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Search Results for: kids care

Blake Canterbury With Purposity

December 2, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Blake Canterbury With Purposity
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PurposityBlake CanterburyBlake Canterbury is a social entrepreneur dedicated to good and the founder of Purposity. Purposity is building the future of generosity. Blake founded his first company based on social media in 2009: Beremedy. Beremedy was named one of the “3 best Twitter usages worldwide” by CNN (3/20/11). It was also one of the leading organizations in bringing aid to Haiti after the earthquake.

Blake’s work over the last 10+ years has been dedicated to building innovative ways to leverage technology for good. It’s spanned across building mobile apps to tv ads, and he is sought out to speak about a variety of topics. His work has been featured internationally and most recently in Forbes, People Magazine, Today Show and CNN.

Connect with Blake on LinkedIn and follow Purposity on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Blake’s journey to founding Purposity and WHY he founded this organization
  • Why generosity is crucial in the workplace
  • Why should businesses and business execs prioritize generosity in the workplace
  • Tangible ways businesses and business execs in Atlanta can give back this holiday season
  • The 2022 Purposity holiday mission to meet 5,000 needs in ATL

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by on pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the Atlanta Business Radio, we have Blake Canterbury with Purposity. Welcome, Blake.

Blake Canterbury: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: I’m so excited to learn what you got going on. Tell us about Purposity. How are you serving folks?

Blake Canterbury: Yeah. So, look, capacity is building the future of generosity. So most people want to do good in the world. They just don’t know where to start. And so we believe that maybe millions of people would live more generously if it was simply easier, more fun and more transparent. So essentially, you can download our app, you can see real time needs of individuals around you. Everything’s vetted by local schools and local nonprofits. As you scroll through, maybe you see a single mom needs formula for a newborn baby, or maybe a first grader needs a new pair of shoes. And our belief is there are thousands of people that would buy that kid a pair of shoes if they only knew they needed it. So you can hit one button on our app, purchased a pair of shoes. It’s on their doorstep in 24 to 48 hours and you get notified in real time when it’s delivered on their doorstep. Being bringing transparency to both sides of the equation.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was the genesis of this idea? When did you realize this is a problem that you could be the one to solve?

Blake Canterbury: Yes, I was actually working at a creative agency at the time, so we were building mobile apps, TV ads for major brands, and a homeless liaison at a school district sent an email and her email literally said, Blake, kids are walking into classrooms with holes in their shoes and they’re going home. Hungry can help solve this problem. And so I called some buddies. We built a basic version of this. We gave it to this one school district and just walked away. And three months later they called back and said, Look, you fundamentally solve this issue for us. Every school district in the country is facing this. Almost every nonprofit is facing this. And we knew we didn’t fully solve the problem, but we knew we found a felt need in the world. And it was convicting enough to to where three months before I got married, I quit my job and went full steam into developing this.

Lee Kantor: Now is what makes this powerful, the individual component where you’re seeing an actual human being and you see their challenge and that you know that, Oh, I can solve that problem as an individual. It doesn’t require like a bunch of bureaucracy or a bunch of infrastructure. It’s just a human helping a human.

Blake Canterbury: That’s exactly right. Look, it’s you know, most most people generally have a sense to do good in the world. Most of us just don’t know where to start. And I think purposely allows you to rally around the common belief that if you knew your neighbor didn’t have food to eat or if you knew that there was a kid that literally just needed a $50 pair of shoes, most people would go help. There’s just no way to know that they need it. And so this gives you a simple way to directly put shoes on people’s feet, clothes on somebody’s back, and then be notified that what you purchased actually got delivered. You get tax receipts, you can track your impact, but that’s it. It’s directly helping one person.

Lee Kantor: Now, when did you I know you did this test with that school, but when did you realize, hey, this is something that really could get some traction and can really be scaled Like what were was there an individual story that was that aha moment for you? Or was it just the fact that that school was so gung ho about it?

Blake Canterbury: Yeah. So there were a couple of things. One, once we got the notification from the school district that, Hey, this really works for them, we just started conducting massive user research and everybody we interviewed, it didn’t matter age, religion, gender said, Hey, at some level I’d like to get to do good in the world. And most ways that they said that they had to do good in the world was some form of writing a check and walking away. Maybe I volunteer somewhere. And then when we looked at the data, it said that $500 Billion a year is given to charity in America by individuals. And so when you look from a business perspective and say, well, there’s a market size that’s incredibly large, but the people are kind of like every every industry in the world has been disrupted by tech except for this one. So when you see a market size that big, you see a business opportunity. You say, okay, we can actually do good in the world, we can drive business. And then kind of the last piece of the equation, like you said, we scaled from one school district to the first ten school districts in every need that was being submitted was being met within 48 hours. And so that we thought we had product market fit. And so when we looked at that test case of ten different school districts needs getting that fast a problem in the world, we said, okay, that’s something we can really get behind. And we should invest everything we have into solving that problem in the world.

Lee Kantor: Now, how is a capacity different than some of those micro-lending platforms?

Blake Canterbury: Yeah, so micro-lending is just a version of giving somebody really a loan, if you will, and then they’re going to repay it. And purpose is just saying, look, there’s somebody that needs shoes or clothes or food and you’re directly just donating the money to purchase those items for them. And so this is just a way to directly impact your neighbor versus giving a loan and getting a return. And there’s a lot of beliefs on charity. But, you know, I’m a big fan of, hey, I want to do good, wanting nothing in return. And so this is an opportunity to do that. Maybe the other differentiator would be compared to, say, a go fund me or crowdfunding. Again, this isn’t you’re not biting off a piece of a pie. You’re you’re feeling really good that you actually bought this kid a pair of shoes. And the other side is that it’s fully vetted. So you don’t have to worry about fraud. In our system, everything is inside a verified 500 1c3 or a school district. And there are a lot of measures in the user agreements to make sure that fraud is almost impossible to happen inside this platform.

Lee Kantor: When you were coming up with the plan to roll it out, how high on the list of challenges was kind of solving the fraud problem?

Blake Canterbury: Well, it was really high because we believe that building this on trust, transparency and great technology were the fundamental pieces of this. And so the transfer, the transparency side of it, we believed if we could bring that to the equation, then we could build the trust. And so probably the biggest problem with a lot of the ways that people give is one that hasn’t really evolved other than writing a check, but not being transparent with where your money goes. And the transparency honestly raises more questions. Most nonprofits are doing amazing work. They’re doing they’re solving very complex problems. They’re trying to solve big challenges in the world. And so people are really skeptical of, hey, is my money going? How do I make direct impact? And so as we looked at all of these issues, we said, wait, we can actually bring transparency, build trust in a technology, but also drive more impact back to these local organizations. And so it really checked all three boxes that we were looking at and said, wow, if we can really bring trust and transparency to this, this is probably a place that people would lean into versus other options.

Lee Kantor: Now, is the the way that an individual gives or is generous, is it this one on one or is it can I. Is there a way to leverage it from the individual donor standpoint or is there a way for me to support 100 kids at a time rather than go on and click a 100 individually?

Blake Canterbury: Yeah. So we’ve just implemented a give Now button, which you’ll see. So if you go to a nonprofit or a school districts page, you’ll see a green button and it says give. Now you can give any amount of money that you want to in that give now and we’ll wipe out every need that that organization has. And if you surpass the amount of needs that they currently have, what we’ll do is as soon as they submit needs, it won’t even go live in the system. We’ll just immediately begin to wipe out the next ones, which really is a key factor in what we call urgent needs, which are the essentials of maybe a family becomes foster care parents in the middle of the night and they don’t really have time to submit a story and wait for the shipping to arrive. We can wipe those needs out as soon as they arrive locally. You know, family. Maybe a single mom needs formula for her newborn baby. You know, she can’t wait 48 hours to get her formula. So we will take other measures to wipe these needs out and then we’ll add cards. And we’ve got we’ve got a lot of things on the roadmap. And our vision, to your point, is that you would turn to Facebook for friends. Google for information and pomposity would become your home for good in the world. So as we we’ve used this word generosity, we believe that generosity is time, money, items. And so we’ll see a lot of things evolve in our roadmap to encompass everything under living a generous lifestyle.

Lee Kantor: Now, prior to purposely, how does the typical individual give? Do they normally just pick a cause and then they donate a certain percentage of money? Do they do it through their, you know, faith based entity that they’re part of? How does giving work right now?

Blake Canterbury: Yeah, it’s to your point, it’s. It’s all over the place, honestly, and it’s very fragmented. So some people that have a bent towards it, maybe for religious reasons or just personal conviction, they may have a plan to give and so they may have written down, we would like to give a percentage or a dollar amount, or maybe it’s just purely based on tax deductions. They may have a general plan. But what we found is most people don’t really have a plan. And you see very wealthy folks have entire foundations still developing a plan to be generous. The other problem is most people, the average person just wakes up and doesn’t. The priority list isn’t how do I do good today? And so what we wanted to do was offer a way to just intersect your life with a way that you could. And if you happen to wake up tomorrow and say, Well, I would like to do good, just take the city of Atlanta, for example, you may find a list of 500 organizations all worthy of your money. And then you have to decide, Well, what really breaks my heart? What cause do I actually want to give to? And then if you’ve been there it down to there, there may be 30 organizations trying to solve that problem.

Blake Canterbury: And so you can go through nine nineties and you can go through all these documents and websites. And so our place was saying, wait, look, let’s, let’s break down the barriers to generosity and let’s say, look, come to one place that’s trusted, it’s validated, it’s transparent and it’s easy and it’s actually even fun. And so why don’t we allow this to be your starting place to do good in the world versus being fragmented anymore? And you can find any organization, any cause, and you may, after you’ve met a couple of needs in capacity, actually learn what breaks your heart is you go back and read these stories and realize, Wait, you know what? The last five needs I met were actually for foster care, or they were for women who had been sex trafficked and escaping that. Or maybe they’re for homeless. And so there’s really interesting insights when you just begin to help your neighbor and then you realize, wait, maybe these are things that actually break my heart and then you can develop a really easy plan from there.

Lee Kantor: Now, as part of the challenge, kind of getting purposely in the hands of these nonprofits and school systems.

Blake Canterbury: Yeah. So school systems typically see it and understand it really quickly. Profits will see it and understand it quickly, but they’re typically understaffed. And so we find the nonprofits that are really pushing innovation, ones that may even have a younger employee base can say, Oh, wait, I can pull out my cell phone and operate this force and attract a whole new donor base. So, yes, the nonprofits are a little slower coming around to it, but school systems adopt it really quickly and it’s all been organic word of mouth to this point. And so doing this interview is honestly hopeful that we could populate three different sides of the equation that maybe the nonprofits and school districts that might be listening, hopefully they would sign up. We hope individuals would sign up. And then we also have a pretty cool opportunity for businesses and employees to come together and do good under the ESG or CSR conversation we could get into if we want to. But we have ways for groups of people to come together and do collective impact, and so there’s a lot of ways to get involved.

Lee Kantor: So you’re looking I mean, this is in essence a marketplace and you’re you need to feel both sides of the marketplace.

Blake Canterbury: That’s exactly right. It’s a two sided marketplace. And so we study what Uber and Lyft and Airbnb have done really closely to understand how that we’re going to approach building this ecosystem.

Lee Kantor: So right now it’s the holiday season. You’re looking, I’m sure, to make an impact this holiday season and maybe alleviate some pain for some folks here in Atlanta. Can you talk about that?

Blake Canterbury: Yeah. So as you can imagine, this time of year, we get needs that just begin to pour, pour in. And so we’re launching a campaign to unleash over 5000 gifts of generosity over the next two and one half weeks. And part of this is to get ahead of the shipping deadlines and make sure people have what they need. And so part of these 5000 items are just Christmas wishes. You know, it’s maybe for the family that, you know, they’re kids asking for a toy. And it’s really hard for the parents to justify spending money on a toy this year. They’d rather spend it on a heating bill or maybe making sure that they have food on the table and Christmas. So some of the items are going to be for Christmas wish lists for kids. The other part are going to be essentials for these families that just need dinner on the table. It could be something as simple as toilet paper. It may be clothes. It may be just really basic things for around the house. And so we’re just simply hoping that people would jump in and maybe personally meet a couple. Needs. Maybe invite a friend and rally their their company or coworkers to get involved with this. It’s a really easy way to locally help people.

Lee Kantor: So now though, the things I mean, I don’t want to speak for you, but it’s my understanding the things you need more of, you need businesses. Maybe the ESG component of the business wants to share this with their employees so they can give more. You need school systems to give more, to get them to take the app and use it to benefit their students. And you need nonprofits to, you know, put it out there as as one of the ways that they serve their, you know, the people that are important to them. Is that.

Blake Canterbury: The that’s.

Lee Kantor: The biggest need.

Blake Canterbury: Exactly right. That’s exactly right. And from a company standpoint, we have ways that you can just offer matches for employees. You could just write a check to wipe out needs and put that in at ESG report. One report that a company has sent out, they had over 2 million brand impressions for good. They save schools and nonprofits. Over $500,000 in salaries helped over 10,000 students across 61 different school districts. And so that’s just one example of how we can partner with a company and help them really do good in the holidays or any time during the year.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more, it’s an app in the app stores or it’s a website. How does someone connect with purpose?

Blake Canterbury: Yeah, Purpose sitcom will have everything that you need. It’ll take you directly to needs. And if you hit about, you can find a link for companies, for individuals, for influencers, any way that you want to get involved. You can find it at Papa sitcom.

Lee Kantor: And that’s pure pos i.t dot com.

Blake Canterbury: That’s right.

Lee Kantor: And thank you so much Blake, for sharing your story, doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Blake Canterbury: Yeah. Lee, thanks so much for having us and telling our story.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio

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Tagged With: Blake Canterbury, Purposity

Stéphane Frijia With Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership

December 2, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Stephane Frijia
Association Leadership Radio
Stéphane Frijia With Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership
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Stephane FrijiaA dynamic, strategic and innovative economic development leader, Stéphane Frijia joined NEI to serve as President and CEO in October 2021. He is responsible for leading the economic development strategy for the 11-county region represented by NEI, including the task of increasing business investment and regional prosperity through ongoing collaboration with local, regional, private, and public partners and organizations.

For over 10 years, He honed his craft in the fast-paced, competitive and politically complex environment at one of the top economic development organizations in the country. In his previous role as the senior vice president of strategy for the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, he attracted billions in new investment and thousands of new jobs to the region.

He has served as an advisor to c-suite and policymakers regarding market intelligence, public relations, international relations, policy and foreign direct investments.

He was responsible for continually improving internal processes to gain actionable market and industry intelligence, to drive traditional deal-flow and economic diversification. He has a proven track record for developing and managing regional cluster-based industrial attraction strategies to catalyze investment into new industrial parks across the region.

Additionally, he led the creation of new consortia of public, private, university and community partners to create a new smart region framework to develop and help scale solutions rooted in connectivity, mobility, equity and sustainability.

Stéphane earned a Master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Planning and a Bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Management Technology from Arizona State University.

He was recognized in 2019 as top 40 under 40 in the economic development industry by Development Counsellors International (DCI), a national leader in marketing places.

Connect with Stéphane on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The Northeast Indiana Strategic Development Commission’s strategic plan, trends, challenges, and opportunities

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: We’re broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Stephane Frijia with the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership. Welcome.

Stephane Frijia: Thank you. Happy to be on the show.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m so excited to learn about is it NEA? Is that what you call it NEI. So tell us about the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership. How are you serving folks?

Stephane Frijia: Yeah. And the partnership in the eye now. We’ve been running now for over 16 years. I think like many other organizations in our space, we’re created to help bring communities together. We cover territory about 11 counties. And sometimes it’s you know, it’s hard to to collaborate. And I think this was the truth in the early 2000. So an effort was initiated to kind of bring all the parties together to start working together on a on a joint strategy and joint objectives. And that was a very noble and needed effort that ultimately, fast forward 16, 17 years led us to a lot of great success here in northeast Indiana.

Lee Kantor: And then so when you talk about a partnership, it’s a partnership between public private universities. It’s the whole kind of it’s the whole team. Right? All the constituents.

Stephane Frijia: Yes. Yeah. Public, private. That’s a good way to kind of start. But the it involves more than that. We have close ties with the business community that are kind of key funders of ours. We work very closely with the various units of government, both local and state. We convene a network of university colleges across across Northeast so they can all kind of work together and, you know, knowledge about each other’s build trust and collaboration because you never know when the opportunity calls or a challenge arises. And you’ve got to be able to look at your fellow partner across the table and say, you know, what can we do together about it? And I think that was the kind of core premise that allowed the formation of the of the partnership. Now, as an organization, you know, our core mission is to attract investments into the region. That’s what the partnership was created to do in its original form. And it still is the core mission. But before you can talk to external partners and convince them that this is the right place for them to call home, that place for them to bring their business, you’ve got to really work on yourself, investing in yourself, building those networks so that you then you have something tangible to to share with others that you invite to to the party. So you’ve got to fix the house first, so to speak, before you become a host. And I think the organization and leadership across the region has spent significant time doing just that. Many people across the state look at Northeast as a as a model on how things should be done.

Stephane Frijia: A little bit of a gold standard, you know, here in the Midwest for the size of the market that we are, we’re not a huge market. And so collaboration, you know, was has been an intentional part of the DNA of the partnership of Northeast Indiana. And many are looking at us to see how is it done and how we were able to kind of bring all those very disparate interests in very different interesting times and conflicting in some occasion to to come to the same table in a professional and and really kind of trust based approach on how we move forward as a region, how we grow it, how we make it welcoming and frankly, how we’ve bucked the trend. I don’t know if the Northeast and as well as the rest of the Midwest in general for a for a long time. You know, the there were a little bit of bleeding, so to speak, you know, as people and businesses were looking for warmer weather. But if you look at what’s happening in more recently over the last five years, this is a come back. The Midwest is coming back. And Northeast definitely has been one of those regions that has turned around being one of the fastest growing region in the in the Midwest in a couple of years in a row. Now, the first number one, now number second. So I think there’s been interesting to watch this kind of turnaround and reinvestment renaissance story that we’ve been experiencing here in Northeast.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you kind of foster that culture of collaboration rather than looking at everything as a zero sum game of me winning and you losing? I mean, you’re dealing with a variety of interests, all with their own agenda. How do you kind of bring them all to the table for this kind of collective good?

Stephane Frijia: Well, it starts with a dialog. You’re absolutely right into some regards. At the end of the day, it’s still a zero sum game and everyone understands that. But besides the the finality, whether a business goes into one town or a different city or one county or another, there is new understanding that, you know, the way things really work. It’s about labor shared, it’s about regions. It’s a much larger than a single town, and that the people have understood that a rising tide lifts all boats, you know, especially with the geography where there’s the natural movement that in our case even extends beyond our own state line. There’s natural affinity. Even West Ohio, people live in Ohio and actually commute into northeast Indiana in a four hour work opportunity and vice versa as well. So you got to start from an understanding of how things really work in the real world and then open a dialog about not what divides us, but what brings us together. So what is a shared agenda that unifies us, that allows us to become stronger together? And you developing you can focus on making those threads stronger and stronger. Recently, we, as the Partnership and I, we just released our three year plan on what we’re going to be doing specifically on behalf of the region. So giving people kind of clear sight of not just day to day, but down the line so that people can align and then bring different voices to the table to contribute to that vision.

