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Workplace MVP LIVE from SHRM 2021: Josh Rock, Nuss Truck Group, and Jessica Miller-Merrell, Workology

September 22, 2021 by John Ray

Workplace MVP LIVE from SHRM 2021: Josh Rock, Nuss Truck Group, and Jessica Miller-Merrell, Workology

Josh Rock, Talent Acquisition Manager at Nuss Truck Group, and Jessica Miller-Merrell, CEO of Workology, had a lively conversation with host Jamie Gassmann about connecting with talent, going where the talent is, global HR issues as the workforce is remote, the Workology podcast, and much more. Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast live from the 2021 SHRM Annual Conference held at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Josh Rock, Talent Acquisition Manager at Nuss Truck Group Inc.

After nearly a decade in recruiting with healthcare companies, Josh Rock moved the Nuss Truck Group as their Talent Acquisition Manager.

Josh holds a degree from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and is an active alum. He is the recipient of the 2001 Sieur du Luth Award Winner, given for the highest level of involvement and service to the university community.

LinkedIn | Twitter

Nuss Truck Group

With eight locations in the midwest, Nuss Truck & Equipment is proud to carry the best lines of trucks, trailers, and construction equipment. Their sales and service teams are highly trained to deliver and maintain the right truck or machine for your application to ensure maximum productivity and efficiency. You and your business can rely on Nuss.

Company website | LinkedIn

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SHRM-SCP, SPHR, CEO & Founder, Workology

Jessica Miller-Merrell is the Founder of Workology, a workplace resource for HR, recruiting professionals and business leaders. The site was listed twice as a top 75 career resource by Forbes Magazine. Jessica is the president and CEO of Xceptional HR, a human capital strategy and consulting agency, and a published author of Tweet This! Jessica is listed by Forbes as a top 50 social media power user. Because of vast industry expertise and knowledge, Jessica’s professional opinions and expertise are sought after and sourced by publications and media including: the Economist, Forbes, CIO Magazine, CBS, Entrepreneur Magazine, and SHRM’s HR Magazine.

LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Workology

Workology is a destination for the disruptive workplace leader discussing trends, tools, and case studies for HR, recruiting professionals, and business leaders. The site and community are designed for those who are tired of the status quo and are compelled to change and transform not just their organization but the world of work and the human capital industry. If you are interested in contributing, please click here. If you are interested in advertising, click here.

We reach a half-million HR and Recruiting leaders each month with our website, newsletters, and podcasts. Workology and its community are founded and managed by XceptionalHR Consulting. XceptionalHR Consulting is a workplace consulting company focused on developing resources, training, and content for HR, Recruiting, and Workplace Leaders.

Workology and Xceptional HR Consulting is led by our Founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Jessica Miller-Merrell. She’s available for speaking, consulting, writing and research opportunities. If you are interested in advertising opportunities, visit our advertising page.

Company website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

**Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”**

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the SHRM 2021 Conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in workplace behavioral health, crisis, and, security solutions. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:17] Hey, everyone. Jamie Gassmann here, your host of Workplace MVP. And we are broadcasting our episode today from the SHRM 2021 Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. And I have two wonderful guests with me today. I’ve got Josh Rock from Truck & Equipment. He’s the Talent Acquisition Manager. And from Workology, I have Jessica Miller- Merrell, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer. Welcome to the show you two.

Josh Rock: [00:00:48] Thanks, Jamie.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:00:49] Awesome to be here.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:50] So, I’m going to start out by talking with Josh, because I know you’ve kind of waited a little bit to connect with us on our show.

Josh Rock: [00:00:57] We’ve been chatting here and hanging out, and talking with your guys online via Twitter, you know, here at the show, just having a good time.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:02] Awesome. So, tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into talent acquisition, and just share with our audience a little bit more about you.

Josh Rock: [00:01:10] So, if any of your listeners are familiar with the cartoon Family Circus, where the kids would walk around a lawn and the whole yard and they have the dotted line, that’s how I fell into H.R. I started going to school for law, of all things. I fell into advertising for 16 years. And through that, I did ten years of recruitment advertising and trying to be a trusted advisor to H.R. professionals across the country and across the globe. And left that organization and went to work for my clients to teach them what I was doing outside but then within their walls, give them back control, back their budget, back to the power, instead of putting it in the hands of agencies. And I’ve been doing it ever since.

Josh Rock: [00:01:47] I went to work for a couple of health care organizations. I recently left a 36,000 employee health care group out of Minneapolis to join a truck dealership of nine locations, with now almost 400 employees. So, a huge paradigm shift, not only in the industry, but employee size, to lead their talent acquisition efforts and just have a good time every day.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:08] Yeah. Wow. And, obviously, now, hiring concerns and issues, how has that impacted the truck industry that you’re in?

Josh Rock: [00:02:17] You know, there’s impact. There’s not enough students going into the heavy duty diesel programs. And so, connecting with the schools, helping build curriculum to make that a more profitable venture for not only the schools, but the students, obviously. So, that way, we can continue to drive great business for us and then our customers. So, it’s going full cycle. It’s not just opening up a requisition, posting it on Indeed or any other partner just to wait for candidates to come in. We’ve had to be more holistic in our approach of finding, acquiring, and hiring great talent.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:51] Right. And so, talk to me a little bit about that approach. Are you going out to actual universities? You live in the St. Cloud area, I know there’s a big university in St. Cloud. I know I’ve been talking to you a little bit already. I know you’re a big Duluth.

Josh Rock: [00:03:06] Go Bulldogs.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:03:07] Go bulldogs.

Josh Rock: [00:03:08] Shane here from R3, he’s also a UMD Bulldog. We connected on Twitter because of our alumni association with UMD. So, yeah, I mean, I actively go out. Even in a post-pandemic world, I’m out visiting colleges already. I was down in Dallas recently. I was down in Denver. I’m now here going out and talking to students about how their careers could go well in diesel truck repair. And, you know, finding great ways about, not only who we are, what we do, and how they can grow with us, and set themselves up and maybe their families up for great success through careers in this venture. So, it’s fun.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:45] Yeah. Absolutely. And that’s such an impressionable age, right? I’m guessing you’re really looking at all students. But, you know, when you’ve got somebody who’s going through their program and they’re trying to figure out what they want to be when they get older, you can really have an impact. So, if another employer was looking at taking that same approach, you know, what are some kind of your advice, if you will, on how you would approach that?

Josh Rock: [00:04:13] You know, for me, it’s all about engagement. And engagement comes in different forms. Through active questioning of the people that you’re talking to, whether it’s a student or a student’s parents, about where do they want to take their career, where do they want to go, what do they want to achieve. You know, those things, layering those questions in to create a picture, a painting, of what that could be. And then, finding your organization – like mine here at Nuss – where that resonates. For some, it’s time off. For some, it’s paid. For some, it’s advancement.

Josh Rock: [00:04:46] You’re going to find those threads just in genuine conversation and questions with those students or alumni from the schools or parents looking at how do I help set my child up for a successful career. And then, just finding those threads. It doesn’t have to be, “Hey, we’re offering a $10,000 sign on bonus and you can start tomorrow.” It’s more about what do you want? And then, finding that lane of the value proposition from your organization and going through that.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:15] Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting you mentioned, like, finding that lane and kind of having that engagement opportunity. Because, you know, I’ve read job descriptions over my career. I think we all have.

Josh Rock: [00:05:25] Unfortunately.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:25] And sometimes you’re left going, “I don’t get it. I don’t know. Maybe I like this job, but there was one word that kind of threw me off.” So, it’s almost like how can that employer step out of that job description. How can they empower themselves to take that different approach? What’s worked for you?

Josh Rock: [00:05:43] So, a great story. I had a local – or, actually, a national job board reach out to me and say,” Hey Josh. You need to invite people through our portal to apply for your positions.” And I told him he was wrong. Straight up I said, “You know what? Actually, what I need to do is when somebody voices interest in one of our jobs through your portal, I’m going to call them. I’m going to text them and say, ‘Hey, you know what? I found your information. I want to talk about where your career is going and what we can do together.'”

Josh Rock: [00:06:14] Because my job is not a gatekeeper. There’s a lot of recruiters, unfortunately, in the United States that act like gatekeepers. Actually, what you should be doing is being dance partners. Helping them navigate to their career within your organization. And so, instead, what I told this vendor, I said, “What I’m going to do is you guys are going to bring me information. I’m going to digest that information. I’m going to actively reach out to them on my own, through my own information, my own tools and technology and say, ‘Hey, I’m interested in you because. Now, I want you to join me because.'” Instead of saying, “Hey, do this for me, do this for me.” Because they’re getting the information. They’re holding the power. No.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:52] No. I need to hold the power, right?

Josh Rock: [00:06:53] Exactly. Exactly. I’m the customer. I need to do what works for me. Not what works for you and your technology. And what you can then put on your advertisement to say you had this many candidates to customers. That doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is that Paul Alexander from Sheboygan, Wisconsin applied for my position, has an interest in my role, was in the U.S. Military, now wants to come work for me. I want to get him on the phone as quickly as I can and find a way that maybe this is an opportunity for him to drive his career forward.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:24] And so, you’re very active on social media with the Twitter, because that’s how you found us.

Josh Rock: [00:07:30] Kind of. Yeah.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:31] So, talk to me how do you leverage Twitter or how do you leverage LinkedIn? How do you empower even Facebook, potentially, I’m guessing, could be a really good avenue for you? How do you leverage that in a way that’s helped you to get good candidates to reach out to?

Josh Rock: [00:07:45] So, in my current industry in transportation, I’m not going to find a ton of diesel technicians on Twitter. It’s just not going to happen. I can do it on Facebook. I can do searches by putting in diesel technology. I can look for trucking. I can do keywords to find people that have similar similarities or have posted something about it, and then reach out to them that way.

Josh Rock: [00:08:07] In my previous industry in health care, I could do it much easier. Because I could go on to Pinterest and find a female in Atlanta, Georgia looking at recipes for something. But she also posted on her Pinterest wall scrubs that she really liked.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:25] Interesting.

Josh Rock: [00:08:25] And I can say, “Oh, I see you’re a nurse. We’ve got opportunities here in Minnesota. What’s your specialty? Are you an ED? Are you in transplant?” Strike up a conversation, say, “Hey, you know what? I work for this organization. We have this many openings. I’ve got these many hospitals, depending upon the kind of community you want to be in.” I can do those types of things that way.

Josh Rock: [00:08:40] You can do a lot of different things on social channels based on what somebody is interested in. It doesn’t have to be just the resume on LinkedIn or that they’re looking for a job that they posted on Twitter. That stuff’s easy. You can do that really quickly. But sometimes it’s just as simple as finding that moment in time post about what they liked and then find the correlations. It takes time. It’s sourcing. It’s active sourcing. But you can find really good talent.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:09:07] Yeah. And sometimes going out of the script of, like, this role helps you to kind of get that engagement that you’ve been mentioning.

Josh Rock: [00:09:15] Well, you talked about social media so a great story about SHRM. We’re sitting here in Las Vegas. We all flew here Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And I’m on the flight from Minneapolis here and I’m sitting by four people in my row. I’m like, “Hey, are any of you guys going to the SHRM Conference?” All four of them said yes. I said, “Anybody staying at Resorts World, the new Conrad Hotel?” It’s where I’m staying. By the way, if you haven’t been to Las Vegas’s brand new hotel, it’s fantastic. There’s their plug. I love those guys. It’s good.

Josh Rock: [00:09:45] But this young man, his name is Ethan. He’s from Minneapolis. He was sitting with his mom. And they’re like, “Yeah. We’re staying there too.” I said, Well, why don’t we ride share? Save each other some money. Maybe we could put it on gambling, or food, or something like that later on.” Come to find out he’s a senior at a local college back in Minnesota looking to, you know, build upon his career. And I said, “Are you on social media?” “Well, yeah. I’m on Twitter.” I said, “Well, here. We’re going to do something while we’re in the car.”

Josh Rock: [00:10:08] So, I took a photo, tagged him in a post. I said, “Hey, all my SHRM social influencers, I want you to meet Ethan. All H.R. leaders here at SHRM, I want you to meet Ethan. He’s looking to start his career in the next year. Let’s connect with him, and help build him, and get to network with him, and connect with him.” He has over 50 followers now. When I talked to him, he was at 18 on the flight. He’s over 50. And these are all H.R. leaders. These are people that could offer him an opportunity, could give him tips towards connecting with other leaders. It’s endless.

Josh Rock: [00:10:36] We’re walking through the hall and I run into Ethan. We’re sitting with the other students. I said, “Hey, Ethan. How’s it going for you so far?” “It’s great. I met these people. I got invited to these dinners. I’m going to this social. All because you shared who I am at this conference.”

Josh Rock: [00:10:50] And there’s this young lady from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, sitting behind me. Her name is Stephanie. And I said, “Stephanie, can we blow you up on Twitter too?” “Sure.” The next thing you know, people are following Stephanie. Her dad followed me on Twitter yesterday and said, “Thanks for expanding my daughter’s networking world.” These are the things that we do.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:09] I love that.

Josh Rock: [00:11:09] You know, it may not benefit me as a recruiter at Nuss. But if I can give back, I’m happy to do it. And that’s part of the reason of one of the things we talked about earlier before coming on the show was #JobHuntChat. We’ve been doing a job advice chat on Twitter for over 11 years every Monday night. I don’t do it because I’m getting paid off it. I do it because I enjoy it. I love to give back, because if one little bit allows somebody to leverage their career, provide for themselves or their family, good karma for the day.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:36] Yeah. Absolutely. And engagement is the key. Not being afraid to strike up that conversation and start just, you know, getting to know people. I mean, it’s amazing what you can find out and what you can learn, which is obviously what we’re doing today, which is great.

Josh Rock: [00:11:48] Exactly.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:48] Well, thank you so much, Josh. It has been great chatting with you. I’m going to shift over to our next guest from Workology, Jessica Miller-Merrell. Welcome. She’s the Founder and Chief Innovation Officer. Talk to us, Jessica, how did you get into this?

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:12:03] I started a blog. I started a blog in 2005. It was a job search blog originally called Blogging for Jobs. And I was an H.R. director at a Fortune 200 company, and I was trying to fill inside/outside sales positions and supporting roles. And I started the blog to be able to build a pipeline of candidates. And it’s now became a business. I have a team of 11 and we provide resources, information, support, and training for H.R. And workplace leaders. We reach over 800,000 every single month. It’s amazing.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:37] That is amazing. Fantastic. So, now, you’re here at SHRM, obviously, probably been here multiple times. How do you leverage this conference for building on maybe your content or learning about what’s kind of trending within the H.R. space?

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:12:53] So, it’s my first conference in – what? – two-and-a-half years or whenever the world stopped, right? So, it’s been great to hug people, shake hands, masked of course. But just connect in person and have a conversation that doesn’t involve screens. I mean, my business is predominantly online, and the work that we do is mostly digital. But it’s nice to just be able to randomly connect with somebody on Twitter or in a session and then learn more about what they’re doing and what’s important to them.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:13:27] I have a lot of access to different resources information in people. And so, for me, it’s all about connecting those people to other people or those other resources. And sometimes the best way to do that is in crazy atmosphere like this, where we’re all kind of the same, but we’re all different, but we all have that thing in common which is working and loving the human resources industry.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:13:49] Absolutely. And so, for content, I mean, you mentioned it’s kind of a resource hub. You’ve got different elements that help H.R. leaders. I got to imagine you’ve just been pushing a ton of content out over this last year helping them with how to guide through the pandemic and others. So, how do you create that and how are they accessing it?

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:14:09] So, predominantly, there’s four different ways that H.R. leaders get access to our resources. We do have a number of trainings. We provide H.R. certification prep for HRCI and SHRM certification resources that’s all digital and on demand. And then, we also have a membership that allows H.R. leaders to get access to our library of resources, connect with me, connect with others. And then, be able to just have aggravated customized content delivered to them or training or information. So, training is number one.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:14:39] And then, we also have a newsletter that reaches over 500,000 H.R. leaders at Workology every single week. And we organize and deliver similar stuff – like, the Biden press conference will probably be on our next newsletter – just providing information to help them do their jobs better and to spend less time searching the internet for it, like we just deliver it out for them. So, I’m like their trusted friend that knows all the things over cocktails or coffee that’s like, “Here’s everything that you need.”

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:15:09] We also have a podcast ourselves. It’s called the Workology Podcast, over seven years going. So, that’s been a lot of fun. And then, of course, my blog, and we have over 8,000 articles and information there. It’s this living embodiment and a testament to how vast, and interesting, and amazing the human resource industry really is.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:15:30] Yeah. Well, there’s so many different facets. You know, there’s the legal side, regulation, talent and acquisition that we talked about, and there’s also the hiring part of it. So, one part of HR that’s your favorite that gets you just all giddy, what would that be?

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:15:48] Right now, I’m really fascinated with the evolution of the chief human resources and the chief people officer. I was telling Nicole as we were waiting that we have been doing a podcast series, really, since the beginning of the pandemic that’s just focused on talking to CHROs, and understanding what has their attention right now, maybe an initiative or program. What’s their HR organization like? How do they talk to their executive team? And it has been amazing. We’ve talked to companies that are, you know, Fortune 5 CHROs. And then, we’ve talked to companies that have 57 employees that are chief people officers in their organization.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:16:29] So, it’s really interesting to see how that’s evolving and changing. And then, the kinds of resources that we need as CHROS, regardless of the company size, need, tools, information technology is really evolving. And it definitely has increased in the speed with the pandemic, because we have to be able to be more flexible and pivot and agile. And that’s different than it ever has before because we don’t know – well, we always didn’t know what tomorrow is going to be. But we really don’t know what tomorrow is going to be in the workplace.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:17:02] Yeah. Even still today, right?

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:17:04] Yeah. Every single day, it’s changing. And, especially if you’re a global H.R. leader, if you have a global organization, maybe you’re in the U.S., maybe you’re in India, maybe you have a team in Pakistan or Mexico, you have to be able to lead not just to your core team or your team in the U.S., but you have to be able to support those employees everywhere.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:17:25] And now that so many people are remote, you might have Susan who decides to move to Portugal and now you’re faced with a whole another challenge as the head of HR. Like, how do I set a payroll and taxes and all these things for Susan who didn’t tell me for the last eight months that she relocated to Portugal. And this is happening a lot. I’m seeing it. I’m getting emails, DMs, text messages of, you know, freaked out H.R. personnel like, “I need help.” And I have been drowning for the last two years. And now here’s another just pivot or thing that we have to become an expert on and support the organization and our employees in.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:18:06] That’s fascinating. Because when they move, everything changes in terms of their employment. So, I mean, how an employee doesn’t share that with them, but you know [inaudible].

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:18:15] Well, they wanted to work remotely. I think the pandemic, like for me, I’ve had to really sit back and think about my life. And I think a lot of people have taken stock, like what is really important, what matters. And I hope that if you haven’t done that as an H.R. leader, you are doing that. And then, also, thinking about who you want to be in 18 months, two years or five years. Not just who you want to be as a person to your family and your friends, but as a leader in an organization supporting the business.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:18:44] And employees are making decisions and saying, “Hey, you know what? YOLO. I’m moving to Portugal. And right now everybody’s working from home, so nobody knows because I can do it over Zoom.” But they are just thinking about, “Okay. My boss, I just want to show them, him or her, that I can do this here. Or, you know, they’re probably never going to know.” They’re not thinking about the things that we have to deal with as H.R. leaders, employment laws, payroll, taxes, all the fun things. And, now, it’s not just somebody moving from Texas to Minnesota, it is somebody moving from Texas to Portugal or, you know, wherever else.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:19:21] So, quick question, because I had not heard that yet, but it makes total sense when you bring that up that an employee would do that because why not, right? How can an employer be proactive in saying, “If you’ve got ideas of doing this,” I mean, is there a way they can gently put that out there without maybe showing that they’re encouraging, but maybe is there communication that can be done?

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:19:44] It starts with a culture of trust and conversation. So, H.R. leaders – and they should be. And I know we have got a lot on our plate, so I hear you because you’re going to groan when I make this recommendation – you need to be investing as much time as you can talking to your people. And I don’t mean your managers and your frontline managers and your executive team. I mean, your actual people. And so, that means popping into Zoom calls, scheduling appointments, scheduling meetings, in-person or remote, however you’re going to do it. But the majority of your time should be spent with the people in the organization, and building that trust, and leading by example.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:20:23] So that when Susan decides to relocate to Portugal, she sees us as a human being, Josh or Jessica, “I might need to let my boss or Josh or Jess know what’s going on.” Just to check in.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:20:38] I think a lot of times we just look at someone who is in a position of management or leadership as a logo, not necessarily a person. So, as H.R. leaders, we need to lead with the humanity side of things. Go out there and build those relationships, set the tone for the rest of the organization.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:20:57] So that when Susan has a question because she’s probably just like, you know, no news is good news, right? So, she hasn’t heard anything about it, so she thinks it’s okay. But then, we can start to have those conversations because if there’s one person that’s done it in your organization, I guarantee you, there’s probably 15, 25, 45 more.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:21:17] I mean, personally, my goal is to move to Belize. I want to be, like, part time. I want to be in Texas. I want to be in Belize and wherever. My husband, he’s a little bit different. He just wants to relocate to wherever my daughter goes to college. Which I’m like, “Okay. We can own a house. But I’m moving to the Caribbean somewhere. I’m going to be snorkeling on my days off and when I’m not podcasting or speaking.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:21:41] Like, this is going to happen.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:21:41] Yeah. And I think a lot of other people are wanting to do this. But if we don’t plan or prepare or at least consider this might be happening, because if it’s not moving to Belize or Portugal, it is mental health conversations or PTSD, or I’m having a lot of financial problems right now, or other things. This year has been hard for so many people, and so they’re just grabbing onto the one thing that brings them some happiness and just fills up their cup. And for Susan, that’s moving to Portugal. For me, it is Belize. And I’m going to talk about it on every podcast. I am moving there because I’m going to manifest and make it happen.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:22:21] Yeah. And then, you’ll do a podcast on living in Belize.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:22:24] Yeah. There’ll be a whole blog and a business. It’s going to be a whole thing.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:22:26] I can see it now. Fantastic. No, I’m glad we’re having that conversation, and I know you said people will groan at that. But you’re not the first person that I’ve talked to at the show that has mentioned that, about that senior, that executive level leadership needing to have more visibility kind of with employees. And that is a struggle, right? Because some of them are feeling the burn. They’re trying to balance all the shifts and turns and keep that organization strategically running forward.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:22:52] It’s the reason that I’m here to connect with the H.R. community. Because I’m providing resources just like H.R. leaders are providing their employees and organizations resources. If I don’t invest the time, like H.R. leaders are not investing time in their people, I might go somewhere else and start writing about Alaska when I should be writing about Belize or whatever resource that I’m providing. I want to make sure that we’re connected together and that I’m able to do my job and what my superpower is.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:23:22] Just like as H.R. leaders, we need to be able to do that. And that’s really that human connection piece that people focus first. That is so important right now in moving forward, because we will continue to be a hybrid workplace, whether our organizational leaders want it or not. The employees are speaking, and they are walking out of jobs, and making decisions, or moving to Portugal and not telling their organization because it is such an important thing. It doesn’t mean that working remotely is less productive, but it allows for some work-life flexibility that they maybe didn’t have in the same way before.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:24:03] Yeah. And are so appreciating that aspect over the last year of that work-life, you know, they don’t want to give that up so they’re really holding on to it.

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:24:10] As someone who has worked remotely for over 12 years, it’s good and bad. I do like going to the office because I can leave my work at work.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:24:22] Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, if anybody wanted to get a hold of you, Jessica, how would they do that? Or how would they access Workology so they can get those great resources that you talked about?

Jessica Miller- Merrell: [00:24:34] workology.com is the best place to go. If you want to connect with me one-on-one, all the places and all the social medias. Facebook is great. Twitter is excellent. Linkedin, you can connect with me there as well. You can also send me an email, you know, if you’re not on the social medias. And that’s jessica@workology.com. I’m here to support H.R. leaders and help empower them to be better at their jobs and also better at just life. I mean, this is all that we have. That’s one opportunity. So, we should make the best of it.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:25:09] Absolutely. I love that. And, Josh, if they wanted to get in touch with you, how would they get in touch with you?

