our discussion. I want to know professionally and personally, and it could be knowing you, it might be one in the same, but what’s your definition of success?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:44:59] My definition of success is that you.

Speaker4: [00:45:02] Have.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:45:04] Given yourself permission. To try something. To try to do something hard. And you actually did it. Now, I didn’t say you were good at it when.

Speaker4: [00:45:16] You did it. It was successful when you did it. It’s not what I said, okay? You set out to do something. And you did it. Yeah.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:45:29] Because what you learned.

Speaker4: [00:45:31] From whatever you did.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:45:34] Is valuable.

Speaker4: [00:45:35] Even if what.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:45:36] You decided. Midway through it is. This is not the thing you really.

Speaker4: [00:45:42] Wanted to do.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:45:43] Anyway. It’s something else.

Speaker4: [00:45:45] You want to do. Those are the people that.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:45:48] I’ve just loved that because we don’t give our self enough. We don’t give ourselves a chance. It’s like we say things like, I even used to say this now my son, before he died, said he wanted me to get healthy. He gave me instructions to hike. I said, I.

Speaker4: [00:46:05] Can’t do this. I can’t do this. But one day I said, Well, you know, girl, you can get up and walk around the corner. That’s success. Yeah, that’s what you’re doing. Yeah. For me at that time. And now? Now I’m up to 40 miles a week. Okay, So people just.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:46:22] Just started. That is. That is that is so empowering. And let people see you fail. That’s empowering and let them see.

Speaker4: [00:46:32] You get up. That’s empowering to.

Phillip Hearn: [00:46:36] Yeah, I love it.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:46:37] And love yourself no matter what happens.

Phillip Hearn: [00:46:41] That sometimes can be the toughest thing for people to do on a consistent basis, right? Not in moments, not in spurts, but consistency of, like you said, the mirror technique. When we look in the mirror and I’m going to find the best things about me. That’s I like that definition and everybody in the fun part. I like asking that question to people that I know and that interests me because the answers are so different. They come to back to universal pieces, right? Giving yourself some grace, finding the true portions of who you are and continuing to kind of go again. But I love that. That’s a great that’s a fun answer for that. So you’ve got so much going on, right? And we talk so much about it. And again, it puts a big smile on my face. But how do you find your time to reset, relax and allow you to go again? What does that process look like for you? Because we always hear go, go, go from folks who are successful in their personal and especially their professional lives. What is that? Reset and relax time look like for you? What do you do?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:47:44] So I probably.

Speaker4: [00:47:46] Have more relaxed time than people think.

Phillip Hearn: [00:47:51] They always ask you, do you sleep? Let me let me ask the question I always get. Do you sleep?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:47:55] Um, I didn’t.

Speaker4: [00:47:56] Before.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:47:57] So I spent a time where I didn’t get much sleep. I was running on 3 or 4 hours of sleep and, um, and then I had a visit to the doctor who.

Speaker4: [00:48:08] Explained that my every all.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:48:10] Of my vitals were just off. Right. Just off. So I at that time, I, I read the a book. I think it was Surrender by Michael Singer. Okay. Okay. So I said, you know what? I can’t function like this. So now this is when the rubber hits the road. I either believe in a divine presence that’s going to help me through. I don’t. Okay, this rate, I’m going to burn out, right? So I sleep now. I, I, I go to bed. Okay, So.

Speaker4: [00:48:41] So everything is all about 1030. Okay? I go to bed and get under the cover. Go to bed. Okay. Right in pajamas. Go to bed. Right. Nothing’s on. Everything’s off. And. And don’t have an emergency because I’m not going to go see you till the morning. All right? Right. And then. And then I get up in.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:49:04] The morning and have about an hour and a half, or I spend with myself, which is prayer time. And then I do affirmations and I go over gratitude list and I do all of that. That’s an hour and a half. I don’t allow it to be interrupted. Um, so then I start my day with this the world, and then I get anywhere from 3 to 6 miles in a day during the daytime. So I find that once I started to get some rest, I wake up in the morning energized, right? And then after, after I do my my prayer time, even in while I have that time and I do that.

Speaker4: [00:49:40] Meditation.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:49:41] Time, answers to stuff come. So when I start work, answers are there already. So yeah. So I find that I, I can do more, it seems with less time because I’m rested and, and that was a big thing for me to get rested and to just use the meditation time. So it sounds like it’s all work. Uh, luckily I always say I can do it. I can do a normal amount of work in a short period of time, but that’s not me. That comes from being rested and being focused because when you’re focused, you’d be surprised what you can get done.

Phillip Hearn: [00:50:22] Yeah, yeah. Proper preparation almost, basically. Right?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:50:26] It is.

Speaker4: [00:50:27] And then but then have then I do have some.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:50:29] Things like at the end.

Speaker4: [00:50:30] Of the day.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:50:31] I will go through my to do list what I accomplished, what I didn’t accomplish, I set tomorrow up to that’s key for me is I write down what I, I write down what I know I need to do tomorrow. And I have two columns, things that absolutely have to be done and then things that I can move if there is something else that comes up because there’s emergencies. So I like to make sure I’m going to have some time to handle those emergencies without ruining sleep and looking at high cholesterol, high blood.

Speaker4: [00:51:00] Pressure and all that other stuff again. So.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:51:02] Right. So I do that. So I do that. So I sit down, I write down five things that I know I’m going to do tomorrow and then said, okay. And if I get time, I’ll do these. And if tomorrow just goes haywire, okay, these are the things don’t have to do tomorrow, I can do another day. So you can see I got a plan A, B and C going into the day before I go to bed.

Speaker4: [00:51:23] So that’s probably why I can sleep. It’s already know what tomorrow’s going to look like, right? Yeah. And so ready to go. Right. Don’t check. Don’t check social.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:51:32] Media until later in the day. I do will check email because since the new book is out I’ve been getting a lot of email from. Press to interview me. So check that early, but literally only check for press responses early in the morning. That’s it. Okay. Because I do you know, I do that I get a lot done then and that’s the deal I make you get this done and you can hit that icon trail and.

Speaker4: [00:51:57] Go to the hiking trail and see all the trees and birds and then do that, come back home and then do the next set. And that’s at the end of the day, this is what we did.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:52:06] Okay.

Speaker4: [00:52:06] This is what you got to do in the morning.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:52:08] Okay. If it’s if something happens, you’re going to.

Speaker4: [00:52:11] Skip on this because you got to plan for you have to plan for.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:52:14] Emergencies because emergencies happen. And that was one thing I learned. So that’s that’s me. So, yeah, so don’t call me during my sleep time.

Speaker4: [00:52:22] Because my mother used to say it’s my mother used to say when we were we would be out, she would say, Now y’all know what time I go to bed? So if anything happens after that bedtime, you get to either call the police or the ambulance, because I’m not going to be able to help you. Right? Right.

Phillip Hearn: [00:52:41] Yeah. I’ve shut it down.

Speaker4: [00:52:42] Shut it down. Shut it down. Right. So that’s how I handle it. That’s awesome. But then do I plan it, though, to the hour.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:52:53] Though, my.

Speaker4: [00:52:54] Work day, So that may be a little anal, so. Okay, so you.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:52:58] Want to know how long it’s going to take you to do something. So it’s like so plan it to the.

Speaker4: [00:53:03] To the hour.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:53:05] And if I’m working on a project, I give myself a certain amount of time because you can’t. You can’t keep that creative juice rolling all the time. You know, it comes when it comes. So I do take pencil and paper with me even when I’m hiking, because if I.

Speaker4: [00:53:22] Get an idea, I’ll jot it down. Don’t stop. Okay. We are not going to stop and work that thing out. We’re going to write that thing down. Thank you, God. Put that in the pocket and we’re going to keep on going. Okay. So because that’s a commitment I made to me, and if I don’t keep the commitments I make, to.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:53:39] Me.

Speaker4: [00:53:40] How do I expect other.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:53:41] People to to keep their commitments that they make to me? Yeah.

Phillip Hearn: [00:53:46] Yeah. That makes a great sense.

Speaker5: [00:53:48] I love it.

Phillip Hearn: [00:53:50] So to wrap this thing up, how do our listeners find you? Find your words? How do they connect with you? Tell tell us all the things. How does this work?

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:54:00] Okay, so you can put my.

Speaker4: [00:54:03] Name in Google. That’s Stephanie Wilson hyphen Coleman. And I’m usually in the.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:54:08] First three or 4 or 5.