Stephane Frijia: I was part of an effort over the last nine months that was technically funded by the state to create a five year plan for for the region and how we bring more resources, state resources to our region to put them to work and create a true ROI back to region and definitely back to the state. So those are things where again, those are problems that are not really unique to our region or to a state, but we’ve got to figure out what’s our flavor of the solution, What is the solution that fits Northeast fits Indiana fits the type of problem and the and our circumstances. And when you do that and you open those dialog, you’ll be amazed. And then you do find those common grounds. And then after that is a matter of execution, because a plan is all great until you actually get get going and doing it. And that’s where back to a point earlier where trust, you know, makes all the difference. You have a great plan and you have players that trusted each others that we’re going to support one another. That’s really when execution. Then comes reality.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your back story? Have you always been involved in this kind of economic development work?

Stephane Frijia: I’ve been doing this for more than ten years and now 12 to be exact. The and I aligned into this field by as probably many in my profession, you know, by accident. People don’t go to school to become developers, unfortunately. You know, people go for urban planning or traditional kind of focus things. And that was was my path, you know. But the once you get in into an experience of what economic development, the breadth and the depth that really makes up and you kind of get hooked. And if you’re like the deal making and and the opportunity to work on very complex challenges, that’s a very rewarding career that allows people to to have actual lifelong experiences doing this type of work. It’s a mission, It’s a passion. You need to be an individual and the truly going to believes on on the greater good that is looking for this opportunity to how we make more competitive, how we can better ourselves, how we can make it better for not just for the people that are new coming into town, but the people that already live here. It’s you’re always thinking right. You’re always trying to figure out the next new angle and the next opportunity for people to collaborate, come together again, build upon that trust and doing something new.

Lee Kantor: And the impact is real. I mean, with the right leader, you can make a tremendous difference not just in the region, but, like you said, down to the families that live there.

Stephane Frijia: You’re absolutely right. I mean, today we’re talking about real families, real jobs. When we bring in new a new company in investment that’s new payroll, that’s new taxes being generated that ultimately pays for additional services, whether it’s from police and firefighters or a community splash pad for kids, it’s interlinked. People don’t realize that all those ripples affect how far they go. At the same time, that allows us to keep our community more resilient. Businesses go in, are created, and they go under every day. It’s part of the economy. It’s part of the fabric of our society is built in. So be able to always cultivate that fertile ground so that new businesses can be created grow. It’s crucial because in the moment that we’re not moving forward, we automatically sliding back. There is no a parking gear in the in the life of a city, in the life of a region. It’s two steps either moving forward or you’re starting back. And the moment you realize this, then that becomes part of the motivator that allows you to think, okay, what can I do to move forward and how can we do? What decisions can we take today that will make it better for the people today, but also have a positive impact five, ten, 15 years from now? The it’s amazing. People don’t realize the the longevity of decision making that some elected officials at the local level deal with on a daily basis. So that collaboration, that support, that dialog is very, very important because we believe in those decisions for a very long time. And sometimes there is risks. Sometimes the decision can be unpopular because people don’t have all the details, the facts of that decision, so that how we bring together business community to support decision making or to really help us think through the pros and cons of a decision and allow then our officials to make the right call. That’s that’s the kind of development in its essence. So it’s fascinating and definitely get tell that I love what I do and I would encourage anyone that is curious to to get more involved.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a sweet spot in terms of industry in your region? Do you kind of have a lot of a certain type of industry or you’re kind of open for business for anybody who’s looking for a good place to plant as a business?

Stephane Frijia: First of all, must know we’re a welcoming community to anyone, any type of business, and we’re never going to say not to anyone. Now, then, on the on the on the flip side, the industry works in clusters. So there are certain clusters of industry that are already here. They provide specific benefits to to other kind of affiliated companies or affiliated industries. For us, you know, we are a manufacturing hub. Indiana is a state overall. It’s as a manufacturing hub for for the country. The weather is automotive for us is a very strong medical device. Industries, orthopedics extremely strong for us, the technology associated with the vehicle overall. It’s anything about about making things. So really that speaks to the DNA of the region. But we also a farming community and that goes to the history of the Midwest. So you when you walk around and drive around, there’s a lot of technology and farming that gets deployed. There’s a lot of production as well. So those are I would say, the when it comes to like a sweet spot, you know, based on historical strengths that our region typically shines the best. But frankly, you know, any type of company would do extremely well in the Northeast, extremely well in Indiana and the Midwest. So and I think anyone that cures, you know, off to do it, just give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to address any questions they have.

Lee Kantor: Now as we approach 2023. Are there any trends you’re looking to take advantage of? Are there any opportunities that you see at the four that you’re ready to kind of pounce on?

Stephane Frijia: Most definitely. Actually, yesterday, you know, the our secretary of state, Secretary of commerce sorry, Secretary Chambers provided a keynote here in Fort Wayne about the 20 $22 Billion were invest in the state in 2022. And the ambition for the governor is to run into 2023 with 23 billion. So kind of playing out with the with the numbers. This is a reality. We’re at the cusp. You know, we’re in the middle of a trend for the US, you know, with a lot of manufacturing coming back to our to be on US soils or nearby supply chain and being restored. And we’re talking billions if not trillions of opportunities over the next five, six years. So we’re at the beginning of, say, innings of this kind of short game. You know, then we talk about five, six years is not a very long game, but that will kind of redefine the manufacturing production and the future of this country. So our hope and desire is the same as the the governor and and the administration is we want to make sure we got our fair share and and be a good partner with industry that they can take advantage of the assets that we do have available on the quality of life and the grit and work ethics of the people. Hoosiers. Right. That live here in the Northeast.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for other association leaders when it comes to building trust to constituents that require kind of a long term vision? Because the deals you’re you’re getting done they’re aren’t they don’t happen overnight. These are things that are planned out for months, if not years. And you’ve got to court people for a long time in order for them to kind of land on your doorstep. Can you share some of the strategies you use to build trust and patience with your constituents?

Stephane Frijia: Yes. I mean, I think it boils down to a fundamental understanding that any investor out there, either the personal level or a corporation investing in a new facility, the you always say there’s there’s never a risk free investment. Everything has risks. So as we know, record companies and other folks in around the country, the same thing. It’s about risk mitigation and as much as possible. So if a community is get to a point where we trust each other’s, we have each other’s back, we’re working through the same plan. What we’re doing is basically we’re de-risking those transactions because we say to the newcomers or new investors, look. You know, you’ve got goals to achieve. You know, you have a lot on the line. You got some real dollars. We are going to be part of the solution. We are a team that can work together across, you know, community lines, across jurisdictions, across organizations, because we do a long time and we’re going to be part of a solution that helps you de-risk your transaction. That’s the core message. So until you and I say you as the the committee, the committee doesn’t get to a point where they can firmly stand and say that we are that that that team that can the risk of transaction, then there’s work to be done because again the company investors are not looking for a to join you know leverage a team that doesn’t talk to one another. There is fights between the city and the counties or among different parties that that actually adds more risk profile and definitely doesn’t doesn’t speak well to the final score. So on that on on that potential transaction. So understanding really how as a community, what can you do to make it easier? And that’s part of the fundamental question that in in drive that in my mind should drive my colleagues and other community to think about how we do business and how we present our charters in understanding the the business needs of a company that is profiles and and how we can be good partners.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to learn more about the opportunities to get on your calendar or learn more about the region, is there a website for any I.

Stephane Frijia: Yeah. This Indiana you know dot com and the Indiana dot com it used to find us just a simple email or a phone call and be more than happy to share what we learned over the years you know the talk about the advantages you know and and provide an honest broker to you know, to what we have to offer. And when you do it right and you do it with confidence, you’ll realize that sometimes, you know, the the community next door may be in a better because a better asset, you know, trust expense to and honesty to even the larger the larger the larger communities. The other day, you know, I will never want to see a community sorry, a company or individual pick a community under a false sense of understanding and then having to fold. That’s a that’s a double black eye. It’s a black eye for the company that made the wrong decision. It’s a black eye for the community that spend a lot of time and resources to even get to that point. So to me, it’s like, you know, you know, de-risking, being transparent, being honest and upfront with folks, that’s really ultimately the key to success.

Lee Kantor: Well, congratulations on all the success and you’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Stephane Frijia: Well, thank you. Opportunity to share what we’re doing.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Association Leadership Radio.

Tagged With: Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership, Stephane Frijia

Donna Vallese with Inspiring Leaders

December 1, 2022 by angishields

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Donna-Vallese-Inspiring-LeadersDr. Donna Vallese has been an educator for over 2 decades. She is currently the Director of Learning & Continuous Improvement of Greene Central School District. Inspiring Leaders LLC is your part time business where she facilitates a global network of educational leaders and coaches instructional leaders.

She has experience working at the classroom, school, district, state and university levels in education. Her professional experiences in education have been mostly around urban and rural public education along with innovative public charter schools. Work for Dr. Donna has always been focused on creating equity for children in schools so that they can reach their fullest potential.

Colleagues have often called her the teacher whisperer because she has a way of turning challenges into opportunities and provides support for continuous growth to get teachers on board with transformative practices. She is passionate about effective and research-based teaching and learning practices that hone in on how students learn rather than just implementing what is easy.

Education is not the only thing that Dr. Donna is passionate about. Music has always played a critical role in Dr. Donna’s life. She minored in music for her undergrad and even considered becoming a music teacher at one point. As a professional adult, the love of performing music never left her and when she discovered the first community activist street band she had ever seen, she immediately became hooked when she joined. She now is part of a global community of street bands who all perform for the love of music and to bring attention to important social causes.

When she moved from the Connecticut and Rhode Island Area back to New York State in the Syracuse area, there were no street bands to be found. So, when you are a determined person like Dr. Donna, you find a way to start a band. This past year, Dr. Donna has become a TEDx Speaker, an International Bestselling Author of The Art of Risk and Reward, an International Speaker, and an awardee of the Education 2.0 Outstanding Leadership Award.  To learn more about the work she has been engaged in, you can visit: https://www.inspiringleadersnetwork.com/drdonnav_tedx.

In addition to her passion for teaching and learning, she is also passionate about the uniting force of music. Dr. Donna co-founded UNiTY Street Band, a non-profit, community activist street band in Syracuse, NY. This band’s mission is to put UNiTY back in the CommUNiTY through the joy of music. The band performs at all sorts of local and community events that bring people together. They even founded their own Honk! Festival called Salt City Honk!

Salt City Honk! Has become an annual event that brings other community activist street bands from around the country to Central New York for free performances that break the barriers between the audience and performers, that bring a sense of pure joy, and put music into open spaces where you would least expect to find music.

Connect with Dr. Donna on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Key shifts needed in education
  • Complexities of teaching
  • How people learn best
  • Power of networking educational leaders
  • School turnaround
  • Maintaining work-life balance

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast author, speaker, educator with Inspiring Leaders, Dr. Donna Vallese. How are you?

Donna Vallese: I’m doing great. How are you?

Stone Payton: I am doing well. I have really been looking forward to this conversation. I got a lot of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but but I think a good place to start would be if you could share with me and our listeners alike. Mission, purpose. What are you really out there trying to do for folks, Dr. Donna?

Donna Vallese: Well, I am really out there. I’ve been an educator for over 20 years and been an educator, leader, educational leader for over a decade. But I’m one of those people that knew I wanted to be a teacher since I was in kindergarten. And I there’s a few pivotal moments in in my life and people in my life who. Shaped me to become the educator that I am to really wrap around the fact that education doesn’t have to look the same all the time for everyone everywhere. That we really need more experiential education. We need to be able to really identify talents in our students. We need to get engagement, not compliance, to really help our students be able to learn and succeed. And so really, I’ve been I’ve been able to be in places that have allowed me to lead really innovative things, things like year round schooling, flexible learning spaces and flexible scheduling, which allow students to take a course in five months or a course in 14 months and graduate any day of the year. So I’m really looking at the needs that we have in front of us and seeing that our educational systems are just really outdated. And and I’m a teacher, right? I’m a teacher through and through. It is a really, really hard job. And but our systems that we have in place are not supporting our teachers and they’re not supporting our kids learning. And so I know that there are places out there that have been able to break some of these systems and get and overcome them. And so I’m really seeking to. Be able to just change the system at large and rather than in these little pockets.

Stone Payton: You bring up a very interesting point, because teaching strikes me as one of those professions, one of those callings that can look a lot easier than it really is. There’s got to be a great deal of complexity and nuance and intricacy to teaching and teaching. Well, that that the layperson just really doesn’t get. Yeah.

Donna Vallese: Absolutely. If you think of the number of people you interact with every single day and the number of things that you do in a day. Everybody has different experiences. They they they retain different amounts of information. And so they’re all in a different place. Our kids are not any different. Right? They all have different experiences. They’re all in a different place. They all learn differently. They have different interests and teachers have to wrap around that. And then to top top that on. So so teachers not only have to understand how each of their students learn, they have to understand in general best practices, but they also end up being the nurse and the mom and the psychologist and the counselor and and and and and then they have to do all this paperwork and we just we just layer and layer and layer things on our teachers that aren’t helping kids and making the job much harder than it really is. But I also like to I like to point out to people that. Trying to understand and get students to learn is really understanding the mind. Right? And so when you when you put that in perspective, the only other profession that really understands the mind would be a brain surgeon. Right? And so a brain surgeon has to be super precise. Well, there is nothing precise about the social science of teaching. Right. And so that makes it even harder.

Donna Vallese: So. Because every single day is going to be different and every single year you’re going to have different students in front of you. So you can’t even completely replicate exactly what you did over and over again. So that is what makes it really challenging. It also is what makes it kind of a calling and makes it really interesting because you’re always trying to figure out what it is that makes a student tick and what it is that’s going to help you get through to every one of your students. I have yet to come across a teacher who does not want to make a difference in a kid’s life, right? Every person I know wakes up in the morning and they’re like, I hope I have a good day. No one ever wakes up and says, I want to go to work and just make sure everybody has a bad day, right? I want to make sure that we’re doing our job well and we pride ourselves on that and and to make things more challenging. The other piece of it is so you go into your if you picture this, you go into your classroom and you have the teacher and you have these students in front of you and you shut the door and that’s it, like it’s you in the students and that’s it. And so when you think about it, a brand new teacher coming out of the classroom or coming out of college and going into the classroom, teaching is the only profession where you are expected to leave college and be just as good as a 15 year veteran.

Donna Vallese: The first day that you enter that classroom and every single day counts. So, for instance, what I mean by this is if you are an electrician or a plumber or a doctor or a nurse, you have to work side by side with someone for a very long time before you actually get get your own reins to to take the lead in the classroom setting. You might get 16 weeks of student teaching. If you’re lucky, some some schools are eight weeks and if you’re really lucky, you might get a year. And then you’re off on your own. You’re expected to get the same results as someone who’s been doing it for a very long time, teaching for a very long time. And so it’s really an interesting thing to try to provide the support that’s needed for teachers when they’re also given. Can you imagine an elementary teacher trying to prepare for six or seven different subjects in a day, but preparing for those six or seven different subjects with 45 minutes of planning time? So you’re planning for 6 hours of instruction with only 45 minutes of planning time. Who can really do that well.

Stone Payton: So where is the lever for your work? Is it at the district level? Is it in-service training at the classroom teacher level? Where do you get to apply the craft?

Donna Vallese: So that’s a really great question. So one of the things I used to always say, I am never going to be a principal. And then I started getting some insight into leadership and I became a principal. So I really want to be able to I’ve been and I’ve been doing this work, working with educational leaders, the leaders. It’s their job to clear the way for teachers, to lay the foundation, to lay the groundwork so that teachers can really succeed. Because if we can do that and support our teachers, our teachers will then support their students. If you’ve ever heard about the Wegmans model, the supermarkets up here in New York State, the Wegmans model is we take care of our employees and our employees take care of our clients. And so if we start applying that model to schools where our district leaders and our school leaders are taking care of our teachers, then our teachers will be better able to take care of our kids.

Stone Payton: What are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it for you?

Donna Vallese: I my favorite thing to do is to problem solve. When someone brings a challenge to me and all I do is I start posing questions. Well, why do you think that is? What are the other perspectives that are happening? How else can we look at this? What would happen if I know this sounds like a crazy idea, but what would happen if we tried X, Y, and Z? And then usually those conversations lead into other ideas and then those ideas. Usually something will land with that leader that they can then walk away with an action step, put it in place and come back and say, Oh my gosh, that really worked. All right, so now what’s the next step? And they get really excited because now they’re starting to feel some level of success. And so one of the challenges of our leaders is they’re also getting all this pressure from these broken systems that are above them. And so it’s hard for them to clear the way for the teachers. And so when they’re actually able to do that and to see the results from the teachers down to the students, it just it makes them feel successful. Otherwise, when they’re not seeing the results from teachers and students, they just feel like they’re spinning their wheels. And so I just just like when I was in the classroom, when a student had that aha moment, it’s it’s that same feeling working with leaders when they get that like that moment of, Oh my goodness, this was so great. I’ve got to figure out how to keep replicating and how to keep going on this momentum.

Stone Payton: Now, you have been a TEDx speaker. Tell us a little bit about that experience. What was that like? What do you feel like you learned from it? And yeah, what kind of impact do you think maybe that that might have?

Donna Vallese: Oh, so I did a TEDx talk. So the interesting thing was I had met a TEDx coach and I kept saying, I really want to do a Ted Ted talk, but I don’t know what it’s going to be about. And then I was delivering some professional development that I I’ve delivered multiple times and spun it different ways. And it was really all about student engagement, best practices, how and how we learn and why, like we really need to focus on critical thinking. And so as I was doing this professional development, I was finding myself getting so emphatic and so excited about talking about this topic. So I was like, That’s it. That’s my TED talk. So I contacted the coach. I said, I really want to work with you. I’ve no idea how to land a stage. Can you help me? And so I hired her. She I enrolled in one of her three month courses with a couple of other people. She walked us through the process, taught us how to find stages, taught us how to, and actually gave us feedback along the way on applications and the application process and the interview process and and then putting your talk together. So I was able to land a stage. It took me a few weeks. I think it was like three weeks when I before I landed a stage in a SUNY Geneseo. For those of you that don’t know what a Ted is, Ted is TED talks, but the X part is independent. So they these different locations can license TED and then do an independent Ted TED event. So I did this at SUNY Geneseo up here in New York State and I would I totally I’m already starting to plan and trying to figure out what my next TED talk is going to be because it was an awesome experience.

Donna Vallese: I spent more time planning my TED talk then for a 10 to 15 minute talk, which ended up being 18 minutes, but who’s counting? I spent more time planning that than I typically do, planning an entire five day professional development because I had to memorize, I had to memorize it and hone it in and just make sure it was keyed in on one key idea. And that key idea is the one thing that could really shift education, the one shift that’s really needed in education and that. Is a bigger focus on critical thinking. So learning really should look a whole lot more and feel a whole lot more like the process of learning how to ride a bicycle than it does now. We should not be having hours upon hours upon hours of kids sitting in chairs and listening to teachers lecture at them. That is the easy way, but it is not the way that people learn best. And we have decades upon decades upon decades of research over a century, actually, of research that shows us that that is not how the majority of the population learns, but that is still how we tend to do school. So that is what the TED talk is about. So if you if you were to Google my name, Donna Willis, Ted X or Donna Lee SUNY Geneseo, it you’ll find it. It’ll come up right there.

Stone Payton: Well, that sounds like a marvelous activity for the for the long weekend. So I will make sure that.

Donna Vallese: Yes, there you go. That’s all your homework assignment.