Josh Rock: [00:25:14] Easy. You can find me on LinkedIn, just like many other H.R. pros that are here. Twitter, JRock96, the hockey number follows me everywhere I go. But if you’re looking for a job or seeking advice, you can always check out #JobHuntChat Monday nights 8:00 p.m. Central, we’ll be there. And you can contribute if you’re an H.R. pro and you want to help job seekers. Or if you have other job seekers that want to know more, tell them to jump on Twitter and follow us along.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:25:43] Awesome. Well, thank you both for joining us. It’s been great to chat with you.

Josh Rock: [00:25:46] Awesome. Thanks, Jamie.

Austin L. Church With Balernum

September 15, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Austin L. Church is a writer, brand consultant, and online entrepreneur.

After finishing his M.A. in Literature in 2008 and getting laid off from a marketing agency in 2009, Austin started freelancing. He got into iOS and Android apps and eventually sold his portfolio of 30+ apps.

In 2013 he co-founded a tech startup called Closeup.fm (touring, ticketing, and communication software for performing artists). In 2018 he co-founded a branding and marketing studio called Balernum.

When Austin isn’t helping online creators and entrepreneurs build real brands and make a positive impact, he teaches freelance creatives how to have a record year doing their most joyful, profitable work. Austin, his wife Megan, and their three children live in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Connect with Austin on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

It’s important for coaches to have a program
Advice to freelance creatives and artist types
Advice to other coaches and companies who want to work with or sell to creatives

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to BRXAmbassador to learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Austin Church with Bill Burnham. Welcome, Austin.

Austin Church: [00:00:42] Thank you. I’m delighted to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Burnham. How are you serving, folks?

Austin Church: [00:00:49] So I serve folks in two different ways. On the consulting side, I help the typically e-commerce brands with a specific focus in outdoor brands with their brand strategy. That’s everything from mission. Vision values all the typical stuff to differentiation, target audience, all the stuff that helps them stand out. And then on the coaching side, I help freelance creatives most often, and that’s where we’re working on business levers. The areas of their business where with a little bit of effort, they can see outsized returns.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:29] So now what drew you to creatives as a focus?

Austin Church: [00:01:34] So my background is in literature. I went to grad school to get a master’s in creative writing and never really realized it until I got into the business world. But I was always entrepreneurial, and so I was that odd duck who loved the arts, loved poetry, loved fiction writing and yet liked money and wanted to make money. And then later, when I had a family needed to make more money and didn’t think I was that unusual. But after hundreds of conversations with writers and freelancers, I’ve realized that a lot of creatives really struggle with the business side, and I’m passionate about helping them work through some of those issues.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:26] So how did you kind of I don’t want to say pivot, because maybe it was just a natural evolution from, you know, kind of wearing the hat of, I’m a creative, I’m a writer. I’m going to write. And then now that you’ve written, then going, OK, when’s the money come from this? And how do I build a business around my writing? Did that just happen? Like, you just figured out a way to do it and said, Oh, I’m going to share this with everybody else. I know, and that’s how you got into coaching. Like, what was the path?

Austin Church: [00:02:56] I think I was like a lot of people in that I had the problem, and I think most people don’t change until it hurts worse to stay the same. And I was failing forward and had a number of experiences early on where I made a mistake undercharged or had a bad master service agreement. I just made some kind of mistake that caused me pain, and I’m like, Well, there’s got to be a better way to do this. You start looking around and then as time passed, you realized, Well, I’ve started to have some success. I changed the way I operated, developed some business acumen and wait a second. All the other people that I see that are making six figures as freelance creatives, well, they’re all doing the same things. They’re all pulling the same levers. And that was kind of my light bulb moment when I thought, Oh, there are, like I said, levers and there are principles at play. And I think a lot of those will be replicable or repeatable for most people. And so that’s when I put together my program and started sharing what I had learned through trial and error.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:15] So what are some of those main levers?

Austin Church: [00:04:18] So I think a lot of them will apply both to creatives and to coaches, the six that I talk about most often are positioning, packaging, pricing, pipeline psychology and process, and I can go as as deep as you want to go in any of those.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:37] So are they in order so you have to get your positioning right before you do anything else?

Austin Church: [00:04:43] I think that helps because positioning goes back to like your dream clients. Who’s the target audience you want to serve and your market? And it’s really easy to pick a bad market, a market where people don’t have money or a market where they don’t experience an appropriate degree of pain that would motivate them to make a change or they don’t or the market shrinking. Right. So I think positioning is the best place to start. And then once you see all the indicators you need to see in your market with the type of client that you want to serve well, then you can start thinking about the packages that you want to create what I would call your juicy offers. And then, you know, you start putting prices on your offers and your pricing can be strategic and premium, or it can be more knee jerk and reactive. You can probably tell by my wording which I prefer and which I recommend definitely strategic and premium, but start with positioning for sure.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:50] So now is this kind of gear to a business audience? Or is this geared to like, what if I’m a fan fiction writer?

Austin Church: [00:06:01] So some some things still apply, right? Robert Kiyosaki. I think it was a rich dad, poor dad where he’s passing on this interview he had with a journalist, and she was expressing frustration that her books weren’t selling. And he told her, You know, they called me a best selling writer, not a best writing writer. I recommend you take a class on sales. And so certainly fiction writers, other types of writers could benefit from looking for those levers, sales being one of them. But primarily, I’m working with creatives, writers. Yes, designers, illustrators, photographers, software developers. I’m looking for folks like that who are definitely in business. Definitely see their work as a business, not just a hobby. And, you know, look for the more ambitious ones that are looking to turn a profit.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:02] So it’s not artist to be art for art’s sake. This is artist for commerce that they’re helping other people leverage their art to for their business in some manner.

Austin Church: [00:07:13] Absolutely. And I love art for art’s sake. But art and commerce have always mixed, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. And wanting or needing to sell your art and support yourself does not make you a sellout. There’s a lot more to talk about there, but yes, definitely focused on people who are art as business or creativity as business.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:41] So now what are some of the symptoms these folks are having that your team or you yourself is the right fit to help them kind of get to the to a new level? Is it just frustration or lack of sales or or can it be something more deeper than that?

Austin Church: [00:07:58] Good question. It’s certainly inconsistency. You have a great month and then the next month isn’t so great and you see that freelance feast or famine. Another thing that is pretty common is burnout. Once people get to consistently making around five thousand bucks a month, so they’re, you know, topping out at around 60 a year. They get tired and maybe they don’t enjoy the work as much as they used to or find themselves pretty getting frustrated with clients or not short tempered, but just annoyed or irritated easily. And so there’s some emotional signs as well. You find yourself not as excited to get out of bed in the morning, and every new request that comes from a client may meet with some eye rolling or size. Or you get what I’m saying, right? So you’ve either hit a wall with your earning or there’s something about your emotional life or even your work life balance or blend that just feels off, and that’s when people start looking for help.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:16] So now, if you’re a creative, should you have something that is. Almost a vehicle for passive income, whether it’s a course or a book or a series or some some something that is kind of making money for you, just with the without you doing much anymore, were you did the initial work to kind of build it, but it’s saying there in the background kind of working for you?

Austin Church: [00:09:41] I recommend it. I mean, when I look at a lot of my big gains, yes, I ratcheted up my prices with creative work over the years, but a lot of my big gains came from, like you said, packaging up something that I know as a course, as a workshop and finding a more leveraged business model. There are so many business models available to us online now, and it seems like even with something like ticktalk, new ones crop up every year. So yes, by all means create some kind of digital product and you’ll achieve some scale. That’s simply not possible when you’re trading time for money

Lee Kantor: [00:10:27] And then the beauty, or one of the benefits of doing this is that this is just kind of incrementally going to add income without you kind of fussing with it a lot.

Austin Church: [00:10:37] Oh, for sure. And I think I was explaining this to my daughter the other day I had earned an affiliate commission through a product that I linked to and one of my blog posts. She’s eight. I think she’s I think we’ve got a little entrepreneur on our hands. But I was explaining to her that I wrote this blog post once years ago, and to date, I’d say that it has earned me around fifteen hundred dollars in affiliate commissions. And no, it doesn’t generate a huge sum of money on any given month. But I mean, I look at my revenue as a mosaic. Some pieces are bigger, some pieces are smaller. But every piece I add well, the whole mosaic gets bigger. My my overall revenue gets bigger. So I’m just I’m amazed at how many different ways there are to piece together that mosaic.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:32] And then as part of your work as a coach is kind of manage the expectations of your clients because like you said, you do this blog post, you add this affiliate link and it’s generating, you know, over the course of like, say, five years say it generates even even if it’s just the $1500. Well, that’s three hundred dollars a year. And if you can do that times 10 times, 15 times, 20 times one hundred, then it becomes money that you’re paying attention to. Now it’s all like you said, it’s just sitting there working in the background. And if you can get enough of that mosaic going, then then that creates that security and that creates that kind of predictable revenue over time.

Austin Church: [00:12:18] That’s right. And I think one of the things I talk a lot about is both a plan and patience. I think one of the traps that creatives in particular fall into is what I would call the skills improvement trap, where if you have, let’s say, 20 units of time and effort that you could spend, you’re a lot more likely as a writer or another type of freelance creative to go spin those units of effort on becoming incrementally better as a writer. Even if you make a 20 percent gain in skill or quality over the course of a year with copywriting that doesn’t translate into a 20 percent gain in income, so you have to come up with a plan that is built around OK, if I have these 20 units of effort and I were to apply them over here in terms of prospecting or even in terms of like what you said, creating a digital product or finding more leverage somewhere else, will that 20 minutes of effort might not represent 20 percent gain in income, but more like a 60 percent gain in income? And so part of my program is helping freelance creatives find those fulcrum, those like points of leverage so that, yeah, you won’t. We all have limited time, but where you put your time really matters in terms of the results that you give.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:54] Now I’m a big believer in processes over goals, and I think to create the right systems and tweak the right systems is more beneficial than having a goal that you’re shooting for. And is there work that I can be doing or should be doing as a creative every day to just keep pumping that lever like you were talking about earlier? That’s going to generate some sort of return over time?

Austin Church: [00:14:19] Yes. The most common mistake I see freelance creatives making is they stop marketing when they get busy. They finally experience that sense of relief, of having plenty of work, maybe even too much work. You have that one month that maybe it even doubles your best month. To date, everything is going great. And so you take your foot off the gas with marketing, with lead generation with follow up, not fully realizing that each week you’re actually working on generating leads that you’ll need six months from now. And so the one habits that I advocate for and I love what you said about process over goals. Hey, listen, if you’re going to be constantly implementing one process, it should be business development, marketing, lead generation, even if it’s just 30 minutes a day. Forty five minutes a day, don’t become inconsistent with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:25] So now what are those activities? How do you recommend your clients like? What activities are they doing for those 30 minutes?

Austin Church: [00:15:32] It depends on what their market is and what their primary channels are going to be, but an easy answer is listen. Beyond LinkedIn, be posting on LinkedIn. Be proactively building your audience on LinkedIn by sending 10 to 15 connection requests a day to people in your target audience. Find posts from people and your target audience. Comment on those, whatever whatever your market is, you find the main channel or the watering hole where people in that market in that target audience are hanging out and then show up there often and you put in your statistically significant number of activities there. Again, like you said, trusting the process more than you trust even a specific goal or how you feel on a specific day.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:31] So if you invest the time in kind of building this prospecting machine properly and efficiently, then it is kind of a rinse and repeat every day.

Austin Church: [00:16:41] That’s right. And it takes the pressure off of needing one particular post to get all the attention because you know, you’re going to be showing up and making another one tomorrow. It’s I mean, we all know that consistency trumps everything in marketing. It’s just that consistency is hard.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:59] So all right, that’s the work part, people. That’s the part they don’t like.

Austin Church: [00:17:04] Well, and that’s the part that, you know, a lot of freelance creatives are really smart people and we’re always looking for hacks. We’re always looking for ways to like, maximize results with minimal effort. But there are some things that you cannot hack in. Consistency is one thing you cannot hide. You just you have to put in your ups. You have to show up. You have to get the basics every once in a while. Maybe you do hit a grand slam, but you know, show up every day. And sure enough, you’ll usually come out with more than enough leads.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:39] Good stuff. Well, if someone’s out there that wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, maybe to get a hold of your program or just kind of learn more what you are up to. What’s the website?

Austin Church: [00:17:51] So it’s billion m b a l e r n UMD. I’m on LinkedIn a bunch. It’s my name Austin L as in Larry Church. Find me there. Send me a message.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:04] Good stuff, Austin. Thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Austin Church: [00:18:10] Thank you for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:12] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Unique Technique E71

September 12, 2021 by Karen

Unique Technique E71

In this Episode listeners will get to know Austin and Landon on a more personal level and hear about their background and experience and how Backbone Planning Partners was created.

Austin and Landon share why their technique and business model puts their client’s needs at the center of attention. They not only financially plan for business owner’s they take into account some business owners prefer to just gain advice and direction and handle matters on their own.

Austin and Landon respect that all business owners are different and have their own wants and needs that’s why they provide a unique technique. Backbone Planning Partners encompasses all aspects of a business owner’s financial plan. Austin and Landon hope to be the backbone in your financial plan.

About the Show

Tycoons of Small Biz spotlights the true backbone of the American economy, the true tycoons of business in America… the owners, founders and CEO’s of small businesses. Join hosts, Austin L Peterson, Landon Mance and the featured tycoons LIVE every Tuesday at 1 pm, right here on Business RadioX and your favorite podcast platform.

About Your Hosts

Austin Peterson is a Comprehensive Financial Planner and co-founder of Backbone Planning Partners in Scottsdale, AZ. Austin is a registered rep and investment advisor representative with Lincoln Financial Advisors. Prior to joining Lincoln Financial Advisors, Austin worked in a variety of roles in the financial services industry.

He began his career in financial services in the year 2000 as a personal financial advisor with Independent Capital Management in Santa Ana, CA. Austin then joined Pacific Life Insurance Company as an internal wholesaler for their variable annuity and mutual fund products. After Pacific Life, Austin formed his own financial planning company in Southern California that he built and ran for 6 years and eventually sold when he moved his family to Salt Lake City to pursue his MBA.

After he completed his MBA, Austin joined Crump Life Insurance where he filled a couple of different sales roles and eventually a management role throughout the five years he was with Crump. Most recently before joining Lincoln Financial Advisors in February 2015, Austin spent 2 years as a life insurance field wholesaler with Symetra Life Insurance Company. Austin is a Certified Financial Planner Professional and Chartered Life Underwriter. In 2021, Austin became a Certified Business Exit Consultant® (CBEC®) to help entrepreneurs plan to exit their businesses.

Austin and his wife of 23 years, Robin, have two children, AJ (21) and Ella (18) and they reside in Gilbert, Arizona. He is a graduate of California State University, Fullerton with a Bachelor of Arts in French and of Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management with a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in sales and entrepreneurship.

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

Landon Mance is a Financial Planner and co-founder of Backbone Planning Partners out of Las Vegas, Nevada. He rebranded his practice in 2020 to focus on serving small business owners after operating as Mance Wealth Management since 2015 when Landon broke off from a major bank and started his own “shop.”

Landon comes from a family of successful entrepreneurs and has a passion and excitement for serving the business community. This passion is what brought about the growth of Backbone Planning Partners to help business owners and their families. At Backbone Planning, we believe small business owners’ personal and business goals are intertwined, so we work with our clients to design a financial plan to support all aspects of their lives.

In 2019, Landon obtained the Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) designation through the Exit Planning Institute. With this certification, Backbone Planning Partners assists business owners through an ownership transition while focusing on a positive outcome for their employees and meeting the business owner’s goals. Landon is also a member of the Business Intelligence Institute (BII) which is a collaborative group that shares tools, resources and personnel, and offers advanced level training and technical support to specifically serve business owners. In 2021, Landon became a Certified Business Exit Consultant® (CBEC®) to help entrepreneurs plan to exit their businesses by counseling owners about exit options, estimating the value of the business, preparing the business for exit and tax considerations.

Landon enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife, stepson, and new baby twins. He grew up in sunny San Diego and loves visiting his family, playing a round of golf with friends, and many other outdoor activities. Landon tries to make a difference in the lives of children in Las Vegas as a part of the leadership team for a local non-profit. He regularly visits the children that we work with to remind himself of why it’s so important to, “be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

Landon received his B.S. from California State University Long Beach in business marketing and gets the rest of his education through the school of hard knocks via his business owner clients.

Connect with Landon on LinkedIn.

Austin Peterson and Landon Mance are registered representatives of Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp. Securities and investment advisory services offered through Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp., a broker/dealer (member SIPC) and registered investment advisor. Insurance offered through Lincoln affiliates and other fine companies. Backbone Planning Partners is a marketing name for registered representatives of Lincoln Financial Advisors. CRN-3746034-090321

Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp. and its representatives do not provide legal or tax advice. You may want to consult a legal or tax advisor regarding any legal or tax information as it relates to your personal circumstances.

The content presented is for informational and educational purposes. The information covered and posted are views and opinions of the guests and not necessarily those of Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp.

Business RadioX® is a separate entity not affiliated with Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp.

Jonathan Weathington With Shuckin’ Shack

September 10, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Brought To You By SeoSamba . . . Comprehensive, High Performing Marketing Solutions For Mature And Emerging Franchise Brands . . . To Supercharge Your Franchise Marketing, Go To seosamba.com.

Jonathan Weathington joined Shuckin’ Shack in an official capacity in 2014 at the outset of franchising. Initially hired as VP of Franchise Development, he was promoted to CEO in November of 2014.

Prior to working for Shuckin’ Shack, Jonathan helped build the second Shuckin’ Shack in Historic Wilmington NC, and spent 14 years in the service and retail industry with companies such as VF and BB&T.

He holds a BA in Political Science and an MA in International Relations. At home, Jonathan enjoys spending time outdoors and hanging with his wife and two cats – Frank and Etta.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by SEO Samba, Comprehensive, high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands to supercharge your franchise marketing. Go to SEOsamba.com. That’s SEOSamba.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a good one today on the show, we have Jonathan Wethington with Shukin’ Shack. Welcome, Jonathan.

Jonathan Weathington: [00:00:42] Hey, Lee, how are you doing?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] I am doing great. Before we get too far into things, tell us about Chuck and check How are you serving folks?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:00:50] Sure, I think we’re serving folks really well. We started in two thousand seven single unit and grew to a second unit in two thousand twelve and then started franchising in twenty fourteen. And and really, it’s our goal to just treat people well by serving them the best seafood and coldest drinks possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:06] Now what’s the kind of the origin story of the franchise? Did it start out as a mom and pop and then just organically grew into a franchise? Or did it set out to be a franchise from the beginning?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:01:18] It did not set out to be a franchise from the beginning. I think like most other restaurants, it really just set out to survive the first year from the beginning, and that was that was twenty seven. We were kind of headed into not a great place as far as macroeconomics are concerned across the nation, but just kind of started kicking butt and taking off and grew from there. And the partners. I was not a founder, but I knew the founders and I was around when the concept started and I saw it grow from just a single location. Mom and pop with two business partners and a 960 square foot location just grew every year. Started looking for a second location somewhere around late. Twenty ten or sorry, around late two thousand eight. And then things really started taking off. Finally opened a second location in twenty twelve. And then we’re in the process of looking for a third location and at that point decided to shift gears a little bit and focus a little more on franchise growth.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:18] Now, when you made that kind of switch to being a franchise group. Organizationally, how did that impact kind of your day to day because that’s a different real business, right running a franchise. Being a franchisor as opposed to, you know, running a franchise?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:02:36] It’s an extremely different business, you’re no longer just an operator, and I came in from the outside, though I knew the founders and I helped them build the second location. I was working for a couple of other companies at the time that they started franchising, and so I came in completely from the outside to help them specifically grow the franchising side. I had a rich history and, you know, processes and procedure and all of those things and kind of consolidating. I’d gotten a taste of really ultra ultra large business for some of the previous organizations I had worked with, and I knew that Chuck and Jack was scalable. But to answer your question directly, the partners, I think, found out and really knew coming into it that you’re no longer an operator of a single restaurant. It’s no longer your base. Goals are the same, which is to treat your customers exceptionally well, served great food and give people a good time. But how you get there on the franchising side is a little bit different because now you’re responsible for imparting that knowledge and training that within your own system to new franchisees coming in who may or may not have any familiarity whatsoever with your brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:44] Now, what does that ideal franchisee look like? Are they kind of that second act executive or are they the professional franchisee that is looking for another maybe a food concept to kind of round out of portfolio or the empire builder that’s going into a market and wants to take over the, you know, the the area?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:04:08] I think all of the above, I think that’s one of the beautiful things about franchising in general is that for us, at least for us, I can’t speak for every brand, but I’ve certainly had these conversations with other brands and that the diversity within their own franchise system is pretty great and that we do have folks in our system who are in empire building mode. I want to start with one, I want to build 10 and I want to do that over the next 10 or 12 years. And they have multiple units of multiple brands and they see us as as a long term investment. We also have a single unit franchise owners who are owner operators, and right now in our system, that’s our bread and butter. We love single unit owner operators. They tend to care about the business extremely well. Their numbers are typically even better than us as our company units, because let’s face it, they have to pay us royalties and marketing fees. And so there’s more of an incentive for them to run a little bit tighter ship. And, you know, they’re really invested within the community. And then on the other side, we have former military former military in our system. We have folks who have retired from their other careers and started the second career in this. So they come from all different directions. And I don’t think that’s just your main to check and check. I think that’s franchising as a whole. That’s one of the best parts about the industry and the sector overall.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:25] So in your system, what separates kind of the rock stars from the kind of average?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:05:31] How they treat people. That’s it. You know, we give people a great systems, we give them great products, we give them great marketing materials to reach their customers. We can drive customers in the door. That’s not an issue. It’s how they treat people. That’s what separates the rock stars from from the average folks. And again, that may not be just germane to us, but at the end of the day, when people come into a restaurant, they’ve already decided that they’re going to spend money there. It’s how you can make that money, have value to them. What is the worth like? How do they feel walking out of the doors? Would they, without hesitation, say yes, I will absolutely come back within the first few minutes of coming into their visit. And that’s it how they treat people and how invested they are within their local communities. That’s what separates the great from just the good.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:20] Now how does the organization help a franchisee when it comes to their people and their talent? What are you doing to help them kind of identify the right check and check employee and also keep them?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:06:37] Sure. So I think on our end, a lot of what we do, we don’t we don’t certainly hire for any of our franchisees or anything like that, but we encourage folks to hire for talent as opposed. I mean, sorry, we encourage folks to hire for personality as opposed to talent or as opposed to skill. We want people within our four walls who can speak to others just like you’re in someone’s living room. We desire folks who work for us to have a genuine sense of connection with other human beings. And quite frankly, the product doesn’t matter. We just happen to serve an exceptional product. And so that’s that’s one of the things that we teach is a part of our university training is how do you identify those kind of life skills that go beyond what you might find in a restaurant? And then as a part of our further training, once we actually get people in the doors and we’re training our employees, we kind of throw out all what we believe are a bunch of bad habits that a lot of other brands use that may work for them, but it doesn’t work for us. We don’t have greetings within our stores. We don’t wear name tags. We don’t do all the typical stuff that you might see in a franchise restaurant. And that’s because when we want, when people walk in the door, we want them to feel welcome. We want them to feel like they actually belong there, like it’s a place that they would go, hang out. I’m not going to come to your house and hope that you have a nametag on and hang out with me. That’s not what I’m after. And so for us, we kind of create that homegrown environment and we are teaching. And I say this very, very often, especially when we’re talking about bartenders and servers in front of the house employees. We’re not teaching them to do the certain things we are teaching them to read the room. We are teaching them to read other people and respond accordingly. And that’s one of the things that makes us extremely different from other brands.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:24] Now, during the pandemic, were you forced to kind of make some changes that maybe will have legs post-pandemic?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:08:33] Of course, yeah, I think we were we would be not telling you the truth entirely. We didn’t take a look at our entire system and say, What’s working, what’s not working, what’s not working? Let’s not put any time, effort and energy into it, and let’s focus on what’s working. That was a little bit more of our approach. We knew, practically speaking, when you’re talking about seafood and you’re talking about our brand. There’s not a whole lot of ubiquity on seafood and delivery. And so we knew that we could not compete with pizza or or some other concepts that may have a great delivery program because that’s what they’re known for. I mean, I order pizza at my own home, and we knew that we wouldn’t be able to compete with that and capture that customer. However, what we did know we could do is stay engaged with our customer base. And then when they were ready to come back or ready to order to go or pick something up, or they just wanted to get out of the house and drive up to the curb and pick something up from us, we were there and we tried to focus a lot of time, effort and energy on exactly that, which is engaging our customer base, making sure that they were there and that we were there for them. And then as time progressed, we were able to, depending upon, of course, the state and the municipality. We were able to develop some take home programs with taken boil kits and booze to go kits and those things. But I think the name of the game for the pandemic for us was just agility. No idea was stupid. Quite frankly, no idea was immediately swept under the table. We everything was on the table and we considered everything and adaptability and agility. Just pragmatism, I think, is perhaps the best way to encapsulate our approach to dealing with COVID and continuing to do it

Lee Kantor: [00:10:15] Now as we end this year and we move into next year. Are you targeting certain regions or is it kind of the whole country in play right now?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:10:27] I think a majority of the country, you know, 20, 20 was kind of our early twenty twenty one late twenty twenty was kind of the first time we started offering franchise opportunities for the right folks across the country. Prior to that, we had primarily been focused on the southeast U.S. east of the Mississippi, of course. We just wanted to have a little bit more market proof and markets outside of the Carolinas. And now that we have that and we’ve seen our restaurants grow and do exceptionally well, not only away from the coast but outside of the Carolinas. We’re at the stage in our development. We’ve got a lot of the right pieces on board internally. We’re partnered with the Great Development Group, Braintree Franchise Systems, franchise brands and we’re poised to grow as long as with the right people. And I think that matters more than anything else is that we would consider relationships and franchise partners in other states near or far. But you got to be the right fit in our system, and not everybody fits and that’s OK.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:32] Now, any advice for the emerging franchisor that’s out there, that’s listening on how to kind of get over the hump and get that escape velocity?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:11:44] Sure, I think the biggest thing is to have high brand confidence, and that sounds that sounds so silly and stupid, especially if you’re a founder of your own brand. But if you know your brand more than anyone else, which you should, is that continue to lean into that and continue to make sure that you depend upon that when you’re making decisions. And I think furthermore, just because someone hasn’t done something doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. And so I think that, you know, you have to determine obviously systems, procedures, all of those things, but lean on what you know. And that’s at the core DNA of what your brand is and what it has been and what’s gotten you there. Then maybe it’s not something you should you should sacrifice moving forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:30] Well, if there’s somebody out there that wants to learn more about the opportunity, what’s the website?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:12:35] Sure, it’s Chicken Shack franchise,

Lee Kantor: [00:12:38] And that’s chicken with no gee, right?