Speaker4: [00:54:09] Pages. There is another Stephanie Wilson. She’s an astronaut. That’s not me. Okay. Okay.

Phillip Hearn: [00:54:14] So you’re not the astronaut?

Speaker4: [00:54:15] I’m not the astronaut. Right? Not the astronaut. Okay. And the website is champagne connection. The champagne. And I spell it because there’s a champagne Illinois that’s spelled different. So it’s like the liquor champagne connection.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:54:31] There’s no s at the end if you.

Speaker4: [00:54:34] Put in champagne connections. Haven’t been there lately, but it’s not me. Okay so champagne connection.com is how you find me you can even get and when you when you log into.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:54:45] There there’s a pop up where you can actually subscribe to a blueprint to financial success. And if you listen to this, you already.

Speaker4: [00:54:53] Know that it’s going to deal more with your emotions and experiences than money that comes later.

Dr. Stephanie Wilson-Coleman: [00:54:59] And you can find me too. On a sip of inspiration.com. It’ll send me an email there. I have a podcast. It’s everywhere. Podcast is hosted on ancor.com, but it’s also on YouTube. So you can find me on YouTube. I do empower m p o r is Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and Instagram and TikTok and all those other places. If you do empowerment. Dr. Then that will get you to my business Facebook page, But don’t use that a lot because people tend to communicate me in my personal page. So that’s how you find me.

Phillip Hearn: [00:55:41] Awesome. Well, I’m glad our viewers have that opportunity to find you. Dr. Wilson Coleman, This has been an absolute pleasure and a treat. I really appreciate the time and I’m glad I got a chance to spend some more time with you and learn more about your story.

Speaker4: [00:55:54] You are welcome. But you know, you don’t have to call me Dr. Wilson when Stephanie will get you everything you want.

Phillip Hearn: [00:56:00] No, look, we made a deal on your show. If I’m a doctor, you’re a doctor. You got the same thing. So, no, I don’t care what they call you. They can call you Stephanie if they’d like to. I’m calling you Doc or doctor. That’s how this works. So. Okay.

Speaker6: [00:56:13] Okay.

Phillip Hearn: [00:56:15] And again, I want to thank my special guest, Dr. Stephanie Wilson Coleman, for being here with us today. This has been doc discussions on some of those Business RadioX. Take care and we’ll see you next time.

 

About Your Host

Phillip-HearnDr. Phillip Hearn Ed.D. is a results-driven entrepreneur, Senior Executive, Consultant, and Board Member with more than 20 years of success in business acquisition and real estate. His expertise in leveraging extensive experience with expansion, and financing, makes Phillip a valuable asset for companies, particularly in real estate, seeking guidance on growth opportunities and process improvement.

Phillip is the founder of Mid American Capital Holdings, LLC, an acquisition focused company. Current subsidiaries include Phillip Speaks, specializing in coaching, advising and public speaking engagements; Financial Center, consulting business owners on methods to implement business trade lines and credit to grow their operations, and other subsidiaries which continues to expand. Phillip also gives back via his non for profit Center for Communities and Economic Development.

Phillip has obtained an Ed.D. from Capella University and holds an Executive Masters in Health Administration (EMHA) from Saint Louis University; an MA in Marketing and a BA in Media Communication, both from Webster University, and Lean Six Sigma (Black Belt) from Villanova University. He has served as a Board Member for the National Sales Network St. Louis Chapter and Ready Readers, for which he has also served as the Governance Department Chair and President of the Board.

Phillip is a coach, advisor, key note speaker and podcast host on Business RadioX. Audiences benefit professionally and personally through his teachings of leveraging and application. His new book “Life Mottos for Success” exemplifies how positive words and thoughts can transform your life!

Connect with Phillip on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

Tagged With: The Champagne Connection

Dr. Terryl Propper, Endodontic Practice Partners

March 1, 2023 by John Ray

Terryl Propper
Dental Business Radio
Dr. Terryl Propper, Endodontic Practice Partners
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Terryl Propper

Dr. Terryl Propper, Endodontic Practice Partners (Dental Business Radio, Episode 40)

Dr Terryl Propper, Chief Dental Officer and Co-Founder of Endodontic Practice Partners, joined host Patrick O’Rourke to discuss EPP and its work. They are one of the first specialty dental support organizations for endodontists, run by endodontists, in the United States. Dr. Propper talked about how the company was founded, their doctors, the scope of their services, the focus on clinical care and bringing expertise and resources to an endodontic practice, and more.

Dental Business Radio is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient: PPO Negotiations & Analysis and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Endodontic Practice Partners

EPP partners with endodontists empowering them to achieve their goals within their practices.

EPP provides specialized and expert business resources to meet the unique needs of each of our endodontic partner practices. The founders have a combined 60 years of clinical and operational experience in dentistry and are dedicated to creating a nationwide partnership of leading endodontic practices by providing shared resources and infrastructure to help practices grow and succeed.

Their approach is to understand your vision for your practice and provide the resources and support to achieve it.

You know your practice and your market: what’s best for your patients, how to provide excellent service to your referral sources, and the opportunities that exist to grow. Having the time, bandwidth, and capital to improve on each can be difficult. This is where EPP helps.

EPP prioritizes relationships and trusted connections that are necessary for a endodontic business to grow and prosper, especially in today’s competitive and evolving healthcare landscape. They understand the value of sincere and loyal relationships, because they know what it takes to be a successful endodontist and business leader. They created a company built on integrity, quality, compassion, and putting the patient first.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook

Dr. Terryl Propper, Chief Dental Officer, Co-Founder, Endodontic Practice Partners

Dr. Terryl Propper, Chief Dental Officer, Co-Founder, Endodontic Practice Partners

Dr. Propper has a diverse background in all aspects of the dental industry. She practiced with Endodontic Associates of Nashville for 30 years, and was CEO and managing partner of a 3-location group practice with eight doctors.

She was an ADA Hillenbrand Fellowship finalist, assistant director of marketing for the ADA, a member of the ADA speaker’s bureau, a proven change agent and past president of the American Association of Endodontists. She is the immediate past president of the Tennessee Dental Association.

LinkedIn

About Dental Business Radio

Patrick O'Rourke
Patrick O’Rourke, Host of “Dental Business Radio”

Dental Business Radio covers the business side of dentistry. Host Patrick O’Rourke and his guests cover industry trends, insights, success stories, and more in this wide-ranging show. The show’s guests include successful doctors across the spectrum of dental practice providers, as well as trusted advisors and noted industry participants. Dental Business Radio is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®. The show can be found on all the major podcast apps and a complete show archive is here.

 

Practice Quotient

Dental Business Radio is sponsored by Practice Quotient. Practice Quotient, Inc. serves as a bridge between the payor and provider communities. Their clients include general dentist and dental specialty practices across the nation of all sizes, from completely fee-for-service-only to active network participation with every dental plan possible. They work with independent practices, emerging multi-practice entities, and various large ownership entities in the dental space. Their PPO negotiations and analysis projects evaluate the merits of the various in-network participation contract options specific to your Practice’s patient acquisition strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Connect with Practice Quotient

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Live from the Business RadioX Studio in Atlanta. It’s time for Dental Business Radio, brought to you by Practice Quotient. Practice Quotient bridges the gap between the provider and payer communities. Now, here’s your host, Patrick O’Rourke.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:00:21] Hi there, friends of the dental business community. This is your host, Patrick O’Rourke, Founder and CEO of Practice Quotient, PPO Analysis and Negotiation and National Public Speaker. You can find out more at www.patrickorourke.me. O’Rourke is spelled O-R-O-U-R-K-E for those of you who don’t have Irish friends.

Now, I am very excited today to chat with Dr. Terryl Propper out of Nashville, Tennessee, one of my favorite cities. And anybody who’s ever been there actually, I would imagine. Terryl, how are you?

Terryl Propper: [00:00:58] Doing great today, Patrick. Thank you.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:01:01] Excellent. Excellent. So, Terryl, you are in a unique position where you are part of one of the only Endodontic DSO type organizations that’s very fast growing, I would imagine. So I would like you to introduce yourself to the audience and let’s get your background first and then how you came to be involved with the organization.