Stone Payton: I do not know where you find the time, but I saw in my notes that you’re also a bestselling author. The book is The Art of Risk and Reward. What was that experience like putting the book together? What have you learned from that?

Donna Vallese: Oh, so I am with my business. I am part of this executive networking group. Executive networking events is what it’s called. And we meet weekly and there’s people in it across the world from all different countries. And so a bunch of us actually authored a book together. I think there were 26 of us we met in Ireland. So we had been talking for well over a year, every single week. We met in Ireland, in Dublin, and then stayed at Crome Castle for five weeks or five days, not five weeks. I wish five days just did it like this awesome mastermind and networking and stuff together and we launched our book there. But so the book, The Art of Risk and Reward, every person, every author has a different chapter, and the chapter is really about a risk that they took on themselves and the reward that it gave them. And so. That some of them are based on business like mine was based more on my business, but others have personal stories in there. It’s really there’s some really heartwarming stories in there. And the people who have written these stories are fantastic and they are all people who are entrepreneurs like me. They have their own businesses. Some of them are also employed full time doing other things like me as well. And they’re just phenomenal people really trying to help people in the world and trying to make a difference in the world. So I have learned so much from these people and created really great relationships. We also got to present our chapters, so we became international speakers and we presented there were eight countries represented in the room at Chrome Castles. So we had I don’t even know if I can list them all but Australia, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Canada, the United States.

Donna Vallese: I want to say Greece. And I don’t know where the eighth. I can’t remember where the eighth country was. I will think of it. But yeah, so it was an incredible experience. It was there that I actually I’ve met two people that I am doing some collaborations with one. One is a counselor and she has a coaching business and we’re going to be doing some webinars together called Leading Through the Messy Middle. It’s about it’s for middle level leaders who are trying to lead up and lead down, and it’s always a big mess. But they’re also in the middle of leading all of these all of these big projects that also get messy. And so being in that middle level leadership is a really stressful place to be. And so we’re focused on those leaders in that. And then I also met a publisher. She’s a special ed director in Texas and has a publishing business, and she is going to be publishing a series of books that I’m in the process of writing called The Teacher Whisperer, because that used to be my nickname, believe it or not. So I’m working on that series, and we’re also working on a series where other educational leaders can can also write chapters like an anthology so that they can share how they have overcome some of the systemic challenges in education. And so that series is going to be called the Educational Matadors, and we’ll end up doing some conferences and and things around that as well. So there’s a lot of things coming up the pike. I’m super excited and thank you for allowing me to share all of that, by the way.

Stone Payton: Absolutely. No, I think it’s fascinating. And one of the things that would be helpful for me and certainly our listeners, many of whom are practitioners of one sort or another, and they have to you know, it’s not just practicing your craft. They we also have to run a business and we have to to sell the work to get it. We have to go to market effectively. How does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a person like you, a practice like yours? How do you get the get the chance to get to do the work?

Donna Vallese: Oh, my gosh. This is the one area that I struggle the most with because as an educator, I was never trained in business. I was never trained in marketing. So I have the past three years or so, I’ve spent a lot of money learning how to market from other people. It is part of the reason I’m in the Executive Networking Events group, because there’s a lot of people where I can. I built relationships where I can reach out to someone to ask questions. I’ve learned how to use Facebook ads, which is a whole process. I’ve learned how to build audiences in LinkedIn and in Facebook and social media. I’ve learned how to use programs like Canva to just develop simple, simple graphics to be able to put out there. Love that program. Being able to create sales, funnels and stuff. I didn’t even know what a funnel was. I was like a funnel like the thing that’s in your kitchen. When I when I first started this, I was like, Well, I didn’t even know. I was like, I’ve never heard of a sales funnel. What the heck are you talking about? So now I know what a sales funnel is and you know, being able to use different technology platforms and and calendar invites and it’s just there’s a lot of networking. I’m going to be going to a conference in a couple of weeks out in Las Vegas and Global Education 2.0 conference am accepting an educational leadership award there. I bought a marketing package there so that I can market my stuff as well.

Donna Vallese: One of the people I also met over in Ireland at the Castle through this executive networking event, she’s also an author in the book. She has a speakers bureau and she is now my speaker’s speaking agent, so she’s working on getting me on some stages. So it’s really like building a team networking. And eventually when I’m able to, once I’m able to transition to doing my business full time and bringing in enough money that I’m hoping that I can hire some really great marketer to do my marketing for me because it’s not my favorite part to be honest. But you have to you just have to bite the bullet and learn how to do it. Because what I’ve decided, what I had learned and decided was if you hire someone to do it for you, you really don’t know what to tell them to do or what you want or anything. So you really have to find resources to learn how to do it and to play with it. And it does take time. But I think because I’m learning the language and learning some of the strategies and and learning a little bit of copyright secrets and things like that. That is going to that is really setting me up so that when the time comes for me to hire someone, I’m going to be able to be really clear, crystal clear in what I want. So I mean, that’s leadership 101, right? Clear communication.

Stone Payton: Well, before we wrap, let’s leave our educational leaders, if we could. I’ll call them pro tips. Right. A couple of actionable ideas, maybe something to be reading, something to be doing, not doing some topics, some things to consider if if maybe we’ve opened their mind to to learn a little bit more about this set of topics.

Donna Vallese: I think I think my top two tips. The first one is for leaders to get some coaching training. When you become an educational leader, they do not provide you training in how to coach people. And what you experience often is kind of a top down approach. And real leadership can’t always be that way. It can’t always be top down. You have to. You have to know how to. Build your people up and build them into leaders as well so that they can share the the burden of leadership. It’s really there’s always just so much to do, but it takes coaching to be able to coach them up to do that. And so there’s a transformative coaching. It’s a I can’t think of the name of the author right now. I should have had it right here in front of me. It’s a big black book on Amazon. It’s a little pricey, but it has some really great it goes it goes through why coaching works. It gives you strategies for coaching, it gives you coaching language. It’s kind of like it’s almost like a great coaching Bible. I love to go back and refer to that, but getting the training would be a number one thing and also make sure that you are if you’re going to be working with teachers. Please, please, please become an expert in how people learn. Not just how kids learn, but how adults learn as well. Know what Andrea Goji is? Know how we acquire and remember information. Know what instructional strategies look like and sound like. And feel like. Be able to demonstrate them if you need to and model them in your when you’re delivering professional development to teachers so that you can literally turn around and say let’s debrief that strategy we just use to learn that so that you can use that with your students.

Donna Vallese: And there’s. There’s a great book it was put out I think in the ninety’s it’s a great collection of research that I actually used in my dissertation years ago. It’s called How we Think or how we learn one of one or the other. It’s it’s a pretty thick book but it has a huge collection of research and resources going back to John Dewey and Bruner and Bronfenbrenner and all your major theorists that. You kind of brushed over them in Psychology 101. Or educational psychology. But you really didn’t learn the depth of what they were or maybe even bloom. You didn’t really learn the depth like the first chapter of Bloom’s Taxonomy, which in my TED talk, I talk about we we always learn the taxonomy as a step by step process. But the first chapter in that actual book is the taxonomy is not a step by step process for thinking. All it is is is defining the different levels of thinking that we engage in. That thinking happens in any order at any time. So. So just make sure that you have a really sound understanding of what really great practice looks like and feels like. Make sure that you’ve seen it, that you can describe it, that you can help teachers visualize it and implement it. So those are my top two things. Long winded, but the top two things.

Stone Payton: Fantastic know, and I think it’s incredibly valuable. Thank you for sharing those resources. Okay. What is the best way for our listeners to get connected with you and start tapping into your work?

Donna Vallese: Yeah, so I do have a website w w w dot Inspiring Leaders LLC. I also you can email me Dr. Dot Donna V at Inspiring Leaders LLC and I’m easy to find on LinkedIn or on Facebook as well. If you just type in my name or my company, my company name, I will pop up or just Google me. I’ll pop up to there too. So lots of ways to get in touch with me.

Stone Payton: Well, Dr. Donna, it has been an absolute delight having you on the program today. Thank you for investing the time and energy to hang out with us and share your perspective and keep up the good work.

Donna Vallese: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on here. And and just everyone out there. Just if you’re not an educator, I just hope that you continue that this has helped you have a little bit of understanding in education that that you can really help support the changes that need to come in education.

Stone Payton: Amen. And it’s been my pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Dr. Donna Valise and everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Inspiring Leaders

Kevin Hein with Konectd Company

December 1, 2022 by angishields

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High Velocity Radio
Kevin Hein with Konectd Company
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Kevin-Hein-KonectdKevin Hein started Konectd back in 2013 helping business owners transition to mobile websites. Today, he has focused on helping business owners of all verticals and sizes maximize opportunities for them.

Working with companies from start-ups to established ones, he has a solution for you.

Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Changing marketplace for small business owners
  • Understanding the needs of business owners and not just chasing a sale
  • How business owners are keeping employees today
  • How to work with local in mind
  • Tools that you are using today
  • Tips and tricks for business owners

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Konectd, Mr. Kevin Hein. Good afternoon, sir.

Kevin Hein: How are we doing today, Stone?

Stone Payton: I am doing well and I have been so looking forward to having this conversation. I got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think. I think a great place to start would be if you could articulate for me and our listeners mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks, man?

Kevin Hein: Amazing. Well, first off, I want to thank you for bringing me on and looking forward to sharing a little bit with your listeners about what we do today. You know, our focus, our premise is really focusing around the customer needs. We’re not going in and working with these large, large companies on a day to day basis without considering those small local businesses to they have their needs. They’re looking for just help. They have questions. They don’t know who to go to. They’re looking at their day to day marketing or lack thereof. Don’t know where to start and are overwhelmed. Right. Is something as simple as building a Facebook page, a business page, and starting a website, right? So our focus in our team is really coming around as a support staff to their business. And that’s really where our focus and energy has been from the get go.

Stone Payton: Well, and I suspect it’s a moving target or a moving set of targets. Are you finding that there are changes in the marketplace for particularly for those small business owners that you have to help them adapt to and live into?

Kevin Hein: Absolutely. So when I started this business back in 2013, there was a huge shift from going to desk, from desktop to mobile. So that was our primary focus when we started out is getting people to the mobile websites. We’ve since obviously seen that shift go well into the mobile world and we’ve expanded since on what we’re offering from social media SEO websites. But what I’m finding now, just beyond the digital side of things is business owners are starting to age, right? And there are new entrepreneurs coming into the market. And I think that’s amazing. And there’s a lot of tools that they can use out there today. But these aging entrepreneurs are really looking for just a little bit of help to get them to the end of the stretch where they can retire and step back. Right. So understanding what digital presents actually means and where to put their energy and focus, right. We can compare against whether it’s competitors locally or competitors across the nation where they should spend their energy in going forward, whether it be social media or a website, or it might be something as simple as just a one pager explaining what they do and they offer. They don’t need a huge portfolio of pages within a website, but really just a simple explanation of, Hey, we’re here, this is what we offer, here’s how we can help. And that’s really been eye opening, putting that customer view first versus just trying to sell, sell, sell. And that’s not how we bend. That’s not how we’ve started is we’re not out knocking down doors and trying to sell everybody everything that we offer. It’s really focusing and tailoring into what they want and what they’re looking for.

Stone Payton: Well, it strikes me, as you’re speaking, that it’s really important that you genuinely listen to what the customer has to say, what the prospective client has to say, what may be some assumptions, some of which might be a little bit flawed maybe, And you may have to kind of log that and know that you’re going to need to educate and inform, but to in your pursuit to genuinely serve. It sounds like genuinely listening is is a gosh, not just a working discipline. I mean, it sounds like it’s a core value for you guys.

Kevin Hein: Absolutely it is. And the better piece of it, too, And what I’ve really instilled with my employees and my team is first, we’re a family, We work together, we take care of each other. We understand each other’s needs. I have kids. I have a few employees that have kids, you know, and really families first. And I want to instill that into our customer base as well to understand that it’s not straight business all the time. Tell me what’s going on. What are your other struggles? And I’m not necessarily saying personal, but are you having issues? Are you looking for funding? Are you having trouble finding employees or outside of just the digital world, what what can we help with? Because it may not be something that we offer, but we have a huge connection across multiple platforms, whether it be social media or personal throwback, an old phrase Rolodex. Right? And we can we can find those and connect those people to help them out, whether it’s local or regional or national. We can we can get down that path where we’re really just trying to be a resource to help them get down the path that they’re trying to get to. Right. So again, it may not be something we offer, but we listen and try and help where we can. Right. And we may not be the experts, but I know certainly that we can we can connect them with some experts that would get on the path. And in the long term, it just helps our case on what we’re offering as well. Right?

Stone Payton: Yeah. So so what’s the back story, man? How didn’t how in the world did you find yourself in in this line of work?

Kevin Hein: You know, I hopped out of college marketing degree, young and spry and excited, got into the marketing world, work for a very, very large corporation, realized it wasn’t for me. I got sucked into the sales side, did very well, ran a sale work for another organization, actually ran their sales team as a director and enjoyed it. But again, it was the big corporation. It wasn’t a fit for me. So I’ve been able to really marry this sales and marketing viewpoint, which brings again, a lot of value to my customers, I believe as well, because you can write a good marketing strategy, but having any sales perspective behind it is important too. On how the customer thinks, how they’re going to react to certain things. Being able to write copy, that’s correct as well is very important. But again, realizing back a few years I started this in 2013, it’s the the age old started in the garage and now I’m doing this full time type deal. Right. And it’s been fun. It’s been a fun ride. And we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon, but really being able to get down to the nitty gritty with the customers and focus on what their needs are is really the fun part because at the end of the day, I get to go to the customers, whether it’s again via Zoom or I get to go on site, I get to see what they’re doing, I get to learn new things. I get to touch, feel right. I understand manufacturing operations. I understand, you know, the building operations or again, the digital operations that people are running to. And that is really what excites me is I get to interact and create a relationship and help grow with them and watch them grow. That’s really what’s important to us.

Stone Payton: So you spoke earlier in the conversation. You touched on sort of your ethos, your mindset, your value system around selling someone, serving someone versus just trying to to chase a sale. And at the same time, you’ve got to get into that conversation first, right? You have to have that conversation. So have you sort of landed on some sort of discipline process? Have you cracked the code on on getting a chance to have the conversation in the first place? I don’t know. Maybe we put that in the marketing bucket. Do you have a process for for meeting your market? I guess.

Kevin Hein: Yeah. You know, it’s I can’t say that I’ve cracked the code. I don’t know that there is a real code out there because every person is unique, everyone’s different. Although we see with a lot of business owners, they have similarities in problems that they’re running into. Sure, we can create a workflow or something like that that would that would drive some success. But really it’s focusing down and just being a people person again, understanding it as you iterated before, listening intently, providing value to them, whether it’s at a cost or not. At the end of the day, again, if I can help you find a better spark plug for your vehicle or a spark plug for your vehicle, I would be happy to do it again. I think provides no value for me, but it helps them. And at the end of the day, that’s what’s important. But as far as again, that marketing first or sales first, I think it’s so intertwined in my brain, I don’t know which ones coming out at which time. But again, going back to the cracking the code, I think it’s just being genuine, being authentic, being who you are. Right? This isn’t this is who I am.

Kevin Hein: I have three little beautiful babies. I got a gorgeous wife and we make it work. We’re we’re we’re a busy family. And there’s a lot of people, a lot of owners out there that are in the same situation. And you make it work and you understand that not everyone’s out to get you. And that’s where sometimes we run into the roadblock of saying, Oh, you’re just another marketing agency. And I was like, Well, no, actually we do a lot more. And sometimes I feel like we adopt our our clients and I get a text on Wednesday night before before Thanksgiving, and they’re going to they’re going to need something. Something’s going to come up and it’s okay. That’s what we’re here for. We’re here to help out. And and that’s where really focusing on your culture internally will exponentially show the value that you bring and the support and the familiarity that you bring to these owners, too, because they’ll they’ll understand and they’ll feel the culture that’s coming within. And they can really, over time, will be able to detect if there’s a negative or a bad feel about it. And that’s definitely what we don’t want to instill, right?

Stone Payton: Yeah. Well, let’s talk about culture a little bit, because it’s one thing for you, Kevin Hine, to have this mindset. This ethos, this approach to genuinely serving and helping the client get what they need and want, whether it’s you who provides it or not, it’s clearly yet another to build a team of people who will help you achieve those ends and live into that that value system. Talk a little bit about your own recruiting, developing, retaining and I don’t know, maybe you’re even helping some of your clients on this very issue.

Kevin Hein: Yeah. You know, and I appreciate you pointing that out. It’s something that we sit down through the interview process, you know, like a lot of other people will put an application out there or an opening out there and we’ll get applicants. But what I really focus on is sitting down and speaking with them. I’m not here to ask you, what are your three strengths and three weaknesses? Right? I can look at your resume. I can understand what your what your capabilities are. I may ask a few questions about you. Tell me about working with a client that comes at you negatively or whatnot. And and that’s fine. But really, again, understanding you get that feel with speaking with them and understand what their core values are, too. And look, at the end of the day, I don’t expect my client or my employees to work around the clock. I don’t have that expectation. They shouldn’t have that expectation of me, even though sometimes I feel like I’m doing that, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I have that expectation for them. So really what I’ve instilled with them are a few different values. But the biggest piece being that you listen and you help them out on whatever need that they may have or again point them in the right direction. I’m not saying you have to know how to change a spark plug in a car, but hey, hey, here’s your local whatever auto body shop. Here’s who can help you out or have a connection with. And so but the other piece, too, is I’m not here to keep you forever. I understand that you need to move up in your career, and maybe that’s internally, maybe it’s not right. And that’s an okay thing. I want to provide you with all the tools, all the knowledge, all the capabilities that I have, the ability to share with you or our team has to share with you.

Kevin Hein: And if you go and better yourself in a different organization or create your own organization, I fully support it. I want you to understand that. I understand that. I’m asking a lot of what you’re doing on your day to day. It’s time is money, right? I’m asking you as an as an employer to take time away from your family. I’m asking you to maybe work some extra hours because we’re buried in a project. I’m asking you to possibly travel depending on the type of client where we’re going. Right. And I take that all into consideration, and as I said in the beginning, is I consider my employees family. Right. I will do anything for them and I don’t expect anything in return. And that’s the biggest key is I’m not out to. You know, accept anything back to me. Right. And that’s really what I focus on with my employees, is how can I help you? Because if you have the right mindset, the right, whatever it might be, that may be a struggle at home or with family or whatever it might be, if there’s anything I can do to help you out or if you need some extra time off or something happened, I’m here to support you. I’m your cheerleader, and I will back you up all the way. And I think that having that feel versus again, I’ve worked in a few large organizations that you really are a number. My employees are not a number. We have daily communications. We work on a lot of projects together. We have a lot of fun together too. So that’s really my focus around all of that.

Stone Payton: When you stepped out on your own a decade ago, was it at least a little bit scary for you, man? What was that like?

Kevin Hein: Yeah, so I ended up not stepping out right in 2013. I did it a bit on the side just for clarity, but I’ve been out on my own now for I’ve got to be over six years now, which is still a fair amount of time. And I was scared out of my mind. If I’m not, you know, if I’m being honest, it’s and I am not I am being honest. But it was it was terrifying. Right. And my wife looked at me and said, Are you sure this is the route we need to go? And I said, You know what? I have to do it. I can’t be one foot in and one foot out. Right? It’s not going to do anything if I don’t if I don’t take that leap. And I wouldn’t change. Change it for the world, right? Yeah, I work all hours. But you know what? Kids have a Christmas party at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. Guess what? I’m going to go disappear at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday for an hour, and then I’ll be back at work. Right.