Jonathan Weathington: [00:12:41] No, gee, that’s right s s h youkai n Shack franchise.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:48] Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for sharing your story today. Thanks, Lee. All right, this is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Growing Your Practice Through Effective Leadership, with Eric Morin, Tower Leadership

September 10, 2021 by John Ray

Growing Your Practice Through Effective Leadership, with Eric Morin, Tower Leadership (Dental Law Radio, Episode 19)

In a few years, Eric Morin argues, few dental practices will have less than $1 million in revenues. In this era of consolidation, what enables a practice to acquire other practices and scale effectively? In this conversation with host Stuart Oberman, Eric argues that the answer gets down to great employees, and he discusses the management and leadership fundamentals needed to attract those people. Dental Law Radio is underwritten and presented by Oberman Law Firm and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Eric Morin, Founder and CEO, Tower Leadership

Eric J. Morin, Founder and CEO of Tower Leadership, is an MBA and an experienced successful financial and business consultant, Eric truly is an innovative thought leader and powerful dynamic speaker. His words compel you to grow your business, live optimally, and make a transformative impact on this world.

For over a decade, Eric J. Morin has left a successful track record in the dental consulting industry. Hundreds of Dental Practices are now thriving in wealth, work environment, and community impact.

Eric founded Tower Leadership with the sole purpose of keeping dentistry in the hands of dentists by equipping them with the knowledge and tools they need to run a flourishing practice where everyone on the team benefits.

Connect with Eric on LinkedIn.

TRANSCRIPT

Transcript
Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, it’s time for Dental Law Radio. Dental Law Radio is brought to you by Oberman Law Firm, a leading dental-centric law firm serving dental clients on a local, regional, and national basis. Now, here’s your host, Stuart Oberman.

Stuart Oberman: [00:00:26] Welcome, everyone, to Dental Law Radio. Usually, I’m given a couple items on a podcast, but today we’ve got an extraordinary special guest in the studio, Eric Morin, Tower Leadership. And the reason why I wanted to talk to Eric – and he and I have done some projects and clients along the way for many years now. And I know Eric has clients all the way from Washington to probably Maine, probably to Florida, and probably some internationals. Who knows? – I wanted to really get Eric’s sort of feedback, if you will, what’s going on in the industry, where things are at. I know he’s got the the pulse of the industry and what’s going on at the practices, whether you have one practice or, I think, we’re working on a project now that we’re probably going to get him to about 30 practices at some point, if we can keep him on track, keep him on track.

Eric Morin: [00:01:23] It’s a big one.

Stuart Oberman: [00:01:23] But I think, really, Eric, you did a great job getting your guys through COVID-19. I know that was a very difficult spot. And I know that you and I did a seminar together that we had to go to a very remote location in a winery because no one else with houses. And you were on the forefront of a lot of areas, and I know that if your doctors listened to you when you were giving advice in March and April, they were well on the way to succeed. But I wanted to get, you know, your conversational sauce.

Stuart Oberman: [00:01:58] We’re going to cover a couple of things today, because you’re right on the front on this. You’re way out in front of this. Everyone’s scaling, scaling, scaling. You know, the questions we have are, how do you keep associates without giving up equity? One other area we want to take a look at is where are we at on the change of the business environment as we sort of revisit COVID, if you will, and all this coming with that. We’re seeing things that are already going into the first quarter of 2022.

Stuart Oberman: [00:02:33] So then, we want to take a look at, you know, leadership. And I’ve heard you talk and I take notes when you talk and implement when you say things. And God forgive me, but you introduced me to the sigmoid curve. I couldn’t even spell sigmoid curve until I actually listened to you talk when we were giving a little seminar.

Stuart Oberman: [00:02:57] But great to be here. Thank you, my friend. You are amazing in what you do. And I will tell you and I’ll tell listeners, every time you speak and every time I hear you, I learn something. Whether it’s one thing or a handful, I learn something. So, I want to talk about, really, what Tower Leadership is doing. Then, I want to get into some very specific industry topics that I know you’re out in front of. But tell us a little about Tower Leadership and what you guys do.

Eric Morin: [00:03:24] Well, first, thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here today. This is a lot of fun. I’ve been looking forward to it. As you said, you and I have worked on a lot of projects together, a lot of conversations. We’ve dealt with a lot of clients. You know, we really experienced a lot of issues together. This is a great time to have this conversation. There are so many changes. And then, all this thing called the Delta variant comes out.

Eric Morin: [00:03:48] So, just when we think that everything is settled and we can get back to business as usual, winter comes again. We don’t know. There’s uncertainty. And I think that’s business as a whole is there’s always uncertainty in the marketplace, and I think preparing for that. And then, what do you do when that happens?

Eric Morin: [00:04:04] And I think that’s one of the conversations you had brought up, which is when COVID happens. I think in the show we’ll talk through that is what were the differences during that time? Because one of the things I’m seeing now is, when we go back and we look at the time period, some people say we won’t count 2020 and some people say 2020 was a great launching point.

Stuart Oberman: [00:04:26] Best year they ever had.

Eric Morin: [00:04:27] That’s right. So, what was the difference? I think it’s really important in this podcast to identify those things. As a company, Tower Leadership, I’ve been in the consulting dental space for approximately 20 years. I’m married to a dentist. And I was consulting for companies outside of dental. And then, she said, “Will you help me start a dental practice?” I always tell people that my best asset was that I didn’t know anything about dental. And so, I just started growing and scaling this dental practice and hiring doctors. And I thought that was normal until someone told me it wasn’t.

Eric Morin: [00:05:01] But then, my career, I ended up getting investment licenses so that I could see also the investments that doctors were making. Tower Leadership came from this idea of, after all my years of experience, you can have great management systems, you can have great training, you can have all these things in place. But if you don’t have great leadership within the business, and leadership encompasses a lot of things, and there’s certainly some great things you need in management and leadership.

Eric Morin: [00:05:31] But the idea of Tower Leadership was, let’s create a business that shows doctors that if you invest, if you grow and you scale, yes, you can have all the financial rewards, but you can also impact a lot of people, too. And as idealist as that sounds, we’ve been able to do that. And it’s a fun pursuit of passion. And we get to see the changes in our clients lives, which is a lot of fun.

Stuart Oberman: [00:05:54] So, one of the big things now is, our doctors are sort of in a quandary where they really don’t want to give up leadership or ownership, but they don’t want to work 80 hours a week. So, the question is, in today’s tight market, tight, tight associate market – and we get this question all the time. And I know you get the question. You had a big conference on this recently – how do you keep associates in today’s world where you’re only as good as your last paycheck and your last patient without giving up equity? That’s probably a 17 day topic in a four year span. But, you know, how do our doctors do that? And what are you seeing on that side? You know, how do you keep these associates without giving up equity? That’s a loaded question.

Eric Morin: [00:06:50] You’re right. I mean, we could sit here and talk about this for a long time. I think it’s very important for people to know that a lot of times that associates feel that that’s being successful. But let’s unwind it a little bit more. The idea of ownership – and a lot of it actually, believe it or not, and all the conversations, I mean, I’ve had conversations with thousands of associates – it’s always that, “I want to be able to have a say in the practice. I want to be able to have leadership.” That’s the hard part to get over, right? Because you could give somebody equity.

Eric Morin: [00:07:19] Let’s just say that you gave up 30 percent or even 40 percent or 50 percent of your practice. But if someone’s whole goal is to be able to have a leadership conversation, to be able to contribute, and they’re not able to do that, of course, then they still won’t be happy. So, I think the first thing it goes down to is, what does the person ultimately want?

Eric Morin: [00:07:38] Because I think the marketplace in the past had said to this person, let’s take an associate, highly educated, highly competitive. Dentists tend to be competitive people by nature. And we say, “Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to come in. I’m going to figure out how to pay you as little as possible. I’m going to give no say on my dental practice.” And I love it if you just stay a really, really long time and no equity. I mean, none of us would go into that conversation to go, “This sounds like a win-win long term.””

Stuart Oberman: [00:08:04] It happens every day.

Eric Morin: [00:08:05] And so, I think that if you look, this is not what happens in other industries, by the way. This is kind of a way, a paradigm, that was in the dental market space for so long. And so, I will tell you that before we even get to a financial model or talk through those types of models, I think it’s more important to say, can this person contribute to the practice? Are they allowed to contribute? Because these are intelligent people.

Eric Morin: [00:08:30] And by the way, if doctors want to pull back, I might want to pull on that part of their skill set and have them be part of the practice as far as the ability to contribute to a leadership team or contribute to the management of the practice. So, it’s really important that we talk about that first in that component because they want to be part. They want to feel like they’re part of something. Don’t we all, though? I mean, don’t we all want to feel like we’re part of something? And I think the way we’ve treated associates in the past is wrong, I’ll say that first.

Eric Morin: [00:09:04] The other part is, what does it mean to get ownership? I think we have to unwind that. What does that actually even mean? Equity. What is equity? Equity, first of all, until you sell it, it’s just something filed with the state. I mean, it doesn’t really mean anything. You can say, “Well, it means distributional equity. So, I get some distributions.” But I think what do those distribute – distributions?

Stuart Oberman: [00:09:30] You’re the financial guy. You’re asking a lawyer?

Eric Morin: [00:09:30] I know, right. I think one of those distributions will be long term. So, I think it’s one of those mean long term. And I think it’s creating an asset. You know, what we have found is, by allowing someone to be part of a leadership team, to have some say in what’s happening in the practice, and then by giving them an asset, showing them that they could have a multimillion dollar asset without having equity, then they say, “Okay. Hold on. Let me get this right. So, I could work four days a week, not deal with H.R., not have to do with marketing, not deal with all the headaches and complexities, and I could have a multimillion dollar asset?” The answer is yes.

Eric Morin: [00:10:16] And so, actually, believe it or not, I’ve had partnership agreements that the partners have unwound the agreement to do a deferred compensation or some type of other program, because they see clearly financially. I’ve had people take that type of an arrangement and put it in front of their lawyers, their accountants, their financial advisers, and they have come back and said, “Wow, this is pretty amazing. And it’s actually better financially.”

Eric Morin: [00:10:44] So, what happens is, when the associates end up in dental school, they tell them the natural progression is you’re going to get out, you’re going to work for a few years. Oftentimes and nowadays, it’s for corporate for years. And then, they’re going to go buy a dental practice. But even that market’s changing, isn’t it? I mean, we’re starting to see the complexities. And I’m shifting a little bit here, but as the marketplace changes, the complexity around owning a dental practice is getting much harder.

Stuart Oberman: [00:11:11] It’s getting harder. Individual, not when you got numbers on DSOs.

Eric Morin: [00:11:15] It is. Even in the last ten years, Stuart, I mean, we got to think about –

Stuart Oberman: [00:11:21] And days.

Eric Morin: [00:11:21] Right. So, we think about this and say, even five years ago. I argue that five years from now, there’ll be very few practices that are operating under a million dollars in revenue. Independent dentists that are thriving outside of, maybe, a small boutique type cosmetic firm. And if you look at the medical space, you’ll see the same thing. I mean, in the medical space, you’ve got dermatologists and you’ve got plastic surgeons. And for the most part, they stayed out of groups. But the vast majority of medicine, you know, MDs are now all part of groups.

Eric Morin: [00:12:00] So, when we look at the marketplace and the way it’s shifting, we say even the people who might have bought a practice, it’s going to cost you a lot more to get into them because – and we’re seeing this and you’re seeing this, too – it might cost you $2 or $3 million now to get into a practice where it would have cost you 400. And then, you’ve got to have the business acumen to be able to compete in that space.

Eric Morin: [00:12:19] So, when we’re retaining associates, what we have to think about first is the environment. Are we providing a world class environment? Are we providing a place where they can thrive? Can their career grow? Can they be excited? All those traditional things in any other industry we will look at. Let’s say you and I started to create another firm, we would want to take care of our C-suite, our top players.

Stuart Oberman: [00:12:44] We don’t sleep as it is.

Eric Morin: [00:12:47] [Inaudible]. What a side note. So, I think that we can keep unwinding this. The truth is that, no matter where you are, this marketplace is changing. And I actually think there’s a lot of it that’s good news. And the marketplace is changing and we can kick and scream, but it is. And I think that the more we adapt to that marketplace, the more we can thrive. I think if you look at large corporations, or private equity, or DSOs, or however you want to call it in this space, they are not handing over equity to these practices. And I think that people have been telling people for a long time that you need to hand over equity.

Eric Morin: [00:13:29] But in the case that you had mentioned from coast to coast, I was working with a doctor recently. And if he had given up half his practice, he would have taken a 50 percent pay cut. But that pay cut literally would have made it so he could not pay his bills, literally. And so, I sat down with the associate. I said, “Do you care about this doctor?” And the associate said, “Yeah. I’m just trying to take care of my family, but I also want him to be taken care of.” I said, “Well, if we do this deal long term, this is going to fall apart.”

Eric Morin: [00:14:03] And so, we would do the math with the associate. And we were able to put a really good agreement in place where the associate had a long term asset. Also, had some leadership say in the practice, was able to thrive. And this was a few years back, actually. And, now, I mean, they are just just doing so well together. So, I love to see that you do not have to just hand over equity. That is a paradigm that is changing. It will continue to change. And I think it’s really important in this marketplace.

Eric Morin: [00:14:37] Maybe you do want to sell back. Maybe you want a partner. I’m not saying you never should. I’m just saying that if that is not your game plan, you should not be forced into that game plan, or strategic direction maybe is a better way to say that. I think you have to think through why you’re doing this, and who it benefits, and what your long term vision is.

Stuart Oberman: [00:14:55] Does this go hand in hand when a doctor says to you, “I want to get out of the chair.” Does that go hand in hand on or is that a before conversation that would get to the associates? Is it, “I want to get out of the chair, how do you figure it out? Then, what do I need to do with an associate?” Is that a first conversation when when a doctor says that to you? How do we get out of the chair?

Eric Morin: [00:15:19] I have to tell you, this is like my happy place. Can we make this show five hours? We got to like [inaudible]. We can do this for a long time.

Stuart Oberman: [00:15:27] How do I get out of the chair? How do I get out of the chair? How many times have you heard that, how do I get out of the chair?

Eric Morin: [00:15:33] So, here’s a thought, so what happens is, is just like any other position. Sometimes we put a square peg in a round hole. Look, we oftentimes will bring in this associate that does not meet the business model. It does not meet the vision. For instance, the person who says this doctor does not want to give up equity long term, wants to build a team, wants to do some type of other business or economic model to provide an asset for the associate. And this associate walks in, stomps their feet and says, “No. I will not do anything but take ownership.” So, the doctor says, “Okay. Fine. I’ll hire many. How many?” They’ll change their mind.

Eric Morin: [00:16:16] That’s your hiring process. There’s a thought process between selection and recruitment. Selection is that you’ve sort so many candidates coming into the position that you can pick the right person and select them. We always want to select people. So, if you have multiple candidates, you get to select. Recruiting is almost that last minute thing where you’re like, we really need a body or we really need an associate right now, so we just put whoever comes into that position, we just say, “We’re going to hire you. We’ve seen this with front desk.”

Stuart Oberman: [00:16:49] Is that more prevalent in today’s market because they can’t find good associates or they’re just filling bodies?

Eric Morin: [00:16:55] See, I would push back against can’t find good associates. It’s interesting, the reason I say that is because the doctors who have built an amazing environment to work in, doctors hang out with doctors. I don’t know how many times someone has said to me, I’ve recruited two or three people from my class to come work for this doctor, because if you create an amazing environment to work where somebody can do well, can take care of their family, and have an asset, it’s going to attract other people.

Stuart Oberman: [00:17:27] Build it and they will come.

Eric Morin: [00:17:28] Yeah. Sometimes I say to people, it’s like the harsh truth. But sometimes when someone says, “I can’t find anyone.” I say, “It’s you.” And that’s kind of a harsh truth. And let me kind of back that up.

Stuart Oberman: [00:17:42] It’s true, though.

Eric Morin: [00:17:43] Sometimes it’s like I have not built the environment to attract people. Someone said to me this one time, Stuart, this person said to me, “You can’t find any good people in Atlanta.” I was like, “Wow. An entire city. I’m sure it’s the entire city.”

Stuart Oberman: [00:18:00] You can’t find one person out of six million.

Eric Morin: [00:18:02] That’s right. So, I pushed back and and said, “Well, let’s talk about the environment.” We’ve always had this idea that dental is different, but it’s not different. The business acumen, the business principles always apply is you’ve got to create an environment. No matter who you are, every study shows, people still don’t come to work for money. We say, “Well, yes, they do.” Somebody can always pay them more. There’s still all these other intangibles that you have to make it a place that’s great to work.

Eric Morin: [00:18:32] Now, obviously, somebody wants to get paid their value. They want to have the ability to increase their income. All those things are true. And I’ll give you an example of what I mean by that. There is a young doctor. She is one of the most amazing doctors that I’ve ever had the pleasure to spend time with. She took a job out of GPR residency. And what she did was she went up to Indiana. She gets up there. She gets a practice who’s going to pay her more money. And it ends up being a really bad environment for her to work in. And we’ve had a business relationship.

Eric Morin: [00:19:10] And she says, “Hey, Eric. I need some help. I’m in this practice. They pay me a lot of money, but I’m so miserable.” And here’s here’s the thing, going back to my earlier point, “They will not let me have any say. They will not let me contribute. They tell me just to shut up and see patients.”

Eric Morin: [00:19:24] And what happened was she quit there, is now working for one of my clients. She is running the entire location. This entire location she runs. She’s learning advanced procedures. And the doctor there, he goes, “She’s a unicorn. I don’t know if I’d ever find another one of her.” And yet this other doctor had her. Now, the other doctor that lost her is probably saying, “It was her. You know, you can’t find good people.”

Stuart Oberman: [00:19:49] Has an attitude. Lack clinical skills.

Eric Morin: [00:19:50] Right. All these things. It was like, “No. It was you.” And so, I do think it’s important that we all look at our business and say, “Do we have the environment to attract top talent?” All businesses have to do that. Can we attract top talent? Would they want to stay here? Do they have a say? And by the way, that’s not just doctors, it’s your entire team. Hygiene is no different, right? We are in a tough, tough market to find hygienists. Hygienists talk to hygienists. If you had a great place to work, other hygienists will say, “You got to come work for here.” So, that’s just something to consider.

Eric Morin: [00:20:26] So, yes, at Tower Leadership, we’re a financial firm in many ways and we do plans around retaining associates. But I would still argue that if you don’t have the foundations of strong business management, then it’s not going to work anyhow.

Stuart Oberman: [00:20:47] That’s why there’s one practice or 20. It’s all the same.

Eric Morin: [00:20:49] That’s right. And I say management leadership, one thing I’ll say on the show that I think it’s important. Sometimes you scroll through LinkedIn and I see some amazing post by Stuart Oberman, so I’m scrolling through.

Stuart Oberman: [00:21:04] I got good people. I got good people. I got much smarter people than me, I could tell you that.

Eric Morin: [00:21:09] Well, they’re doing great. It’s looking good. So, as I’m scrolling through, I always see these posts that pop up. And they’ll say something to the idea of, “Leadership is when you care. Management is just a number.” And it’s silly because it’s not true. Look, all great businesses need leadership and management. Management doesn’t mean that you don’t care? You have to have strong management because you can be a great leader. But if you have bad management, then the company is going to fall apart. You can train people, but if you don’t have a way to have standard operating procedures, you cannot continue to manage the business to grow. So, you do need both.

Eric Morin: [00:21:54] By the way, if you just have management but no leadership, that’s not good either. So, I think it’s important to understand, you have to have strong leadership within a business, the visionaries, the the visionary leader, the people that are driving the show and looking at direction and inspiring people. But I think there’s another side that says, “Do I have strong management?” And by the way, I think associates play a crucial role in both of those.

Stuart Oberman: [00:22:19] So, you know, it’s amazing what’s changed in the last three years, maybe 36 hours, we got scaling, we got corporate coming in, and we’ve got DSOs, we’ve got growth, we got no growth, we got COVID. I would say with COVID, it’s got to be something else. If it’s COVID today, it’s Delta tomorrow, and it’s something else down the road.

Eric Morin: [00:22:42] The Foxtrot variant.

Stuart Oberman: [00:22:44] Yeah. It just keeps going. So, from a practice standpoint, how do our doctors adapt to the change in this new business environment? And it changes, like, everyday it seems like.

Eric Morin: [00:23:02] Three words, access to capital. I’m serious. Let me tell you what I mean by that, you can look at business over business over business outside of dental as well. And you and I talked about this actually during COVID. I said, you got to have access to capital. One of the things that the federal government provided was access to capital. Had that not happened, then what would have happened? Have we not have PPP and EIDL, what would have happened to the dental market space?

Eric Morin: [00:23:32] And so, I think when we look at the future, first of all, one of the ways we insulate ourselves from those types of things is access to capital.

Stuart Oberman: [00:23:40] And what does that mean? Access to capital, what does that mean?

Eric Morin: [00:23:42] It means that either you have credit lines you can pull from. It means that you might be able to have money in the bank. You have access to be able to borrow money.

Stuart Oberman: [00:23:54] Is that what they call good debt?

Eric Morin: [00:23:56] Here’s what I always tell people, there’s two things you cannot get when you need them, credit lines and insurance. Okay? So, those things are really cheap and you could get it really easy when you don’t need them. The second you need them, they’re gone. Also, you’re about to go to bankruptcy and you’re like, “Can we get a lot of credit?” NO. It’s not happening. You get diagnosed with something, you can’t get insurance.

Eric Morin: [00:24:15] So, I think it’s important for us to know that, as businesses, we have to start projecting. We have business winters. One of the things I said before – COVID now – I certainly did not know it was going to be COVID, but I was telling people, “Listen, this is a great economic time.” Take 2021, we would argue that 2021 – I think everybody can see – it’s a great business year. We can talk about all the reasons why, and that’s maybe for another show. But it’s a great economic year for most businesses. So then, are you taking that money and are you making sure that you have capital?