Terryl Propper: [00:01:38] Sure. Well, I am originally from New Orleans and went to college in New Orleans. I went to dental school in Memphis, the University of Tennessee. And I went to graduate school at UNC Chapel Hill, and received my Master’s in Science in Endodontics. I joined a practice here in Nashville. I’ve been the American Dental Association Assistant Director of Marketing is in my background. I’ve been president of the American Association of Endodontists. I’ve been president of the Tennessee Dental Association. And I was CEO and Managing Partner of a 3 location, 8 doctor endodontic group here in Nashville that’s 60 years old. So one of the premier endodontic practices in Nashville, Tennessee.

After being with that practice for 30 years, I decided to retire in January of 2019. I planned on opening a boutique consulting firm that did marketing for specialty dental practices. And during the time that I was looking to set up an office, I was called from our CEO, Sam Hutchinson, who’s got an MBA from Vanderbilt and worked in the medical field in mergers and acquisitions. And we sat down and talked about forming a company specifically for endodontists, run by endodontists, founded by myself and Sam Hutchinson and our COO. And we went to private equity firms, and they were very interested. We got several officers. We picked one and we got started.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:03:18] Okay. How long ago was that?

Terryl Propper: [00:03:22] It was in 2019, and we’ve doubled our size each year. We’re across the United States. We’d like to think of ourselves as a specialty support organization because we only serve the endodontic field. We’re exclusive at this time to just endodontists.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:03:45] And so you’ve doubled in size. If you’re based out of Nashville, is that growth primarily in the South or Southeastern United States? I’m just curious.

Terryl Propper: [00:04:00] No, we’re in Washington State. We’re in Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida. We’re across the different time zones. We’re not on the West Coast at this time. We appeal to a specific endodontist, mid age, 48 is our average age. And we like to think that we’re unique in the field because we are exclusive to endodontists. We haven’t diversified into other specialties. And we’re very endodontic-focused forward, I would say. Very focused on the doctor and patient and referral and happy doctors send other happy doctors. So that’s our focus.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:04:53] I like it. So just for John Ray. With me, as always, is DJ John Ray on the mix tables over there. Endo is root canal so specialists that do root canals. So when she was talking about how she got her dental degree and then she did a residency is for root canals. So just for John Ray and maybe any of our other listeners that aren’t familiar.

Terryl Propper: [00:05:22] Right. Our primary focus is saving teeth through trauma or cavities or cracks or a variety of other reasons that you might need a root canal. Pain is a big driver, but endodontist also do surgical procedures, root end procedures to save a tooth and bleaching and a number of other scope of services that are within our specialty, mini [inaudible] implants. And so it’s a narrow field, it’s a narrow specialty, but there are a lot of components within the specialty.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:05:59] Indeed. Endodontist to me, when you need a root canal, baby, you need a root canal, and it doesn’t matter. I remember the last time I needed a root canal, which was quite a while ago, but nothing else mattered until I got into that chair.

Terryl Propper: [00:06:16] Pain is a good motivator. Pain is an excellent motivator. Yes.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:06:21] Yeah. So I’m just curious, what draws — is there any common draw for somebody who’s getting your dental degree and then, you know, you could be, I think the draw for a pediatric specialist is obvious, right? I like it. So they’re going to be pedo and oral surgeons have probably some reasons why they’re going into it. Is there any common specific thing that usually draws folks into this specialty?

Terryl Propper: [00:06:53] Well, I think there are a couple of things. You get great satisfaction in a patient coming in, in pain, and a patient leaving out of pain or within a day or so, they’ll be out of pain. It’s also a referral-based specialty where the majority of our patients come from family dentists that refer to specialists that they trust. And so that’s a big driver. Another driver could be that you see a patient once or twice for a root canal. You don’t follow them their entire lives as you do when you’re a general dentist.

I was a general dentist first. That gave me a lot of really good background to become a specialist. But I think an advantage of being a specialist is you only do one thing and you do it really, really well. You’re an expert in your field. So general dentists are taught to do root canals, but the expertise is really after you’ve done a residency and you become a specialist because there’s a lot of variation in teeth, there’s a lot of variation in people. And so being an expert and only doing one thing really makes you good at what you do.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:08:10] That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Is there more endodontists today than there were ten years ago or less?

Terryl Propper: [00:08:22] Actually, it’s about the same. There have been a few new programs. About 204 residents graduate from endodontic programs across the United States, including military programs. And that’s been relatively stable. Maybe there have been just a few new programs that have opened, but basically it’s relatively the same.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:08:46] Got you. And as far as is there — is it a male dominated field?

Terryl Propper: [00:08:55] Well, quite frankly, it’s been a very heavily male dominated field until maybe the last, I would say eight years, where most of the dental school classes are 50-50 female, male. And now, most of the endodontic programs are about 50-50. And so way more females in the whole dental world as a whole. In my graduating class, I had 150 students. And out of the 150, we had 8 females. So it’s quite different than it was when I graduated.

I’ve been out a long time. I’ve practiced for 40 years. And I love seeing the trend. I love seeing where it’s going. And women in the field have made a difference in the workplace and the marketplace, and they bring different things to a practice that a male can’t bring. And I just think it’s fabulous that we’re seeing more women in leadership, more women at the board table, more women in dental administration and dental politics. So it’s a wide-open field for women who want to be active in their organizations.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:10:11] Absolutely. And so, you know, maybe you don’t use the word, but do you feel like maybe help blaze that trail a little bit because you were one of the first ones to?

Terryl Propper: [00:10:25] Well, as far as I know, Patrick, I am the sole female in the C-suite in the endodontic focused support organizations in the marketplace. And it’s a unique place to be because it gives you the opportunity to be a role model for the younger female dentists that are coming up. And I don’t want to brag on myself, but I’m very proud of the fact that I was the first female president of the Tennessee Dental Association in 153 years. So there were two females that followed me, but I was fortunately in the right place to be the first female and to set the stage for others that followed me.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:11:16] That’s awesome. That really is an accomplishment. You are a trailblazer. You’re the female Daniel Boone.

Terryl Propper: [00:11:24] Maybe Annie Oakley.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:11:25] Annie Oakley. I’ll buy that. Yeah, absolutely. So that feels good. And then right after you, there’s a couple more. And so do you think that as there’s been more and more females in leadership and in dentistry in general, how has the market as a whole, because this what we’re in is kind of, it’s a niche, right? I call it this little niche business when I explain my own business, but I’m like, look, you’re not going to get it, it’s a niche, the dental niche, if you will, here. How have — I know that there’s some DSOs that have responded to women, allowing them to for benefits, maternity leave, et cetera. But how about the market as a whole when it comes to, I don’t know, all of the things that you need in order to perform high level dentistry, and bringing a high-level caliber of care and deliver the best possible patient outcomes? How has all of the other participants within on that journey also responded to this, well, I’d say relatively new trend, but relatively?

Terryl Propper: [00:12:52] Well, you know, women as a whole are more active in business. You’re seeing more women in CEO positions. You’re seeing more women at the board table. You’re seeing more women get involved at the grassroots level. And I think that, quite frankly, in the specialty of dentistry, it could become women dominated in the next ten years. But certainly, women have every opportunity to be as successful as they want to be, to own their own practices. So much of the drive toward the support organizations and recruiting residents to enter these support organizations is the fact that student debt has just spiraled out of control. So the students are looking for an instant paycheck.

And so many of the support organizations in the market are recruiting heavily dental school graduates and residency graduates and endodontist. Especially, a specialty like endodontics that has a very low number of residents that are graduating each year, it’s a very competitive market. And so we have to be — Endodontic Practice Partners or EPP have to be at the top of our game to attract the brightest and the best residents. And we feel like that’s exactly where we are.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:14:18] So let’s say that I am the brightest and the best. I can’t say I’ve ever been accused of that, but let’s just say for the sake of conversation here. And you find me the residency program and I want to go hang out at the pool or do whatever it is that young Patrick O’Rourke likes to do. And you guys say, hey, listen, Pat, you need to think about joining EPP, and this is why we’re awesome. What would you tell me?

Terryl Propper: [00:14:53] Well, this is exactly what I tell you, because I tell it to residents every time I talk to them. What you’re joining is a private practice, an endodontic private practice, well-established, state of the art, well-respected in the community, reputable and people that you want to go to dinner with, people that you will like, staffs that are established, processes that are in place, and you will be entering a private practice. It just so happens that that private practice is supported on the management and business side by EPP.