Stone Payton: So when the when the batteries do run a little bit low and and you need to recharge, where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean like a physical place, but but how do you sort of get re-inspired get get, get built back up to go back out and try to serve and live into this purpose of yours.

Kevin Hein: Yeah. So my, my quiet place or my place to go to is actually running. As weird as that sounds. I go out and I go for a run and I’ll turn on some music on in the background. But I’ll went on my runs, I turn my music pretty low, just it’s just sent back round noises. I’m huffing and puffing down this down the street or down the sidewalk, but it really clears my mind and gives me a few moments to really soak in everything that maybe I’m a bit overwhelmed on a few projects that are going on. We’re taking on new clients. We have some clients that may be off boarding, which is it happens with everybody and really kind of decompress and then build a plan moving forward. That’s kind of my I’ll call it sacred space, right? And when I go out for a run and I don’t usually go running with anybody, it’s usually just by myself. And that’s my time away to really just process everything. And I come back and I’ll be maybe a bit tired from the run. Physically, mentally, I feel so much clearer and ready to hit the ground running, like you mentioned before, is is that that’s where I really start feeling a lot better and hitting that groove again.

Stone Payton: Well, and it really is so important to make that space for ourselves and for those of us leading organizations to to make that space or the room for it for the people who who we’re trying to generate results with. And and through I mean, it’s it’s critical, man. If you neglect that, you are really putting some things in jeopardy, don’t you think?

Kevin Hein: Yeah, yeah, absolutely agree with that.

Stone Payton: So before we went on air, you were sharing with me what I can only describe as as a fervent commitment to a genuine affinity for serving local. Can you speak more to that?

Kevin Hein: Yeah, certainly. So when focusing on yourself, right in talking with the running that I do, and that’s kind of my time away to decompress and breathe and think, you also need to, in lieu of serving yourself, you need to serve your community, really focusing on the growth and value that you bring to your community, whether it be local or regional, because that will in turn better where you live. It’ll better your community, it’ll better your neighbors, it’ll better your schools, it’ll better. Pretty much everything that’s out there, right? So if you focus on local and provide that value again, at times it’s that no cost, right? I’m helping out with the, let’s say the local chamber. Right. Or helping out with even I live in a really small town. Right. So everybody knows everybody and going down to city Hall and helping them because they got a broken page on their website. I’m not charging for that. It’s we’re so small, there’s really only one board. There’s no money there. Right. And they’re doing all the volunteering for sitting on boards and whatnot, part of the park board or part of the Economic Board or anything like that. So it’s going down and doing that. Really focusing on growing and intertwining that community piece is only going to help you in your business in the long run. Again, it just is another layer of. Really taking care of yourself and your community. That’s really a focus of ours because a few of our employees are not local to us. To. To connected. Right. So I instill in them to make sure that they’re getting out and helping their community to as a part of what they’re doing on their day to day as well.

Stone Payton: Before we wrap, let’s leave our listeners with a couple of pro tips, some tangible, actionable things they can be thinking about, reading, doing, not doing around some of these topics. I don’t know, maybe share with them some of the some of the tools that you yourself are using or helping your clients with just something to help them begin to. To move in this direction on some of these key topics.

Kevin Hein: Yeah, absolutely. I’d say first and foremost, working within and going to your chamber meetings, your community meetings, supporting those groups doesn’t necessarily have to be networking and you can sit in a corner. It doesn’t mean you necessarily need to speak, don’t feel like you’re totally obligated to present what you do or who you are or even. But just being a part and understanding what’s going on, I think is the biggest tool that you have out there. Something that I’ve focused on early on in my business kind of got away from because we got really busy but is a focus for me, 2023 is it’s not necessarily a tool as much as I’ve focused on getting out and traveling more and meeting new clients face to face, getting out and shaking hands again. Right? We were shut down here for a bit, but coming back and and again physically seeing people going out on site, seeing clients shaking hands, don’t be afraid that people are going to welcome you in. As far as digital tools. There’s a million out there, right? We offer a business app that people can log in to monitor their digital presence and so on and so forth. So that’s a tool of ours through connected. And you can reach out to me any time if anybody like a demo on that. Other tools we use for social media, we’re big partners with cloud campaign, simple tool for posting, scheduling, anything like that.

Kevin Hein: We’re big WordPress website people. We like to use those tools that are out there to very simple builders, so on and so forth. So those are a few of the tools. But the biggest piece I would say out of all the tools or all the needs that you have out there is just go do something. That’s what I ask people. People get overwhelmed with, Well, I can go to this or I can do that, or I need to learn how to do Photoshop, or I need to learn how to just go do it. Just go create a website. Go go post something out on social media. You know what? When I post it on social media, I got zero likes, did it for a long time, got zero likes. Then I got one follower, then I got two followers. You know, at the end of the day, I don’t think I have that many followers on our on our business page right now as it is, But we’re focused on just doing it, put in, put in the post, put in the time, because it will long term it’s a it’s a time game. You keep doing it, you keep pushing forward, don’t quit. You’re going to be success in your own eyes. And success is measure based on what you feel. It’s not monetary, it’s not a certain threshold that you have to hit. It’s whatever you feel is successful is successful to you.

Stone Payton: A man. All right. What is the best way for our listeners to get connected with you and tap into your work? Man? Whatever you feel like is appropriate? Email, LinkedIn, key URLs. I want to make sure that they can. I want to make it easy for them to connect with you.

Kevin Hein: Yeah, absolutely you can. And I may regret this, but I’ll just put my email out there. You can reach out to me. Kevin at Connected dot com it’s Kevin. Kevin at Connected K on E, C TED.com. They can reach out to me via LinkedIn. I believe it’s LinkedIn backslash k r hine Accion so they can reach out to me. There are probably the two spots that I’m most active that they can reach out to me directly. And again, any questions people have, we’re always happy to help out. And I know there’s always a lot of questions about marketing where they should spend money, where they should spend their energy. Is this working? Is that working? And some of it is testing, right? It doesn’t necessarily mean we have the right answer, but we can walk through their process and see what that looks like.

Stone Payton: Kevin, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you for investing the time and energy to share your insight and your perspective. This is been a marvelous conversation and you’re doing really important work, man. Keep up the good work and and know that we sincerely appreciate you, man.

Kevin Hein: Thank you, Stone. I appreciate your time and I appreciate everyone listening today.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Kevin Hein with Connected and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Konectd

Adam Bardi, Bardi Heating, Cooling, Plumbing, and Heather Fleming, MST

November 30, 2022 by John Ray

Adam Bardi, Bardi Heating, Cooling, Plumbing and Heather Fleming, MST
North Fulton Studio
Adam Bardi, Bardi Heating, Cooling, Plumbing, and Heather Fleming, MST
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Adam Bardi, Bardi Heating, Cooling, Plumbing and Heather Fleming, MST

Adam Bardi, Bardi Heating, Cooling, Plumbing, and Heather Fleming, MST (ProfitSense with Bill McDermott, Episode 38)

On this episode of ProfitSense, host Bill McDermott welcomed two outstanding business leaders. Adam Bardi, Owner and CEO of Bardi Heating, Cooling, Plumbing, talked about growth and scaling a business, attracting talent, and more. Heather Fleming, Business Development Manager at MST, discussed the hot topics in accounting right now, what brought her back to the workforce, and more. Bill closed the show with a commentary on four crucial issues all business owners need to consider as they look ahead to 2023.

ProfitSense with Bill McDermott is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton Studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.

Bardi Heating, Cooling, Plumbing

Bardi Heating, Cooling & Plumbing has served the greater Atlanta area since 1989, specializing in expert solutions for residential communities. We are family-owned, and we invoke our core values- honesty, family, respect, and a positive attitude in every professional project we obtain.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Adam Bardi, Owner & CEO, Bardi Heating, Cooling, Plumbing

Adam Bardi, Owner & CEO, Bardi Heating, Cooling, Plumbing

Adam Bardi is many things: loving husband to his wife Heather, Girl Dad of two beautiful daughters, and the proud Owner/CEO of Bardi Heating, Cooling, and Plumbing. Adam has several primary influences that he credits to making him a successful entrepreneur. The first being family. Growing up as a First Generation American, Adam learned the importance of work ethic and the privilege of pursuing the American Dream. Adam’s father instilled important values in him.

Adam believes that being reared by an entrepreneur was the key to his success because he saw first-hand what it takes to be successful. Sports also heavily influenced Adam. As an avid sports fan and former athlete, sports taught Adam how to be a team player and the power of collective action.

He believes that Bardi is the best home service company to work for in Atlanta because of its employees. Adam loves being an entrepreneur because it gives him the ability to provide opportunity. For Adam, it’s not just about the success of his company, it’s about changing lives.

LinkedIn

MSTiller LLC (“MST”)

MSTiller LLC (“MST”) celebrates its 66th anniversary this year. The Firm has 4 offices, 3 located in Georgia and 1 in New York. They have over 130 staff members serving clients in a variety of industries. MST is noted by Accounting Today as a “Firm to Watch”, ranked as one of the “Top 25 Accounting Firms” by Atlanta Business Chronicle and ranked by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution as “Top Work Places”.

What makes them different? They advocate for their clients continuously. Their clients view them as problem solvers and trusted advisors that anticipate issues and planning opportunities. They believe that their client service approach is what truly defines their firm. Resources and experience are meaningless without a desire to use those tools to help organizations achieve their goals. MST’s client service approach can best be described as hands-on, proactive and ongoing. They aim to be involved beyond the year-end services. Their client relationships typically are for the long-term, often extending over decades and the continuity of these client relationships is the ultimate testament to their service approach.

MST specializes in serving closely held and privately-owned businesses ranging in size from $10 million to over $300 million in revenue. Their services are composed of a broad range of audit, tax and strategic consulting matters. They have substantial experience in serving as the outside accountant for a wide range of growth and mature professional service providers.

Additionally, MST is a member of the Moore Global network of firms, which provides them immediate access to industry expertise from similar firms throughout the United States and internationally.

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

Heather Fleming, Business Development Manager, MST

Heather Fleming, Business Development Manager, MST

Heather Fleming is a Business Development Manager with MST and has helped get this new practice at the firm up and running over the last year and a half. Heather started her professional career at SunTrust Bank in 1998 as a part of their Commercial Banking Training Program. After finishing the training program and working with a commercial banking team in Lawrenceville, she was named a Relationship Manager in 2000. She worked with privately held companies in Gwinnett County as their main point of contact and advocate at SunTrust Bank.

She joins the MST team with a great understanding of the financial world and how to connect with local business owners in the Atlanta market. Her goal is to help businesses determine what accounting services match their strategic or compliance needs and connect them with the partner and team that is going to be best for them and their team.

In her free time, she is raising 3 teenagers, is on the board for a couple non profit organizations, gives back to her community through her membership in YMSL and NCL with her kids, teaches Sunday School to high school girls and enjoys working out at a local CrossFit gym.

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About ProfitSense and Your Host, Bill McDermott

Bill McDermott
Bill McDermott

ProfitSense with Bill McDermott dives into the stories behind some of Atlanta’s successful businesses and business owners and the professionals that advise them. This show helps local business leaders get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, their community, and their profession. The show is presented by McDermott Financial Solutions. McDermott Financial helps business owners improve cash flow and profitability, find financing, break through barriers to expansion, and financially prepare to exit their business. The show archive can be found at profitsenseradio.com.

Bill McDermott is the Founder and CEO of McDermott Financial Solutions. When business owners want to increase their profitability, they don’t have the expertise to know where to start or what to do. Bill leverages his knowledge and relationships from 32 years as a banker to identify the hurdles getting in the way and create a plan to deliver profitability they never thought possible.

Bill currently serves as Treasurer for the Atlanta Executive Forum and has held previous positions as a board member for the Kennesaw State University Entrepreneurship Center and Gwinnett Habitat for Humanity and Treasurer for CEO NetWeavers. Bill is a graduate of Wake Forest University and he and his wife, Martha have called Atlanta home for over 40 years. Outside of work, Bill enjoys golf, traveling, and gardening.

Connect with Bill on LinkedIn and Twitter and follow McDermott Financial Solutions on LinkedIn.

Tagged With: Accounting, Adam Bardi, Bardi Cooling Heating Plumbing, Bill McDermott, Business Development, Family Business, Heather Flemming, mst, profitability, profitability coach, Profitability Coach Bill McDermott, ProfitSense, ProfitSense with Bill McDermott, The Profitability Coach

Monty Bruell with Oaklyn Consulting

November 29, 2022 by rgandley

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Monty Bruell with Oaklyn Consulting
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Monty-Bruell-headshotMonty Bruell is an Atlanta-based partner at Oaklyn Consulting, a consulting firm that specializes in mergers, acquisitions, capital raising and other significant financial transactions for small- and mid-sized businesses with up to $100 million in sales.

Bruell focuses on serving the needs of small- to mid-sized minority and women owned business enterprises (MWBEs). He is an entrepreneur, business consultant and investment advisor with more than 25 years’ experience. In 2021, he ran for mayor of Chattanooga, highlighting a message of addressing economic disparities in Chattanooga and around the country.

Before coming to Oaklyn, Bruell was a principal for MRB Consulting, working directly with clients on a project basis to develop and execute strategies to launch and scale early-stage start-ups in preparation for funding and growth. He has also been a board member and shareholder for Georgia point-of-sale software company Rapid RMS since 2013.

He graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s in economics.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • What makes succession planning particularly important for minority and female business owners
  • How working with Oaklyn or another professional advisory firm makes the succession process easier
  • How the concerns of a 70-year-old business owner are different from a younger one still at the midpoint of their career
  • How the traditional M&A consultant structure underserves some communities
  • Factors that go into selecting the right buyer for one’s business
  • Highlights of a “to-do” list for passing a business down to the next generation

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you today. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Oakland Consulting, Mr. Monty Bruell. How are you, man?

Monty Bruell: I am great, Stone. How are you today?

Stone Payton: I am doing well. I have really been looking forward to this conversation. I have a ton of questions. I know we won’t get to them all, but I think a really good place to start would be if you could articulate for me and our listeners mission purpose, what you and your team are really out there trying to do for folks.

Monty Bruell: Sure. Oakland Consulting is a regional mergers and acquisitions firm. We we help people buy companies. We help people sell companies that they’ve built. We’re we’re in the succession and transition business. A lot of times founders CEOs will spend decades building a business, but they have not really thought about how they’re going to maximize the value that they’re going to receive. For that, How will they exit that business? You know, will one generation of a family transfer it to the next generation? So Oakland Consulting works with business owners. And we say in the lower middle market, you know, we do deals from, say, $5 Million all the way up to $100 Million. But we help people figure out what they’re going to do with their company and and we drive them toward that transaction.

Stone Payton: So it strikes me that succession planning would be important for virtually any business owner. But are there particular industries, types of businesses, segments of that business owner population for whom it is even more critical or fewer of them are doing it than really should be?

Monty Bruell: Well, as you said, Stone Payton succession planning is important for every business owner. But what we find is that with closely held family run companies, succession planning is super important because you sometimes will have members of the family who think they’re going to be running the business in the future. And they may not be. That may not be what the what the owner wants to have happen. And then you have employees who may have worked for a company for 20 years who want to know where they fit into the into the future of that company. With my practice in Atlanta is I focus primarily on minority and women owned companies. And with those companies you have issues around certification. Will the company continue to be at least 51% owned by a minority or a woman? That’s very important to the future success of the business. And then you have issues of legacy, because as hard as it is for any business to be successful over the long run, it’s doubly hard for a minority owned company or a woman owned company. And so you want to leave a legacy. You don’t want to just sell your company willy nilly without any regard for what’s going to happen to it in the future. You want to make sure that the legacy that you have built is recognized and that it continues on into the future.

Stone Payton: So I got to know, man, what is the back story? How did you find yourself in this line of work? What was the path, man?

Monty Bruell: Well, it’s an unusual way to find one’s career path. But last year I ran for mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the reason that I wanted to run primarily was to address economic disparity. When you look at households and poverty, for example, throughout the South, two thirds of all households in poverty are headed by single women. So our poverty is concentrated with single moms, their kids and families. Imagine if you could create businesses that are woman owned that that can can help other women, that you can expand the middle class, you can create good paying jobs. And so when I didn’t win the mayoral race, I began talking with people. And my now partner, Frank Williamson, and I sat down and and Frank said, you know, it sounds like you could really be a good investment banker, that you could help some people figure out how to grow their businesses and and create jobs. And that’s really how. How I got into this line of work. It was it was my passion for helping people and wanting to create good paying jobs in areas and in communities and for people where that was lacking.

Stone Payton: So now that you’ve been at it a while, what’s the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it for you?

Monty Bruell: Well, I would say there are two things that I really enjoy. In Atlanta, we have these companies that I call Hartsfield Jackson babies. They were created in the 1970s when that airport was being built. And and now those founders are 70 years old and they’re trying to figure out how do I start my retirement, how do I sell my company, how do I transition it to the next generation, whatever that exit strategy is? And so it’s really rewarding to help people who are coming toward the end, if you will, of their business career to find a way to do that with with dignity and with economic success. And then on the other side of that. I love working with 4550 year old entrepreneurs who have built a successful business, but now they want to take it to the next level. I have one client who has a company that’s doing about $20 Million a year in annual revenue. They’ve got 100 or more employees. And and my client just looked at me and he said, How do I drive this to $100 million and 300 employees within the next four years? And so I love that challenge of helping that kind of client develop a strategy and access the capital that they that they will need to to make that a reality.

Stone Payton: So when you first sit down and start visiting with a client or even a prospective client, what kind of questions do they have? What are they concerned about, scared of? Excited about? What is that like?

Monty Bruell: Well, the primary issue is developing a relationship where, number one, your expectations are aligned that that that we as consultants aren’t misleading the client and that the client has realistic expectations about what can happen. And the the other thing is there’s an issue of trust, because when when an owner is talking about either growing their company or selling their company, they’re talking about their baby. I mean, this has been the primary focus of their lives for for a number of years. And so you really have to get to a point where where, where you trust one another. And so these relationships just aren’t about the money. It’s not just about the economics. You’re you’re really developing a real personal connection with one another.

Stone Payton: So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work? Our client’s finding you or you finding clients. Do you find that you have a a structured approach to a to attracting new clients? How does that work for a firm like yours?

Monty Bruell: I’d say there there are really two things. I try to develop relationships with business influencers. So attorneys, CPAs, people who are trusted advisors, because that really helps me and it helps our firm if it’s not Monte Brule cold calling a business owner saying, Knock, knock, knock. Here I am. Let me let me help you. It’s really much better and much smoother if someone that they already know, like their lawyer or their accountant says, you know, I’ve got the guy for you, or I know a firm that can help you. So. So that’s number one. And then the other thing I will say is you never know when the client is going to need you. So I just try to meet as many people as I possibly can, build personal relationships with them. And it may be two years down the road before that person comes back and says, You know, I’ve been thinking about selling my company. Would you be willing to talk to me or, you know, I want to grow my business. Can you talk to me about how to do that? So it’s not really a case where I make a sales call and I close the deal because that’s not really how mergers and acquisitions work. Rare, is it, that that you will meet someone at the precise point in time when they’re ready for your services?