Eric Morin: [00:24:45] Let’s play this Delta variant, or something changes, or the economy changes. We saw the dental marketplace change in 2008, 2009, 2010. People are doing procedures now that they weren’t doing before. They’re getting checks from the government. So, what happens if you had a 20 percent drop in revenue, I’m just saying, play that scenario out. In business, we call that pessimistic modeling. Hey, what if we weren’t to grow at this rate? Well, what if something was to happen? Do we have the ability to pay our bills for some period of time? Do we have the ability to get capital? And maybe that’s capital for expansion. It doesn’t have to be a negative thing. It doesn’t necessarily need to be something that’s going down.

Eric Morin: [00:25:22] But you always have to have access to capital. Businesses go under because they don’t have access to capital, which is the whole saying cash is king. And so, I would argue that businesses have to have that. So, the first primary thing I would say is – by the way, this is like a business school 101 – profitability doesn’t keep the lights on. Cash flow does. Do you have enough cash flow to get through or the ability to get capital to get through a difficult time? I think it’s very important that any business owner assess that at any given time.

Stuart Oberman: [00:25:54] Wow. So, the practices that want to scale, how do they get access to capital?

Eric Morin: [00:26:04] Wow. This is just so exciting. So, we can, first of all, say, right now for a dentist to get leverage – otherwise known as debt – it’s not that hard, right? I mean, as long as your financials are in pretty good order, you can go to a bank and get a loan and buy another practice, as long as the financials make sense. They’ll look at your personal, obviously, financial statement and see if you are a good, qualified buyer. But that’s only to a certain point, right?

Eric Morin: [00:26:35] There’s going to be at some point where the banks go, “We have taken enough of risk here.” And then, we start to get to the point where we go into getting capital that’s outside of a bank, which that could be bringing another partner, it could be mergers and acquisitions, it could be pulling in private equity. And that’s a good thing for you to look at in your long term vision.

Eric Morin: [00:27:00] If you have a dental practice, and let’s just play the scenario that you’re two locations and you say, “I really love to go to 30 million.” You and I were talking about this process of moving drastically. And so, we’ve seen that. But what happens is, is you have to say, what is my plan for getting capital in the future? When the banks cut me off – and they will at some point –

Stuart Oberman: [00:27:22] They will.

Eric Morin: [00:27:23] .. you have to say, “What is my plan -” you can’t wait and then start making phone calls. You have to think now – “at the point at which the banks cut me off?” So, let’s just say it was a certain revenue, or four locations, or whatever that is in your head. And by the way, your banker can help you with that. And you can –

Stuart Oberman: [00:27:41] I’m going to allow you to purchase one practice a year.

Eric Morin: [00:27:44] See. So, that’s something I wasn’t aware of. And so, I think it’s important to get that information. And then, if that’s the case, then, what is my – going back to number one thing – access to capital? What is my next step to get capital? If I can no longer get any more capital, how else will I get it? Do I want to bring in an equity partner?

Eric Morin: [00:28:07] Because there isn’t an old saying and I love this saying. When I heard it, I thought it was brilliant. Some people will say partnerships don’t work. It’s just not true. They just have to be running in the same direction. And so, do I want to own 20 percent of a watermelon or 100 percent of a grape? Depending on what your long term strategy is, it might make sense to earn 20 percent of a watermelon. You know, everyone’s situation is different.

Eric Morin: [00:28:32] But if you’re trying to become a large dental group, I think you have to understand, in business, the number one thing is, what’s my vision? Where am I going? What do I want long term? How does this impact my family? What does this do to my legacy? I think you have to write all those things out first.

Eric Morin: [00:28:48] I’ll tell you a story. Years ago – I want to say about seven years ago – I had a group come to me.

Stuart Oberman: [00:28:55] When we were young.

Eric Morin: [00:28:59] I had a group come to me, they had nine locations, has four partners. And they had flown up to see me and I sat down with them and I asked them that same question. I said, “Where are we going? What are we trying to get accomplished?” And they said, “We want to be a $100 million dental practice. And we heard you were the guy to get us there.” And I looked at them and I just said, “Why? Why do you want to be $100 million? What does that do? Why do you want that?” And their answer was, “I don’t know. It sounded good.” It sounds like a good round number.

Stuart Oberman: [00:29:33] I heard it at a seminar.

Eric Morin: [00:29:33] That’s right. I heard it at a seminar. It’s not like we couldn’t do that. So, I said, “Let’s talk through that more.” And it’s interesting, because I told them, “If I was a bank -” sometimes when I’m speaking to a doctor or any business, I would say, “Let’s play that I’m your investor. Explain to me why I should give you money.” “-if you came to me and said you were trying to grow, but you don’t know why, you just had no reason, and you didn’t have an economic model, I probably won’t give you the money.” So, believe it or not, it took about four hours to finally get to their why.

Stuart Oberman: [00:30:08] I believe it.

Eric Morin: [00:30:08] And then, when we got there, here’s what they said, “We want one location with 24 hours.” I thought, “We should have figured that out eight locations ago.” So, we just wasted time and money and energy.

Stuart Oberman: [00:30:18] Or four hours ago.

Eric Morin: [00:30:19] And interestingly enough, you know, part of the story is one of the partners was actually diagnosed with a heavy disease at the time. And I thought, “Gosh. You guys have spent so much time in the wrong direction. So, I think that the first part is always, where are we going and why?” And one of the reasons why I try to get people at the dental chair is, I think that some people love dentistry. Stay in the chair if you want to. But have the ability to pull back. Have the ability to spend time with your family and do the things you want to, which is one of the reasons why we start a business.

Stuart Oberman: [00:30:54] So, you talk about this a lot and this could probably interject into every scenario you just mentioned, leadership. You guys talk about that a lot. You groom it. You touch base on it. You figure out how to get better at it. How much of a role does leadership play in a successful practice, whether it’s one or 20 practices? And you talked about this a lot during COVID. How leadership, really, will take you through the storm and put you on top of the mountain. So, tell me about leadership and doctors and what you see what they don’t do. I know that’s a whole day’s conversation.

Eric Morin: [00:31:37] No. There’s this old saying, you find out who your friends are during the difficult times. And I think that we also saw what people were made up from a leadership standpoint during the difficult times.

Stuart Oberman: [00:31:54] And we’re not out of there yet.

Eric Morin: [00:31:56] Right. But I think what I was saying during that time is – and we have doctors that send everybody home. And when I say we, I mean the industry. Doctors not even communicate with their team for 45 days. And I said, “These people are scared.” By the way, they’re going to start looking for a job because if you don’t take care of them now – and by the way, that’s what’s happened for a lot of people, because it was a great time for people to reflect and say, “Is this where I want to work long term? Does this person actually care about me?” During that time, people were scared. Everybody was scared.

Eric Morin: [00:32:26] And I said doctors play a huge role in this. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a medical doctor or not. Not just within your own team. But what do you look like in your community? Are you communicating with your community? Are you communicating with your team? Are you talking them through it? I mean, our team started working, you know, 20 hour days just to support teams. We had team members on the phone and started having financial conversations with them. We worked through each doctor. I think we spent so much time working through that time. But so many people in that time were attracted. And that was the worst thing they could have done. I said, you know, “This is a time when they need you.”

Stuart Oberman: [00:32:58] I remember you talking about that.

Eric Morin: [00:32:59] They need you. They need their leader at this point to look at them and say, “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to make it through. I’m going to make sure we’re all taken care of.” And sometimes that didn’t happen. And we see in a lot of practices what the consequences of that, you know, ended up being. As the marketplace, by the way, let’s look at hygienists again, as it becomes more competitive, they’re like, “Do I want to work here long term?” And so, I think leadership, this is one of those ones where we have to get outside of dental marketplace and just look at business. Great business leaders attract great people, and it is difficult.

Eric Morin: [00:33:40] I want to give some knowledge-ment to the fact that, being in a chair all day long, and seeing patients all day long, and trying to lead, and trying to manage is very, very difficult. Which is why you need to lead and build an amazing team. Because you can’t do it all. But building a leadership team and building a team around you, but to get them there – one of the things I was just saying to you before we went on air was one of the reasons we do this large leadership retreat every year. And one of the reasons I do it is when they say, “Well, Eric, I don’t communicate like you communicate. So, would you tell my team what you just said.”

Stuart Oberman: [00:34:13] You send them an email.

Eric Morin: [00:34:16] That’s right. And the other thing is, “But I want to get the team inspired on my why.” When I say my why, I mean your why as a doctor, why are you there? What’s the purpose? What are you trying to get accomplished? How do you impact their lives? I think that you have to get the team to understand why they should care. Because if it’s like, I think, we get to this place where we’re always like, “Well, I’ll just pay them more money. I’ll just pay them more money.” Somebody can always pay them more. So, why should they follow you? We see it all the time.

Eric Morin: [00:34:41] One of the things I’ve done at Tower is, I’ve brought people on and I’ve asked them to come on for like, literally, a 30, 40 percent pay cut from what they were getting paid. And I’ll tell you why. That wasn’t to cut anyone out of money, by the way. It was to say, “Are you willing to commit to the vision that’s here? And if you are, actually, you’re income will increase. But I want you to buy into the vision of what Tower is trying to do.” So, the same thing I would say, is, if people aren’t inspired by you as a leader and they don’t see you as a leader or somebody they want to follow, people will take a pay cut just to be with a great leader, to be with a great organization.

Eric Morin: [00:35:14] You might say, “Well, Eric. I don’t have time to do all that.” “Okay. Then, bring in somebody who can.” If we’re trying to go to 5 locations, 10 locations, 20, you can’t do that without great leadership. You can’t do that without great management. And so, why I think it’s so crucial is, business is littered with stories of great leaders and poor leaders. And we work on leadership, and we inspire, and motivate, and drive people towards a direction. And that sounds idealistic. I know it’s like, “That sounds idealism,” but it’s just true.

Stuart Oberman: [00:35:48] It’s true though.

Eric Morin: [00:35:48] And it’s like, how much time in the last 12 months have you spent on growing your leadership skills and leadership teams, inspiring people? And I think that’s got to be a focus if you’re going to, especially if you’re going to grow and you’re going to compete in this market. Because what I am seeing is a lot of DSOs that are private equity. They’re not focused on leadership. And it gives you a competitive place in this market. I mean, it really does. It allows you to differentiate yourself. I’m not saying DSOs don’t care. That’s not what I said. But I’m saying that, if it’s all about money, you get what you measure. And if they’re focused just on money, well, then I’m telling you, they’re going to take their eye off of leadership. And that’s a place where you can dominate and attract top talent.

Stuart Oberman: [00:36:29] Amazing. Amazing. You know, again, I don’t even know where to start. I think we’ve been just about 45 minutes. I’m trying to think how much I could take back myself and say, “Okay. Here’s my office.” But as usual, it’s amazing conversation. I was looking over and trying to figure out what do we even call this. I mean, we’ve touched on so many things, but we’ll come up with a great name. So, tell me what you got going on. Do you got some events coming up? Where are you going to be at? When you sell out Phillips is what I want to know.

Eric Morin: [00:37:06] Well, we haven’t sold out our September and October foundation.

Stuart Oberman: [00:37:09] [Inaudible] Phillips.

Eric Morin: [00:37:12] We’re blessed to have some amazing doctors. We get to work with some of the best in the industry. And work with some of the best people to team up with, like yourself.

Stuart Oberman: [00:37:21] You know, you do work with the best. I mean, I could tell. We’ll also hear the guys that we work with together are at a different level. You know, the clients [inaudible]. They’re at a different level. They got a whole separate different vision where they’re going. And at times, they’re a little bit hard to corral in. Sometimes I just wanted to get to Marietta, not necessarily Nebraska.

Eric Morin: [00:37:47] I just give you the difficult stuff, Stuart. You know, you and I worked on some really complex stuff together and some great things. And that’s why it’s such an honor to work with you as well, because I know that the clients that have these sophisticated issues, the clients that need help, and need great guidance. I know you take care of them, which is why you and I have worked together on so many of these cases.

Stuart Oberman: [00:38:09] It’s like, “Why is Eric calling me at 8:30? I’m taking that call. There’s got to be a reason.”

Eric Morin: [00:38:13] I think I called you on Sunday once a week. Don’t call Stuart on Sunday.

Stuart Oberman: [00:38:18] It’s not to watch cable TV, I could tell you that. So, tell us what next event is coming up. What is it? Tell us about it?

Eric Morin: [00:38:24] What we do is an introductory – two days initially – as to what we do. And what we do is, we talk about the financial. So, it’s financial and its leadership and its management. Which is, what do I need to do if I want to build an organization that grows and scales? If I want to pull back from the chair, how do I have a business that runs without me? What does this mean financially? How do I make investments? One of the things that’s missing in this industry is people don’t know where to invest the practice. We talk about where to invest, what’s the ROI, where’s the best place to put money, how does that pay off debt. All those two days worth of concept.

Eric Morin: [00:39:00] So, we do those once a quarter. We’ve actually sold out September so we’ve added some more. And we get this leadership retreat we’re doing in November. And it’s a large, large event. We have practices from all over the country. And it’s really about that message, which is, how do we get our teams inspired? If we’re going to build scalable businesses, how do we get our teams inspired, motivated, and ready to tackle head on 2022?

Stuart Oberman: [00:39:28] If anyone got any questions, how do you get hold of you?

Eric Morin: [00:39:31] Towerleadership.com. I think it’s the best place. We’ve got a lot of information. And then, right there who wants to send email, info@towerleadership.com. And our team is ready and waiting. We’ll be more than happy to help you. They are excited to talk to you and excited to help. And, really, you know, we see the spectrum, as you know, and so it doesn’t matter where you are, it doesn’t matter if you’re just beginning this journey and you’re questioning what do I need a buyer or investor do.

Eric Morin: [00:40:00] I mean, a doctor years ago had said to me, they gave me their pro forma going into a practice. And I said, “Who gave this to you? It’s wrong. Trust me. We’re going to move all this around.” He had seven options, these seven options are going to be gone in 12 months. He said, “No way.” They were.

Eric Morin: [00:40:17] Even on the frontend or the person who’s trying to go, “We’re working with a lot of organizations that are going to 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, 30 locations.” So, no matter where someone’s at, no matter what the complexity is, we can coach you through how, where, and why.

Stuart Oberman: [00:40:36] Get there. Fantastic. Fantastic. Fantastic. I can’t even begin to write down any information. I’m going to have to listen to this myself and figure out where I’m at.

Eric Morin: [00:40:45] I appreciate the honor to be your guest, sir. This has been a great time. I literally think we could go for 18 hours nonstop. And this has been such a pleasure to be here. I really do. It means a lot. I’m glad to be part of it.

Stuart Oberman: [00:40:58] My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you. I sure appreciate it. Eric Morin, Tower Leadership. It’s always a pleasure.

Eric Morin: [00:41:03] Thank you, sir.

Stuart Oberman: [00:41:05] For those that want to reach out Dental Law Radio, my name is Stuart Oberman. Reach us at stuart@obermanlaw.com. Thank you for listening. Please listen to this podcast multiple times because you will pick up multiple bits of information every time you do. Have a great day and we’ll talk to you soon.

About Dental Law Radio

Hosted by Stuart Oberman, a nationally recognized authority in dental law, Dental Law Radio covers legal, business, and other operating issues and topics of vital concern to dentists and dental practice owners. The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

Stuart Oberman, Oberman Law Firm

Stuart Oberman is the founder and President of Oberman Law Firm. Mr. Oberman graduated from Urbana University and received his law degree from John Marshall Law School. Mr. Oberman has been practicing law for over 25 years, and before going into private practice, Mr. Oberman was in-house counsel for a Fortune 500 Company. Mr. Oberman is widely regarded as the go-to attorney in the area of Dental Law, which includes DSO formation, corporate business structures, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory compliance, advertising regulations, HIPAA, Compliance, and employment law regulations that affect dental practices.

In addition, Mr. Oberman’s expertise in the health care industry includes advising clients in the complex regulatory landscape as it relates to telehealth and telemedicine, including compliance of corporate structures, third-party reimbursement, contract negotiations, technology, health care fraud and abuse law (Anti-Kickback Statute and the State Law), professional liability risk management, federal and state regulations.

As the long-term care industry evolves, Mr. Oberman has the knowledge and experience to guide clients in the long-term care sector with respect to corporate and regulatory matters, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs). In addition, Mr. Oberman’s practice also focuses on health care facility acquisitions and other changes of ownership, as well as related licensure and Medicare/Medicaid certification matters, CCRC registrations, long-term care/skilled nursing facility management, operating agreements, assisted living licensure matters, and health care joint ventures.

In addition to his expertise in the health care industry, Mr. Oberman has a nationwide practice that focuses on all facets of contractual disputes, including corporate governance, fiduciary duty, trade secrets, unfair competition, covenants not to compete, trademark and copyright infringement, fraud, and deceptive trade practices, and other business-related matters. Mr. Oberman also represents clients throughout the United States in a wide range of practice areas, including mergers & acquisitions, partnership agreements, commercial real estate, entity formation, employment law, commercial leasing, intellectual property, and HIPAA/OSHA compliance.

Mr. Oberman is a national lecturer and has published articles in the U.S. and Canada.

Oberman Law Firm

Oberman Law Firm has a long history of civic service, noted national, regional, and local clients, and stands among the Southeast’s eminent and fast-growing full-service law firms. Oberman Law Firm’s areas of practice include Business Planning, Commercial & Technology Transactions, Corporate, Employment & Labor, Estate Planning, Health Care, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Privacy & Data Security, and Real Estate.

By meeting their client’s goals and becoming a trusted partner and advocate for our clients, their attorneys are recognized as legal go-getters who provide value-added service. Their attorneys understand that in a rapidly changing legal market, clients have new expectations, constantly evolving choices, and operate in an environment of heightened reputational and commercial risk.

Oberman Law Firm’s strength is its ability to solve complex legal problems by collaborating across borders and practice areas.

Connect with Oberman Law Firm:

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Workplace MVP: Jeff Gorter, R3 Continuum

September 9, 2021 by John Ray

Workplace MVP: Jeff Gorter, R3 Continuum

Critical incident response veteran Jeff Gorter contends that business and human responses to crisis events are not separate but interwoven. On the twentieth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Jeff and host Jamie Gassman discussed the parallels of that event and the COVID-19 pandemic, and the importance of acknowledging 9/11 for your employees. Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

Jeff Gorter, Vice President of Crisis Response Services, R3 Continuum

Jeff Gorter, MSW, LCSW, is VP of Clinical Crisis Response at R3 Continuum. Mr. Gorter brings over 30 years of clinical experience including consultation and extensive on-site critical incident response to businesses and communities. He has responded directly to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the Virginia Tech shootings, the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill, the 2011 earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the Newtown Tragedy, the Orlando Pulse Nightclub Shooting, the Las Vegas Shooting, and the breaching of the US Capitol on 1/6/21. He has conducted trainings and presented at the Employee Assistance Professionals Association Annual Conference, the American Psychological Association Annual Conference, the World Conference on Disaster Management, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Annual Meeting, and at other state, national and international venues on a variety of topics.

R3 Continuum

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Workplace MVP is brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. Now, here’s your host, Jamie Gassmann.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:24] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassmann, here. And welcome to this episode of Workplace MVP. This year marks the 20th anniversary for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We are also halfway through the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are calling these two tragic bookends to the last two decades. Interestingly, though, while these two events are different in nature, the impact they made on businesses and employees are very similar.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:53] Is this a coincidence? Or is there something to be learned about the impact disruption can have on an organization and its people? What should an employer be focused on when an event like 9/11 or COVID-19 happens? Are there solutions or support options that can be leveraged to help them successfully navigate the troubled aftermath of the events?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:15] With us today to share his expertise and firsthand knowledge from responding to the psychological first aid needs of employers for both 9/11 and COVID-19, among other major events across our history, is Workplace MVP Jeff Gorter, Vice President of Crisis Response Services for our show sponsor, R3 Continuum. Welcome to the show, Jeff.

Jeff Gorter: [00:01:37] Thank you, Jamie. I appreciate the opportunity.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:40] So, we’re glad to have you here and really interested in hearing a little bit about yourself and your career journey that’s led you to R3 Continuum and to where you’re at today.

Jeff Gorter: [00:01:53] No. Thanks. And just by way of background, I am a clinical social worker, master’s level social worker. And so, I come from a clinical background and have been in the field providing services either in private practice or in a public setting for 35 years. But the last 20 years of that have been specifically focused on providing disaster response.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:20] And so, can you share with our audience the disaster response work that you did post-9/11? And how does that compare to the work that you’re doing today in response to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Jeff Gorter: [00:02:33] And if you caught the 20 year reference, I really look at 9/11 as sort of that was certainly my first experience in responding to a large scale event. Part of the backstory of that is that the former president of Crisis Care Network, which is now known as R3 Continuum, Bob VandePol and I were in private practice together. And he had left the practice I’d say six months before 9/11.

Jeff Gorter: [00:03:03] And when the attacks occurred on that day, I called Bob and I said, “Bob, from what I understand, based on the new position that you’re in, I guess your company is going to be involved in this. I just want to let you know I am trained in this, if there’s anything I can do to help.” To which he said, “Can you be on a plane in four hours?” And I was in New York City that evening able to provide and to begin providing response.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:34] And how does that compare to some of the response works? I know you’ve done some response work with the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of that’s been done virtually. But are some of the sessions or some of the work that you’re doing with that, can you tell us a little bit about, you know, how they work and kind of what your role is that you play within that?

Jeff Gorter: [00:03:56] It’s an excellent question. Because I’ve really been wrestling with the fact that, you know, this being the 20th anniversary of 9/11, that was very much in the forefront of my mind, and yet COVID has such a dominating factor. And, as you said in your intro, it’s kind of no surprise that these two things are, you know, juxtaposed here at this moment.

Jeff Gorter: [00:04:19] So, specifically, when I went to New York City, I was deployed to assist businesses as employees were returning to work for the first time following the attacks. And that’s a key element in that, you know, businesses played a major role in helping employees feel like they were getting back to some sense of normalcy or something that they could control. And so, many of the things that they talked about were more tangible, if you will, in the sense that they talked about things like the smells, things like the grittiness of the dust that was everywhere, how a siren going off for a police or fire would create a startle response the first time. And many of us can remember that the first time we saw a plane flying again after all flights had been grounded.

Jeff Gorter: [00:05:19] And so, for many of them these were much more visceral kind of descriptions of what they were going through. And, yet, for many of them, their stories were also about how resilience, how going back to work was not just getting back to work, but was in for many of them, a patriotic act. A small but very tangible stand against the darkness, if you will. And their getting back to work meant this is something I can do in this national crisis.

Jeff Gorter: [00:05:52] Now, in juxtaposing it to COVID-19 that the swift recovery of business operations is and has been continues to be a central component to our nation’s recovery. But it’s different because 9/11 was confined to a day and we didn’t know that at the time. But it’s confined to 9/11. It was a specific point in our calendar that we can look back. And it was a moment of sharp human initiated attack.

Jeff Gorter: [00:06:24] Now, COVID has a different perspective in that it is a prolonged, ongoing, unfolding, still not done crisis, driven primarily by biology. And so, in that sense, you know, the fear and the emotions elicited are, in many ways, just as powerful. Whereas, you could point to it, you could feel it between your fingers in New York City what the attack was like. Here, it’s kind of a vague, shadowy fear creeping outside your door. It’s everywhere, and yet I can’t point to it. And so, the fear is the common factor, but it’s also different kind of fear. And so, I think that’s important to recognize.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:16] Absolutely. And, obviously, from a business perspective, there’s some similarities in some of the thinking. And so, looking at your perspective of business leaders – and I know we’ve talked about this and I know you’ve got an opinion and kind of some thoughts – around that balancing act between human and business and how employers need to be looking at that following a disruption in the workplace, can you share your perspective on that with us?

Jeff Gorter: [00:07:42] Yeah. Well, I begin with the assumption that many business makers or business leaders have that the human response and the business aspects are two different things. And I contend that they are not. That they are, in fact, inextricably woven. And that, typically, when a large scale disaster hits, business leaders will go to their business continuity plan. They’ll pull that three ring binder off the shelf or they’ll go to their files and they’ll look at that plan, as they should. And they’ll review that crisis plan, the policies, procedures, what the strategies were to contain the crisis and mitigate the impact. That’s a sound thinking.