So you treat the patients the way you want to treat them. You treatment plan the way you want to treatment plan. You use the instrumentation that you’re comfortable with. You provide the top patient care you can give. We want the patient to have a good experience. We want the staff to have a good experience and we want the patient to leave happy. We want the referring dentist to be happy. But most of all, we want the staff and endodontists to be happy. So we’re about clinical care, but we’re also about building in efficiencies in practices that the practitioner might not see or might not have time or resources to pay attention to. So those are the things we bring to the practice, expertise and resources.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:16:18] Well, you know, let’s say I’m from a small town. And I’m like, you know, I just hang my shingle right out there and I’m just going to say I do root canals and I know all the people in town. My family’s lived there for a couple of generations, you know. But what’s in it for you guys?

Terryl Propper: [00:16:41] Well, I’m not sure what question you’re asking, Patrick. But I think what you’re asking is, is there still a place for someone to open their own practice and be successful? Yes. There’s always a place for that, but we can bring resources and business acumen to even a solo practitioner who’s just getting started. In fact, we love offices like that because we can help mold the direction the practice is going to in the beginning.

I think that some people have a general misconception about a dental support organization. When it’s applied to a specialty, it’s a different beast than it is when it’s applied to a general practice. And I think that a lot of people equate a general practice DSO with a specialty services organization like ours, because we’re focused keenly on the endodontist and endodontic experience.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:17:50] And so, yeah, I’m just sort of playing devil’s advocate a little bit. I’m real familiar with the specialties. Amos, I’ll be speaking to Amos in San Diego Plug. If you don’t get enough of my compelling rhetoric today and you happen to be in the oral surgery space. And I’ll say, and I’ve had several folks on the show, is that not all DSOs and or specialty organizations are the same. Sometimes they kind of get lumped in a bucket, but they’re not all the same. There’s different focuses, different niches, different methodologies, different strategies, both internal and external.

And so what I see sometimes when I’m out at a committee or out at a convention or something, is that, and I call them the kids, right. And I’m not that old, but the kids. There’s a bunch of folks that are like, hey, you guys should come talk to us, right? And you guys need to come work for us. And so I know that a lot of those kids listen to the show. and so they may get kind of pitched out, you know, by the time they’re talking to the fourth or the fifth booth, right, and they just want to go to the pool and get a tan or relax.

And so I guess what I’m trying to say, is there any catches? Because if it was me and I was walking around, I would just be like, all right, so I heard this, we’re doctor-centric. I do hear that. Now, what’s in it for me is that I don’t have to worry about business part, right? Because I don’t know much about business. I just graduated, right. And I got all of this debt. Have I ever hired anybody and managed anybody? No. And I don’t know how painful that’s going to be until I actually do it. I get it.

I think that there’s probably something that you guys are going to tell the best and the brightest Pat that why he needs to come to EPP. And then am I starting my own practice? Are you putting the best and the brightest and you’re saying, hey, Pat, do you want to go to DC or do you want to go to Atlanta or do you want to go to Nashville? Like, how does it work? And because I really don’t know, because I’m not the best and the brightest usually.

Terryl Propper: [00:20:11] So it works both ways. The majority of the time, we place new residents in established practices, well-established practices in demographic areas and locales where people are going to want to live. Because when we select practices that we partner with, we select practices in growing areas where people are going to want to live because that’s where the endodontic market is.

And I think that one component that we offer is not only the business support, but we offer the ability for the senior doctor or the other doctors in the group to mentor a new practitioner because, you know, you learn a lot in your residency, but what you really learn when you really learn is when you’re in practice. That’s why they call it practice, because you practice a lot on people. And so oftentimes, a new resident needs some mentorship, needs some guidance clinically or communication wise or working with referring doctors. Sometimes there’s challenges and the older, more mature doctor can impart wisdom upon some of the new graduates.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:21:29] Amen to that. I think everybody can serve. You know, I’m a big believer in Napoleon Hill, the mastermind alliance. You know, in order to attain wisdom, you really need to access different perspectives from folks, you know?

Terryl Propper: [00:21:46] Right. It’s very lonesome. It’s very lonesome to practice by yourself, especially in a field like endodontics. It’s very tedious. We use a microscope. We use a 3D imaging to diagnose and treatment plan. And it’s helpful to have someone else to confer with, to look at a case with. And we have a very, very high success rate with the residents that we’ve brought in to our practices. The residents have an opportunity to buy into the practice as a partner. They buy into our holding company. They have stock in the company. So they’re actually owners in the company, as are all of our doctors that affiliate with us. So it’s not the big bad wolf company telling our doctors how they’re going to practice. It’s our doctors deciding how they want to practice on their terms with some guidance from EPP.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:22:44] Got you. And then they don’t have to worry about managing people for the most part.

[00:22:49] Right. Because all support organizations provide HR services, payroll services, accounts payable, rev cycle, insurance verification, IT, HR, benefit packages. Most of the support organizations do in general, the same kind of, provide the same kind of services. But it’s who the people are that are in the management team, what the attitude is, what the vision is, what the core values are of the company that make a difference in the whole culture of the company and its culture that you’re really selling. Here’s three companies. We all have a different culture, we all have a different approach, we all have a different strategy, and we all have a similar endpoint. But it’s how are you going to get there and who are you going to get there with?

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:23:46] That’s excellent. I like how you put that. You just nailed it.

Terryl Propper: [00:23:53] It’s really the truth. I mean, you can go out look for a car. All the cars are going to get you where you’re going, but which bells and whistles do you want and what kind of comfort do you want? So it’s similar with a specialty support organization like ours. There’s competition in the market. We’re one of the youngest companies in the market, but we’re going to be very successful because of the people that are in our management, in our C-suite.

We have expertise. We’re approachable. We’re down to earth. We don’t try to be somebody that we’re not. We’re transparent. We want our doctors to be happy because happy doctors refer their friends, right? And it’s about growth. We want to grow the practices. We want to grow the company. We want to provide opportunities for the new doctors. We want to provide professional development for the more mature doctors. We want to educate the staff. So we have a lot of goals that we want to reach, and we have tremendous cooperation from our partners. So, you know, we’re a young company, we’re growing quickly, and I think we provide a tremendous service.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:09] I like that. So different cars can get you different places. A Yugo, for example, at one time.

Terryl Propper: [00:25:19] Right.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:20] And a phantom Rolls-Royce.

Terryl Propper: [00:25:22] Right.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:22] Well, technically, you’re going to get you from A to B, but it’s going to be a totally different experience.

Terryl Propper: [00:25:27] That’s correct.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:29] You know.

Terryl Propper: [00:25:31] Another thing, Patrick, is EPP keeps the same culture. So if we come in and we partner with the practice, it’s still the name of the practice. It doesn’t take on EPP. In fact, we’re almost like a silent partner, providing practice management, consulting services, and business services. So it retains the culture of the doctor that built it from scratch. It takes a long time to build a successful andodontic practice. And certainly, we want our doctors to maintain their touch and their personal attention to the practice, what they formed and raised. And this is their baby. And we want that baby to remain their baby. We just want to help them be more efficient with their business practices. That’s the main focus of our company.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:26:31] Got you. So if I may put this into my own words.

Terryl Propper: [00:26:35] Okay.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:26:36] All right. So let’s say that I’m an established endo provider. The product really is the docs, it is the providers. And it’s incumbent. And they have relationships and roots in their communities within their professional circles and probably within their civic circles as well, their business and civic communities, depending on how involved they are. And so you’re looking for somebody that’s mid-career, that wants to grow, right? But they still want to — if it was my name on there, Patrick O’Rourke, O’Rourke Endo, it’s still going to be O’Rourke Endo. If I’m doing well, you guys want to throw a little bit of gasoline on the bonfire?

Terryl Propper: [00:27:29] Right. We want to help the practice grow. You know, it’s hard when you’re an endodontist, you’re on a schedule every day for 8 hours. You don’t have — you have a family to go home to and things like marketing. So marketing is something that, you know, it promotes business for the practice, but it also gets your name out of the community. It also can be community supportive. It can bring in employees that have heard that you’re a good place to work.

But marketing is one thing that we provide, and we do very well at it. And it’s something that most endodontist don’t do, mainly because it’s a pain driven specialty and patients come in on their own. But in competitive markets, a good marketing plan and a strategic marketing plan can really make a big difference in the success of a practice and practices that do little to no marketing will fall by the wayside if a practice that does great marketing is able to get a foothold in the community. So, yes, to your question, O’Rourke Endodontics is going to be more successful if they partner with EPP than if they stay on their own because of resources and expertise.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:28:51] With O’Rourke Endodontics beyond the goodyear blimp, that would be cool. Maybe. Maybe. It’s just, you never know, right?