Stone Payton: I’m sure there are some consistent patterns, some consistent elements in your work with virtually any client. But I got also believe every situation’s got to have its idiosyncrasies right. If you’re if you’re working with a 75 year old matriarch getting ready to exit and ride off into the sunset, that’s got to be different than working with, I don’t know, maybe some folks in some underserved communities. Can you talk a little bit about the value of of having a firm like yours with your your expertise and your experience and being able to navigate those those different kinds of situations that would present themselves?

Monty Bruell: Well, really, what what people are looking for when they hire an M&A advisor like Oakland Consulting is they’re looking to access our relationships. They’re looking to access our reputation, if you will. So I spend a lot of time talking to people involved in the capital markets, people who are either investing equity or who who are banks who are doing work on the debt side. And and so it’s it’s really interesting that that it’s all about making connection. I would say that’s that’s the number one thing. So sometimes we meet with clients and they’re not ready or it’s just not the right fit. And we try to help them get ready or help them find an advisor who will work for them. But you’re right. Stone Every situation is different. You know, we we have a standard model, if you will. We we know we’ve got to come in and do a valuation. We know that we’ve got to provide, you know, a list of of of prospective investors or or prospective acquisition targets. All of that is fairly standard. But it’s it’s it’s kind of like being a quarterback on a football team. The play is called, you know, what the play is going to be. But when the ball is snapped it doesn’t always in fact, it rarely happens just as it’s drawn up. Right. So so you’ve got to have a little athletic ability in this case, a little mandar ability to to be able to to to to pivot and to be resilient and take the client where they want to go. Even though the the play broke down somewhere and you and you’ve got to make it work anyway.

Stone Payton: So do you find that at least in the initial conversations, because, you know, while these folks may be really at the top of their game with respect to their craft or have done a marvelous job in meeting the market with the business that they’ve created, you know, they’re not succession planning experts are not M&A experts. They they may not have bought or sold businesses before. Do you do you find that there are some myths, misconceptions, assumptions, preconceived notions that sometimes you have to sort of set the record straight and educate, inform and help them understand what this arena is really like?

Monty Bruell: Well, I think the number one misconception is that as the M&A advisor, we just care about the transaction that we’re just trying to get a deal done so that we can get paid. And that’s not really even how our compensation works at Oakland. We build our clients essentially like lawyers and accountants. We we don’t collect a big success fee at the end because we want our objectives to be perfectly aligned with our client’s objectives. And so I never want a client to feel like like he or she is being pushed toward a deal just because it’s in Oakland Consulting’s best interest. We want every deal to be in the best interest of our clients, and that is really the most important thing that that I think is that we have to address. And then the second thing I will say is listening is so important. When I first meet a client, I don’t really even talk much about their business. I want to I want to know really, why are we having this conversation? What prompted the client to want to sit down with me and what, if you will, the hopes, dreams and aspirations of that client? If you’re. If you’re 70, I want to know what you want to be doing when you’re 75. And if you’re 40, I want to know what you’re what you want to be doing when you’re 50, because that’s really where we’re trying to go. It’s really not about what’s going on today. It’s about what’s going on tomorrow. And we want the client to be in control of that and we want to be the facilitator that helps the client get where he or she wants to go.

Stone Payton: Words like relationship, connection, listening have surfaced in this conversation. I’ve got to say, far more often than I would have anticipated. Speaking of myths, misconceptions, preconceived notions. I would have envisioned your world as as far more transactional. It sounds like it is deeply, deeply rooted in relationship and service and and listening much more. So, I mean, I realize there’s the transactional component, but I mean, this is a relationship business, isn’t it?

Monty Bruell: Oh, absolutely. The transaction is really the easiest part of it. I mean, imagine Stone if you’re. Looking for a house. Now you’ve gone to the bank. You’ve gotten pre-approved for the mortgage. You know what’s going to happen when you sit down at the closing table, but you have to look at 50 houses before you find the one that’s right for you. And sometimes, sometimes you know it, right? When you drive up, you just look at your real estate agent. You go, No, not this one. And sometimes you have to go back to the house three or four times before you realize that it’s not for you. And hopefully, in the end, you find the one that is the perfect one for you. And a business transaction, an M&A transaction is very similar to that. It’s not one and done. It’s not just about saying, okay, you want to buy a yellow house. We got a yellow house for you. No, it’s really more complicated than that. We it’s got to feel right. And so a lot of people don’t think about, as you said, the relationship or the feeling part of the deal. And that’s really the most important part.

Stone Payton: Well, in following on this relationship, investing in the other person kind of theme, I got to believe you must have had the benefit and continue to have maybe the benefit of one or more mentors that have helped you really learn how to serve in this ecosystem. Yeah.

Monty Bruell: Oh, absolutely. You know, I don’t know if he would consider himself a mentor because we’re partners. But I’ve already mentioned Frank Williamson, who who started Oakland Consulting. He is a person of the highest integrity who who strives to do the right thing. And and I love being a part of an organization where that’s our culture. And I have to applaud Frank for establishing that as as our culture as a general business mentor. Many, many years ago, when I first came out of college, I went to work for Jack Lupton, who at the time was the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the United States. And and Jack always said to me, he said, you know, we want to be number one in every market in which we choose to compete. And what I got from that is you don’t have to compete. You don’t have to go after everything. You don’t have to do things just because somebody wants you to. But when you decide to get up off the bench and get into the game, you give it your all. And that is an important lesson that I’ve just carried with me throughout my entire business career. And so when I think about mentorship, I’m I’m thankful for the lessons that I learned in Coca-Cola Bottling and from Jack Lupton. And I’m grateful today for having a partner like Frank Williamson.

Stone Payton: Okay. Before we wrap, let’s if we could, let’s leave our listeners with a couple of pro tips. You know, I don’t know, maybe a to do list or just a couple of actionable items, things for them to be thinking about doing, reading and maybe topics like things to consider when selecting a buyer, things to consider or be thinking about as you prepare to, to, to hand off your legacy to the to the next generation. But let’s leave them with a couple of actionable items.

Monty Bruell: Well, I think a couple of things that I would say would be, first, if you are running a small business, you typically have your accounting and your finances set up to minimize your tax liability. That means you’re loading the business with expenses and you are not necessarily trying to show just how profitable the business is. Well, when it’s time to sell that business, you want just the reverse to happen. So if you’re thinking about selling your business, say, in five years you want to have financials that look like you are a robust, viable, thriving business or you want to hire, you know, an advisor who can come in and help you restate your financials so that you’re you’re maximizing the value that that’s represented there. And the last thing that I will say, too, is that when you’re thinking about succession, whether you are acquiring a company to go to the next level or you’re looking for somebody to come in and take over your your existing business. Transparency and honesty are very important. Think about how insecure your heirs feel or your employees feel if they know that the time is coming and they just don’t know what the plan is, They don’t know where they fit in. They don’t know if the business is going to be sold out from under them. They don’t know if you’re going to go out and buy another business. And and they thought that they were going to be the next CEO. But all of a sudden, there there are other people who are who are vying for for those positions. So you’ve got to conduct yourself with with transparency and honesty. I think that’s the very best advice that I could give to any business owner, no matter what sector they’re in, no matter what their company is.

Stone Payton: Well, I am so glad that I asked and I’m so glad that we captured that for the benefit of our listeners. And it’s helpful to me to, you know, my business partner and I, we own a pretty successful media company, and at some point we’re going to want to figure out a way to transition that to our studio partners or to our families. So thank you for that. All right. What is the best way for our listeners to connect with you? Tap into your work and start learning about these about these topics.

Monty Bruell: The best way to find out what we at Oakland Consulting can do for you is to go to our website, which is oakland. 0klyn consulting dot com. It’s not Oakland. Like in Oakland, California, it’s oakland. 0kly. N. And then my email is m brule m b r u e. L l at Oakland Consulting.

Stone Payton: Well, Monty, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show today, man. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing your insight, your perspective, and keep up the good work, man.

Monty Bruell: Stone. I have really, really enjoyed it and look forward to hopefully getting together again.

Stone Payton: It is my pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Monty Brule with Oakland Consulting and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: oaklyn consulting

Kimberly Spencer with Crown Yourself

November 29, 2022 by angishields

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Kimberly-Spencer-Crown-YourselfKimberly Spencer is an award-winning high-performance, trauma-informed coach and trainer, Amazon best-selling author, TEDx speaker, and the founder of CrownYourself.com, helping visionary leaders transform their self-limiting stories, build their empire, stand out fearlessly, and make the income and the impact they deserve.

From her entrepreneurial beginnings at five selling bags of glitter-water to her neighbors, to becoming an award-winning screenwriter, certified Pilates instructor, Miss Congeniality, and six-time WEGO Health Activist Award nominee, Kimberly is proof that it’s better to make your own mold than to conform to someone else’s.

She’s also the former executive of a national e-commerce startup and was the owner of the private Pilates studio, Fitness with Kim in Los Angeles, CA. Her work has been featured on Netflix, The CW, ESPN, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and NPR, and in Thrive Global, CNBC, and Forbes.

Connect with Kimberly on LinkedIn and Instagram and follow Crown Yourself on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • How to discover what your “”Zone of Genius” is
  • What “”plagiarized programming”” is
  • What “productive procrastination” is and how it impacts entrepreneurs
  • How to cultivate confidence
  • Why people struggle with decisiveness in their business
  • The number one problem with leadership today
  • How we can change our language to change our perception of how we experience life

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Crown Yourself. Kimberly Spencer, how are you?

Kimberly Spencer: I’m doing great. Stone How are you?

Stone Payton: I am doing well. It’s an absolute delight having you on the program today, and I’ve got a ton of questions. I know we won’t get to them all, but I think a good place to start would be if you could articulate for me and our listeners mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks?

Kimberly Spencer: I am in the business of transforming people’s stories, and then we also leverage other people’s stories like yours and other people out there who have a big heart and a big mission to really see entrepreneurship change, the dynamics of how we do business and how we operate in the world. To use those stories from poverty to profit, from victim to victor, to show those stories to others and to give those stories a platform so other people can really see that you can lean into your own sovereignty and build your own empire and stand out as you were, in my belief system, divinely created to live into a greater purpose on this planet.

Stone Payton: Well, I got to tell you, I am just very enamored with this whole idea that is encapsulated with those two words Crown yourself. I just love that. One of the things that leapt off the page for me when I was reading through my notes is this this idea of discovering your zone of genius. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Kimberly Spencer: So each one of us has a particular area of I’m not going to say it’s not expertise. It’s an intrinsic natural gift. That is, when we operate in that zone. It is a game changer. But so often we fear or have been taught to fear that zone of genius because it doesn’t fit in to the traditional mold in some ways. So, for example, one of my zones of genius is being an epic quickstart. I want to get something done. When I set my mind to doing something, it can be done very fast. But that’s something that for people who think, Oh, you know, there’s a system that you need to go through and you need to. Who are you like the qualifications and maybe do you need to get a degree? Like, of course, if you’re going to be a doctor, like you need to go to school for that. But for certain things, like launching a business not necessarily necessary to go to four years of business school and go through that rigamarole in order to get to that outcome and result that you want. Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to build a business from scratch with just a Google search part. If you just ask the right questions and seek out the right support. So that’s one of my zones of genius is getting a fire ignited in both myself and and others and literally lighting that fire, sparking their imagination, sparking their creativity and then leveraging their zone of genius. So the zone of genius is typically an area where we’re afraid of leaning into maybe it’s an area where you’ve been told you’re too much or too bold or you have too much motivation.

Kimberly Spencer: Many of my clients have been told that like and this this the audacity of having these big dreams, you want too much luxury. So I went when those are the things, the the natural gifts that you generally leaned into, but maybe society or sometimes our parents said, no, that’s not quote unquote realistic. So, for example, my son’s zone of genius, he’s five years old and he is already showing exceptional interest and acceleration in math and science. He loves math and science. He says he wants to be a rocket scientist and an astronaut. And maybe if it was a he was being raised by a different parent, they might say, Oh, that’s nice, that’s cute. But, you know, wait until you get a real job versus me. I’m like, I see him operating in this zone of genius where he’s shining and standing out in these specific areas. Now, certain other areas he’s not as advanced in, and that’s okay. But I see his own genius and I want to foster that rather than cripple that in this name of balance. So a lot of times we can find and lean into what our zone of genius was when we look at who and what did we want to be when we were about four or five six years old. And when we look, because that is the age when we are untainted by the jaded ness of society, by plagiarized programing, by anybody saying, oh, that’s not quote unquote realistic.

Kimberly Spencer: Like they’ve done studies with the creativity of children compared to people who were graduates in university. And the creativity of four or five and six year olds was far beyond being able to solve a problem faster than those who are literally studying to learn how to solve problems better. So when you can look at that area about four or five, six years old and strip away the plagiarized programing that said, you’re too much, you’re not supposed to be that. That’s not realistic and all of that crap, for lack of a better word, then you’re able to actually lean into that area. And I have seen a direct correlation stone between those the income of a business owner and the amount of time they spend in their zone of genius. So, for example, I hire for other people’s zones of geniuses that are not mine. My operations manager is incredible with spreadsheets. I love a good organized spreadsheet, but if I were to sit and input data all day, I would lose my mind. I can, but it wouldn’t be an efficient use of my time operating in my zone of genius. And when a business owner can spend 60 to 80% of their time in their zone of genius, and then the rest of the time can be in those other zones of either excellence or competence, that’s when you can really see a business grow very fast.

Stone Payton: Well, you bring up a very important point that hits very close to home for me, because I know one of my challenges I have a I have a tendency to hire in my own image.

Kimberly Spencer: Yeah.

Stone Payton: And what I think what I think I hear you saying, one, we need to fill those voids, those gaps with other people with different zones of genius. Now, you just described another term plagiarized programing. Say more about that.

Kimberly Spencer: So plagiarized programing is if you think of what plagiarism is. And first and foremost, I’ve always been a writer. When I was six, four or five, six years old, I was creating stories and we learned in school that plagiarize plagiarism is when you steal someone else’s work and don’t give them credit. That’s what we do every dang day with belief systems where if someone says, Oh, you know you’re not enough, or that’s not you didn’t work hard enough, and you’re like, I worked my fricking butt off. But if we adopt that belief system, if we think, Oh, I’m not good enough, then you literally just plagiarize that belief system. So it’s okay to have some belief systems, like all of our belief systems are plagiarized and created by those around us or consciously created by ourselves by saying, Oh, I really like that person’s belief system. I’m going to lean into that. Like, for example, I have a mentor who whose belief system says her success is inevitable. And so I was like, I really liked that. And I thought about it and I ruminated on it. I was like, You know, that belief system really makes sense. I’m going to plagiarize that and use that as my own. Now, I don’t I, of course, cite her and credit her for the terminology and phraseology of that, the ability to adopt that and say, this is mine, this is what I’m leaning into and how this is me. So often, though, we adopt things unconsciously, especially as children, the belief systems of, Oh, I have to tone it down, Oh, I’m not supposed to stand out, Oh, I’m too loud or I’m too, oh, I create distractions.

Kimberly Spencer: You know, these belief systems. Maybe a teacher like a teacher once said to my son, like, oh, he’s he’s just too loud. And I’m like, yes, he can be loud at times. And what how could we foster that in a good way? How can we foster that into a leadership skill so that he’s not unafraid to have a voice? Like that’s a huge thing. So being able to to look at what are those belief systems that you may be unconsciously adopted or plagiarized from somebody else without even knowing that you were stealing their work, without even knowing that you were stealing their belief system. Because that is the programing that we we are operating our lives through. And when we can change that programing and conscious instead of like just unconsciously plagiarizing our belief systems, consciously saying I’m going to choose the belief system that my success is inevitable, or I’m going to choose the belief that my gifts were given to me by the divine and that I have a great purpose in life compared to a belief system that maybe somebody else has adopted, or maybe you had for a while that was like, Oh, I feel I’m purposeless. What’s my point? Like, why am I here? All of those questions. Instead, you can consciously lean into and choose your own programing rather than unconsciously borrowing somebody else’s. That’s not even working for you in the first place.

Stone Payton: So who are you helping with this work? Who are the the clients?

Kimberly Spencer: So I work with the leaders and founders and CEOs and entrepreneurs who are they’ve gotten themselves to a certain level and maybe they’ve had success in another business or in another industry. And they’re looking for that alignment because they’re they’re the high achievers like Stone. I have a feeling that you and I both being high achievers like achievement is not always the problem. Like we can set our if we set our minds to something, we can do it. But is it aligned? And so I work with my leaders on finding how they can be their most aligned, fully authentic selves in their business and in their leadership strategy, where they’re shining in their zone of genius. They are supported by a team that doesn’t just look like them. They’re or or sound like them or have the same values as them. But that makes up for those areas where we’re not as strong. And that’s okay. And it’s okay as long as we support ourselves in the entity of what we’re creating with those who have their their different zone of geniuses. And that’s what creates a beautiful, diverse culture and ecosystem in your empire.

Stone Payton: I got to know what is the back story? How in the world did you find yourself in this line of work?

Kimberly Spencer: So I started out wanting to work in Hollywood. That was my dream. I had a dream fulfilled. I co-wrote a film, a feature film that got picked up by Lionsgate on Netflix. And at the premiere I realized I was only about 90% fulfilled. And I got curious. I said, Why? Like what? That’s very interesting to me that I wasn’t like, fully over the moon fulfilled. And I looked at what else did I want? And I said I wanted to direct, I wanted to produce. And in that way entrepreneurship filled that need because as an entrepreneur, I get to be the director of the direction of my company. I get to be the producer. And if you’re a startup or self-funded entrepreneur, you’re the executive producer managing the finances. If you are like, I write most of my content and I write from a place of heart and soul and calling in my ideal clients, and so that I get to be the writer and I get to be the performer too, like I get to fulfill all the desires that I had and it starts. So I had my screenwriting career. I pivoted into an e commerce company for two years and saw I got to pitch our product to the first round of Shark Tank auditions. Got it seen on the big billboards in Times Square, like saw success, and then also saw how if you don’t work on the subconscious structure of a business, meaning values alignment, leadership alignment and decision making alignment, that the business can really run into struggles and problems.

Kimberly Spencer: And that’s what I ran into with my business partner and that company. And then I also had a private Pilates studio for ten years. That was my first career. And I started doing that to support myself as a screenwriter. Because in Hollywood, with your first screenplays, it’s not that it’s not a moneymaking thing, it’s a passion thing. And even though it did get picked up by some big names and being able to then support myself was a huge endeavor. I grew up with two entrepreneur parents, which is a big blessing because I saw the value of the hustle and I saw what happens if you’re not making sales. Like if you’re not making sales, you’re not going out to a restaurant that that weekend. So being able to really. See that growth of a company. I mean, I saw my parents build a multi million dollar company that my mom is just now selling after the death of my dad this past year. And they built it from nothing with my dad simultaneously being an addict for a majority of my lifetime. And I thought if he could build that while being an addict and an alcoholic for the pat for 30 years, what could I build in the next ten that could surpass that? And that’s it was just that fire that got stoked in me.

Kimberly Spencer: And I’m very grateful for that experience. And then also so I went from having my own private Pilates studio. But when I was bought out of my e commerce company, it wasn’t the kind of buyout that you cheer for. It was the buyout where my business partner wanted to buy me out. We were right in the middle of seeking venture capital. Angel investors were interested in us, and he wanted to take the company in a different direction. And it didn’t involve me and it was soul crushing. And that was when I learned the very valuable lesson from the school of hard knocks of when to let go business and values alignment. And when I was bought out of my e commerce company three weeks before I got married, I had jetted off on my honeymoon and I knew six weeks in Italy allowed for a lot of reflection at an inn, a beautiful Airbnb off the coast of the northern Italian Riviera. And I was sitting there with my husband and I was like, What do I do when I get back? I’ve had all of these varying careers from Pilates instructor to screenwriter to to e commerce business owner.