Jeff Gorter: [00:08:25] The trouble is, most of those plans focused on issues like I.T. security, facilities management, supply chain integrity, things that undoubtedly are important elements in a business recovery. But these plans often forget the most essential aspect, the human element. It doesn’t matter how secure your firewalls are or how quickly you get the power restored and the computers working again, if the people aren’t reassured and ready to go back to work. So, taking care of your people is taking care of your business. And I know I think it’s a mistake when a business owner says, “Well, I’m going to do one over the other.” They have to be done simultaneously.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:09:10] And, you know, so focusing on that people side of it, when a major incident occurs such as 9/11, or when you’ve got a pandemic like COVID-19, or other types of disruptions that impact a workplace, typically, if you were going to provide recommendation, what’s that first thing that an employer should be focusing on when it comes to their people?

Jeff Gorter: [00:09:33] So, I look at it as two parts. The first part, first and foremost always is safety. I need to ensure the safety of the employees. And that means physical safety and emotional safety. I have to prepare or provide for both aspects of that. So, I need to make sure when a large-scale event happens, have all the appropriate authorities been called? Have the right people been notified? Is the site secure? Are all the employees accounted for? Have immediate steps been taken, even simple steps like providing food, water, or blankets? Have immediate steps been taken for the care and comfort of my team? And has leadership physically directly checked on the team? Have they been visible? Have they gone around? Have they checked on and ensured the safety of everybody, both physically and emotionally? So, safety is first, job one.

Jeff Gorter: [00:10:32] But then, followed up by that, there are three simple things that I would say that the leader needs to do, and that is communicate, communicate, communicate. That one safety is restored, it’s imperative that leadership starts communicating early and often. This establishes them as a credible source of verifiable information, and that is in short supply following a crisis.

Jeff Gorter: [00:11:01] And it’s a common mistake among leaders to say, “Well, you know what? I’ll send a message out.” Or, “I’ll do some communication once I know all the facts. Once I have a complete idea of what’s going on, once I know the whole ball of wax, then I’ll be able to send out a message that encompasses everything.” And then, as one hour goes by and two hours go by and four hours go by, employees in that absence are going to become increasingly anxious. And it’s human nature in the absence of real information to plug in our worst possible fears.

Jeff Gorter: [00:11:40] And so, you know, maybe they’re going to ask themselves, “Maybe leadership was hurt. I thought we would have heard by now. Maybe they’re part of the injured. Maybe they don’t know that this is going on. Maybe they’re unaware of this. Maybe they don’t care.” And you can see that in the absence of real information. By that point, a negative narrative has already begun to take root.

Jeff Gorter: [00:12:04] And it is so hard to play catch up after that and try and establish. Especially in the age of instantaneous communication through social media and other sources like that, it is absolutely essential that a leader is out there early with frequent brief updates sharing what you know, what is verifiable, and share what you don’t know, but promising to confirm it as soon as you can. Which is to say, “I’m going to be open about I don’t know. I don’t, as a leader, have to have all the answers right now.”

Jeff Gorter: [00:12:42] And doing that, sharing what you know, admitting what you don’t but saying I’ll get it as soon as I can, has an incredibly calming and reassuring effect. It will enhance a leader’s standing with their employees and lets them know, “Okay. The leaders have a plan. They know what they’re doing. They are on top of this. I can take a deep breath at this moment.”

Jeff Gorter: [00:13:08] So, again, as an example, saying something like, “Following this event, we can confirm that three employees were injured and have been transported to the hospital,” that’s verifiable. “We don’t know their status at this point, but we will share that info as soon as we get it.” That’s all you need, something as brief as that. So often, again, leaders will, “Well, until we know more, I’m not going to say anything.” Or they’ll make, “I’m sure everybody’s going to be okay.” Are you sure? Can you guarantee that? No? Don’t say it if you can’t.

Jeff Gorter: [00:13:45] Just simply say what you know, admit what you don’t know. But assure them that as soon as we can have verifiable information, we’ll get back to you. It’s amazing how comforting and calming that is for an employee group that is looking to you for leadership in the midst of this.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:14:06] Great. And, you know, as you continue to go through kind of that recovery process after these types of events, when an organization is starting to regain a sense of new normalcy, how, at that point, can business leaders help to support employees and, really, the organization as a whole in that recovery effort?

Jeff Gorter: [00:14:27] Yeah. Kind of building on what I was saying before, that the employee and organizational interplay is inextricably interwoven. The employee recovery depends on organizational recovery and vice versa. Employees are going to look to the workplace for stability, financial stability, as well as just something that I know is there, predictability, structure. They crave a return to something that feels normal, and where they feel in control, and where they know what they’re supposed to do.

Jeff Gorter: [00:15:03] When the crisis happened, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I’d like to get back to something where I feel I am trained and where I have a sense of influence and agency. Likewise, organizations are only as strong as their employees. And they need engaged, motivated, healthy workers to weather the storm. There’s an old quote from Kipling in which he said, “The strength of the pack is the wolf. And the strength of the wolf is the pack.” Meaning, the interplay between the organization and the individual they support each other.

Jeff Gorter: [00:15:41] And so, business leaders set the tone of positive resilience and an expectation of recovery for everybody. And part of that is ensuring access to the resources that are supportive to their employees, like onsite or virtual behavioral health specialists who are able to provide immediate support, psychological first aid, and encouragement. Being able to offer 24-7 phone or text access, perhaps via their employee assistance program or through other strategic vendors who can provide that. Offering and making sure there is access to print or electronic resources for education, coping, guidance. Things like that are immediate steps that the employer can do to support the employee. And as the employees come back, they support the organization and it is a common effort.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:16:48] And so, for disruptions like with the COVID-19 pandemic where we’re kind of on this ever changing kind of evolution, if you will, for the last year-and-a-half, do some of those same initiatives apply in the context of a disruption that maybe continues to evolve as opposed to a one day event?

Jeff Gorter: [00:17:11] I think you’re absolutely right. And even more so, I think that because what we have come to realize, even though we’re 18 months into this – the words almost stick in my throat in saying that, but that’s where we are right now at this taping – almost every day, it is a changing, fluid, dynamic circumstance. Where we are now and where we were back in February 2020 are vastly different places. And we know so much more and yet we are incredibly aware of how much we don’t know.

Jeff Gorter: [00:17:48] And so, that same central concept that in the absence of real information – I’m going to plug in my fears – just highlights the need for leadership to have a constant, steady, reliable drumbeat of information, even if it’s little bits. Even if my update today is to say no new changes today, that’s worth doing. That is something that reassures them that leadership is on top of it.

Jeff Gorter: [00:18:20] Because, again, that’s one of the things that clearly has typified this prolonged, slow moving disaster is that, you know, almost no two days are the same. And yet there’s still this emotional sense of Groundhog Day of, “What? It’s still here? We’re still talking about this.” And so, yeah, for leadership to not fall into the trap of thinking, “Oh. They don’t want to hear any more updates.” No, keep doing it. It’s essential.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:18:52] Great. And, obviously, for 9/11 this is a milestone anniversary, so looking at milestone anniversaries, you know, some employees may have or may experience kind of a reaction or, like, a triggering effect to that. And just how an employee handles the disruption when it’s happening, it’s all different in terms of the different levels of resilience and how people kind of process trauma. From your experience, you know, what should an employer be looking at so that they can show support and care knowing that with an anniversary like the 20 year anniversary everyone’s going to kind of approach it differently?

Jeff Gorter: [00:19:37] Yeah. No, that’s a great question. I mean, there were some organizations, obviously those in the New York area or Pennsylvania or in D.C. that were directly impacted. But I think it would be a mistake for a business leader to assume that, “Well, I don’t think any of my people were involved. I don’t need to pay attention to that. I don’t need to mention that.” In the 20 years people have moved, people have relocated, people have taken different jobs. People who were children at that point, who may have lost a loved one at that time, have grown up, moved, taken on new jobs. Again, it would be a mistake to think, “Oh, it’s so far back, we don’t really need to worry about it.” This is a significant day.

Jeff Gorter: [00:20:21] And so, for an employer, I think it’s important for them to acknowledge the solemnity of this day, the power of this day itself, and to recognize that employees may have some challenges with it. Not everybody. Not that they have to. But some may. And so, as a leader, getting out ahead of that and simply recognizing and acknowledging that lets them know that you get it, that you understand that this day is different from other days. It has significance, which helps those employees to feel understood and validated, not isolated and alone as if something is broken or wrong with them.

Jeff Gorter: [00:21:02] And so, it’s important, too, one of the ways that an employer can do that is to remind their employee of the wide range of resources that they have. Again, the behavioral health support, either onsite or virtually, as we’ve talked about before, should they choose to use it. So, for them, again, highlighting what their EAP can do or other groups. In most cases, people just want to be able to share their experiences. And anniversaries are times where we talk about it, because that helps us when we talk about it. It helps us feel less alone. It feels connected. We feel like we’re part of something. They may or may not want to talk about it, but it’s important for a leader to create this safe space for people to do that, to be able to talk about it.

Jeff Gorter: [00:21:54] Because I think one of the things that I am sure once we get past COVID, we’re going to do this. But one of the things that happened during 9/11, if we look back on it, all of us constructed a narrative. A story of where we were when it happened. What happened next? How did it impact us? Where are we now? We developed a story. That’s human nature. It’s how we make peace with it. It’s how we wrap our minds around it. This narrative is where we begin to constrain it as a chapter in our lives. An important chapter, a significant chapter, but not the only chapter in our lives. Things happen to be for that. Things have happened since that.

Jeff Gorter: [00:22:39] And so, being able to talk about it in that narrative sense, as if it’s a chapter helps to, again, feel a sense of control. And I begin to view myself, not as a victim, as if it’s still going on today, but more as a survivor or perhaps even a thriver. Here’s how I grew from this. Here’s how I’m different because of that. Here’s where I learned some things that are important.

Jeff Gorter: [00:23:07] So, being at work on the day of an anniversary, I think is beneficial to employees impacted by any major disruptive event because, again, there’s surprising power in the mundane, comfort in the normal. I want to be around something that feels supportive and and constrained. And going about their everyday lives helps a sense of control, helps them get through that day, and it helps them to have a balanced perspective on the significance of the past. The reality of this present. And the hope for the future. We will move to the next chapter as it were.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:23:49] Great. So, if a leader were starting a conversation like that with their employees – you know, because I love that concept of creating kind of this, like, open area. This comforting, you know, feeling that it’s okay to be transparent in how you feel about that – if you were going to provide a conversation starter for how a leader could set that tone and set that stage for that conversation, how would you advise them to speak to kind of get that conversation moving?

Jeff Gorter: [00:24:25] So, I think, you know, a generalized statement to begin with saying, “As we approach this anniversary, we recognize the power it has for us as a nation, for many of us as individuals. We want to acknowledge that and here’s the things we’re going to do.” And maybe that, again, if they are aware of folks who were survivors or who had a closer context, or it is part of our organizational history that our company was impacted by that day, then I think it would be a very wise idea to have onsite or virtual counselors available to be able to provide immediate, tangible, I could point down the hall and I can see that person if I want to go talk to them, I know they’re there. That’s an immediate thing that they can do.

Jeff Gorter: [00:25:14] The other is to remind them of other resources that they may have. Their employee assistance program, 24-7 hotline that is offered. To simply say at the point of the towers collapsing, many organizations I’m aware of will have a moment of silence at the moment, perhaps, when the first plane struck the building. They will do that, and that is, again, a way of honoring the solemnity of it, a way of acknowledging the reality of it, and just simply let your employees know, “Okay. We get this. We’re taking it seriously. This means something to us. And we’re doing some things to acknowledge that.”

Jeff Gorter: [00:26:01] Other organizations may say, “You know what? Given this day -” maybe even something simple like saying “- we’re having lunch brought in as just a way to acknowledge and provide a communal opportunity for us to get together and share that experience.” You know, depending on the the structure of your work site, that is a pretty low cost way to affirm to your employee group because they will talk about that afterwards. “Wow. Our company got it and they did something substantial to help us.”

Jamie Gassmann: [00:26:44] Great advice. So, we’re going to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Workplace MVP is sponsored by R3 Continuum. R3 Continuum is a global leader in providing expert, reliable, responsive, and tailored behavioral health, crisis, and security solutions to promote workplace wellbeing and performance in the face of an ever changing and often unpredictable world. Learn more about how R3 Continuum can tailor a solution for your organization’s unique challenges by visiting r3c.com today.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:27:19] So, some feel, Jeff – and we kind of mentioned it in the introduction too – that 9/11 and COVID-19 pandemic are tragic bookend events and have various similarities in their impact on employees, you know, with mental health concerns, substance abuse, sleeping concerns. Can you share your perspective on this? You know, are there similarities? And if so, what would you say are the similarities? And do you have any context to why that might be the case?

Jeff Gorter: [00:27:56] I think that’s a great observation, because I think on the surface, it would be easy to say, “Well, my goodness. I can hardly think of two completely disparate type of events.” I mean, they are radically different and they’re separated by 20 years. But if we did that, we lose tapping into the accumulated wisdom and knowledge that we gained from how we adapted to 9/11, and how that has sustained us through so many other crises that have happened in between, and how that can inform and shape what we’re doing now in response to the current crisis.

Jeff Gorter: [00:28:35] So, some areas of similarities that occurred to me is that, you know, both 9/11 and COVID changed everything about how business is conducted. I mean, if we think back on it, I think one when cheap and easy example is – for those of us of a certain age – can you remember when you didn’t have to take your shoes off at the airport to get on a plane? You know, it changed how we travel. It changed what we define as safety. It changed what security protocols with baggage. It changed even the work environment itself, where we work, who we work with, how we work has been changed.

Jeff Gorter: [00:29:18] There was radical change after 9/11 and the same thing has been happening after COVID, that it’s created changes that are going to be likely permanent as a way of adaptations to that. And so, that’s one area of similarity in that everything’s changed.

Jeff Gorter: [00:29:38] Another is that both 9/11 and COVID-19 have required a massive expenditure of time, money, resources by companies to respond to it, to adapt to it, to restore some sense of functional operations and confidence. That happened after 9/11. The same thing happened after COVID-19. I defy you to find a company that says, “You know what? We are pretty much operating exactly the same way with exactly the same plans, policies, and procedures as we did before those events. You know, it really didn’t touch us. It didn’t change us.”

Jeff Gorter: [00:30:19] I mean, to the contrary and particularly in the midst of the pandemic, we had to initiate almost immediate changes. As I said earlier, things like we’re operating from home now where many of us who never envisioned ourselves as remote workers now find themselves with their library kingdom. And other things in which we’ve changed. We’ve made so many initiatives in response to this to try to enhance the safety while returning to operations. And we don’t know the effectiveness of many of these until later. You know, we have to make the change. We’re going to do it.

Jeff Gorter: [00:31:07] But many leaders and workers alike are saying, “Well, did we do the right thing? Did we make the right decision? Are we doing enough? Or did we do too much?” So, I mean, these questions were the same that’s an echo of 9/11. We said the same kinds of things. We wrestled with the same sort of initiatives then as we do now in determining what was the right calibration. It’s only in hindsight that we’ll know. But it did require massive amounts of time and energy.

Jeff Gorter: [00:31:41] And then, the third thing, and I think this is probably the one that is most pertinent to me as a behavioral health professional, is that, both of these events had a global emotional impact unlike any other event. And if we think back over the last 20 years, there have been many major events. We are only a few days away from the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. There have been multiple large scale mass shootings at schools or in other public locations. There has been a breach of the U.S. Capitol.

Jeff Gorter: [00:32:21] All of these things are major defining events, yet none of them had the emotional charge on a global scale. There’s almost no person on the planet that has not been aware of those events that was not emotionally moved by those events. There was a universal sense of shock, vulnerability, fear that defined 9/11 and was very similar to the pandemic. And I think, you know, those other tragedies that I said were huge and highly visible, but they were constrained to areas, regions, cities, location. Whereas, 9/11 led the whole world to know things are different and the same has happened with COVID-19.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:33:18] Interesting. And you you mentioned in a previous conversation with us and you may have have kind of touched on it a little bit here that events like 9/11 and COVID-19 pandemic are described as seminal moments that impact an individual’s view on life, which can lead to them re-evaluating what’s important. So, can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

Jeff Gorter: [00:33:45] Yeah. I think, the easiest way to understand, seminal moments are those milestones, those tragic milestones in the story of your life. As I talked about, they are unavoidable reference points in the story of our lives. You know, we will say, “Was that pre-COVID or post-COVID?” It’s the kind of thing that you immediately will recognize and you reference events as almost, you know, magnetically rotating around that.

Jeff Gorter: [00:34:19] But what I think is so important about that is that the events are the events. The events themselves are only the beginning. I think the way we responded to them is much more compelling and is much more reflective of that personal agency, that personal story that we construct, that narrative that we build following these events. So, the event happened, but the story of how we endured, what we had to let go of, where we grew, how we changed, how we adapted, how we found moments of happiness or lightness even in the midst, those kinds of things are lived experiences that I think hold tremendous value.

Jeff Gorter: [00:35:09] You know, I think that in older days that might have been called wisdom. That’s the kind of thing that you look back on and you say, “You know, I would never want to go through that again. But I learned some things about myself, about my company, about my community, or about my country.” And that is important knowledge to be able to have and to incorporate. I know that we all want to hurry by. We all want to get to the happy ending. Can I just flip through the book? Can I fast forward to the end of the show here and see the happy ending?

Jeff Gorter: [00:35:44] But the reality is, if we let this moment pass by without intentionally purposely reflecting on what this means to me as a person, what this means to me as a leader, what this means to my company, what it means to my team, I think we lose something of incredible value.

Jeff Gorter: [00:36:05] And so, again, especially with something that has been as prolonged as the pandemic, we’re just like, “Well, I just need to get through it. I just need to get through another day. I just need to keep rolling.” But I think savvy leaders have found that stepping back, intentionally reflecting on this, and what lessons I learned from it, it positions them for better success in the future when they get past this.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:36:38] Right. So, almost like attributing meaning to the event and how that is having an impact on your life, because it could be both in positive ways and negative ways. So, there could be a couple of different things that are learned from that, both professionally and personally when you’re looking at it, would you agree?

Jeff Gorter: [00:36:57] Exactly. I think, again, attributing meaning to it as part of that narrative making. It’s human nature that when we go through an event that has that kind of power that impacts us like a physical blow, we try and make sense of it. We try and reassert a sense of control. And we typically go – sorry. I’m going to go a little Psych 101 here for a moment – in one of two directions. Meaning, attribution means we either determine internal disposition, what does this say about me? About how I handle it? What does this reveal about me? Or external situation, what does this say about my context, my company, my community, my country? So, we’re going to assign a meaning to this.

Jeff Gorter: [00:37:51] And, again, the event is the event. So, the pain has occurred, the trauma has occurred, the tragedy has occurred. That doesn’t change. But my meaning will greatly influence my trajectory afterwards. And so, by that, there is a critical inflection point. There is a moment. A moment where almost all of us, whether we’re conscious of it or not, where we look at this and we say, “Wow. What I just went through, what does this say about me?”

Jeff Gorter: [00:38:24] Do I look at this and do I say, “You know what? I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, man, I’m just glad I got through that.” Or do I say, “You know what? This just proves once again that I am the unluckiest guy on the face of the Earth. You know, I am a soccer ball on the field of life. I just get kicked around all the time.” Do I view this as, “Wow. I am so happy to be alive following this. I am going to go home and kiss my partner and hug the kids. And I’m going to enjoy life in a different way. I’m going to value life.” Do I say that? Or do I say, “What’s the point? Why even try? Stuff like this happens. I told you it’s just one bad thing after another.”

Jeff Gorter: [00:39:13] And you know why? The event is the event. My interpretation is going to determine whether I move ahead with resilience and in a positive way. Or that I add on to the sense of negativity, the sense of pathology, something must be broken. And, you know, do I view this as, “Okay. These powerful emotions I’m experiencing are normal, understandable reactions to this really powerful event.” That makes sense. Or do I say, “I’m not handling it right. I must be doing it poorly. I think I’m not smart enough or strong enough. Maybe I’m broken. Maybe I’m losing it.” You know, the event is the event, but my interpretation is going to determine where I go from. And so, I think that how we attribute meaning is going to help us move forward.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:40:09] Interesting. And so, you know, looking at kind of moving forward and looking at leaders that might be listening in on this conversation, if you are going to give them a take away from this show, something that you wanted to leave them with that can help them to effectively support their employees when disruption occurs, what would you share with them? What would you want them to take with them?

Jeff Gorter: [00:40:35] So, I’m going to share not something that originates from me, but I want to share a quote from one of my favorite poets, Maya Angelou. She had a quote that I think I have reflected on and it has helped me in so many situations when responding to a large scale event. And the quote is, “They will never remember what you said. They will never remember what you did. But they will always remember how you made them feel.” And I find that so incredible.

Jeff Gorter: [00:41:09] Because as a leader, I urge you, I encourage you to help your team feel cared for, help them feel supported, help them feel valued. And when you do that, they will surprise you. They will inspire you. They will lift up your company in ways you can’t do alone. So, it’s not about having the magic words. It’s not about following exactly the ten point plan. It’s about keeping in mind that my goal is they will remember how I made them feel. Make them feel cared for and valued, and they will take care of the rest.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:41:49] Fantastic. So, looking out over your career, I’m always curious to ask my guests, what are you most proud of when you look out over your career?

Jeff Gorter: [00:42:01] Well, that is a challenging question. The things that are obvious particularly in the context of our conversation, being able to have responded directly to 9/11, having had an influence here during COVID, or responding to the Vegas shootings, or going to D.C., all of those events that I have done. But I don’t want to be distracted by, let’s say, the bright, shiny, big is the only thing that matters.

Jeff Gorter: [00:42:40] I think probably what I’m most proud of is that I consider it a humbling honor to be able to walk alongside somebody in what might have been one of the worst days of their lives. And it doesn’t matter whether it was a mass event that rocks the globe or whether it was the loss of a friend and co-worker who they had really come to depend on. Being able to be there and help take a little bit off their shoulders, it’s a day well spent. And so, it’s each one of those times that I’ve had an opportunity to speak into somebody’s life.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:43:20] Wonderful. So, with our listeners, if they wanted to get a hold of you, Jeff, how would they be able to do that?

Jeff Gorter: [00:43:28] Well, as I mentioned, I am with R3 Continuum, and so, certainly, being able to access that through our website. But also being able to respond to me directly, if you’d like to send an email to jeff.gorter@r3c.com, jeff.gorter@r3c.com. And I’d certainly be willing to respond to any questions.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:44:00] Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Jeff. It was very moving, great information shared, very powerful stories, and advice. And we really do appreciate you. And thank you for letting us celebrate you on the show today. And hearing the experiences you had, the work you did in supporting workplaces at 9/11, and even with COVID, and other events within our history. So, thank you so much for being a part of our show.

Jeff Gorter: [00:44:31] Thank you so much, Jamie. And I urge all your listeners, be well, be safe.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:44:38] Great. And we also want to thank our show sponsor, R3 Continuum, for supporting the Workplace MVP podcast. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. If you’ve not already done so, make sure to subscribe so you get our most recent episodes and other resources. You can also follow our show on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter at Workplace MVP. If you are a workplace MVP or know someone who is, we want to know. Email us at info@workplace-mvp.com. Thank you all for joining us. And have a great rest of your day.

Andy Kalajian of Fort Leadership, Dixie McCurley with Cherry Bekaert, Tanya Osensky of Osensky Law LLC

August 16, 2021 by John Ray

Andy Kalajian of Fort Leadership, Dixie McCurley with Cherry Bekaert, and Tanya Osensky of Osensky Law LLC (Family Business Radio, Episode 23)

Legal, accounting, and executive leadership development may be something business owners consider doing themselves, but host Anthony Chen’s guests on this Family Business Radio episode discuss when its time to get professional support to deliver faster and more reliable results. Andy Kalajian with Fort Leadership discussed how mindset impacts the success of a business, Dixie McCurley talked about the need for proactive expert accounting, and attorney Tanya Osensky discussed how properly written contracts are necessary for any business. Finally, Anthony offers some advice about when to bring in an outside perspective. Family Business Radio is underwritten and brought to you by Anthony Chen with Lighthouse Financial Network.