Terryl Propper: [00:29:01] You know, the sky’s the limit. If you dream it, we will try to make it happen. That is a lofty goal, but, you know.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:29:10] All right. Well, we will start with one of those planes at the beach that has a sign on.

Terryl Propper: [00:29:16] That we could do with the trailer behind it. Yeah.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:29:19] I’ll buy that. Listen. That’s it. You got to start somewhere.

Terryl Propper: [00:29:24] Right.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:29:25] I’ve been watching. Again, I’m a neutral observer. You know, I have clients that are — most of our clients are probably establish, very kind of higher end practices, if you will, or just by the very nature of our business, which is we have to go convince all of my colleagues at the insurance companies that they need to pay them a little bit more fairly. Hi, guys. I know you’re listening. It’s great to have you here. And, you know, I don’t think that’s a surprise to anybody that they’re not in a huge hurry to do that.

So one of the things I hear from our established specialists is they’re like, I can’t get another resident in here because there’s the folks at the schools. You guys are probably one of them. And, you know, like, it’s just the competition is so stiff to get residents and to get somebody to go into the more traditional partnership track like that has been done in the oral surgery and the endo world for what decades.

And so, you know, me personally, I’m like, look, you should — why fight city hall? What do I tell, let’s say Dr. John Ray, which would make his mama really proud? Dr. John Ray, you know, he’s got John Ray Endodontics over there and he’s like, I can’t get a resident in here, and I’m trying to retire, go fishing, but I don’t want to give up my practice either. I want to come in here and blah, blah, blah. And he wants to mentor and do all that stuff because he’s a good dude, right?

What do I tell? Let’s say Dr. John Ray is my client. And this conversation happens to me and to my team. So I tell Dr. John Ray, how do I facilitate an introduction to you guys? I mean, like, listen, John, instead of fighting the current here and trying to swim upstream, why don’t you at least have a conversation with them? Maybe they could do some of those things for you too, A, find a resident, right? I’m assuming. And as long as he’s in a desirable place and not like Port-au-Prince, Haiti, or something. That’s why he vacations —

Terryl Propper: [00:31:49] There’s nothing wrong with Haiti.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:31:50] Oh, I like it Haiti.

Terryl Propper: [00:31:51] Great.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:31:54] It was the first thing that popped into my mind, though. Some people want to go to Atlanta, live in Buckhead. They want to go to New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, but they don’t want to go to, I don’t know —

Terryl Propper: [00:32:10] Don’t say it, Patrick. We get the drift.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:32:12] Yeah.

Terryl Propper: [00:32:13] So, you know, we have a director of recruiting and mentorship with EPP. And if there’s a partner doctor who might be interested in hearing what we have to say, then you can reach us on our website at endopracticepartners.com. It’s hard for a graduating resident unless they have an endodontist that they’ve known, that they’ve planned to go in with, or someone that they have a family friend in their community. It’s difficult for a solo endodontist to find associates now, but it’s still possible. There are a lot of people competing, a lot of companies competing for endodontists.

And you know, the residents can come out, they can get signing bonuses and incentives to join companies, companies like ours. It just depends what the resident is looking for, how much debt they’re in, where they want to live, how they want to practice. But for your friend, Dr. John, what I would say is I think it’s good to explore the market and see what’s available. You would think that a company like ours would attract an older clientele, but it doesn’t. There are a lot of endodontists that still want to grow their practices, but they’re confined by resources or time.

We have a lot of practices that want to open second offices. We have some de novos that we’re starting from scratch. We have group practices, solo practices. We have senior doctors. We have young doctors. We’ve helped all of them in different ways. Every practice is unique. And what I can say about our company is I think we try to personalize the services we provide to the practice we partner with so we don’t have one size that fits all because one size can’t possibly fit every endodontist.

So this endodontist needs marketing, we provide that. This endodontist has accounts receivable problem, we provide that. This office wants to recruit a new associate, we provide that. This office has high staff turnover, we try to do whatever we can to maintain staff, to incentivize them or to attract new staff or train the staff. So every practice is different.

So Dr. John’s looking for an associate. Then he needs to put out all the fillers he can and all the different venues he can. But we would be happy to talk to somebody like Dr. John to see how we might be able to help.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:34:57] Got You.

Terryl Propper: [00:34:57] And certainly, there’s no fee for consultation. We’re happy to talk to anybody at any time.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:35:04] Well, that’s good. I charge for consultations, and so does John, actually. So you got us beat.

Terryl Propper: [00:35:13] There you go.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:35:13] So as we talk about the market, I see and have in my mind witnessed and observed a shift. I feel like it started with the general dentist market. And then it got into the specialist market of consolidation, of centralizing operations, if you will. And I have my own opinions, but, you know, I could just interview myself. So I would like to hear your opinion on where do you see the endo market? And by the endo market, I mean, the actual provider community itself. Where do you see that going over the course of the next five years or maybe even this decade, the roaring twenties?

Terryl Propper: [00:36:04] Well, here’s what I see. So I’m a student of the dental marketplace. I was president of the American Association of Endodontists in 2016. Consolidation in the medical field has been around for years. We have consolidation in oral surgery, in orthodontics, and pediatric dentistry, and those are fairly new market. The first company came to market in 2018. And now, it’s 2023 and there are approximately five companies in the market. It’s a very small slice of the pie, but it’s a very —

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:36:40] Important part, particularly if you need a root canal.

Terryl Propper: [00:36:44] It is. And I think what people are learning in the market is the value of consolidation, the value of strength in numbers, the value of being able to go to an insurance company and say we have however many endodontist and inflation is hitting everyone. Food is more expensive. Gas is more expensive. Cars are more expensive. Education is more expensive and dental services are more expensive.

But Patrick, not to challenge you, but dental insurance benefits have not kept up with the cost of doing business, the cost of inflation, the cost of supplies. They just haven’t kept up. And so I think that consolidation is probably going to force insurance companies to take another look at the fees they’re paying. Most patients have a benefit of 1000 to 1500 dollars a year. I graduated in 1982. I don’t think that benefit has gone up. You would know better than I do, but I think consolidation will have an effect on payer rates.

And I think that’s one thing that we can do for our practices. And we’ve already seen the needle move in in a positive direction on that. But I think that consolidation will be here to stay over the next decade. And there’s always a place for a private practitioner. There’s always a place for fee for service. My mantra is there’s always a place for someone that cares about their patients, that does excellent work and has some semblance of community and ethics and professionalism. They’ll always survive. They may take longer to build their practice, but there’s always a place for people like that. So this model isn’t for everybody. But I think in 2023, with what’s going on in the economy, joining a company like EPP diversifies your risk and allows you to be part of a bigger group that you wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be part of sitting in your office in Buckhead.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:39:09] And very likely have annual meetings and nice places like the Conrad maybe.

Terryl Propper: [00:39:18] Well, actually, I am out scouting today for a nice hotel for our annual meeting, which will be in November here in Nashville. The American Association of Endondontists was supposed to meet here in 2020 and the annual meeting was canceled due to COVID. So we have a lot of people who’ve never been to Nashville, and I think it’s a great place for us to have our annual meeting in the fall.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:39:45] Yeah, shout out to Conrad and Nashville as a whole. If you have not been there, highly, highly recommend it. It’s really one of America’s treasures. Well, you know, you did say something. And I’m just going to reiterate this fact for all of my friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the insurance industry. I feel I’m not going to paint everybody with a brush, but there’s certainly this decade rates are coming down or not up and the cost of doing business, you just heard it, is going up. And so, you keep squeezing, keep squeezing. And then this is kind of what happens.

And that could be one of the pivotal and primary reasons why folks jump into a larger practice is because they feel like they have no chance and they’re getting squeezed by the larger insurance companies who are also consolidating. Whether that’s fair or not, this is very true. And so, you know, you and I are on that same side of the fence from the insurance industry, but all of my clients are providers. So I try to be as neutral as possible, but we represent the provider community. Does that make sense?

And so sometimes I’m defending the insurance industry, but I feel like I’m trying to — we’re a bridge between the provider and the payer communities because the provider community speak Japanese and the payer communities speak Portuguese, and we’re fluent in both. But the more that folks come on here and they kind of express the pain that they are seeing in their own practices, especially with inflation and especially with all of the improvements that you guys had to make with COVID and the whole staffing shortage of people just disappearing beats me. But you know, I can’t get a pizza delivered to my house when there’s 20 kids about to burn the place down if we don’t feed them. That’s a problem.