Kimberly Spencer: And I saw this holistic. Connection because I saw what the lack of values alignment did for my own leadership style and my e commerce company. Because I was not treating my body kindly, I was losing my hair. I was so stressed out waking up at 3 a.m. to write customer emails. I was having panic attacks like it was not a pretty picture. And my my relationship with my then fiance, now husband was suffering because your partner doesn’t want to see you suffer. And so it was a blessing being bought out of that company. It was also a learning lesson because prior to that experience I had never had doubt about my career. I hadn’t like in other areas around my body or around relationships, I’d had to go through my own varying forms of self-doubt and self sabotage, but never in my career or various businesses because I just grew up with this level of audacity and courage to just ask for what I wanted. And if I didn’t get it next, next. That was that was always my philosophy. But then when I was bought out and after three months of dealing with lawyers who don’t send you the kindest emails when they’re not on your side and having every fear and every self doubt that I’d ever had in myself between my two muchness and my femininity and my age and my youth and my lack of degrees.

Kimberly Spencer: And all of that was brought up. Of course, now I see the strategy, but at the same time it actually really hit deeply at at my deepest insecurities. And so for a year and a half and my business with Crown herself, I didn’t make any money. And because I was so paranoid and scared of rejection and every value that I was promoting in Crown Yourself as well. And this is from a leadership standpoint, I was not actually embodying. So I was talking about owning your throne, claiming your power. And there I was being a victim of circumstance of of blaming my business partner for my for my loss of that business. And that’s not a very empowering place to be. And because I wasn’t aligned with the values that I was preaching, I also that’s part of the reason why I wasn’t making any money. And then I found out a year and a half in that I was pregnant with my first son, and that was when success became non-negotiable, because I knew that it wasn’t just success, it was the alignment with the values in which I wanted to embody in Crown your self ownership, authenticity, service, service, leadership, growth mindedness.

Kimberly Spencer: And yet there I was so stuck for a year and a half in my own pity party of self doubt. And it was from that that I said, No, this is this. I may have had the title of CEO or president before, but the title of mom meant so much more to me. And that was when I said I’m going to step up my game. I immediately went and got certified in timeline therapy, NLP Hypnosis, because I knew it was a mindset problem that I was having. It wasn’t like a sales problem. I knew how to make sales. I just wasn’t making them. It was a mindset piece of self-doubt, self sabotage and blockage. And I had to really shift my mindset first before I could move forward because my identity of who I had been was complaining and blaming and a victim and I had to shift. And my son was the catalyst for that shift. And I’m so grateful for him every day because he’s so phenomenal in in allowing myself to see a mirror of the things that I didn’t want to see within myself. But for my kids, there’s no way I’m not going to face those parts of me because I have to be the best mom possible.

Stone Payton: So now that you’ve been at it a while, you’ve kind of cracked the code on this pursuit. What’s the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about the work for you?

Kimberly Spencer: For me, it’s the transformations. It’s the realization of childhood dreams. I mean, one of my clients was able to fulfill his childhood dream and buy himself a plane. And it wasn’t just, you know, to have a fancy jet or or plane. It was so that he could take his grandkids to France on a fun little lunch in vacation just because he could, because he’d set up his business in that way. Being able to see one another, one of my clients align with becoming the CEO of a company and reconnect with her estranged daughter like and by bringing her into the work that she was doing that was huge. Like you can’t put a price on those things. One of my other clients was really struggling with her son, who was, you know, she’d had business success. She was getting reaching multi millions of dollars, hitting her goals in a third of the time that she thought that she was going to take. But then, of course, you know, as as a as a parent, when something happens to your kid or something’s going on with your kid, that that sucks the life out of you. And through just some basic perception shifts, she was able to see her kid and what he was doing as everyone else was labeling him as a problem, as a disruptor. And I said, Well, those are the people like the the Steve Jobs of the world who go out and change the world. I said, So it sounds to me like he’s actually got entrepreneurship ability and sales skills. So what if you leaned into that and looked into a different approach and she just it totally changed her perspective on how to work with and and navigate dealing with a teenager that was being disobedient and breaking some rules and being able to see that and help her with that.

Kimberly Spencer: She I mean, those the messages that I get from my clients have like it goes beyond just career success because I’ve met so many people and I’m sure you have too, who have had that career success. They’ve made the money and they’re miserable. And I see life as being this beautiful, aligned dance where you are in love with the body and in this form and you take care of yourself and you have healthy, thriving, amazing relationships that just light your soul on fire and then you get to go do work. And that that work brings in income and money and that money that you’re then being able to make or then recycling some of it back into your community to serve. And those are the people that I work with. I work with the mission minded, the purpose driven, the good hearted leaders who want to make an impact and they want to make an income. Because as my mentor Brandon Bouchard says, you cannot sustain the mission without the money and you can have a bigger mission when you make more money. And when people see that and are able to leverage that and then build teams that, then they’re able to support other people and their families and allow those teams to work in their zone of business. It only enhances and raises the consciousness of the planet. And that’s what I’m here for.

Stone Payton: So in your work, do you see some patterns over and over? A pathologies might be a little bit strong for a word, but like, I don’t know, lack of confidence or procrastination or decision making. Do you see some of the same challenges over and over?

Kimberly Spencer: Yeah. So I mean, I obviously I can’t diagnose pathologies, nor can I diagnose because I’m not a therapist, but I definitely see and recognize and patterns. And that’s one of my specialties as a coach is when I like a common one that I see is making decisions from fear rather than from faith. So a lot of times when someone is leaving, maybe their corporate job and they’re starting out on their company, they have the whole list of all the things that they don’t want to do, don’t want to be, don’t want to experience because of their past experience in a past job or in a past entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial endeavor. And so they’re driving the car, looking in the rearview mirror at all the things that they don’t want. And I mean, driving the car metaphorically, of course. And so if you think about driving a car, there’s only so far and so fast that you can drive while looking at the in the rearview mirror of all the things that you don’t want. And inevitably you crash and then you burn out. And then the problem is, is that eventually if you crash enough times, then it becomes an identification of I’m a bad driver or I’m a bad leader. And when it becomes as a personal identification, that’s when you run into the deeper subconscious issues of.

Kimberly Spencer: If if you identify with that belief system or that plagiarized programing because of the past experience, then it inhibits you from from growth. So what I see is when I see my leaders and my my founders making decisions from fear of all the things that they don’t want, we look at what’s the vision of how they do want? How do you get to create the rules instead of not do the rules that you didn’t like? There’s a there’s a big difference. I also see with entrepreneurs are a huge difference between playing not to lose and planning to win. So when you play the game of business or the game of life not to lose, you’re timid with your decision making. You are you try. There’s a lot of trying, but trying, like Yoda says, and Star Wars do or do not. There is no try. And when you are timid in your decision making skill set and you vacillate and then you make a decision, but then you go back on it, like when you’re in that space that creates uncertainty, It it creates uncertainty in you as a leader as far as how you make decisions. It creates uncertainty with your customers and it creates a whole ethos, an underlying subconscious ethos of uncertainty, where you may even see possibly and I’ve seen this happen with customers not feeling uncertain.

Kimberly Spencer: They don’t know why, but uncertain about making a purchase with you. And so instead looking at how can you be decisive, how can you make a decision and trust that it’s the right decision? Because a huge belief that I see so often with leaders is that they struggle and fear that they’re going to make the wrong decision and when. And it comes from a really good place. Stone Like they really care about the people and they see how their decisions impact the, you know, not only people but people’s lives, their families, the people that they serve. And so they’re scared of making the wrong decision. But that fear of making the wrong decision paralyzes people from making any decision, and thus they don’t make progress and progress forward. Whereas if they maybe switched their belief to one that your your audience is free to adopt, is that I personally believe and this doesn’t come from a place of ego, that I always make the right decision, even if it was a mistake, even if it was a big flopping failure. Because when I make a decision that wasn’t, even if it was a mistake, I learn something and typically I learn it faster than I would have had I not made that mistake in the first place.

Kimberly Spencer: But the fear of making mistakes is what cripples leaders from ever taking a decisive, bold action. And so if you can eliminate that, and especially as leaders get more and more success and entrepreneurs get more and more success, and there’s a perception that there’s more and more at stake of making a mistake. Now, obviously, you don’t want to do a full FTC’s mistake there, but if you’re conscious about the decisions that you make and you trust your team and you trust your input and you trust that you can make a decision, then making a decision is better than not making a decision or waiting to make a decision. Because typically when you make a decision, you’ll press further forward faster. But when you delay, delay creates more doubt, not only doubt in the minds of your team, but doubt in your own unconscious mind with your own ability to make a decision. And thus it trains your brain to create doubt Every time you’re making a decision versus you make a decision, you go with it if it if it flops or fails. Okay, great. What did we learn from this next?

Stone Payton: So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a practitioner like you, a business like yours? How do you get the new clients?

Kimberly Spencer: So I have various ways of getting clients. But really getting clients comes from I like to to flip the language of that because getting clients, it’s like imagine like getting dates right? If you go out there to get dates, like there’s an icky kind of feeling when you when you are like feeling like a piece of meat being chased after like versus being the person attracting clients because of who you be and how you show up in the world. And so showing up on podcasts, showing up in social media, showing up on to respond to people’s emails and their inquiries, showing up when someone posts that they have a problem and they love to have something solved or they’re looking for a solution, and then maybe giving them a few questions that could help them guide them on their journey. Being of service will get you so much farther, faster. And it sounds completely counter counter to our own egos to think that we have to go out there and close, close, close and get get clients. But most of my clients have been through referrals, referrals and podcast interviews because I just show up, I share open heartedly, I share my story, I serve as best as I can, and then I, I, I follow up. And that follow up piece is key as well.

Kimberly Spencer: So many people drop the ball on the follow up and I’ve been completely guilty of that as well in the past. So that whole fortune is in the follow up. It is it’s it’s it isn’t dating as it is in life. And I think that like when we take away these the principles of form and because dating and sales have so much in common because both our conversation of influence and if you look at if you’re married especially and happily married ideally and you look at how you connected and attracted your significant other, if you look at that subconscious strategy, you probably weren’t out there looking to get a client, looking to get get some, for lack of a better word. So you weren’t like probably it was there was an attraction and then there was communication and then there was active responding. I mean, I remember my husband, he did not wait. Those like he did not follow those quote unquote rules of like, oh, you should wait three days until you text her like he was. He texted me the next day. He’s like, she’s a beautiful woman. I’m like, Well, there are probably other guys who are interested, and I would like her to to focus more on me. So he followed up quickly. He also was proactive and inspiring.

Kimberly Spencer: And so when I looked at that strategy of what won me over was his influence. Now, of course, he wasn’t operating like on like a strategy to consciously, but when I looked at what worked for me, I just looked at how could I apply that to my business actually. So being of service, showing up, responding, caring about the other person. A lot will come from just the simple acts of kindness and care and showing that you care for someone and are interested in what they have to say and want to help them. And maybe if it’s not them, then maybe they have a friend or a referral or somebody. And one of my favorite questions, but quotes is from Oprah. And she says, In life you get what you have the courage to ask for. I would not have my marriage today if I didn’t ask to be in a committed relationship with my husband, nor would I have the clients that I have today if I didn’t ask them for the commitment of working together. You got to you got to make the ask after you have the offer and the courting phase of getting to know someone, seeing if they have a problem that you can solve. Being of value and of service. And then asking and making the offer.

Stone Payton: Well, I so sincerely appreciate and respect the reframe of my question, because I guess when I look back on it, something as simple as language really can change the entire dynamic and the way you perceive everything you’re trying to do for people. Can it?

Kimberly Spencer: Yeah, I mean, our language gauges, our experience of our reality, and so I’m very discerning about the words that I choose to use, especially around client attraction and retention. Because like, I don’t like the word leads, even because that just feels very it’s like I like leaders, I love leaders, I love working with leaders, but leads that it just sounds like something that you’re chasing down versus and it may not for somebody else, they may not have the same connotation. So I invite you and your audience to really look at what is the language in which you’re framing sales. I mean, are you are you chasing clients? Are you struggling with the follow up? Are you are there some limiting beliefs in yourself talk of like, oh, gosh, now I have to respond to these clients, like have to respond to these clients. Like, well, they’re paying you like that. That’s like, what if you get to do that? What if it’s something that’s exciting to you? Like just look at the language of how you’re speaking to yourself about your own business and you’ll you’ll see how you’re gauging your own construction of reality. And if you can change your language around that consciously, because once you’re aware of your language, then you’re like, oh, just like, just like you said. Stone Like from getting to attract thing, it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a minute language shift, but it literally opens the door for a whole new experience in bringing clients into your world and into your empire.

Stone Payton: So this is a very tactical question, probably admittedly, but I want the help personally. But by the way, gang, if you want to get some really good consulting and you want to engage in conversation with some really smart people, get yourself a radio show because you get in relation to with some great people. But my observation has been I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing a lot of folks who have accomplished a great deal. And one of the patterns that I see is a great deal of what I’ll call personal accountability, taking individual responsibility for for corporate results. But then I have also from time to time seen it bleed over into kind of beating themselves up. Can you speak to that topic at all? How do you draw that line and keep that contained and direct it in the right fashion?

Kimberly Spencer: I love this question. Stone So I see ownership, which I consider personal responsibility and accountability as a pendulum. So on the one side, you have the victim side where everything is somebody else’s faults, everything. It’s the economy’s fault, it’s the government’s fault, it’s your team’s fault, it’s the client’s fault. You know, And so many people, they choose not to, especially high achievers, they choose not to lean into that. So they swing the pendulum to the opposite side where everything is their fault, and thus all the responsibility for all the results lands on their shoulders. For example, I had one client who was struggling with the actions of his ex wife in his present, her present actions, and he was blaming himself. Now, he’d been divorced for about eight years and I said, You can only take 100% responsibility for your actions. She can only take 100% responsibility for her actions. And she’s had eight years to take 100% responsibility. However, he was trying to take on 10%, 20%, 30% of her responsibility for her actions and how her life was turning out. And unfortunately, even with our kids, we can’t take they are 100% responsible for their own actions. And so ownership and personal responsibility, if there is guilt and shame attached, then that’s not actual ownership. Ownership and personal responsibility is neutral. It is emotionally neutral. It is a state of acceptance, of emotional acceptance. And in and that is an actual physiological vibration that once you can accept it changes the vibration of how you be as a leader versus if you are operating in an emotional vibration of shame and guilt.

Kimberly Spencer: There is a lot slower action taking because when you’re blaming yourself and putting your self at fault, self blame is not ownership and most high achievers get that misconstrued because and I’ve been completely guilty of that myself as someone who was very skilled at taking all the blame for all the things, for all the people, and that that form of ownership, it will only lead you into a very dark spiral of what I’ve seen. It leads to depression and hyper anxiety and hypervigilance versus trusting and surrounding yourself with the right people to move you forward from the present moment because guilt and shame will keep you stuck in decision making from the past. Fear will keep you trapped in, paralyzed from making decisions in the future. So if you want to activate your decision making power as a leader, then ditching the guilt and shame and you can do that from a various different ways. I do that with my clients through timeline therapy and hypnosis and releasing the guilt and shame. And then. Also taking full ownership for what is present. What are you actually what do you actually need to take ownership for? So you can, for example, if you need if you’re in a relationship, you can take ownership for your communication, how you communicate, how your experience of the you can take ownership over your experience personally of how you’re experiencing the other person in a relationship, whether it’s personal or business, and they are 100% responsible for their own interpretation, for their own, for their for their emotions, for their triggers.

Kimberly Spencer: Those are their things that they need to work on. So that’s where you get to draw, do the dance of ownership. And the beautiful thing is that I’ve seen that when you start taking more personal responsibility and accountability for how you show up and and looking at it less from a identification of like, Oh, I screwed up in this communication. I’m a horrible communicator and rather as a strategy and then adapting the strategy, it plays into the law of requisite variety, which basically is a universal law that says the person with the most behavioral flexibility will win the day. So if you’re in a fight, for example, or if you’re struggling with somebody on your team not performing, let’s just give that as an example and they’re not performing. You can take responsibility for how you hired them for the interview. Questions you may have asked that may have not shown this person’s poor performance. You can’t take responsibility that they’re struggling with some stuff at home, but you can take responsibility of how they show up in your company and if they’re a fit for. What for? For this time in your company of of wherever you’re at. So, for example, my assistant, all of a virtual assistant that I had a while ago, was going through a struggle with her marriage. And she she said, I need some time.

Kimberly Spencer: And I said, absolutely, take some time like that was she took ownership over her, communication over her struggles. I took over my ownership of like I know that when I’m in an emotionally challenging place, going through emotionally challenging things, I don’t tend to make the best decisions. And that’s pretty universal. So giving somebody the space and grace, knowing that they’re there will be a position for them to come back to. But to take a few weeks off maybe, and just sort some things and have some time to maybe work on their own personal affairs and then be able to come back. But that required me to take ownership of, okay, if I have this happen, then this is going to happen. And that allowed me to take instead of being like, Oh, I shouldn’t have hired her. Oh, she’s all the struggles and oh, I must be really bad at hiring because I’ve hired this person who’s making these choices. No. Rather than saying, Oh, I’m going to choose, I accept where I am. Okay. The universe, the circumstances of my world have given me new data. How do I deal with this new data? This person is dealing with this. How do I adapt? How do I be flexible? How am I agile around this new piece of information about this person or this circumstance? And it is with flexibility and adaptability and operating from the present instead of from the past, guilt and shame that then you can actually move forward faster.

Stone Payton: I am so glad that I asked. I think that is marvelous. You asked you. All right. Let’s let’s leave our listeners with a couple of pro tips, if we could. Whether it’s someone with an idea on a cocktail napkin, getting a business off the ground, or whether it’s an established leader trying to open up the next opportunity. Just a couple of actionable tips, something to be thinking about, reading, doing, not doing that can kind of get them on this path of of crowning yourself.

Kimberly Spencer: So for the leaders who are looking for their next big opportunity, I can definitely say never put your success that you’ve had in the past up on a pedestal. Pedestals are very shaky surfaces that can get knocked down. And when you put your success up on a pedestal, it is very easy to forget the strategies that allowed you to get up on that pedestal. And generally those strategies involve taking risks and taking bold actions that required courage. So look at what are those decisions that you’re looking at and opportunities that you’re looking to lean into and then making decisions from there. For the person who’s got the idea of on a napkin and that they want to go and start their own business and move forward, just get started. Put one foot in front of the other. Craft a plan and focus on the most important thing in business, which is not your logo, it’s not your branding, It’s not your color scheme. It’s not a website domain. It’s not the name of your business. It is What problem do you solve? What problem do you solve that is on your napkin and how do you solve it differently than anybody else is solving it. And if you can find that, then you can then find the people who have that problem and let their cash meet, meet your products and services. Because all you need to prove that a business has a viable solution and can provide a valuable service is their cash to meet your products and services and that payment and that transaction. All other things are lovely, beautiful, necessary down the road. But when you first have that idea on a napkin, get the validation. Whether that’s getting investors to buy into the idea or getting actual customers to buy in to the to the products and services that you’re offering, because that is that is the only way to prove a business’s viability in the physical world is receiving payment, whether that’s investment seed capital or actual payment for your products and services.