Andy Kalajian, Founder and President, Fort Leadership and Sales Consulting, LLC

Fort Leadership and Sales Consulting, LLC is a Professional and Personal Development company that creates healthy corporate cultures by developing the personal and professional leadership capacity of the person. Fort Leadership and Sales Consulting, LLC believes that a healthy Corporate Culture benefits the business leader and the employee alike, and it enhances the customer experience.

The culture on the inside of a company is what the customer experiences on the outside of the company. That is the customer experience. But if this is true, why do so many employees feel that their corporate culture is not where it needs to be? Why do some employees describe their corporate culture as dysfunctional or even toxic? How does this dysfunction impact the customer experience? Furthermore, why do some business leaders when asked “how many employees work for you?” respond by saying, “about 1/2”!
Demographic studies indicate that in 5 years up to 75% of the employees will be millennials. That means that for a business leader to be able to attract and retain the best talent from the biggest pool of talent, the business leader must have a healthy corporate culture.

But if a healthy corporate culture is what the employer and the employee is looking for, what does a healthy corporate culture look like? How is a healthy corporate culture created? The answer is Leadership! Fort Leadership and Sales Consulting creates healthy corporate cultures through Leadership Development. Leadership development is all about Character. After all, when we talk about corporate culture, what we are really talking about is corporate character. Corporations are made up of people. And people bring their character to work. So, it only stands to reason that when a collection of people brings their collective characters to work, a corporate character or a corporate culture is created.

Fort Leadership and Sales Consulting, LLC is creating healthy corporate cultures.

Company website | LinkedIn | Instagram

Dixie McCurley, Principal, Digital Advisory, Client Accounting Services Lead, Cherry Bekaert

Ranked among the largest accounting and consulting firms in the country, Cherry Bekaert LLP provides guidance and support that helps our clients move forward to reach their organizational goals. We will ignite growth with integrated, forward-looking industry solutions that effectively deliver on our Client Promise, and we will deliver this growth by empowering our people and investing in efficient innovative processes to become the Firm of the Future.

Company website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Tanya Osensky, Owner, Osensky Law LLC

Osensky Law’s business model is designed around being more cost-effective and efficient for clients. No fancy office space. No staff. No run-around. When you call Tanya, you get Tanya. Not a paralegal; not an administrative assistant; not a receptionist. You won’t be transferred among several people. You don’t have to explain things twice to someone else. Nothing gets lost in translation.

Osensky Law is different from other law firms because Tanya’s experience comes from working inside the business, rather than an outside law firm. Unlike a traditional law firm, which is motivated to bill more hours by unnecessarily prolonging or over-complicating matters, Tanya’s focus is on providing business value to clients. Being a company’s in-house legal counsel gives a lawyer a unique insight into what kind of legal support a business wants and needs – not just technically correct legal advice, but strategic problem-solving.

Company website | LinkedIn

Anthony Chen, Host of Family Business Radio

family owned craft breweries — **Anthony Chen**

This show is sponsored and brought to you by Anthony Chen with Lighthouse Financial Network. Securities and advisory services offered through Royal Alliance Associates, Inc. (RAA), member FINRA/SIPC. RAA is separately owned and other entities and/or marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of RAA. The main office address is 575 Broadhollow Rd. Melville, NY 11747. You can reach Anthony at 631-465-9090 ext 5075 or by email at anthonychen@lfnllc.com.

Anthony Chen started his career in financial services with MetLife in Buffalo, NY in 2008. Born and raised in Elmhurst, Queens, he considers himself a full-blooded New Yorker while now enjoying his Atlanta, GA home. Specializing in family businesses and their owners, Anthony works to protect what is most important to them. From preserving to creating wealth, Anthony partners with CPAs and attorneys to help address all of the concerns and help clients achieve their goals. By using a combination of financial products ranging from life, disability, and long term care insurance to many investment options through Royal Alliance. Anthony looks to be the eyes and ears for his client’s financial foundation. In his spare time, Anthony is an avid long-distance runner.

The complete show archive of “Family Business Radio” can be found at familybusinessradioshow.com.

Patty Ponder, Candi Hannigan, and Jennifer Coleman from Aroundabout Local Media

August 13, 2021 by Kelly Payton

This episode was brought to you by

Patty Ponder, President of Aroundabout Local Media

Patty has responsibility for the day-to-day operations, strategic planning, marketing and sales for ALM. She joined ALM after a 20-year career with AT&T, where she spent most of her time as a program manager in various AT&T companies on many different projects and had responsibility for customer service training for small business, mid-market and large business sales. Her experience includes participation in a five-year leadership program, and extensive sales and customer service training that gives Patty the qualifications to drive our company’s philosophy of focusing on the customer, and going above and beyond to satisfy our customer’s needs.

Patty has lived in Towne Lake since 1991 with her husband Mark, and children Ansley and Daniel. She is engaged in the community as an active member of the Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce, a chair for a Downtown Woodstock committee and serves in her church. You will see her often in our community enjoying concerts, art festivals, dining in local restaurants and promoting our local businesses.

Connect with Patty on LinkedIn

Candi Hannigan, Executive Editor of Aroundabout Local Media

A Cherokee County resident since 1987, has more than 30 years journalism experience as a page designer, copy editor and writer. After earning a journalism degree from the University of South Carolina, she worked at the St. Petersburg Times and Evening Independent, and The Charlotte Observer before moving to Atlanta to join the Atlanta Journal-Constitution staff. Candi spent more than a dozen years as a freelance writer covering the community of faith for the AJC, and started a monthly publication called The Cherokee Vine before joining the Aroundabout Local Media staff in 2012. In addition to her professional background, Candi volunteers in many capacities which led to her co-founding Give a Kid a Chance – Cherokee in 2006. She also serves on the board of Cherokee FOCUS. Candi and husband Glenn, a local United Methodist pastor, have three children.

Connect with Candi on LinkedIn

Jennifer Coleman

Jennifer Coleman is a graduate of Georgia Southern University with extensive advertising experience on both the local and national levels. She has excelled in creating integrated marketing packages inclusive of print, digital and content marketing for clients nationwide and parts of Canada. With over 20 years of sales and marketing experience, part of her expertise stems from managing luxury lease-up apartment communities where she created strategic sales and marketing goals along with building and training strong leasing teams. She was on the buyer’s end of advertising for her properties which has given her a realistic and empathetic understanding for the businesses she serves. She enjoys promoting the heartbeat of her clients and continues to share her passion by helping local businesses thrive with effective, affordable advertising plans.

Jennifer attends Woodstock City Church with her husband Mike and their daughter Abigail. A few of her favorite things: spending quality time at the barn with her daughter and their horse Amberjack, hiking in the area with their dog Flynn and shopping locally to support small businesses. She considers it a privilege to live, work and play in the communities she serves!

Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn

Follow with Aroundabout Local Media on LinkedIn

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Speaker1: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Woodstock, Georgia. Welcome to Women in Business, where we celebrate influential women making a difference in our community.

Speaker2: [00:00:22] Now here’s your host.

Speaker3: [00:00:29] Welcome to Women in Business, powered by Business RadioX, where we support and celebrate influential women making a difference in our community. I’m live in the studio, Lori Kennedy here. And we also have Stone as our producer. First, I want to introduce Patti Ponder, who is the president of Roundabout Local Media, and she is going to tell you a little about herself and what she does. And then we have some other guests that she is going to introduce us to. So, Patty, why don’t you let us know a little about you?

Speaker4: [00:00:58] Well, thank you so much. Well, I’m Patti Ponder and I’ve been with the company for 11 years this past June. And we as a as a present company, I do run operations of the company and try to oversee everything that we do and make sure that we are cohesive from from sales to operations. Look and feel of the magazine content, which is actually handled by our executive editor, Andy Hanigan, who is here with us. We also have our director of marketing, which is Jennifer Coleman. She’s here with us today. And we are all here and hope to share with you exactly what we do at around about local media and why we call this local media.

Speaker3: [00:01:41] Well, I am looking here at your around about local media team, and I see a lot of beautiful faces on here. And I do notice that many of them are female. Is that by design or is that something that has just naturally occurred or what does that how does that play out in your business?

Speaker4: [00:02:02] Well, it’s not really by design. It just seems to have have occurred over the years. We when we interview, we you interview all all types of people and all candidates that apply with us. We’ve just it’s just gravitated that way. We definitely have diversity among age in our organization. We have young women with small children, young women who have just gotten married. Some of us are more seasoned, experienced. We like to use the word seasoned organization yet so we have that diversity. We definitely have the diversity through our photographers. We have women and men of all different ages and races through the organization, and we make sure that our magazine definitely addresses all demographics is very, very important to us.

Speaker3: [00:02:51] Yeah, I think that’s great. Why don’t you tell us exactly what it is that around about local media does?

Speaker4: [00:02:58] Well, we have a couple of different missions we’d like to look at. One is our altruistic mission, which we’re most proud of and we are altruistic. Mission is to build stronger communities by sharing positive, uplifting and relevant information about our neighborhoods and our communities to our readers. So with that mission, we share local information. I always share things when I talk to other people outside of our magazine or could be our clients or readers that we like to share. Information going on in the community could be that we have two rival football games and you might see a spread of two high schools in the magazine, or there might be a Little League Baseball team who’s won a championship, or there might just be local news, which our executive editor, who is she’s very experienced and she looks for what might be coming next in the community. For example, when we built the amphitheater, she was able to find a schematic and share that in the magazine. And I can’t say that other magazines have that ability and that talent. So that’s our altruistic mission. And we also have a commercial mission, which we’re very proud of, and that is helping small businesses grow to small businesses. We like to focus on them, help them work with them to select the correct marketing, the best marketing plan for them. Our we have a very consultative approach. And you’ll find that when you meet Jennifer Coleman, she’s very warm and friendly, really works with the customer to find out their needs and designs, marketing plan to work well with them as well as I do myself. We care about the customer, their business and their growth.

Speaker3: [00:04:35] You mentioned a couple of people that are here, and then you also mentioned a little about what they do. Jennifer, we’ll start with you. How did you come to this company? What brought you here? And what do you enjoy most about what you do? How do you support the community?

Speaker5: [00:04:50] You’re so excitingly. This is my third publishing company that I’ve worked for. And I started with hyper local community magazines in Houston, Texas, and I absolutely loved it. Transitioned to national media sales several years ago in the Atlanta area when we relocated. This is home for us. So we’re back home, but met Patty Pinder a few years ago, fell in love with her. There happened to be an opportunity available, jumped on board. And ever since then, it’s just been a perfect fit. So and like Patty said, I work with our advertisers on a consultative approach. I really like to have one on ones and find out what makes the most sense for. Their business, what’s going to fit their budget, what type of presence can we create for them? There’s so many options that we offer. We have content, writing opportunities. We have thought leadership, editorial writing opportunities, multiple sizes of print advertising, you know, to fit their needs as well. So it’s exciting to work one on one with these local businesses and and partner together to help their business thrive.

Speaker3: [00:05:53] And Candy, where what is your history? What brought you to this place?

Speaker2: [00:05:57] Well, I moved to Cherokee County 34 years ago, I guess, as a newlywed. So we have been here for quite some time now. And before that, I have a journalism degree and I work for three newspapers in the Southeast and then came to the AJC. Then I left the AJC, raised our children, and then when it was time to go back into the working environment, I started doing freelance work for the newspaper out of the Cherokee bureau. So I started my hyper local experience there. And I see how that’s kind of built over the years into what I’m doing now through the magazines.

Speaker3: [00:06:38] Who actually founded the magazine?

Speaker4: [00:06:42] Well, that was Gina Carr and Don Kyle, and it’s been 25 years ago, this past June, so they were local, their realtors, Gina was a realtor in our community. And in fact, I used to live I lived in the neighborhood with them. They were neighbors not too far from me. And their son went to school. My daughters, they were local community residents as well.

Speaker3: [00:07:06] Ok, so then how did it come to where it is right now? Like who got involved first?

Speaker4: [00:07:12] Here they were the past owners, and then they turned it over to John Flagg, who is our owner now. And John has the wonderful man in the community that I always admired and respected and wanted to work for. And so John has a multitude of businesses. He’s an entrepreneur, and he jumped in the business at the appropriate time when Gina and Don left the business and took over and just did some amazing things. So to stabilize the business, I guess, is the best term to use. And then he went kind of back on the road and he has a lot of, as I said, different businesses. But one of them is building homes and custom luxury homes. And so he was back doing that. And that’s when he asked me to take over to run the business. And that’s kind of when we started building this team. I, I have to say, Candy’s not giving herself near enough credit. I always tell people I said, do you remember the Dixie living sections of Journal Constitution? That’s what Candy did. So she she would of course she wouldn’t, because she’s just a personality. She’s just not giving herself credit for what she’s done. And she was really working in the background with this magazine before she came on and became the editor of our Around Canton magazine. I believe first and through changes in the company, we asked her to become the executive editor, since she’s become the executive editor of this magazine has just flourished more and more and grown. The content has just grown. And people tell us all the time how much they love our publication, how they read it, cover to cover. And I attribute that to Candy with her content because we wouldn’t be able to market this magazine if it didn’t have the robust content that it has. And she’s now building a wonderful editorial team of some younger people coming up, which we needed. And so I just I just had to give a little shout out to Candy because she won’t give it to herself.

Speaker3: [00:09:13] Well, I love it. And I do. I mean, y’all what you guys are doing is so encompassing of so many areas, like there are stories that have to be written well. But there are also, you know, your companies that you support and from a marketing standpoint that you have to support well and make sure that they’re seen in the community and you are doing all of those things with such excellence. Can you tell me how many magazines that you have and what their reach is?

Speaker4: [00:09:40] Well, I’ll I’ll let Jennifer jump in on this, too. I’ll just start off saying that we have five are really proud to say we just launched around Kenesaw and since I was Jennifer’s territorial, let her expand on our distribution numbers and so forth.

Speaker5: [00:09:55] So we have five hyper local community magazines with having just added Kenesaw. So we’re so excited. And each magazine respectively is around seventeen thousand in total distribution. So if you put that together, but we’re very specific with our targeted demographics. As far as the carrier routes in the neighborhoods, we put a lot of focus into that for each of our magazines just to make sure that it benefits the reader and that it also benefits the advertiser. Gosh, I’m trying to think, Patty, what else I could add to that?

Speaker4: [00:10:26] Well, our I’d love Candy to share really about the content and how she makes those magazines fit each community.

Speaker2: [00:10:35] It’s it’s a lot of fun, honestly. And I think over the years I’ve started to work a little more with our marketing team to blend the editorial in the businesses, the local businesses. But but from my perspective, I I love it when I have a three page calendar because then I’m sharing everything possible in the community with the readers. So they aren’t going to miss anything exciting because there’s so much happening in each of the areas that we serve. And then for larger stories, because we’re a monthly magazine, I get a lot of press releases with news, but I always try to look to the next level and say, OK, by the time the magazine comes out, people will know this already. So what can we do to provide an interesting story still? And sometimes that involves going to the person, the stories about and getting a personal reflections from that person or just looking at things from a different aspect to make the content unique.

Speaker4: [00:11:32] Would you say, Candy, that like having a mayor write in the magazine? People like that is one of the things that makes our magazines unique or local.

Speaker2: [00:11:43] No, absolutely, absolutely. Some of the port city councilors, I’m bugged and so much like what you write about this and this is coming, but you were the person behind getting this project off the ground and moving into the community. You write about how that happened and let’s send some photos to and we’ll just kind of share everything. So, yeah, we rely a lot on our local leaders for information.

Speaker4: [00:12:08] And don’t we rely on them on recipes sometimes?

Speaker2: [00:12:13] Absolutely. Well, you know, you got to have faith. And honestly, if we happen to leave out an ingredient in a recipe, oh, my goodness, the phone calls come in because people are reading and they’re trying these recipes for something even as small as that is to do

Speaker3: [00:12:28] That on purpose, just to see if they’re looking. Well, that’s a good idea.

Speaker4: [00:12:32] Well, we know they’re engaging with us. I love

Speaker3: [00:12:35] It. Yeah, well, I do notice that the articles are very positive. Like, I really appreciate being able to pick up the magazine and know that I’m going to find it, get information and leave with with more knowledge, but not feel like, oh, my goodness, the world is going crazy because we all already know that. Right.

Speaker2: [00:12:59] That’s intentional for sure. We we definitely and that’s kind of a personal goal of mine. I have kind of a mission minded focus to to share good news and to let people know the good things that are happening in the community and also to help them to know how they can plug in and get involved and and participate themselves and the different ministries and missions that are going on out there.

Speaker3: [00:13:22] Yeah, that’s great. So there are so many things that you’ve already shared about what makes your publications unique. Is there anything in addition that you would like to add to that?

Speaker4: [00:13:32] I mean, I have to say our people make it unique.

Speaker3: [00:13:35] I agree.

Speaker4: [00:13:36] Really. We’re we are you know, I want to start crying here, right here, because it’s really emotional. They can’t see

Speaker3: [00:13:42] You

Speaker4: [00:13:43] Yet. But we were just so extremely fortunate with the quality people we have in this team and the new people that have come on I candesartan, just a fabulous job interview and bringing on her new people. I would so, you know, it didn’t just happen when I met Jennifer because I can’t look at her because we you know, she saw me we saw each other really in the community. And then we met at our local copper coin. And, you know, just so she kept sending me messages and I thought, who is this kind of person that wants to meet with me? And finally I saw her. Finally, I thought I better be with her. But golly, I always say, you know, we met and we it’s just such a a marriage. A blended family is what our team is. It’s it’s more of somebody hurt somebody doesn’t you know, we help each other. We jump in. It’s amazing. And I think that shows when we work with our clients and our clients help us out. We just had a situation where we had a client, you know, still recovering from covid and just couldn’t handle a commitment. And we had another client who jumped in and was able to, you know, to help. We were able to help each other. And that’s really what it’s about.

Speaker3: [00:15:08] What are some different marketing options that you offer local advertisers? Jennifer?

Speaker5: [00:15:13] Yes, and one thing that I love and Candy and I work together a lot on this is the content marketing opportunities, which are essentially advertorials. We have full and half page advertorials, and it’s where a client can tell their story. And we found people love to be able to tell their story. And it just pianism beyond the print ad to tell a little bit more about the company, how they got started, something new and new and unique. And that’s one thing that advice tell advertisers is, you know, what is your unique value proposition? What makes you different from other businesses? And we all have a story to tell. So this content marketing pieces are invaluable. Love that. Another thing that’s very unique that we offer is for a regular advertiser that does what, say, a half page ad for 12 issues. You know, we will really take it to heart and consider it. That will offer them a writing opportunity. This is more what I call thought leadership, where it’s educational versus non self promoting. And it might be, you know, three tips to consider when renovating your kitchen, that type of thing. So and we found that advertisers love that opportunity and that exposure.

Speaker5: [00:16:20] So, you know, those are just a few things. And again, with our print advertising, we have anything from a quarter page ad, third half full. So really, you know, it’s very important to consider what type of presence do they want to you know, how much do they want to dominate the market? Do they want to just have a little bit of brand awareness and have a quarter page ads? Do they want to dominate the market and have that full page ad or a cover issue with a two page spread? We do sell our covers and we found to that advertisers love those covers and love the two page spread. So one thing, too, I just want to note is all of our magazines are online. They’re all digital. And with that, their ad has a live link that would take a reader directly to their website. So we have that. And lastly, so I don’t talk too much, but each of our magazines have a dedicated Facebook and Instagram page. We have a strong presence online, a lot of engagement, a lot of followers. And then each magazine has its own dedicated website as well.

Speaker3: [00:17:17] I do find that we are on the cover this month, Alpha and Omega Automotive is the town liquor, and I do find that people want to know who you are. They want to know your heart. They want to know what drives you. They want to know your story. They want to know who you are. And that is an opportunity to allow people to get behind the curtain, so to speak, and and get to know whether you’re somebody that they want to do business with. And so that opportunity is greatly appreciated. And we have truly seen an increase in customers through this. We’ve done it twice now in two different of your publications. And both times I tried to be prepared with enough staffing to keep everybody happy. And I just keep not measuring up there because it’s just the demand is so great. You guys have a great influence in the community. And I do think part of that is the opportunity to let people know who we are. Like, I think they like that.

Speaker2: [00:18:19] That kind of is part of the way I approach writing covers and advertorials because of my background as a journalist is I’m more of a storyteller is more so than a marketing person. So my goal with each article is to have the reader go to you and say, hey, I’ve read about you. I feel like I know you. And they know your business and your your values and all the things you offer. But but more importantly, just in a you as a person.

Speaker3: [00:18:44] Well, I feel like a celebrity because a couple people have come in and asked my husband to sign the magazines. It’s not

Speaker4: [00:18:52] Great. It’s been great.

Speaker3: [00:18:55] So what are the benefits of a consistent monthly print ad versus just one time? Like what? What is that look like for you guys as far as how many times before you see a difference and that sort of thing?

Speaker5: [00:19:12] Sir, I’ll jump in. Well, there is a marketing role that is the marketing role of seven. And typically research shows that an ad has to be viewed five to seven times before somebody makes a purchasing decision. So in order for the advertisers to get a fair return on their investment, we encourage that because it’s for their benefit. So you want to stay top of mind. You want that repetition that’s very, very important in a marketing plan because marketing takes time. Just because somebody sees your ad does not mean they’re ready to buy. And so when they see you over and over repeatedly, it sinks in. It builds that awareness and it can help lead to that decision.

Speaker3: [00:19:52] Awesome. All right, I’m going to ask Patty first, what motivates or inspires you, and I’m going to ask all of you this. So let’s start with you, Patty.

Speaker4: [00:20:04] In business or personally or just

Speaker3: [00:20:07] However you feel need to share. I would like to know you just like just like the articles in the magazine, like knowing us personally makes people want to do life with us. I want to know you personally.

Speaker4: [00:20:20] I think what what motivates me is when I walk away from a person, a person has a good feeling leaving somebody feeling like they trust me, like they like me, like they have a good feeling when I leave, whether it’s a client or an individual.

Speaker2: [00:20:38] I’d love to say this about Patti, too, because Patti is not she makes sure that she gets to know the client and really understands their needs. So she. She picks just the right marketing campaign for that person. She’s not going to oversell, she’s going to find just the right thing and that makes them more successful.

Speaker3: [00:21:01] That’s great. What about you, Candy?

Speaker2: [00:21:04] I love to connect people. And I love to share stories, the good news stories in the community, because we have so many of them and and we’re a perfect way to kind of get that out. So that motivates me the most.

Speaker3: [00:21:21] Jennifer?

Speaker5: [00:21:22] Yes. Well, one thing that motivates me is building relationships in the communities we serve. And I had read a quote recently, it was in a book I had read that it said, you know, when you’re in sales, which essentially, you know, part of my job is advertising sales. But when you’re in that you’re not closing a sale, you’re opening a relationship. And that just stuck with me because I thought, that’s it. That’s what matters. People see that they can tell when you care. And so with every interaction I have, I look at it is a new window of opportunity to build a relationship and hopefully keep those long term clients.

Speaker4: [00:21:56] That’s I think that’s the commonality with our team, is building relationships really. We’ve never been driven by I’ve never met a customer and thought, oh, this means X number of dollars, ever. Never. Exactly. And and I think everybody on our team, you know, everybody will meet somebody and they’ll know about their kids, their husband, their dog, their you know, that’s just a common theme throughout our company.

Speaker3: [00:22:24] I believe I’ve seen that a lot in our community and specifically more recently. But I feel like that so many people that I’ve met are in the business to help you be the best version of you that you can be to help you become successful. And then as you become successful, then automatically the light shines back on them, too. And I just feel like we are such a community of lifting each other up. And I love how you guys do that in the community so dramatically. Why don’t you tell me a little bit of how you how you use that influence in the community? How do you use the influence of the magazine specifically in the community?

Speaker4: [00:23:08] And Candy’s probably best to answer that from the content.

Speaker2: [00:23:13] I think that having a platform to offer folks a way to tell their stories and not just your. Not just your leaders in the community. I mean, that’s very important, too, but just off thugs of all walks of life. But to offer to come alongside our city leaders, the mayor and council people and and our county commissioners, chairman of the board, he writes for us. So just I think allowing them a voice through us is a good way to use our influence.

Speaker4: [00:23:48] And you have Candy does some things noteworthy playing with that.