Terryl Propper: [00:41:47] No, staffing is the problem. Staffing is a problem across the United States, and that’s one thing we focused on. All of our practices are looking for stable staff. I don’t know where everybody went after COVID, but we are able to recruit good staff. And, you know, there’s a lot of things, there’s a lot of moving parts in the dental marketplace now. There’s just a lot of things changing in the marketplace.

And one thing that I say to endodontists that I talked to is, you know, you need to be aware of the changes that are going on. You can’t practice like you did in 1982 because the market will pass you by. And I think that’s one of the attractions to companies like ours is we’re on top of things. We understand the market. We see where things are going. We understand how you can negotiate better supply rates and better equipment rates and better insurance rates. When you have numbers and when you are across the United States, it’s all very important to the bottom line. It’s also very important to provide the top equipment and the most recent technology and education. And everything cost money these days. Nothing’s free and we try to do what we can to make all of our practices just as high-end and topnotch technologically, educationally, and patient-friendly as possible.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:43:29] Amen. So one more time, Dr. Terryl Propper, I’d like to thank you very much for being on our show. It is an honor. If our listeners out there in dental business land would like to reach somebody at, well, it wouldn’t be you, right? It would be who at Endodontic Practice Partners would they want to reach out? Is there a 1800 awesome endo or something?

Terryl Propper: [00:43:57] Well, you know, since your listeners have heard from me and they see my picture, I think you’re perfectly welcome to reach out to me personally. It’s Dr. Terryl Propper. My phone number 615-422-6702. Or you can reach out online to endodonticpracticepartners@eppendo.com. I almost gave the name of my practice that I had been with for 30 years. I almost forgot and gave them the plug, but happy to talk. If you call, I may refer you to somebody in our development department. Alex Nulty is our senior director of Development. But certainly, you can start with me and then I can get you to the right person that can answer the question.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:44:46] That’s terrific. Terryl, again, thank you so much.

Terryl Propper: [00:44:50] Thank you.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:44:51] And this is your host. All of our listeners, thank you, guys, for listening. As a reminder, the show’s sponsored by me. That’s right. So if you like the content, great. You can always hit me up at info@practicequotient.com or check me out at patrickorourke.me. I’m in Instagram somewhere too. If you didn’t like the show, please take it up with our sponsors. And thank you very much for your time. Until next time. This is Patrick O’Rourke.

 

 

Tagged With: Dental Business Radio, dental practice providers, Dr. Terryl Propper, DSO, endodontic partnership organization, Endodontic Practice Partners, endodontists, endodonty, Patrick O'Rourke, Practice Quotient

Dillon Adams with The Adams Collective

February 27, 2023 by angishields

Cherokee Business Radio
Cherokee Business Radio
Dillon Adams with The Adams Collective
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Dillon-AdamsDillon Adams is the Division Manager at The Adams Collective, LLC. The Adams Collective is a one stop shop for your pest control and moving needs.

When it comes to your move, you’ve already got enough on your plate. You want service that gives you one less thing to think about instead of just another project to The-Adams-Collective-logo manage.

The Adams Collective makes it our priority to be there when you need us.

Your job is simple – let us know where you are and where you’re going, and we handle the rest.

Follow The Adams Collective on Facebook.

Austyn-GuestAustyn Guest is a young entrepreneur from the The Kid Biz Expo program.

 

 

 

Layla-DierdorffLayla Dierdorff is a young entrepreneur from the The Kid Biz Expo program.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Kid Biz Radio. Kid Biz Radio creates conversations about the power of entrepreneurship and the positive impact that journey can have on kids. For more information, go to Kid Biz Expo. Now, here’s your host.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:00:28] Hi, I’m Layla Dierdorff .

Austyn Guest: [00:00:30] And I’m Austyn Guest.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:00:31] And we have a special guest here today, Dylan Adams with the Adams Collective.

Dillon Adams: [00:00:36] Good morning, guys. How are you guys this morning?

Layla Dierdorff : [00:00:38] Good. How are you?

Dillon Adams: [00:00:39] Doing good.

Layla Dierdorff : [00:00:40] So, mind telling us a little bit about what you do and stuff?

Dillon Adams: [00:00:43] Of course. Yeah. So I run a full scale moving company and pest control company or a multi divisional service. We try to be a one stop shop for the just the community.

Speaker1: [00:00:54] How did you get into that? What kind of motivated you to go into that field?

Dillon Adams: [00:00:59] So I traveled for about 12 years doing a bunch of different trades, and I kind of wanted to bring that to my community in town and build something here that I was able to actually support the place that helped raise me instead of just traveling all over the country and doing it elsewhere.

Speaker1: [00:01:17] How do you believe your work is impacting the community?

Dillon Adams: [00:01:22] I think that. When I come in, I really come in and try to help people solve their problems, regardless of what it is. I think that through that and through helping people just overcome whatever. Whatever life throws at you, because life’s going to throw tons of different things at you, right? Whether it’s you wake up, you wake up late or you’re having a bad hair day or your friend didn’t text you, whatever it might be, I try to help you, obviously, with those things and other things, job related that can help you. That just enables you to get through life easier and then you can show up for someone else better.

Speaker1: [00:01:58] So do you think that kind of motivates you to keep going whenever you’re having those bad days, just like for sure?

Dillon Adams: [00:02:04] I think back to the people that I have helped and just the how the community has helped me and that that’s what really pushes me through, is seeing other people pour into me and that helps me pour into other people.

Speaker1: [00:02:15] You said that the community helps you. Is there anybody in particular that’s really helped you and like you kind of look up to them?

Dillon Adams: [00:02:21] Yeah, you guys know, it’s been since I started coming in Canton Business Club has been a big one for me. All the business clubs and everyone in there, Renee and Amy have taken me under their wing. I feel like a kind of like their kid as well. So but it’s it’s literally the community and everyone that’s in here. And I think that we live in a very, very special place that’s different from like I traveled I traveled the entire country for 12 years. So seeing the way that this place operates and having the ability to grow up here and just seeing how it’s expanded and how we all pour into each other is it’s incredibly motivating and it keeps me going.

Speaker1: [00:03:01] Tell me a time when a project or goal didn’t really go as planned, and how did you react to that or learn from that experience?

Dillon Adams: [00:03:07] So this just happened to me. Actually last weekend I had a call from an old colleague and he had an emergency job. He needed to get a pipe changed out. And so I drove up to South Carolina to help him real quick. We got it changed, finished about two in the morning, and then I got a call at about eight in the morning saying, hey, the pipe you guys put up fell because someone else knocked it over and I need you to come back and redo the work you just did. So we run an on 5 hours of sleep, ended up going back to work getting there, and we got it done that day. They were super appreciative, didn’t go as planned and obviously like was less than favorable conditions. But we got through it and we solved the problem.

Speaker1: [00:03:52] Does that kind of like help you learn in other situations how to possibly prevent those types of things from happening? Yes.

Dillon Adams: [00:03:58] And stuff. Yes. So every situation, even if you it’s it’s to me, it’s only a failure when you quit. But as you keep going and no matter what it is, even if it didn’t go as you planned or you didn’t like the way that maybe the outcome turned out, it still provides a learning situation there. It provides a lesson that you can build upon. And if you absolutely didn’t like the way something went, then you can just make sure and take every precaution for that to never happen again.

Speaker1: [00:04:29] Yes. How did you learn how to do your craft? Like did you like just kind of figure it out as you went? Did you have someone that you went to or.

Dillon Adams: [00:04:39] So when I was a when I was 16 about, I always had a truck no matter what. So I was one of my only only kids in the friend group that had a truck. So obviously I had called to help move couches and stuff like that. And then from there it kind of expanded. And when I was 18 and 19, I was fortunate enough that my father had a big old box truck, 26 footer. And he said, if you want to if you can use this to make money, then you can use it. And so I was 18, driving a 26 foot box truck probably had no business doing that. But I learned I didn’t hit anyone’s car.

Speaker1: [00:05:15] That’s good.

Dillon Adams: [00:05:16] Oh, good. So just kind of a learning experience.

Speaker1: [00:05:20] What are some current goals you are pursuing right now within your business?

Dillon Adams: [00:05:24] Currently, I am trying to grow and expand my company and create something that is able to really benefit the community in multiple different ways, but then also help myself and the guys that are helping me to build this. So it’s really about stability and creating that constant inflow of of revenue.