Stone Payton: Marvelous counsel on both fronts. Okay. What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you? Tap into your work, whatever you think is appropriate. I just want to make it real easy for them to to get connected with you.

Kimberly Spencer: If you love this conversation and you’d like to have a private one on one conversation with me, I’d love to invite you to head on over to crown yourself and just click the button that says Work with me and we can book a call.

Stone Payton: Well, Kimberly, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you for sharing your insight, your perspective, your energy and your enthusiasm. This is what a marvelous way to invest a monday afternoon. You’re doing such important work and we sure appreciate you.

Kimberly Spencer: Thank you so much for having me. Stone And I forgot to mention that if your listeners love podcasts like this and want to dive more into their subconscious belief systems, then head on over to wherever you listen to this podcast and subscribe to the Princess and the Bee podcast, where I tackle all the beliefs in every area of life that can allow you to become the king or queen of your domain.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Kimberly Spencer with Crown yourself and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Crown Yourself

Speaker and Coach Danny Brassell

November 29, 2022 by angishields

Danny-Brassell-headshot
High Velocity Radio
Speaker and Coach Danny Brassell
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Danny-Brassell-headshotA highly-sought after speaker, trainer and coach known as “Jim Carrey with a Ph.D.,” Dr. Danny Brassell has spoken to over 3,500 audiences worldwide and authored 16 books, including his latest, Leadership Begins with Motivation.

He helps entrepreneurs, executives and small business owners boost their business and impact by improving their communication skills.

Connect with Danny on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • How communication skills affects one’s business
  • Why reading is so important
  • How Danny helps people improve their speaking skills
  • Ways to improve communication skills

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Danny Brassell DOT COM, the man himself, Danny Brassell. How are you, man?

Danny Brassell: Fantastic, Stone. Thanks so much for having me. More importantly, thanks for spreading some joy in the world. We need a lot more of you.

Stone Payton: Well, I am delighted to have you on the show. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. Got a ton of questions. Surely won’t get to them all. But I think maybe a great place to start would be mission purpose. What are you out there trying to do for folks, man?

Danny Brassell: Well, really, thank you for that, Stone. I appreciate it. I’ve been. I’m a jack of all trades, master of none. But really, my passion is helping people communicate better. I do that. There’s four aspects of language development. They are speaking, listening, reading and writing. And so today, I guess for your listeners will focus on on reading and speaking. So I’m on a mission to bring joy back into education in the workplace by showing people better ways to communicate. And so I’m looking forward to all you had to offer today.

Stone Payton: Stone Well, I have to believe that the work you’re doing, the things that you focus on, must impact so many different aspects of a business. Speak to that a little bit, if you would.

Danny Brassell: That’s great. Stone So I’ve been working a lot with entrepreneurs and small business owners craft their messages because I really believe that if you can speak, you can really change the world. And so I help people create engaging presentations. So many of these presentations I see people talk about, they’re just depressing. Stone And it bothers me. I think people need some hope in the world. And so and I’m not putting down a lot of these tragic speakers, but I remind a lot of people that criers are not buyers. Mo Funny mo money.

Stone Payton: So I suspect that it may be myths is a little bit too strong of a word, but but I suspect there are some misconceptions, some assumptions, some things about this whole area of communicating effectively and particularly speaking, that are just off the mark. Is that accurate?

Danny Brassell: Yeah, absolutely. I really think that speaking is the best way to really improve your business. And if you can master a basic format that I work with my clients on, on how to create engaging presentations, you can really have a much stronger impact. It doesn’t take that much. I mean, one of the quick tips for everybody listening is I see a lot of people that like to brag in their speeches and there’s nothing you know, I’m not going to put down pointing out how extraordinary you are. But I think the more ordinary you show people, the more you’re going to have an impact. That’s the quickest tip I give people is stop telling people what makes you so dang special and what you’re posting on social media. I think everybody in your audience is not succeeded, but they’ve all failed. And the more vulnerable you make yourself and share your failures, the better impact you’re going to have.

Stone Payton: Well, I got to tell you, that’s very consistent with my experience as a participant. When I attend a keynote or even as a host when I’m hosting a show, I feel like the connection is so much more valuable than someone just impressing me or trying to impress me with their with their background. So that really certainly rings true for me as a participant and as a host. I got to know me in the back story. How in the world did you find yourself in this line of work?

Danny Brassell: Well, I never wanted to, Coach Stone. I’ve always because I have very high standards for people and it drives me nuts when people won’t do the work. And it was really the pandemic that kind of forced me into coaching people since I lost all my speaking engagements overnight. Global pandemic will do that sort of thing. But I turned out I actually love working with people now on improving their messages. I’ve worked with all kinds of people, from astronauts to Olympic gold medalists, but the people that bring me the most joy are ordinary entrepreneurs and business owners that are looking for ways to really improve their business. And I think that’s the one measure I hold for people. I mean, yes, when they work with me, a lot of them are going to get standing ovations. Yes. If you work with me, you know, people are probably going to come up afterwards and tell you you’re a great speaker. But the only measure I have of the speakers I work with is are people asking you to do further business with you, whether it be the product that you’re trying to sell or if you’re pitching that big pitch at a corporate meeting for for a $10 Million. Engagement. Are you getting that next gig? And so that’s that’s how I define success. Are people taking the next step with you?

Stone Payton: So now that you’ve been at this coaching for a while, what what are you finding the most rewarding man? What’s the most fun for you about it?

Danny Brassell: I like taking people’s depressing country Western song stories and making them a little bit more fun and engaging. Again, everybody has had tragedy and I’m not I’m not putting it down. Stone. I don’t want people to misunderstand me, but I just judged a speaking competition the other day and we literally had hundreds actually, it was 1300 speakers and there wasn’t a single funny one in the bunch. I was like, My goodness, I’m about to jump off a cliff after listening to these speeches. And I just love to show people some simple way. And I’m not talking about adding jokes. Any people think that to be funny means telling jokes. I said No, people are funny inherently. Just in your mannerisms, I’ll give you a tip. I had two different speakers. One guy had he came out of prison and so he had this depressing speech about being in prison. And so all I did with his presentation, I said, Well, did you ever speak when you were in prison? He said, Yes. I’m like, okay, well, there’s your line. You can just say, I spoke. I began my speaking career in prison. I had a captive audience. It’s a simple line and it makes people smile. I had another gentleman I was working with and I don’t remember his name. It was a very long, complicated Indian name. And so I said, Oh, well, that’s how you can start your presentation. Say, Hi, my name is Emil Maharishi. Gee, I sure hope I pronounce that correctly. And just. Just doing something like that.

Danny Brassell: I’ll make everybody like you. I mean, here’s a ninja trip for tip for everybody. Listening right now is one of the things I do is I craft introductions. If somebody’s introducing me, I make my introduction that they’re going to introduce me with make me sound like Jesus Christ, because that’s them introducing me. And then when I get up on stage, I can immediately start by saying, Yeah, Jesus Christ, forgot to wear his dress socks today, I ain’t all that. And so somebody else bragged about me, and now I’m making myself vulnerable and ordinary to people in the audience so that they’re going to connect with me. I mean, you don’t have much time to connect with your audience. And I think I hear all these people like to talk about the most tragic moment of their life. And I’m like, Would you start a first date that way? Would you just say hi? Hi, It’s really nice to meet you. Did I did I tell you that I just got out of prison or. Oh, I was great to meet you. Let me tell you about how Daddy used to touch me as a kid. You don’t say that in the first 5 minutes when you’re. I mean, I’m not saying it’s not important, but you don’t introduce yourself that way. And yet I see people do this all the time when they’re speaking. And so I’m like, let’s lighten up a little bit and get people to like us by connecting with a little bit of humor and engagement.

Stone Payton: Well, what I’m hearing in this conversation is that there really are they are skills. They can be taught. They can be learned that there are repeatable processes, transferable tools, that we can all practice and exercise those muscles. Yeah.

Danny Brassell: Absolutely. So here’s a tip for your for your audience. Stone Sit down tonight with a glass of whatever libation you like and a pen and paper. I want you to write down every story that’s ever happened to you. And I don’t mean write down the entire story. I mean write down some triggers. So, like the time I locked myself out of my car when I was at Costco, the time Dad spilled mustard on his tie at that fancy restaurant. The time I peed my pants in second grade, you’ll come up with a list of 4 to 500 stories of personal things that have happened to you. And then what you do is you say to yourself, Oh, this is actually a story about loyalty. Oh, this is actually a story about responsibility. Oh, this is actually a story about overcoming obstacles. And what you do is you put all of those stories in folders on your computer and now you have plug and play stories that whatever the speech is that you’re required to give. Oh, I have a story about that. And I add to these folders all the time. For example, one of the best selling personal development books of all time is Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He doesn’t have any personal stories in that book. All of his stories are about famous, wealthy people that I interviewed. And so every day when I’m reading a newspaper or watching a game on TV or something, if I see a good story, I’m like, Oh, that’s a good story. I’m going to file that away in the accountability file or I’m going to file, Oh, that’s a beautiful one about how to appreciate our blessings. So I’m going to put that in my gratitude file. And this is just a simple way to really build up your repertoire of stories that you can offer people because human beings connect through stories That’s cross-cultural and it’s across time.

Stone Payton: So have you had the benefit of one or more mentors as you came up through the speaking world and now as you sort of made this this pivot, this transition to the coaching world that kind of helped you navigate this terrain?

Danny Brassell: Yeah, of course I have. Stone I appreciate that question. Yeah, I’ve had all kinds of wonderful mentors, but this is one of the best tools that everybody can use. There’s this government program. They got these buildings in almost every single community, and in these buildings are rows and rows of books. And get this, you can apply for a card and they’ll let you take these books home for free. They’re called public libraries. And I’ve been mentored by people from Abraham Lincoln to Nelson Mandela. So one of the tips I give people all the time is, you know, there’s plenty of readers that don’t necessarily become effective leaders. But I have never read about an effective leader in history that was not also an avid reader. I’m I’m reading all the time. I mean, when I read that Teddy Roosevelt, he read over 20,000 books by the time he was 30 years old. So I used to be a classroom teacher. And I would tell my kindergartners, I’m like, So that means kids. We got to read lots of books every single day. I mean, I read ten bucks a day now. Stone I mean, many of them are scratch and sniff and and pop up like you read ten books a day. It’s actually something I do. Stone Before I go to a party, I’ll go to a Barnes Noble, I’ll go to the children’s section and I’ll I’ll I’ll take people that are significant of the day. Like I’ll find a little 32 page picture biography about Jeff Bezos or Sara Blakely, and I’ll learn some facts about them. And I always look like I’m the most intelligent person at the party. Oh, you have all these great stories. Well, I’m just getting those from children’s books. And then obviously, if I if I find the person’s interesting, I’ll read something a little bit more advanced on the person. But I’m. Constantly looking for anecdotes that inspire people.

Stone Payton: Well, and you bring up an excellent set of points there, because every page in every book doesn’t have to be this world beater thing that’s totally shifts your mindset. Just picking up an idea or two, which you can do from almost any book, right?

Danny Brassell: Absolutely. Stone One of the books I’m reading right now is a biography on President Eisenhower. And I just I dog eared a page because I didn’t know this story that Hitler had given his general this order. When the guy left Paris, he was supposed to burn down all of Paris. Well, this general had some second thoughts. He’s like, I don’t want to be remembered as the guy that burnt down Paris. And so he refused to do it. And I was like, Oh my gosh, how many stories in history are one person making a decision like that? I had read a story once about Henry Stimson, who was the secretary of war under President Truman. President Truman was going to drop the atomic bomb on Kyoto because Kyoto was the center of commerce and politics in Japan. Well, it just so happened, Stone, that Henry Stimson had had his honeymoon in Kyoto. And he looked at President Truman and he said, Oh, sir, we cannot destroy Kyoto. It is too precious. And that’s why we chose Hiroshima over Kyoto only. How many events in history are based on random anecdotes like that? So that’s why I read. I’m constantly interested in stories like that.

Stone Payton: So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like like you does? Is the business coming to you? Do you find yourself out there marketing? How do you get the new clients?

Danny Brassell: Well, I’m speaking constantly on stage is stone. So that way, you know, podcasts like this, you never know who’s listening. I’ll give you an example. When I first started speaking, I spoke from my local library and they said, Oh, there’s going to be like 500 people speak, 500, 500 people are going to attend your speech. Well. Stone Four people showed up. Two of them were my realtors and the other two was a Hispanic couple that did speak that did not speak a word of English, but I believe in given 110%. So I did my my song and dance for an hour. I did as much in Spanish as I could. We all laughed and had a good time. Well, this was interesting. Stone The Hispanic woman was taking English classes at the Adult Literacy Center, and she recommended me to speak at her English at the adult Literacy center I was making at that point in my career, this is 20 years ago. I was making $700 a day to speak. She recommended me for a 45 minute engagement for 4006 times my typical fee. And I realize, Wow, you never know. And so I get my word out just speaking to people like you. And I got all the YouTube videos and all that good stuff. And then some people, they read my books and they want me to come and speak for them that way.

Stone Payton: So yet another reason to get really good at this communicating. Speaking. So you’ve spoken to this idea of reading. Let’s talk about writing. I know you’ve written like well over a dozen books. What is what is that experience like? Do the books come together really easy for you, or sometimes is it a struggle?

Danny Brassell: Nina That’s a good question. Stone There’s a little reminder I had on my phone. Let’s see, I have these daily reminders on my phone with I’m always trying to learn quotes from people and things like that. There’s this great quote from Jean Fowler, who was a journalist, and he wrote, Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank piece of paper until blood drops form on your forehead. And I couldn’t agree more. Writing is not always the easiest process, but I like to write the books that I haven’t read. So when I was a middle school teacher, I was the only teacher in my school not to have any tardy students. And that’s because I always began class by reading aloud a Paul Harvey story. I don’t know if you remember Paul Harvey Stone. I’m kind of old at this point. Chop off my head and count the rings. But when I was a kid growing up, I listened to Paul Harvey would come on the radio every day. At 1215, he’d say, I’m Paul Harvey with the rest of the story, and he would tell you this story. And the entire time you’re trying to guess who it is or what company it is. And so my students love those stories, but a lot of those stories are about people like Sears and Roebuck. Well, my students today have no idea who what Sears Roebuck is. And so the last book I wrote, Leadership Begins with Motivation. That’s basically an homage to Paul Harvey with short stories about significant people that today’s students would know something about, like like a Elon Musk or a Warren Buffett or somebody like that. And after I wrote that book. Stone It was interesting. I read it and I’m like, oh my gosh, completely unintentionally. So many of my examples were of white male Americans. And so the book I’m writing right now, most of the examples are of female minorities and international people. And so I’m always looking for books that I want to read. That’s how I start with my writing process.

Stone Payton: Sounds like a marvelous process to be, and it’s terrific that you’re serving other people with that medium. Do you also find, though, that when you invest the time and the energy to commit these ideas to paper, that above and beyond serving other people, that it helps you solidify your own thinking, help you crystallize your your own approaches to to trying to serve and help you that much better than the other areas of your life.

Danny Brassell: Wow. You’re a dream student. Stone And absolutely, this is what I love about your podcast. So many podcasts I listen to, people have like just a prescribed list of questions and you actually are answering, you’re listening to my answers. So I really appreciate that. So yeah, that’s what I’m doing. I’m constantly writing because it makes me the best. Leaders are constantly learning, and in the process of writing stories, I’m learning about things all the time. And so I wrote a story today about my second grade teacher was. Ms.. Ms.. Ms.. Ms.. Hester and Ms.. Hester. She asks all of us kids one day she said, How far can you see? And she held up a pen. She’s like, Raise your hand if you can see this pen. And all of us kids raised our hands. And then she took us out into the hallway and she said, Raise your hand if you can see the exit sign. And all of us kids raised our hands. Then she took us outside. She’s like, Raise your hand if you can see that house across the street. And all of us kids raised our hands. And then she said, Raise your hand if you can point to if you can see the water tower behind that house. And all of us kids raised our hands. And then she said, well, how far can you see in one kid said, 800 yards, and another kid said a mile. And then another kid said two miles. And she said, Now look up above. Raise your hand if you can see the sun. And all of us kids raised our hands. And she paused and she said, Did you know that the sun is 92.9 million miles away? And all of you can see it, and yet you only said you could see 800 yards or a mile or two miles. And she she looked at all of us. This is bunch of eight year olds. And she said, you see, most people underestimate their abilities. I mean, I’m I’m an old man at this point. Stone And I’ll never forget that lesson. Most of us are underestimating what our capabilities are.

Stone Payton: What a fantastic illustration. And it goes back to your earlier points and that these stories can help you underscore timeless principles, things that you want to you want to challenge people’s mindset on. I’m not even sure you’re qualified to answer this question because I’m trying to envision you running out of gas and needing to recharge. But I also I know you’re human, man, so when a tank runs a little bit low, when you need to recharge and regroup, where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean a physical location, but how do you sort of recharge the batteries and get geared up to get back out there and serve?

Danny Brassell: So? Stone The best thing anybody can do is turn off the TV news and read a funny children’s book. You know, I can already tell you what’s on the news tonight. The. The world is coming to an end and whoever the president is is doing a bad job. It’s been the same negative news for 100 years. I’m looking for inspiration. My poor wife, she she wonders why I love watching sports. And I always say honey, because at any moment something extraordinary can happen. I mean, I’m ashamed to say this, stone, but when I watch the Olympics, I’m usually rooting against America. And my wife’s like, Why do you do that? And I’m like, Who am I going to root for the American runner with the microchips in his Nike’s or the barefoot Sudanese refugee who just survived a civil war? I mean, the background stories of these people are amazing. They’re like, Oh, I learned how to run running away from the bullets in my village. Well, of course, I’m rooting for that guy. That’s the most inspiring thing. So people that need to recharge, you know, it’s the same tip I give people if they want to become better speakers. Well, you become a better speaker in two ways. First off, you do the reps. You should be practicing your speech in all kinds of different venues.

Danny Brassell: And most importantly, I think you have to watch lots of speakers. So I watch. I watch politicians, comedians, televangelists. I watch them in front of big groups, in front of small groups, international groups and and other things. Here’s a quick tip for your audience. One of the things I do all the time is I watch award shows because when you win the Academy Award, they only give you 45 seconds to give a speech. And I want to see can that person give a meaningful speech in 45 seconds? And I’ve been giving this example lately. Last year at the Academy Awards, a British guy for he won an Academy Award for some small technical achievement. And so nobody was going to pay attention to his speech. And he got up there and he said, a lot of people don’t know this, but when phrased properly, the term Academy Award nominee can be used as an insult. For example, yesterday I got an argument with my 17 year old daughter and she said, well, Academy Award nominee Thomas Harris, you know, and all of a sudden everybody is laughing. And I saw like Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt begging to meet this guy. That’s the power of a good speech. And that is what I’m training people how to connect their audiences with.

Stone Payton: I cannot remember a 15, 20 minute conversation that was laced so heavily with practical, actionable pro tips on any topic. You are an absolute wealth of information. Before we wrap, though, let’s let’s leave let’s leave our listeners with a couple more things, things they should be reading, doing, not doing. Just continue to and look. Game number one pro tip is reach out and have a conversation with Danny or read some of his some of his books. But let’s give them something to be doing between between now and then.