Speaker2: [00:23:53] Oh, it’s all those cute little

Speaker4: [00:23:54] Stories that were the the stories

Speaker2: [00:23:56] That you won’t see in the newspaper or anywhere else. And it could be just, you know, a little Girl Scout troop that that got five hundred books donated for a cause. And and they’re so proud. So, you know, we’ll run a photo and make an announcement about it. And Rob’s

Speaker4: [00:24:13] Rescues

Speaker2: [00:24:14] Held. Oh, my goodness. He started he was in Rob McMillan was in like third grade. And he’s probably about six feet tall now. But he he sent an email and he said he wants to help shelter animals. Could he write an article monthly, an article and feature a dog and a cat from the shelter? I’m like, yeah, oh, well,

Speaker3: [00:24:33] Heard of

Speaker2: [00:24:33] That. And so now it’s expanded to include an interview with a nonprofit leader. And he’s done so many of them. He’s run out of once in Cherokee. So we we break a little bit of the hyper local ruling, let him interview other nonprofit leaders, because it still impacts us here. But but it’s something generated totally by him. I’ve got pictures of him at the shelter with his notebook in his lap, with the cats climbing all over him as he’s writing. So is genuine good? Yeah, it’s very sweet.

Speaker3: [00:25:06] Then the next question, how do you handle mistakes in your business and give me an example of it feels like an interview, doesn’t it? Yeah. Oh, I guess it is an interview, but it feels like a job interview. Tell me about your time to time.

Speaker4: [00:25:21] No one is very open and honest. We have made mistakes. Jennifer and I look at each other because we know of things that have happened with the client and we’ve made a mistake and we’re up front with the client. We tell them exactly what happened and then we usually offer them some type of compensation. And I can’t think of, I believe 100 percent of the time they feel better. They appreciate that we’ve offered some type of compensation and they appreciate that we’ve been upfront there. There’s some mistakes we can’t help or or put in a magazine. Client calls their ads not in the magazine because they left out a couple of pages, the printer. It’s just a weird, flukey thing that happens to the printer that’s happened. You know, we still offered a compensation, even though it’s not our fault. But our number one focus is a client. You ask, you know, salespeople, Jennifer and I are marketing consultants. Really a client is gold for us. And everybody in our ad on our team knows a client is gold for us and we want to keep that client happy. I don’t care if it was a client’s mistake. I don’t care if the client sent you the wrong picture for the cover and they’re mad. I don’t care. We want that client to be happy.

Speaker3: [00:26:38] Yeah, I feel like on some level that when I was young, I thought I wasn’t supposed to make any mistakes. But the older I get, the more I realize obviously we all make mistakes. I think I’ve heard it said that if you have, you know, on Google reviews, if you’re a complete 5.0 or whatever, that nobody believes that because somebody is going to get mad sooner or later about something even unreasonably. And so I do feel like what you’re saying, you know, you just you say, I’m sorry that happened. Let’s figure out how we can fix it. You know, I feel like that’s the best way to deal with anything like that. So, Candy, tell me who’s in your house or who was in your tell me about your family. Want to hear about your pets, your kids, your husband. Tell me about your family. Oh, my

Speaker2: [00:27:26] Goodness. OK. Well, I’m not a grandparent yet, I’ll just say that up front. Are you

Speaker3: [00:27:31] Jealous? A little bit.

Speaker2: [00:27:34] A little bit. I have to admit, but

Speaker3: [00:27:37] Kids are a little older than yours.

Speaker2: [00:27:39] Well, now, let me tell you, my oldest is third 32. I probably shouldn’t even be saying anxious because, you know, I started when I was 10. Right. Right. Let’s just say they’re adults now. The three children, Julie, Drew and Rebecca, and they’re all out on their own doing great things. My husband, Glenn, is a local pastor and. We just because of the grandparent thing, we just adopted two puppies because we thought that would fill our lives, so we figured,

Speaker3: [00:28:11] Oh, I think I’ve seen pictures. What kind of puppies are they?

Speaker2: [00:28:14] They are part Australian Shepherd, part blue heeler.

Speaker3: [00:28:17] And what are their names there?

Speaker2: [00:28:19] Ellie and Bertie now are two cats at home named Barney and John Henry aren’t quite sure. And I think they’re ganging up and about to revolt. So if I don’t show up some place someday, I just know it’s probably the cats that we love our animals. So it’s a good thing.

Speaker3: [00:28:36] I’ve heard that cats are always you can just look in their eyes and tell that they’re always trying to figure out their next move, which they’re going to do to their to their adult.

Speaker2: [00:28:45] Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:28:47] What about you, Paddy?

Speaker4: [00:28:48] I have two children, Daniel, who’s soon to be 25. He explained that his frontal lobe will be in five. I can’t always share that because it’s so hilarious. He lives in Florida and my daughter, Anjali’s twenty seven. She lives in Atlanta, works at Ponseti market. If she ever goes back in the office and then at home, we have little Zoe. She’s my also pseudo grandchild and I have Millie, the Cat’s Calico, and my husband Marc, who’s now working at his home office, which is lucky but lucky to home and round about local media is a home.

Speaker3: [00:29:29] Awesome. Jennifer, who’s in your family?

Speaker5: [00:29:33] So my husband, he is a pilot, so he flies the friendly skies for a living and goes all over the place. And I kind of live vicariously through him. He goes to some very interesting places and I think, wow, tell me about, you know, everything you did on this trip. Truly, he could write a coffee table book. Some of the experiences have in the places he’s gone. It he just in some of the pictures he’s gotten out of the cockpit or just beautiful. But so that’s his his deal. And then I have a sixteen year old daughter that attends Wittstock High School. She is the apple of my eye. She’s our only child. I could cry thinking about it right now because I can’t believe in two years I’ll be headed to college. But she loves horses. Is she? Art and horses? Those are her things. And so we bought a horse for her 16th birthday last year and we just love him to pieces. I mean, I sneak a little right here in there and she’ll give me little lessons. Haven’t done anything crazy, but I’ve gotten on him and I haven’t fallen off. So that’s the good news. But when we do have three dogs, so got that going home to you.

Speaker2: [00:30:37] But we love our pets. Let me ask you something.

Speaker3: [00:30:44] You should have some sort of party where everybody brings their pets and see if they all get along with each other.

Speaker4: [00:30:49] Should I had a party for Zoe’s first birthday,

Speaker2: [00:30:52] We could have met at Brewsters. Well, I can get Glenn to do a blessing of the animals. We’re actually talking about that at our church. So now that would be sweet.

Speaker3: [00:31:00] Now, doesn’t Brewsters have a pup?

Speaker2: [00:31:02] Oh, yeah.

Speaker3: [00:31:04] Hops or whatever. Ice cream. Ice cream. Yeah. Oh, I think that’s a grand idea. I’ll bring my pets. OK, so yeah I think we should do it. Well there is somebody else besides Stone in our studio today. Would you like to talk a little about what you have coming up?

Speaker4: [00:31:19] Very excited to introduce Kelly Black, and she’s sitting here. She’s a chief strategist that’s going to join us very soon, like Monday. But we’ve I’ve been sending her emails. We’ve been talking and she comes to us with experience of growing businesses. Say, hi, Kelly. Hello. Hello. So we just experienced the growth of adding around Kenesaw and we want to grow this company. So Kelly has experience doing that and we’re excited to have her join us. And she’s been people are going to be so surprised when we put that on social media Monday because she’s been out and about in Kenesaw. And Jennifer actually told me about her and I said I’d like to go meet her. Little did she know what we did and none of us knew what was going to happen. But here she is and we’re really excited that she’s going to be on our team.

Speaker3: [00:32:12] Wow, that’s awesome. OK, we are getting ready to start winding down. So before we do that, I want to make sure that you have had a chance to tell me everything that you want to tell me. So I’m going to start with you, Miss Jennifer. Is there anything else that was on that was on your list of things that you wanted people to know for sure?

Speaker5: [00:32:31] Well, one thing. So I’m a nerd. I’ll have to research, marketing, advertising. You know, it’s just fun to me to read articles and keep up with with what’s current and trendy. But I also like to just kind of look at facts and figures. And I found some interesting things I just wanted to share about print media and just a few things that the Small Business Chronicle had shared. An article is that one of the advantages of print media is that it has staying power. So you have to think about it. It’s. Something that isn’t just quick, like an ad that pops up, it has a longer shelf life, and especially with our community magazines in the home, that’s our goal. And with the engaging content that Candy helps provide, that makes it where people it sticks around. So another thing, it’s viewed as credible. And again, these are statistics that multiple reports and research has shown, but very, very credible. And overall consumer consumers view print media is more trustworthy than the Internet and then it’s non interruptive. So the fact that you’re not interrupted when you’re looking at it, you have more it’s more leisurely, you know, as far as the time that you take with it. And with that, a lot of times the ad is viewed for a longer period of time. So I thought those were kind of neat things, just little tidbits of information that are fun to know about.

Speaker2: [00:33:54] So that’s so true about the staying power. Not long ago, I received a phone call or an email from someone. It was referring to an article that actually ran like two years ago. And I said, gosh, I could not figure out what they were talking about. And then we finally nailed it down to it’s an old copy that they still had in their home. So that felt good to know. Oh, yeah. You know, that was that staying power is really true.

Speaker5: [00:34:18] I have had that same thing. Interestingly, there was somebody that had called it was for around Dagworth magazine and they had no copy. And it was a question. But the point being is that it was still in their home. And I thought, yeah, it’s still there. So I was

Speaker3: [00:34:32] Crazy. I mean, the recipes alone are what’s right. Absolutely right. Anything else, Candy, from you specifically that you want to make sure that people know?

Speaker2: [00:34:43] I want people to know that they can contact me, they can email me or call me because I couldn’t get all that amazing content without hearing from folks in the community. So don’t ever hesitate to give us a call, shoot an email, put us up, put something on social media, on our Facebook pages, and we’d love to hear from you. Any kind of story, ideas, sharing anything awesome that someone did, even if it’s your you know, your daughter, you know, raised one hundred dollars in a lemonade stand. That’s great. So anything we’re interested in hearing about and sharing.

Speaker3: [00:35:15] Ok, awesome. Well, before I go to you, Patty, let me go back to you, Jennifer, for a second. And can you share all that contact information with us like Instagram and Facebook and how to get in touch with you guys?

Speaker5: [00:35:28] Oh, yeah. So you mean in other words, if somebody wanted to reach out to us, how could they reach out to us? So basically in each of our magazines and the very friendly magazine for Woodstock in town, L.A., Patty’s contact information, her email and phone number is right there. And then same for me with Canton, Acworth and Kenesaw. So if you have a magazine and you want to reach out to us, there we are. And another great way is just to send a message through either our Facebook or direct messages on Instagram that be a great way to reach out to us as well.

Speaker4: [00:36:01] And if you go to a roundabout local media dot com, you can access any of our publications online. And really all I want to do is think the loyal readers and advertisers and without y’all, we couldn’t be who we are.

Speaker3: [00:36:16] And he thinks, Stone, that you can think of

Speaker6: [00:36:18] No, but I really appreciate you guys letting me play. I’ve enjoyed this because I didn’t have any real responsibility to ask or answer questions so I could just listen. And I just as you might imagine, I really, really resonate with the whole idea of wanting to share stories and celebrate all the great stuff that’s happening in our community. And I I love what you’re doing. I am just absolutely enamored with your mission. And I know this is women in business, but I certainly want to do anything that I can or the network can to support your efforts. So I hope you won’t hesitate to ask us as well. And thank you, Lori, for for letting me be a part of it.

Speaker3: [00:36:57] Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us. Joining us today on Women in Business, powered by Business RadioX until next time, this is Lori Kennedy reminding you to keep learning and growing.

Reviving a Legacy Brand: An Interview with Stephanie Stuckey, Stuckey’s Corporation

July 30, 2021 by John Ray

Reviving a Legacy Brand: An Interview with Stephanie Stuckey, Stuckey’s Corporation (Dental Law Radio, Episode 14)

How do you revive a brand name which the world has left for dead? CEO Stephanie Stuckey joined host Stuart Oberman to share the compelling story of how she and her team are resurrecting Stuckey’s Corp. Stephanie discusses why she plunged into this rebuild even when she was discouraged by others, the importance of having a management team which balances each other’s skills, the power of sharing not just victories but setbacks, and much more. It’s must listening, not just for dentists thinking of acquiring practices, but any entrepreneur considering a brand reconstruction of their own. Dental Law Radio is underwritten and presented by Oberman Law Firm and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Stephanie Stuckey, CEO, Stuckey’s Corporation

Stephanie Stuckey is CEO of Stuckey’s, the roadside oasis famous for its pecan log rolls. The Company was founded by Stephanie’s grandfather, W.S. Stuckey, Sr. as a pecan stand in Eastman, Georgia in 1937 and grew into over 350 stores by the 1970’s. The company was sold in 1964 but is now back in family hands and poised for a comeback.

Billy Stuckey, son of the founder and former U.S. Congressman, reacquired Stuckey’s in 1985. Stephanie took over in November of 2019 and, under her leadership, Stuckey’s has purchased a healthy pecan snack company, undergone a rebranding, added three new franchised stores, expanded its B2B retail customer base, ramped up its online sales with a new website and will soon acquire a pecan processing and candy manufacturing plant.

Stephanie received both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Georgia. She has worked as a trial lawyer, elected to seven terms as a state representative, run an environmental nonprofit law firm that settled the largest Clean Water Act case in Georgia history, served as Director of Sustainability and Resilience for the City of Atlanta, and taught as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Stephanie’s achievements include being named one of the 100 Most Influential Georgians by Georgia Trend Magazine and a graduate of Leadership Atlanta. She is active in her community and serves on many nonprofit boards, including the National Sierra Club Foundation, EarthShare of Georgia, and her local zoning review board.

Connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn and follow Stuckey’s on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:01] Broadcasting from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, it’s time for Dental Law Radio. Dental Law Radio is brought to you by Oberman Law Firm, a leading dental-centric law firm serving dental clients on a local, regional, and national basis. Now, here’s your host, Stuart Oberman.

Stuart Oberman: [00:00:26] Welcome everyone to Dental Law Radio. I know usually we’re talking about dental law, and employment law, and compliance. But, today, we have an absolute amazing guest in-studio, Stephanie Stuckey, the CEO of the famous world-renowned Stuckey’s Corporation. Stephanie, it is an honor, honor, to have you in here.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:00:48] Well, thank you. The honor is all mine. I’m delighted.

Stuart Oberman: [00:00:51] You know, being the CEO of Stuckey’s, you have now reached the pinnacle of your career being on Dental Law Radio, right?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:00:57] I absolutely think so. And the irony is not lost on me that a candy company is being featured on a dental radio show. I think it actually makes a lot of sense because we have sent you a lot of customers over the years.

Stuart Oberman: [00:01:12] Our clients love that. Thank you.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:01:14] Right. You should be serving pecan log rolls in every dental office in this country because we are giving you a fair amount of clientele.

Stuart Oberman: [00:01:22] I appreciate that. It sort of keeps us paying the rent. So, you know, you are amazingly busy, amazingly. First of all, thank you. I know we scheduled this about two months ago to get you into studio here. So, I know how busy you are and your schedule. But, you know, the interesting part is, I think this says a lot about you and what you’re doing with Stuckey’s.

Stuart Oberman: [00:01:45] So, I remember one Saturday, I’m just playing around on LinkedIn and I pinged you. And I was going to introduce you to a client of ours that is in the industry that you’re in, in the pecan industry. And then, you, almost immediately, sent me a message back like, “You know, hey. [Inaudible].” And then, we’ve kept in touch a little bit. And then, you know, I’ve watched you take this brand, this iconic brand, that was almost on the brink of failure, I guess would be a good word.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:02:19] Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I thought it’s generous.

Stuart Oberman: [00:02:21] Yeah. It was not doing well.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:02:25] Not well.

Stuart Oberman: [00:02:26] And then, you know, this sort of American dream is you became CEO – and I want you to get into this little bit later – but you’ve taken this brand to a whole another level. This not only applies to our dental guys, but in the podcast, we have construction companies, all the way from a $1,000 a year to 500 million, that are listening to the podcast. And we’re very fortunate we have clients in about 35 states. I thought, “You know what? Really, this is a story that anyone who has any ups and downs in business that wants to rebrand can really benefit from hearing your story.” So, I’m just very, very grateful that you’re on the show.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:03:11] Well, thank you.

Stuart Oberman: [00:03:12] And then, you know, Stuckey’s is a roadside iconic brand. I mean, I just stopped at one from Florida. You know, I bought a pecan roll and got a picture, and I’ll send that to you.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:03:23] So appreciate that. Yes. Please stop.

Stuart Oberman: [00:03:26] And that’s what’s it really all about. So, we wanted to bring you in and talk to you really about a few things of what you’re doing. You got an amazing background, what I want you to get into a little bit. And then, how you got to rebrand and bring this company back. You’re a CEO, you graduated from UGA Law School, and House of Representatives, and you were recently named 100 Most Influential Georgians by Georgia Trend Magazine. That is an amazing, amazing accomplishment.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:03:57] You know, that was actually not for Stuckey’s. That was related to my work with Sustainability.

Stuart Oberman: [00:04:03] Really?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:04:04] Yes. So, that was only a couple of years ago. But I’ve only been running Stuckey’s for a-year-and-a-half. But prior to this, I was Head of Sustainability for City of Atlanta, and got that acknowledgment as part of my work with the City of Atlanta. So, I feel like I share that honor also with all the work that we were doing in Sustainability and Resilience. My position was actually Chief Resilience Officer. By the time I left the city, it had advanced to include a lot more functionality. But, anyway, it was a fun ride working for the City of Atlanta.

Stuart Oberman: [00:04:37] So, tell us a little bit about you and then how you became the CEO of Stuckey’s.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:04:43] That’s a crazy journey. Yes.

Stuart Oberman: [00:04:45] I know. We can talk about it for like five days. I assure that –

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:04:49] I’ll condense it. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think the important takeaway – and I’m very mindful that this is a diverse group of people listening, so I’m going to try to make sure my comments are relevant – I was literally sitting at my desk one day happily in Sustainability world, which is what I had been doing for two decades, practicing environmental law and working on sustainability initiatives not only with Atlanta, but had advanced to working with cities throughout the southeast.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:05:19] And I was at my desk and I got an email from one of my dad’s former business partners asking me if I wanted to buy their shares of Stuckey’s stock. And that’s how it began. It was initially just a financial transaction, “Do you want to buy stock?” And I asked to look at the financials, which is what any of us would do if you’re given an opportunity to add to your business portfolio. Or, in my case, I had no business portfolio.

Stuart Oberman: [00:05:50] Now, what did you think when you saw that message? What was your initial reaction? Did you fall off the chair? Or you thought, “No way.”

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:05:57] I was not surprised. And I’ll give a very quick recap of the Stuckey’s history, because it puts this into context. Stuckey’s was founded by my grandfather in 1937 as a roadside pecan stand in Eastman, Georgia. And from those incredibly humble beginnings, he grew it with my grandmother to 368 stores and 40 states, all over the nation’s Interstate Highway System.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:06:22] We owned a candy plant. He owned a trucking company. Had a sign company. And he built that and sold it in 1964, which is not uncommon for a lot of entrepreneurs of that era. Howard Johnson’s, Holiday, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, all these entrepreneurs that we know that were household names, they sold. And that was sort of what you did, you build this company and you sold it and you made a lot of money. And he was a product of the depression, so he sold.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:06:50] It was out of family hands for decades. There was a series of corporate takeovers. The company was really floundering. My father got the company back in 1985. He was already running several other companies at the time. So, Stuckey’s was a bit of a side hustle for my dad. He owned and operated Dairy Queen franchises on the Interstate Highway System. He had the exclusive rights to Dairy Queens within a half mile radius of a highway exit.

Stuart Oberman: [00:07:19] That’s a heck of a side hustle.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:07:20] Heck of a side hustle. So, dentists should totally love my family because we are sending you all sorts of patients.

Stuart Oberman: [00:07:27] That is one side hustle.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:07:27] Right? So, no, no. Stuckey’s was his side hustle.

Stuart Oberman: [00:07:31] Yeah. That’s what I mean.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:07:31] His main business was Dairy Queen. And when he got Stuckey’s, it was in bad shape. And it was a little over 100 stores at that time. So, he just combined the Stuckey’s with the Dairy Queen, and so built on the Dairy Queen. And he also started putting Stuckey’s in other travel plazas, a store within a store cobranding concept, and that proved to work for decades.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:07:59] And then, my dad and his business partners sold their Dairy Queen business to Warren Buffett – some of the listeners may have heard of him – in 2014 – 2012 – I should know the exact date – like, about a decade ago. And they all retired. So, they went home. They left only a very small skeleton crew, basically two people running Stuckey’s. It didn’t have a CEO. It didn’t have a marketing budget. There was really no franchise system to speak of. Most of the remaining locations were the store within a store concept. We had a rented distribution facility and that’s it.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:08:43] So, I knew that the business had been floundering. What I didn’t know was how much it had been floundering. And so, when I pulled these financials, and I consulted some financial experts, and they were looking at the books. And I talked to three experts, two said, “Do not do this. The company had been losing money steadily for several years.” And the third person said – and I kept the third person because I kept shopping it around. I wanted a different answer, right?

Stuart Oberman: [00:09:13] You want the right answer. My clients do that.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:09:14] They’re like economists, they have a different opinion. So, you keep going until you get the one who will tell you, “Yes. You should do this. It’s a good idea.” The one who said do it said, “I know what’s not on the balance sheet, which is the value of the brand,” which is what I knew, too.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:09:30] And even though my entire childhood, Stuckey’s was no longer owned by our family, I knew and loved my grandfather. I vacation like everyone else and stopped at Stuckey’s. I knew innately that this was something really special. And that it would take a Stuckey, frankly, to bring it back. It needed that special touch. And with a little love, I figured we could bring it back.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:09:53] The fact that it was not bankrupt, despite all the ups and downs over the year also told me it had some sticking power. So, you know, that’s what I thought. Like, I wasn’t surprised. I immediately also knew that I was not the first choice. I’m number four of five kids, they went through the roster and I was the only one. I’m like Mikey in the Life cereal commercial. The one kid who will try it. I was the only one who said yes.

Stuart Oberman: [00:10:19] So, here’s a key point, because as a firm, we do a lot of mergers and acquisitions in our dental clients and all those things. So, who did you consult with before you made the decision to go, the CPAs, the lawyers? Who were your advisors? Because that’s key in any transaction. And our guys have got to know that.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:10:39] I went with people I knew and trusted. So, I think often what’s overlooked in business is the value of relationships and relationship building. And throughout my career, even though I never worked in business, I served on boards and I had colleagues on the nonprofit boards that I served on who had financial backgrounds. So, I went to some CPAs who served on boards with me, and I really respected their opinions.

Stuart Oberman: [00:11:10] So, what did you have to do? Obviously, was this a huge learning curve for you.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:11:14] Yes. Absolutely.

Stuart Oberman: [00:11:16] What did you do to get through that learning curve?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:11:17] A huge learning curve.

Stuart Oberman: [00:11:18] What did you do?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:11:19] I surrounded myself with really smart people who understood areas where I lacked expertise. And I also spent a ton of time, which I still do, learning. I read Harvard Business, magazine, books.

Stuart Oberman: [00:11:34] I was going to ask you about that. I read that somewhere.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:11:38] Yeah. Harvard Business School has a whole series of books, basically entrepreneurship 101. They have a book on mergers and acquisitions, and I read that several times. I also watched webinars. So, much of this is available, basically, for free. There’s a ton of webinars available. And so, I watched webinars. And, honestly, this is how big my learning curve is, I didn’t even know what EBITDA was. Somebody used that in a sentence and I’m Googling it during the conversation. Thankful that it was a phone call so they wouldn’t see me having to look up basic financial terms. So, I had a huge learning curve.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:12:19] But at the same time, I also sought out people who knew what they were doing. So, I knew what I could do well. So, that’s the other thing, you fill your gaps and then you really double down on what you know you’re good at. So, what I knew was this brand. I’ll never forget when I first decided I was going to do this – well, frankly, it’s my father who said this, he asked me why I thought I could run Stuckey’s when, he said, “You can’t even run a lemonade stand.” And I thought for a minute and I said, “Well, you’re right. I can’t run a lemonade stand. But I can run Stuckey’s.” And it occurred to me what I knew about Stuckey’s was the brand. And I could tell the story of Stuckey’s unlike anyone else. I have that personal emotional connection.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:13:08] And so, I just started going online and learning, how do you do social media? How do you do storytelling? And I just started practicing. That’s the other thing, you can learn and then you practice. And I made a vow to myself that every single day I would post on LinkedIn. I figured that’s where I need to be. That’s the business network. And I just started posting my story every day on LinkedIn. And I went from a handful of likes to, now, my posts routinely get a 1,000 plus likes, engagements, comments. My followers grew. I think I started with a couple hundred and I think it’s 36,000 in a year. And it’s just posting every day. It’s having personal discipline and having focus, which I constantly work on. I tend to be one of those people who has 50 things going at any given time. And I throw it against the wall and see what sticks. So, that’s more my personality.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:14:11] So, it’s really important to surround yourself who, not only fill in your gaps with your skills and expertise, but also emotionally. So, I tend to be very high energy and a little high strung. And I have since gotten a business partner, and he is pretty chill. I mean, he’s a hard worker, but he’s unflappable.