Speaker1: [00:05:49] Speaking of goals, are there any goals that you had once you started that you’ve like absolutely dominated and like you’ve passed completely completed?

Dillon Adams: [00:05:58] No, no, I have had we actually the counter thing is I did start a little more bright eyed and bushy tailed, you could say. I started with three different divisions when I came out of the gate, and that was a little bit more than I should have started with. And so in that it just took a little learning. I had to step back from one of those divisions and actually take it down for a while. So it was like I had to slow down to speed up.

Speaker1: [00:06:24] Are you glad that you did that?

Dillon Adams: [00:06:26] Like I am, It saved me a lot of stress. And what we say, we talk when we talk about it, we say we were we were tripping over fifties to get $1 bills, so.

Speaker1: [00:06:38] What do you believe was your biggest mistake through your entrepreneurial journey?

Dillon Adams: [00:06:42] I would say there are no mistakes because they’re all lessons, right? So like back like when you guys ask the question about the lessons or about the hardships, it is all. Just it’s all it’s all just a learning opportunity. And it is what you what you get from it.

Speaker1: [00:07:00] So with that, what is the biggest advice you would give for all the entrepreneurs just starting a business now?

Dillon Adams: [00:07:07] I would say follow your gut and to stay curious. If something is interesting to you, I would say follow that. And then if you see a problem and you can come up with a solution, then expanding on that is what will ultimately could grow you to your business.

Speaker1: [00:07:26] What is your favorite part of the job versus your least favorite part of the job?

Dillon Adams: [00:07:30] Oh, the favorite. My favorite part of the job is getting to help people, seeing their faces. After I’m able to help them move their entire lives over and fit it all into a 26 foot box truck and then move it over to their new house. And then seeing the relief that they that they have when they’re like, Wow, this was such a great experience. I have never had one like this before. I can now just have to worry about moving in and unpacking. I think one of my least favorite things would honestly just have to be the paperwork. The paperwork.

Speaker1: [00:08:00] Paperwork is not fun.

Dillon Adams: [00:08:02] I’ve always been a man. I’ve always been out there hands on in the field, doing work with my hands. I’ve never been one to sit behind a computer desk, but in this position, doing what I do as the company owner, you have to do things sometimes that you don’t want to do. And so for me, I have to do the paperwork now, so hopefully later I don’t have to. Yeah.

Speaker1: [00:08:23] Is there any advice that you’ve received from other people that have really helped you?

Dillon Adams: [00:08:28] Hmm. Advice that I’ve received, Yes. It’s only a failure if you quit trying. And that’s not true. I stick by that.

Speaker1: [00:08:38] What any misconception can misconceptions about what you do like?

Dillon Adams: [00:08:44] I guess as far as the moving goes, maybe that they think that we’re just there to move them and get their stuff and then move it over. But that’s not how we approach the move at all. We really we know that moving can be one of the most stressful things that you do in your life. And so we really the approach we take is that you’re like our neighbor or like, like my mom. I treat every customer like that so that they know that they can just so it feels more of like a friendship and hangout session rather than this big ordeal of moving their life.

Speaker1: [00:09:20] Where do you think you would see yourself in the next five years?

Dillon Adams: [00:09:24] Five years? Yeah. I hope I work for you. I want to work for you guys in the next five years. I would like to have a couple of divisions up and running. I would like to be able to continue to pour into the community and help anyone that needs help. Just grow, including you guys and. Honestly. Anything else anyone needs?

Speaker1: [00:09:51] What is your role within Kid Expo organization and what led you to be part of it?

Dillon Adams: [00:09:56] So I run and help with the blue collar side of kid’s biz and enlightening kids on how they can use their hands and solve problems physically in order to open that mindset to see what blue collar things later that they could possibly be interested in. I got involved because I bugged Renee and Amy enough to let them help me at an expo, to let me help them at an expo. And then I built them a really nice lemonade stand, and I think that’s what got me in there.

Speaker1: [00:10:28] Whenever you first started, did you ever see yourself helping other businesses and like doing what you do?

Dillon Adams: [00:10:36] I had no idea how much I would pour into the community and how involved I would be with the other businesses, because for me, I deal directly with people moving their houses or people that need pest control or mosquito control. So the fact that I deal with and have relationships with what I feel like is 90% of the small businesses in Canton or Cherokee County, it just really I was not expecting that at all. And it was definitely. But I’m so glad I did.

Speaker1: [00:11:07] Do you think networking was a big part of that, like getting more 100%?

Dillon Adams: [00:11:13] Networking was a big one for me and that really is what I saw that helped me grow is because I was able to just help a couple people and then other people heard from that and it got me more referrals. And it’s just networking is 100%. It’s the best way to reach out and get your name out there and actually just learn who’s in your community and what what it is that they need and how you can assist them.

Speaker1: [00:11:36] Are there any other ways besides networking that can really help you grow your business?

Dillon Adams: [00:11:40] Cherokee Connect Facebook Marketplace Social media as it’s a double edged sword, but for business owners, it definitely is something that to utilize. We’ve done almost zero marketing, paid marketing, advertising and between Canton Business Club and Cherokee Connect and everything online, it’s kept us afloat.

Speaker1: [00:12:01] So what values do you think are important to you when you think about the kind of business you want to build?

Dillon Adams: [00:12:07] That’s a good one. I think really for me, something that an old maintenance man said to me once was that. It doesn’t matter the skill or the trade doesn’t matter what you’re doing. Anyone can be taught a skill or trade. What you can’t teach is character and and how to be as a person. So when I’m growing my guys, or if I’m looking to add guys or what kind of environment I want to bring to my job and my workplace, it is one of just grace and understanding and empathy for whatever anyone’s going through. And I think doing that and focusing on the culture of it is what really has made us so successful.

Speaker1: [00:12:54] How do you feel about personal growth and how does that affect your business?

Dillon Adams: [00:12:58] I am really big on personal growth. Ask Amy or Rene. That’s probably one of the hardest challenges that I’ve gone through. Through life is just constantly growing as as a person, because you always feel like when you’re yourself, you think you got it, you think you understand, and then you look back at yourself five years, you look back at yourself five years ago and you say, Wow, that person didn’t know a thing. And so I think it’s constantly doing that, and it’s hard in the present to stay present and then but also to remain open to growth and trying to continue.

Speaker1: [00:13:33] Are there any books that you would suggest to help with that?

Dillon Adams: [00:13:36] Atomic Habits, The Way of the Superior Man. No more Mr. Nice Guy was a good one for me.

Speaker1: [00:13:43] Hmm. What is your favorite quote?

Dillon Adams: [00:13:47] Embrace the suck. If you can embrace the suck, then life is a whole lot easier.

Speaker1: [00:13:57] Does that mean? Just like, kind of like rolling with, like, whatever life throws at you?

Dillon Adams: [00:14:01] Exactly. Rolling with the punches, You know, it’s like even there, people say silver linings, glass half full type deal. So but if you think about it, like no matter what, you can always find good in any situation, even the darkest of situations. And so I had I was once on a job and I had one of my employees when I was doing the industrial work. He landed on top of a $22,000 machine and he broke it. It a pretty dark, dark day. But because of how we handled the situation and got it handled, paid for, covered and replaced, we actually ended up doing more work for the company we busted the machine for.

Speaker1: [00:14:44] Do you think how you view the world like Very positive has impacted your customers and your employees.

Dillon Adams: [00:14:53] I would like to think so. I sure hope so. I think that you that’s one of the things that you wouldn’t maybe really know. Because they’ll go. If you’re really acting in selflessness, I think that they will go in and spread that to someone else. And it’s kind of like pay it forward type deal.

Speaker1: [00:15:17] How do you what do you think about the phrase you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with?

Dillon Adams: [00:15:23] I agree. And another fact is you make actually within 2 to 3000 within your five friend group.

Speaker1: [00:15:32] But. Really.

Dillon Adams: [00:15:35] It’s an interesting, interesting statistic. So like. If you’re a millionaire, right? Typically, you’re probably going to hang out with other millionaires, most likely because you guys are all in the same mindset growth wise, trying to grow. I’m not saying millionaires can’t hang out with people that aren’t millionaires, but typically they tend to surround themselves with that. And so if you look at the people you surround yourself with and you ask might be a little harder for you guys right now, you guys are probably in the top percent of your your age group bracket for me.

Speaker1: [00:16:11] I hope so.