Danny Brassell: Well, first of all, you’re hired, Stone. You can be my pimp any time. Thanks for promoting me as as a thank you to you and your audience for bearing with me. I wanted to give everybody a couple of freebies. So if you go to free gift from Danny com again, free gift from Danny Dotcom, I’m going to give everybody a couple of things. First of all, I’ll give everybody a complimentary copy of one of my books, Read, Lead and Succeed. This is a book I wrote for a school principal who was trying to keep his faculty and staff positively engaged. So I said, okay, I’ll write your book. So every week I give you a concept, an inspirational quote, an inspirational story, a book recommendation on a book you should read, but you’re probably too lazy because you’re an adult. So I also give you a children’s picture book recommendation. You can read that book in 5 minutes, demonstrates the same concept. And then I’m also going to give everybody access to one of my companies is a reading program called The Reading Habit. And last summer I did an online five day reading challenge with about 700 parents around the world where every day for an hour I gave them all kinds of tips to get their kids excited about reading because I find schools do an adequate job of teaching kids how to read. But the question I always ask is, Well, what good is it teaching a kid how to read if they never want to read? I teach people why to read because I’ve never had to tell a kid, Go watch TV. I’ve never had to tell a kid, go play a video game. And I never want to have to tell a kid, go read a book. I want them to choose to do it on their own. And so those are my gifts at Free Gift from Danny. And I really appreciate this time and all that you’re doing. Stone We need a lot more of you in the world.

Stone Payton: Well, it’s absolutely my pleasure, man. What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you and have a conversation with you or someone on your team and tap into your work? You’ve already shared a couple of resources, but I just want to make it super easy for them to get connected.

Danny Brassell: Man Yeah, they just connect with me. Danny Bristlecone My last name is really easy to remember how to spell. It’s about, like, bras cell. No, I never took any grief over that as a child. So if you go to Danny Brazil dot com, you can figure out how you can book me as a speaker or work with me one on one as a coach to grow your business.

Stone Payton: Well, Danny, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show. This afternoon. Thank you for investing the time and energy to share your insight and your perspective and mostly your enthusiasm. And this has been a great deal of fun.

Danny Brassell: Thanks for all you do so and keep on doing it. God bless.

Stone Payton: All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Danny Brazil and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Danny Brassell

Dan Fisher with Bottle Rocket Media

November 22, 2022 by angishields

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High Velocity Radio
Dan Fisher with Bottle Rocket Media
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Dan-Fisher-Bottle-Rocket-MediaBottle Rocket Media specializes in video production, motion graphics, and virtual event production.

As a Principal and a Director at Bottle Rocket Media, Dan Fisher is excited to be able to combine his years of experience as an Editor, a Producer, a Director, and a Photographer to create content across many platforms.

Follow Bottle Rocket Media on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Branded content is still the leader in commercial storytelling and advertising
  • Using technology (camera, lighting, audio) makes all the difference when tapping into viewers’ emotions
  • Lessons learned in 10 years with a creative business – principles matter
  • Navigating a career of collaboration

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Bottle Rocket Media, Mr. Dan Fisher. Good afternoon, sir.

Dan Fisher: Hello. Thanks for having me.

Stone Payton: Well, it is a delight to have you on the program, man. I got a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think a good place to start would be if you could share with us mission purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks, man?

Dan Fisher: So, you know, the company started in its most purest of forms, really. You know, I’d spent years and years and years in the Hollywood machine and wanted to kind of bring that quality to to the private sector. But since then, it’s really developed into this quest for just telling great stories in whatever and whatever manner we can. So we’re a small, mid-sized video production company based out of Chicago. And so what we really do every day, whether it’s a whether it’s working with a still photographer or a full crew or my editors, is just try and find that kernel of storytelling that that inspires people.

Stone Payton: So how did you get started, man? How did you get into this business?

Dan Fisher: Oh, I got lost along the way. And here I am. You know, fairly fairly traditional trajectory. I was very much a photographer at a young age and one day got my hand on a on a video camera and fell in love with it. After school, after college, I moved out to Los Angeles, where I where I didn’t have a lot of my friends and colleagues went out to be the next great director or the next great writer. And I really didn’t have that that specific goal in mind. So I wound up taking me all over the business because I allowed myself to try a lot of different things. So I’d spent a lot of years doing lighting. I spent a lot of years as a producer, some time directing my own things. And so all that sort of sort of culminated when I wound up getting a job in primetime TV in Los Angeles, which then that trajectory took me. I got a job at the Oprah Winfrey Show, which is what brought me to the Midwest. All that to say. I started as a I started with a love affair of the image, you know, and photography and videography and cinematography. And then when I started editing in Los Angeles, I really my my love shifted to telling stories. And so and so when I when I got the job at the Oprah Winfrey Show, that’s all I did for 60, 70 hours a week. Like a like a ridiculous amount of amount of hours, really kind of cutting my teeth and learning what works and what doesn’t in the nonfiction storytelling space so that when the show ended, I was able to sort of combine these two loves when I started this company.

Stone Payton: So when it comes to commercial storytelling, if that’s an appropriate phrase, I bet you’ve learned a ton, maybe even skinned your knee a couple of times. Have you kind of feel like you’ve cracked the code on some do’s and don’ts when it comes to commercial storytelling and using that to advance a brand?

Dan Fisher: Sadly, there’s no code to be cracked because every client is a different code. But I think there are some things that I’ve that I’ve learned over the years in terms of collaborating, in terms of working creatively with other people that that that I’ve developed over the years, that that has really helped. And they’re all obvious but still worth worth repeating, you know, for, for me. What I had to really develop into is to learn how to be a better listener. And you hear this all the time when musicians are playing together, like, what’s the most important thing you do? And they all say, Listen, But that’s true with that’s probably true with everything, but it’s certainly true with anything collaborative is to really allow yourself to be in the moment and hear what what people are saying. And that’s probably the big the big code breaker for me. And then I guess also. In the same vein as kind of listen to your gut. Right. So many people who do what. What I do. It starts from a place of of pure intention and art, but that at the end of the day, it just makes all of us insecure artists. And I can appreciate that. But also, there’s a good chance that if you’re thinking something or feeling something creatively, so is somebody else. And the best thing to do is just follow your let your let your gut take you where it needs to be. Because at the end of the day, it is just a creative endeavor. And I was I was used to joke and say, well, we’re not we’re not performing brain surgery, we’re not saving lives. And so, you know, the the the ability to at least put the idea, even if it’s not the best idea or not, the approved idea is still something that’s very important.

Stone Payton: So now that you’ve been at this a while, what are you finding the most rewarding? What what’s the most fun for you, man?

Dan Fisher: So thanks for asking that question. It’s it’s an important topic for me. I for me now. What’s the most fun is growing. My team, as you know, because of the because of the inception of this business, it started with me and my business partner, Brett Singer. You know, so much of the so much of the growth of the business revolves around everything we do. And it becomes it becomes basically there’s there’s a one person audience and that audience becomes me. And everything my team does has to satisfy me. I’ve always kind of shied away from that and really just want my my team members to shine. We always say, like, the best thing we can do is put a bunch of smart people in a room and get out of their way. And so finally, at a place both as both as an owner and even as a even as a director, when I’m on set where I’m able to actually do that, I’m able to step aside. I’m able to provide provide guidance for the team and watch them, watch them. Take it to the next level.

Stone Payton: Well, you touch on a really important set of points, I think, because many of us there’s there’s practicing our craft. And if we want to be productive and have real impact, we’ve also got to run a business, Right. And to do that, we’ve got to we’ve got to produce results with and through other other people. What do you feel like you’ve learned about recruiting, developing, retaining, cultivating people and creating that culture that’s going to lend itself to to reaching those objectives?

Dan Fisher: I probably haven’t learned anything. I keep tripping over myself. It’s so hard. No one listening is going is going to question. When I say the generational thing really is, it really makes it challenging. It’s really hard when you’re recruiting. If you’re if you’re trying to recruit, if you’re trying to recruit somebody from Gen X, which is my category or or a millennial or a boomer, like, it’s a completely different set of rules and people respond completely differently depending on on what where they’re at in their career. And so, I mean. I guess, if I’ve learned anything. If there’s anything consistent, it’s probably that the onboarding process is critical. I spent a lot of time bringing people on and making sure they understand their value to to my team and what. And what I expect them, what I expect their value to do and how I expect that value to grow our team. And I’ve done it wrong more than I’ve done it right. I’ve had people leave because they felt they they I misrepresented what the job was. The job was more more intense than than they thought it was. The job was too easy. Like, I’ve really I say this is probably the area of most experimentation, but when it worked right, it worked right because I over communicated during the onboarding process. I spent I went that extra mile to find the right candidate. From the beginning, I didn’t I didn’t rush into anything, and I just made sure that whomever whomever the candidate is or the new or the new team member was really, really, really understood that, that they’re vital to the growth of the company. And my company has 15 people, so each person is vital to the growth of the company. Yeah, I’ll say so.

Stone Payton: Have you had the benefit of one or more mentors to kind of help you navigate this business side of things?

Dan Fisher: I’ve had a lot of informal mentors. I have I have colleagues and actually clients over the years that have been that have been champions for us that we were hired to do a project. One thing about me is I’m super transparent all the time. It’s it’s either my fatal flaw or my superpower. I haven’t figured it out. And so, you know, even we’re on set, it’s lunch. And, you know, I love to things as much as as much as my family. I love making videos and I love growing my business. And so that’s what I talk about. So that conversation has has inspired a lot of people to offer themselves up for advice, for consult over the years. But there hasn’t been one one person in a business sense that’s been there. That’s been my true mentor.

Stone Payton: Well, I commend you on your ability to seek out a variety of people and be and I guess maybe, maybe more importantly, to be open to absorbing what’s what’s out there. Because, I mean, we can’t we can’t do it alone. I mean, we really can’t write. I mean, we need to know.

Dan Fisher: No, I mean, before. So I think I, I think this business was a minute old when when Brett joined. And I always knew that I needed a partner, but especially in a in a space where half of your brain minimally has to be occupied by, by the creative side, and then there’s running the business. And I’m just a huge proponent of you can you can never learn too much. I, I read a ton about this stuff. You know, to to be clear, I’m just a I’m just a filmmaker who decided to open up a business 11 years ago. So I knew going into it, other than other than the dozen books that I read while while at night, while I was an editor, I knew from the very get go that I had no idea what I was doing. So so reading and talking to people is the only way, you know, to to advance well.

Stone Payton: And if you didn’t know it immediately, I’m sure you learned very quickly that you were going to be facing any variety of risk at any given time. Did you have you sort of developed a playbook for for taking smart risk or knowing when to cut your losses? Have you have you have you got the Dan Fisher playbook for that kind of thing put together?

Dan Fisher: I got the Dan Fisher playbook. If you if you if you ask anybody on my team, they’ll say it starts with a calculator in my hand. Prior to starting Bottle Rocket Media, I’ve been an independent contractor basically my whole career, and so I’m not averse to risk. You know, I have a family, I live in a house, I drive a car and, you know, I never had a full time job. So. So for me, like, the smart risk is always about limiting my financial exposure. So we might have great ideas as a team that we want to do and we will get to them, but we might not get to them today. And so it’s really just about chipping away and doing doing my homework as to what the exposure is and. You know, making I’ve made a lot of small risks that didn’t pan out. But to me that’s better than making a big one and having to recover from from a giant. From a giant. Because. Because risks are going to fail. We know that. And that’s and that’s the point of them. But I’ve always wanted the blow to be a little bit I’m a little bit more conservative in that. In that sense, I’ve always wanted the the failures to be less profound.

Stone Payton: So how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a guy like you? An organization like yours? How do you get the new the new business?

Dan Fisher: So this is actually a great a great story. So I have a small marketing team. It’s run by run by our marketing director, Tamika Carlton, and she has been with us for about three years prior prior to Tamika joining the team, We. We spent probably seven years or so doing nothing but outbound a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls, a lot of coffees for for local people. And. And then we. Brought on someone to run marketing right on the eve of the pandemic. And this isn’t a this isn’t a pandemic story as much as. Well, I guess it is in that we spent seven years doing outbound and then we completely stopped doing outbound because there was no point of it during the pandemic. And we did three we’ve done now done three years of only inbound. And at the beginning of this year, Brett decided to move over to focus solely on sales. And so we’ve basically been doing all inbound. We’ve really been working the the SEO and the marketing circuit, you know, basically taking advantage of of the Internet. And as outside of return clients, a large percentage of our clients find us and we’ve recently started to. Get back into our outbound ways. And so it’s just a lot of like every small business finding the equation that works for us. You know, if you had told me ten years ago that I could that I could procure sizable video production budgets by being present on Google, I would have laughed at you. But the but the. The landscape is changing and very, very, very big companies and big agencies are simply seeking, using Google like everybody else to find what defined the services they need. So we’ve gotten some really nice size clients just by by having a very strong presence on the Internet.

Stone Payton: I often get asked about some of my favorite or most interesting interviews. Do you ever get asked about do you have a favorite shoot, if that’s the right word or two that kind of stuck out. Man, I really enjoyed that one.

Dan Fisher: So, you know, it depends it depends what lens I’m looking through. But I would say personally, for me, my probably my favorite stuff to work on is pharmaceutical stuff. It’s super dry. I know. And if you’re not if you’re not super familiar with with what that looks like, it might you might you might shake your head. But. A lot of times when we’re doing the pharmaceutical stuff, we get to work with real people, real patients, and we get to make these tell these really intimate stories, like maybe mini documentaries. And it could be like a day in the life of using a using a medication or what it’s like to live with a certain condition, all kinds of things, all ages of people. And for me, that’s really a big component of why I do what I do, because I love talking to people. I love talking to real people and getting to know them. And so for me, that’s those are some of my favorites. And of course, most of those are proprietary. And I can’t I can’t show you them. I can’t tell you who they’re about. But but they’re really the process is great. On the flip side, if you’re looking for specifics, American Girl, the doll company is one of our clients, and several years back they called us to do a music video with. With a dozen girls dancing on stage. And that one shoot is just something I look back on fondly because it was you know, we had all the toys, We had a choreographer, We had kids dancing. It was just one of those like, spectacle type things, type shoots that really that was a fun one. And everyone was really happy with the product.

Stone Payton: So I got to give a shout out to American Girl. I am the father of two girls. My brother has a girl they all had. They all got from their grandmother at art prodding and art with a little bit of facilitation from us, an American Girl doll. So what a what a great company. What a delight. I’m sure that was to to work with them. I’d love to. Before we wrap, leave our listeners with some insight, some perspective on a couple of fronts. One, just kind of how you see the kind of the state of the industry, if you will, you know, the importance of video in these times. And so I’d love your take on that. But also maybe for those of us that really don’t necessarily even know the questions we should be asking, what to be looking for when we’re considering engaging a media firm to come in and help us captur video to help us go to market more effectively.

Dan Fisher: Good questions. I mean, if I have to communicate to to you or people listening the importance of video, I think nobody’s paying attention. It’s it’s amazing. You know, frankly, I’ve never been this spot on in terms of in terms of a business idea, you know, to focus on video. I don’t think anybody could have anticipated it going the way going the way it has. I mean, it’s it’s and I don’t I don’t use the term loosely. It’s literally everywhere. So I think there’s there’s no there’s no shortage of ways to use video. And and that’s at all at all levels of any organization, whether you’re communicating your mission, whether you’re training employees, whether you’re whether you’re if you’re if you’re a larger company and you just need to communicate a consistent message, you know, and forget about social media and advertising and all this stuff, that that is that is more obvious. There’s just there’s just no there’s just no shortage of how to use it. And, you know, I am a proponent of of what I would say, like a well balanced video diet. It doesn’t all have to come from a from a production company. We all have some of the best cameras we own are on our phones or on our computers or right with just a little bit with just a little bit of love from a from a microphone or something. You can have a you can create beautiful video. So I think it’s everywhere. I think it’s it’s not going anywhere. I’m a little bit of a reader. And so it’s sad to say that again, this is not news.

Dan Fisher: People aren’t reading the way they the way they were. But but everyone is watching video. Everyone is. Let me put it to you this way, Stone. If I’ve downloaded Tik Tok on my phone, then the worm has turned. I mean, you know, it’s just it’s just ubiquitous. You know, everything is everywhere. When you when you search something in Google, the first thing that comes up is a YouTube clip. And YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world. And that’s not even that’s not even taking into account the entertainment value. That’s just data. So so video is. Video is here to stay. It’s only going to it’s only going to get more. It’s only going to get bigger, faster, more, more present. And I don’t even really know what that means. But but the technology is growing. So, so well. So. So will the video component. In terms of what to ask. So my so. Our business is like any other business. There’s there’s people who are good at it and there’s people who are not. There’s people who are nice. There’s people who are not. There’s people who are transparent and there’s people who are not. And so for me, you know, it’s not so much about the questions to ask. I mean, certainly I probably have written this blog half a dozen times, and we have actually we have a lot of information on our on our website. If people are really interested in knowing how to engage with a video production company. But I think what’s most important is that you that you work with people that are that are open to collaboration, that are of course not overpriced and that because there’s so many.

Dan Fisher: Components to a to a video project. It starts with it starts with the concept. It’s there’s a lot a ton of planning. There’s a lot of moving parts. If there’s if there’s a crew, there’s post-production is very subjective. Is that if if the company that you’re working with or the people that you’re working with have a process in place, I think that says a lot about what the experience will be because. You hear all the time people that go through the process of making a video. They’re not unhappy with the product. The product came out well or okay, but the but the process was miserable. And it’s one of those weird it’s one of those weird aspects to this business where you can have a really bad time. But at the end of the day, the product, if the product is is reasonably close to what you thought it would be. People are accepting of it, but it just doesn’t have to be like that. So I think, you know, like, like any other vendor of any other industry, you know, look under the hood, make sure you read the fine print and and, and if you feel like they’re being transparent with you, then you’re going to know exactly what you get. And with a little bit more preparation, I would have had this exact blog standing by on my screen and I could have read you five bullet point stone. But I don’t I don’t have it in front of me.

Stone Payton: Well, that’s all right, because the next thing we’re going to do before we wrap is we’re going to make sure that our listeners have an easy path to connect with you tap into your work. So if they would like to have a conversation with you or someone on your team or just start to learn more about your work, let’s equip them with some coordinates. Let’s make it easy for them.

Dan Fisher: Oh, sure. You know, I think the best place to get in touch with us is our website bottle Rocket Media dot net. There you can click on all kinds of links to communicate with the team members and of course, see our work. And we have our our I mean, we’re a video production company, so I don’t get to talk about our blog much, but it’s pretty extensive. We’ve got we’ve got a very big library of of of material that would answer all of these questions, how to work with a vendor, how to work with music, what’s the best way to do X, Y, and Z? You know, no shortage of opinions here. And then, of course, we’re we’re all over social media. Instagram bottle, Rocket Media three 1 to 4 Chicago area code. Facebook, I think is just bottle Rocket media. So we’re around where everywhere that you would think we would be. We are not I’m not sure if we’re on Twitter and we’re not on Tik Tok yet. That’s just because we’re too busy.

Stone Payton: Well, Dan, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. It’s been informative, inspiring. I really appreciate you investing the time and energy to share your experience and your insight and your perspective. And man, just keep up the good work.

Dan Fisher: Thanks. Thanks, man. Really appreciate.

Stone Payton: It. It is my pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Dan Fisher with Bottle Rocket Media and everyone here at the business Radio family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Bottle Rocket Media

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