Dillon Adams: [00:16:12] Yeah. But as you get older and you look around and you see that and you’ll see that the people that are making more money are usually more focused on self-growth and being a better person.

Speaker1: [00:16:23] Whenever you’re hiring people or choosing who to hang out with, do you look at what they value and how they act around others to help you make those decisions?

Dillon Adams: [00:16:31] Of course, yes. I always look around who I associate myself with and I feel like I’m a pretty good judge of character. I also do believe in grace, though, and I feel like some people like you’re not. I might like someone that you don’t like, but I think that’s all comes down to opinion and basically how that other person shows up in their life. So I think everyone deserves deserves a fair shot until they show you otherwise.

Speaker1: [00:16:59] How do you go about goals like if you set a goal for yourself, how do you like to go about achieving stuff?

Dillon Adams: [00:17:07] So the old way what I used to do, this is something I’m actually currently working on. So what I used to do was I would just set a pretty broad goal and I would just aimlessly try to get there with no real direction or roadmap. What I’m working on now and constantly auditing myself on is I set a goal and then I reverse engineer it. So I’ll set a year goal and then from there I break it down. How do how am I going to get there in a year and I break it down into six months? Okay. If I’m going to be there in a year, where do I need to be in six months? And then I break it down more where I need to be every quarter? Where do I need to be every month? And you set those things. And the more it seems tedious and like probably a little extra, but the more granular you get with it. The easier it’s going to be to obtain. Because now instead of just I want to I want to own my own company, you now have Och, I want to own my own company and you have that broken down into steps all the way down to the day. You’re going to know what to do every single day instead of just aimlessly waking up and saying, Oh, well, I’ve got to start a company, but I don’t really I don’t really know what to do.

Speaker1: [00:18:16] What is one thing that you are deeply grateful for right now?

Dillon Adams: [00:18:21] I probably sound like a broken record, but I’m really grateful for our community here. I’m really grateful for what the ability and the opportunity that has grown in Cherokee County and what it provides to people that want to start a business, even like yourselves. You guys have been to Camden Business Club and see how many people are there and how many people just really want you to win. And it’s genuine. Everyone really does want you to win.

Speaker1: [00:18:47] Yes, it is a very supportive community. You mentioned opportunity. So would you agree that like one of the biggest things with starting a business is just getting more opportunity for sure.

Dillon Adams: [00:18:59] And I think that’s really just life is the opportunity and it’s what you make of it. There’s there can be a million opportunities in front of you, but you the only opportunities that you’ll get are the ones that you go out and actually execute on. So you can have these things in front of you. But if you don’t do anything to make it a reality, then nothing’s going to happen. And I think in entrepreneurship that’s kind of the mindset you have to adopt naturally. You have to figure it out. You have to figure out how you’re going to do it, how you’re going to sell it. And so you apply that and it ends up you end up applying it not only to your business, but it ends up applying to your entire life and how you just operate.

Speaker1: [00:19:34] What are some goals that you have for your business right now?

Dillon Adams: [00:19:37] I would like to make at least half a million dollars this year. Revenue.

Speaker1: [00:19:43] It’s a pretty good goal.

Dillon Adams: [00:19:44] That is a pretty good goal. It’s pretty high. I think we can do it. It’s definitely something that’s going to be hard to do. But if it’s hard, that means you’re it means you’re doing the right thing. And I think that’s something that with like heart, if something is hard for you, if you find something in life that is hard or if it makes you nervous, as long as it’s not dangerous, then I would I would challenge you to do that. Because if you’re scared or if you’re nervous, that means that there’s an opportunity for growth, because that’s where the most growth happens. You don’t you don’t grow a whole lot when everything’s great, but you do grow a whole lot when you overcome challenges. Like for you ladies, like I’m sure you guys know a whole lot more now about starting businesses and at first.

Speaker1: [00:20:32] A lot of new nothing. We have definitely grown a lot with Kid Biz. It’s been very.

Dillon Adams: [00:20:37] Helpful. Think about where you guys were a year ago, you know, like compare that to now.

Speaker1: [00:20:42] Definitely different. Right. A lot happens. Yeah. What steps are you taking to achieve your this current goal of yours?

Dillon Adams: [00:20:52] So we are setting we have to make at least. 45,000 revenue every month. That’s a big goal. And so but it’s getting out there and focusing and just really staying open to the community. I’m on Facebook all the time. Tag me and tag me in posts. I’m following up with people. I’m about to leave here and go go look at another move. And so it’s just it’s just staying on it and staying hungry. And even when you’re tired, you just got to push through and do the things you don’t want to do.

Speaker1: [00:21:25] Would you say you agree with the quote, The best things in life are on the other side of fear?

Dillon Adams: [00:21:30] Yes, I do. That’s a very deep quote.

Speaker1: [00:21:32] This is a very difficult.

Dillon Adams: [00:21:35] I think like I think and that’s like kind of what I said about the on the other side of fear. That’s that’s growth because you learn from that. And it allows you to, when you come to that problem the next time, you won’t nearly be as scared. Like if you guys have to start another company, it’s going to be way easier this time than it is than it was a year ago or whenever you guys started.

Speaker1: [00:21:59] How do you use networking as like, marketing?

Dillon Adams: [00:22:01] I think. Networking. Makes you able to grow a personal relationship and really allows instead of them to know your business, to know who you are as a person. And I feel like if people know who like you are as a person, it makes them more able. It breeds a bigger connection between you and them, and they’re more likely to refer you because you’re not just a company that they don’t just think of your product. They think of you. Mm hmm.

Speaker1: [00:22:30] If you had the attention of the world for 5 minutes, what would you say?

Dillon Adams: [00:22:34] Okay.

Speaker1: [00:22:35] You had the whole world listening to you.

Dillon Adams: [00:22:37] For 5 minutes or.

Speaker1: [00:22:38] 5 minutes. What would you say?

Dillon Adams: [00:22:41] All right, This deep, deep quote.

Speaker1: [00:22:43] Very deep question.

Dillon Adams: [00:22:45] If I had the world’s attention for 5 minutes, I would challenge everyone to try and do a nice thing for someone else today. Reach out to an old friend or stranger and be present and intentional with them. I would implore everyone to actually listen. And when I say listen, that means actually listen. Most people don’t fully listen. They just hear and just try to grow that connection with them and just try to be intentional and see where the universe and the world needs you. Where Cherokee County needs you. We all need help.

Speaker1: [00:23:22] Yeah. You don’t have to change the whole world. And one day you can start small.

Dillon Adams: [00:23:26] Yeah. And I think if it. If everyone does one little thing. Then the world would be a whole lot of a better place.

Speaker1: [00:23:33] Agreed. Agreed? Yes. Where can people find you with your contact info.

Dillon Adams: [00:23:39] So you guys can find us on Facebook? We get tagged in Cherokee Connect a lot. Where are the Adams Collective? You can schedule a free moving quote at atoms CO moving dot com or a free pest control quote at Adams Co pest control dot com.

Speaker1: [00:24:00] So we’re going to play a little this or that just to. Okay, just wrap it up for fun. Cats or dogs?

Dillon Adams: [00:24:06] Dogs.

Speaker1: [00:24:08] Pool or the beach.

Dillon Adams: [00:24:09] Uh. I guess the beach or neither.

Speaker1: [00:24:13] Not a breakfast or dinner.

Dillon Adams: [00:24:17] It used to be dinner, but now breakfast.

Speaker1: [00:24:20] Pie or cake?

Dillon Adams: [00:24:21] Cake.

Speaker1: [00:24:22] Superman or Batman.

Dillon Adams: [00:24:28] Batman. Because he’s a normal. He’s a normal human like me.

Speaker1: [00:24:31] All right, This one, Marvel or DC. Oh, this is gonna.

Dillon Adams: [00:24:38] Uh, I guess Marvel.

Speaker1: [00:24:40] Yes. Yes. We would like to thank you for coming on to the Kid Biz Radio podcast. Yes. Thank you very.

Dillon Adams: [00:24:53] Much. Thank you, ladies, and I appreciate it. This was fun, you guys. This was my first interview.

Speaker1: [00:25:01] And you did great. Yes, you did. Amazing.

Dillon Adams: [00:25:03] Thank you. Yeah. You guys ask really good questions. So anyone else that if you guys come on this show, be ready.

Speaker1: [00:25:11] Be ready to ask deep questions. You have to think.

 

Tagged With: The Adams Collective

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