Stuart Oberman: [00:14:34] Would you say your type A?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:14:35] I am type A. But I think there’s different type A’s. Like, you can be really ambitious and a go-getter type, but also not easily excitable. And I do tend to get really – you know, like something will happen that’s really great and I am just on the moon. Like, “This is the best thing. We’re going to totally be like a $20 million in sales company this year.” And then, something bad will happen, I’m like, “Oh, my God. We’re going to go bankrupt.”

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:15:06] And my business partner just set nice, even keeled influence on me. So, he’s very financially savvy and he also knows the pecan market inside and out, which is very important with what we do.

Stuart Oberman: [00:15:18] So, you surround yourself with people that know more than you, which is key.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:15:23] Yes. And balance my personality. If our leadership team are a bunch of people who are super high energy, I think our heads would all pop off. So, you to have the chill people with the energy folks. And I’m an eternal optimist, even though I do occasionally have these, “Oh, no. Everything’s falling.” But I am very, very optimistic. And one of our key team leaders is – I’ll just say if he hears this, he’ll agree – he’s a curmudgeon. And any time I have an idea, he will literally come up with 20 ways that it won’t work. And I need someone like that around me because it forces me to think through all the details. And I’m not a detail person. So, I’ve got this person who’s, like, overly detailed and that will say, “Oh, that will never happen. You are overthinking this.” But I need that. I need that balance.

Stuart Oberman: [00:16:20] So, you’ve got a variety of personal experiences. You’re practicing law. You’re a state representative.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:16:25] I’m still practicing law. I am in-house counsel for Stuckey’s. I do a lot of – I’m serious.

Stuart Oberman: [00:16:32] General counsel, CEO.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:16:32] Welcome to being an entrepreneur. You know, you wear 21 hats. I’m Chief Brand Officer. I was Chief Sales Officer, and it got to be overwhelming so my business partner and I have split up those duties. He does a large retail accounts and I do the small sort of mom and pop, which is really what I thrive at. And I do the marketing. And I’m Chief Storyteller. Yeah. I love it. I’ve got a lot of roles.

Stuart Oberman: [00:16:59] Welcome to Business.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:17:03] Yes. Yes.

Stuart Oberman: [00:17:04] Then, you have been running Sustainability for City of Atlanta. So, you know, what lessons – and I know it’s been a long, long journey being in the family and then becoming CEO. So, what roles helped you for this new CEO position? I mean, what have you learned? What previous roles helped?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:17:24] Politics and –

Stuart Oberman: [00:17:27] That’s a blood sport.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:17:29] Right. And being an attorney. I started out actually as a public defender in Fulton County, Georgia. So, City of Atlanta, that was overwhelming. I had 200 clients at any given time, which is welcome to the world of being a public defender. So, I learned not only the ability to manage a lot and perform under pressure. And know it’s not the end of the world if something goes wrong. Like, the ability to just put things in perspective has been critical.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:18:01] One of my favorite sayings since I’ve taken over – and I stole it from another candy maker, Goo Goo Cluster. I stole those comments from their chief marketing officer. But she said, “When I get stressed out, I think it’s just candy.” So, that’s what I think. When I get overwhelmed with running Stuckey’s, like, “It’s just candy.” But having managed politics and running my own campaigns and working the City of Atlanta, which can be a blood sport. Just being able to roll with the punches and not get easily overwhelmed is critical.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:18:35] The other thing I learned was almost all of my roles, I was fighting for the underdog. As a public defender, I would represent some really hard to represent individuals. As a politician, I was very active in environmental issues, which isn’t always the most popular, the Georgia General Assembly. And then, as an attorney, I practice environmental law representing Riverkeeper, Sierra Club. So, I represented environmental groups against large corporations. Many of the corporations with whom I now partner. So, it’s interesting turnabout.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:19:08] But what I learned was the ability to persuade. If you can stand up for a tough cause – and that’s what you learn in law school – whether you believe in the cause or not, although it certainly helps if you believe in the cause, you’ve got to believe in something fundamental about the cause in order to really have it be a compelling case. So, like when I was a public defender, I may not have thought that my client’s case was the best case, but I believed in the justice system. So, you have to have a core set of values and beliefs that stabilizes you. But being able to stand up and persuade is a critical skill.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:19:45] And everything I’ve done, and most critically in Stuckey’s, because I am trying to persuade financial investors, potential financial investors, potential large retailers who are used to doing business with established brands. And, yes, Stuckey’s has sticking power. We’ve been around for 80 years, but we’re a dusty brand. We’ve been losing money. We don’t have market share. And so, here I am trying to make the case to large, big box retailers, “You need to carry Stuckey’s products.” That’s a tough sell sometimes. So, just the ability to persuade and connect with people, it’s, I think, the most valuable skill you can have.

Stuart Oberman: [00:20:27] So, you had taken this audacious challenge of reviving this family brand. Most people that have had your experience are not even looking for a second career. They’re winding down their career. They’re like, “You know what? I’m just going to ride it out. I’m good.” And you’ve done a total career pivot. It’s this whole another world. Why?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:20:48] Well, it’s interesting. I really think that this is what I was always meant to do. I just finally figured it out and it was later in life.

Stuart Oberman: [00:20:56] So, the message is, you know, from a goal standpoint, no matter what you do, who you are, it is never too late to start what you love.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:21:05] Absolutely. And there’s so many great examples in business. I look at Harland Sanders with Kentucky Fried Chicken, he was in his 60s when he started that chain. I was the exact same age, age 53, as Ray Kroc when he bought the McDonald’s franchise from the McDonald’s brothers.

Stuart Oberman: [00:21:22] I wasn’t going to ask you your age.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:21:23] Well, I don’t mind. Like, I know. I’m a Southern woman. My mom has cautioned me, “You got to watch what you say your age is, because suddenly I’m going to be ten when you were born.” So, I am very mindful that that is a fine Southern tradition, that we like to maybe not broadcast our age. But it’s relevant for this, because 53 was when I made that pivot. And I think it’s an excellent age.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:21:52] And here’s why, especially for business. When you’re starting something that’s entrepreneurial – and I consider ourselves an 80 year old startup. I could not have gotten the financing to buy a manufacturing facility. And I got a business partner. I’ve mentioned him, but his name is RG Lamar. He’s a pecan farmer. He’s 17 years younger than me. Great age gap there, where we really do complement each other well. And he and I jointly acquired a pecan shelling and a candy plant in January of this year, so about six months ago.

Stuart Oberman: [00:22:25] So, not only are you reviving, you’re expanding out even more, taking more risk.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:22:31] That’s right. Well, I’m getting back to our roots, which is we started as a pecan stand on the side of the road. And my grandfather had a candy plant. And I realized the way we were making our profit was through the sale of our product. Eighty percent of our profit is being driven by product sales. So, you double down on what’s working. That’s the other lesson, especially if you’re buying a distressed company, look at what does move the needle financially. And then, you hunker down on that.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:23:01] So, the point I was getting to as far as my age, though, with buying this candy plant, which was a multimillion dollar acquisition, I could have never done that earlier in my life. It’s because I had a strong credit rating. It’s because I had some financial assets that I had acquired over the year that, actually, age 53 was the perfect year. Because at age 40, I would have never gotten a bank to approve a loan of this size. So, I think 50 plus is the best time to start a new venture. Financially, you are in a good position to be able to do that.

Stuart Oberman: [00:23:38] So, it’s taken you 30 years to be an overnight success.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:23:41] Absolutely. And we’re not even done yet. Like, we’re just starting. The brand – I know I’m an optimist – we’re on the brink, really, of hitting it.

Stuart Oberman: [00:23:50] That’s a great point, because the roadside competition on the highways is brutal. Retail is brutal. I don’t have to tell you that. What’s sort of the plan going forward? What’s the growth plan? And I know certain things are obviously trade secrets and you don’t want to reveal, but what’s sort of the position going forward? How do you revive that?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:24:12] Well, that’s why I take a lesson from politics. Because when you’re running for office, people frequently say, “Well, who else is running and tell us about your competition. How are you different from your competition?” And I learned pretty quickly to say, “I’m not here to talk about my competition. I’m here to talk about me. And more importantly, I’m here to talk about you. What can I do for you if you vote for me? What’s important to this community? What can I bring to the table that’s going to align with what you want?”

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:24:43] And so, yes, I’m very aware of the competitive market landscape on the Interstate Highway System. But at the same time, I’m more focused on what is the unique differentiator that Stuckey’s bring that will add value to customers. Having said that, I shop all the time at every roadside establishment. And I actually posted on LinkedIn the other day – I throw stuff out there on LinkedIn and I never know if it’s going to resonate or not. I put posts up that literally get, you know, 20 comments or likes. And then, I’ll put one up and it gets 3,000. So, this is one that really did resonate. And I put up that I was shopping at Bucky’s.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:25:25] People always ask me, “Have you ever heard of Bucky’s?” And I try to be polite but I really want to scream. It’s like asking Pepsi if they heard of Coke. I mean, not that I have any pretense that Stuckey’s is at that level. But, you know, of course, I am aware of the competition on the highway. And not only am I aware of it, I stop all the time at Bucky’s. I stop all the time at T.A. I stop all the time at Pilot. And I’m taking notes. I’m paying attention. I’m looking at the customers and seeing what they’re interested in. I study the cars in the parking lot. Where are the cars coming from? What states are they coming from?

Stuart Oberman: [00:26:00] So, you’re doing your homework.

Stuart Oberman: [00:26:00] Are these families? Are these motorcycles? Are these people on a vacation, because you can see all the luggage? I study retail, and that’s exactly what my grandfather did. And I’m less concerned with beating the competition as I am with winning the customer. What is it that the customer wants? And I look at what is the competition offering where there’s a gap? Where is there a gap in what they are providing? Now, that’s where it’s trade secret. I have a whole list I compiled.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:26:33] The other thing I do, I think, you got to use what you have as an advantage, even if others may see it as a vulnerability. We don’t have a big budget. We don’t have a big marketing team. In fact, I do the marketing for Stuckey’s, by and large. I have a few outsource 1099s who help me, but I pretty much do it myself. So, I use that to my advantage. I do my own LinkedIn post, and guess what? People respond because it’s real and it’s honest. And I don’t have the money to do market research to find out who’s stopping at Bucky’s and what do they think of that? Or what do they think of Pilot? So, I do my own research. I go on to Yelp. I go on to Google reviews. I read what people are posting. Now, some of that I think is fabricated, but some of it is authentic.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:27:23] So, you do your own research and you pay attention. And you know what the market trends are and you read the industry publications. And I have a whole plan for how Stuckey’s is different. But more importantly, how we’re growing the brand right now is selling our product, because we do not own or operate any of our stores.

Stuart Oberman: [00:27:40] Did I [inaudible] that your growth is, like, 550 percent?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:27:44] Oh, that was on the Internet. Our e-commerce.

Stuart Oberman: [00:27:47] Got it. Okay. Which is huge.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:27:50] It’s huge. Yes. Because when I started we, basically, just had a Bare Bones website. And even then, we have done so little with the e-commerce because we just don’t have the capacity. We’re actually having a big confab this afternoon with our team trying to figure out how we’re going to prep for Q4, because we don’t have the capacity right now to make sure we can fulfill orders. But we will. We’ll have it together.

Stuart Oberman: [00:28:15] So, you bought a shelling and a candy plant in Wrens.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:28:18] Yes.

Stuart Oberman: [00:28:19] Why? Because that was an enormous step for where you guys are at now. Why? What was the purpose of doing that? And from a CEO standpoint, what are your thoughts on manufacturing in America right now?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:28:31] Well, there’s two questions here.

Stuart Oberman: [00:28:32] At least two.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:28:33] Right. We could talk for an hour. But it gets back to the point I raised earlier, look at where the money is coming from. And Michael Coles taught me that. It’s a very basic concept but, still, having someone on the outside with that different perspective advising you. Michael Coles founded the Great American Cookie Company. He went on to run Caribou. And is just such an incredible businessman. And gave me a lot of advice, and he said, “Stephanie, you need to really look at where your money is coming from.”

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:29:03] And so, I put it in buckets and I realized the bucket that was sale of our product, not only to branded Stuckey’s locations, because there’s only 65 of them. And of those, only 20 are standalone stores. And of those, we don’t own or operate any of them. So, we have very limited control over that line. I realized that the biggest potential for growth was selling our product to third party retailers. So, Ace Hardware stores, tourism’s gift shops, you name it. High end gift shops is really what I’m looking for, and we’re getting a lot of those accounts.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:29:41] And then, I was thinking we could get into big box retail. Well, we couldn’t get into big box retail because we couldn’t make the margins, because we’re not producing our product ourselves. They run their margins so tight, especially if you want to get into like a Walmart or Costco, and that’s a whole other conversation about whether or not you should get into those markets.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:30:03] Because there’s two sides to getting into Walmart, right? They have low prices for a reason. And I don’t blame them, they want to offer that value to the consumer. But it’s not always a good deal for the business and their vendors. It depends on whether it’s a good fit for you or not.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:30:22] But we couldn’t even play in that space unless we were making the product ourselves. So, we had to manufacture. The other thing is you can control the quality better. You can control the margins. And you can play with the big box retailers.

Stuart Oberman: [00:30:38] How was the quality before you became CEO? And where is it today?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:30:42] It was okay. I would give it a C. Where it is today, is an A. It is the absolute best ingredients you can find at this facility that we have acquired. And that’s really been the differentiator. We’re not changing the recipe. This is not New Coke. But we’re getting the best ingredients. We’re getting the absolute most premium quality pecans that we are shelling onsite and going right next door and putting it into the candy, literally, as soon as it’s shelled. You can’t get fresher or better tasting.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:31:15] We’re using real chocolate. I don’t think people always realize that if you buy a candy bar and the chocolate’s not melting, guess what? It’s not chocolate. So, we’re using real chocolate. We’re using real vanilla, not imitation vanilla. And you can absolutely taste the difference. And a lot of our product is made by hand. And I swear, you can taste the difference if it’s been made by hand versus going through an extruder, or any of the enrober, or some of the other. And we do use some of that machinery. But a lot of the process – and I filmed that and I put this up online – is done by hand.

Stuart Oberman: [00:31:54] So, you took a whole quality control overview. No matter what business you’re in, services, products, you took that overview and said, “This quality is a C. I want to get it to an A.” So, you just drilled down on the whole process on how to improve that. Which every business owner should do from a services or products standpoint.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:32:14] That’s how we’re making our profit, is the sale of product. So, what can we do to improve the profit, and improve the quality, and improve the quantity of the product? And that all gets down to you have to control it. You have to do it yourself. And so, I knew I needed support with that. I got a business partner who could help me with the financing and help me with the negotiations. And RG negotiated the sale of buying an existing candy plant, existing pecan plants that was turnkey ready. And we are really turning the company around with that. And we’re expanding our market. So, we’re now exporting product. We exported three container loads of pecans to the Taiwanese.

Stuart Oberman: [00:32:59] Wow. Yeah. So, you’re taking a small little company, and now we’re doing exports.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:33:03] Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you realize, like, so once you get into that market then you think – so your other question was about manufacturing. So, we’re manufacturing, so that opens up this whole world where we can offer direct to our customers. Most of our customers are other businesses. So, we’re more B2B, even though the front facing is what a lot of people remember about Stuckey’s. The way I’m rebuilding the brand is this B2B piece, and it’s by making it ourselves.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:33:35] So, manufacturing, I really believe, is the key to turning our economy around, not just the key to turning Stuckey’s around. Making stuff ourselves, controlling the supply chain, not having to ship things from abroad. And even though the labor is cheap, the shipping costs are astronomical. And the delays are incredible. And you don’t have these relationships like you have if you are producing things domestically. And I try as much as possible not only to have vendors and partners, like who’s making our packaging, have them be U.S. I prefer Southeastern and even Georgia.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:34:16] Because you can build those relationships. And it’s those relationships that if you’re in a bind, they’re going to back you up. They’re going to help you out. You’re going to say, “Oh, my gosh. I’m in a rut. I need packaging for a big order to fill. Can you provide it for me?” If you’ve got that relationship, they’re going to deliver, and vice versa.

Stuart Oberman: [00:34:37] You said bind, so if my research is correct, after you bought the company, you had a massive fire in one of your locations.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:34:47] That’s right. Day two. Day two of ownership

Stuart Oberman: [00:34:50] And then, you had to work through the pandemic. So, tell us, as a business owner, head of this company, how did you get through those struggles?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:35:01] Well, like I said, we do not own or operate any of the stores. So, that store burning, we did not own that store. But it was a big account for us, so we were losing the income from that account. They not only purchased product from us, but they paid a franchise fee and we waived the franchise fee for them the entire time. They were just building.

Stuart Oberman: [00:35:21] Which is another hit as soon as [inaudible].

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:35:23] Yes. Yes. And we just had to think about where else can we get revenue. And that fire made me look closely at how our branded locations were being run. And you’re a lawyer, this is lawyer show, so not to get too much in the weeds, but I realized that what we were doing was not running a franchise. We were licensing because we don’t have an operations program. We don’t have an operations manual. We don’t have a point of sale system. We don’t charge a percentage of sales. We don’t do any of the traditional indicia of owning and operating a franchise. We don’t even meet the legal definition. And so, that process of figuring out how we were going to deal with this one location that had closed turned into an opportunity for me to really hunker down and try to understand.

Stuart Oberman: [00:36:12] So, you took a failure into an absolute success.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:36:15] Yeah. And I realized we really aren’t making our money through – and I’ve got air quotes here – the “franchising”. Because we’re not franchising and we don’t have the capacity financially or logistically staffing-wise to be running what’s a franchise system, either legally or realistically. So, we are transitioning all that to a flat out licensing program. And what we’re doing to make our money is we are selling product. So, that got me to reorient.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:36:46] And I think the hardest thing when you are taking on an established venture like this is being able to let go of what that venture was. And in order to move it forward, you have to change things.

Stuart Oberman: [00:37:01] Dramatically.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:37:01] And I had this total emotional attachment to Stuckey’s as this roadside store. Because, like so many of us, especially a certain era, I pulled over. I had that experience. And I want that again. But we’re not there yet. We don’t have the money to do that. You have to take a cold bath of reality and realize, “If I’m going to turn this company around, I have to let go of things to bring on new things that are going to grow the company.” I had to let go of that emotional and financial attachment that was weighing us down of we’re going to build back the stores. I still want to do it. I’m putting it on a shelf. But we’re making our money from selling our product. So, I got to do that. And not only just say I’m going to do it, I’ve got to go all in, hunker down on what’s working. And so, we bought a candy plant.

Stuart Oberman: [00:37:48] So, you’ve had to gut and rebuild, essentially, from square one.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:37:53] Yes. Yeah.

Stuart Oberman: [00:37:54] Now, how did you get through the pandemic? Not that we’re out of it, but how did you get –

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:37:57] Online sales.

Stuart Oberman: [00:38:00] You had a whole different strategy, a regroup?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:38:02] Online sales and getting new accounts with retailers who were thriving during the pandemic. So, I had to take a hard look at there are some businesses that did very well during the pandemic. Hardware stores is a great example. So, I mentioned Ace earlier, we got into over 250 Ace Hardware stores. So, you start going after the businesses that are doing well in a pandemic that are continuing to have their doors open.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:38:35] Now, especially that we own manufacturing, have more opportunity to get into grocery channels for grocery stores who did well in the pandemic. So, we started opening up into more grocery channels. So, we’re in some food lines, not in all of them. And then, I started learning the grocery store business, which, frankly, the main thing I did in the grocery store business is to get a business partner who knows a grocery store business and let him do it.

Stuart Oberman: [00:38:58] Again, surround yourself.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:38:59] My business partner, R.G., knows grocery channels. He understands slotting fees. He understands how they do their different pricing. He gets the promotional schedule. And so, he is running with that. And it’s amazing. You will soon see us in quite a few grocery store chains. I can’t wait.

Stuart Oberman: [00:39:18] I really can’t wait until the interview is over because there’s a lot of notes I need to make for myself.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:39:24] Yeah. Thank you. I’m glad. I’m hopeful that, you know, this has some lessons.

Stuart Oberman: [00:39:28] It’s an amazing story. I mean, you started out in a very difficult spot growing, you know, 550 percent in this area. You took a risk. You bought a new plant, growth. I mean, it is truly a success story. It really, really is. And that’s why I wanted you to come in, because you had so much to offer, not only to our dentist, but, again, we’re talking about bankers that came up to us at the conference, “Hey, we’re now following Stuckey’s. What a great story.” So, it’s truly, truly a great story.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:40:04] I love it. Tell them to get us some capital so we can actually rebuild the stores. But, you know, one thing I’ll add about that, because, yes, I did face a lot of challenges and I still do every single day. I heard Ralph Nader speak once – and you may love him or hate him, whatever, but this was good advice – he said, “It takes a certain amount of naivete to be a success were you don’t realize how hard it is or how rough it is.”

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:40:27] And he said when he took on the Big Three Automakers with his Unsafe at Any Speed book, he had no idea the immensity of what he was taking on. Because he was a really young Harvard grad, full of all this venom vigor, and he just went and did it. And he said, “Looking back on it, I realized how naïve I was and that was actually my strength.”

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:40:50] So, that’s when you take what may be a vulnerability and you turn it into your superpower. It probably was good that I didn’t have a business background. Because if I’d had a business background, I wouldn’t be sitting here today talking to you. I would be working on my sustainability initiatives

Stuart Oberman: [00:41:06] As we close, is there anything that you want to add that we haven’t covered, or what’s the future plans, or anything else we could add?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:41:17] I think one of the the most important things I want to highlight – and this gets back to LinkedIn – because I scroll through LinkedIn all the time and I look and see what other people –

Stuart Oberman: [00:41:27] I was actually surprised. I have to say so, I was surprised you even got back to me. I can be honest with you, I’m like, “Okay, [inaudible].” So, here’s where I was even more surprised about, so I said, “You know what? This is a story I want our guys who listen to know this.” And I thought, “I want to invite her on the show.” I will tell you never in a million years that I think you’d even respond to my email.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:41:48] Well, thank you. Yeah. I try to be accessible, and that is something I learned from politics. I remember when I first ran, I did this mail piece, and it went to, what seemed at the time, like an immense number of households. It was like 10,000 homes. And it gave my personal number. This was back when we had home phones. I gave my home phone number. And I remember my mother just being appalled and she said, “Honey, you can’t do that. You’re going to just be overwhelmed.” And I said, “Well, I want people to know that I’m accessible.”

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:42:15] And, you know, I didn’t get overwhelmed with calls even after I got elected. People will call you when they need you. And so, that gets back to the LinkedIn. I try to be accessible. I will say I am so overwhelmed with the sheer volume of LinkedIn messages. I’m getting now about 100 a day. It’s not personal if I don’t respond. And what I did was I put an auto response that says, “Please email me. I’m better at managing my email.” But I think I’m going to have to hire someone to help me manage the email.

Stuart Oberman: [00:42:45] You’re going to need people soon.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:42:47] If I’m not responding, just try again maybe or email me. My email information is in my profile for a reason. A lot of people don’t put their email. You can actually email me. I will respond.

Stuart Oberman: [00:43:00] So, LinkedIn, how can they reach you on LinkedIn? And do you want to give us your email address?

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:43:05] I would rather people email me. So, it’s sstuckey@stuckeys.com. And you know, I took a page. I’m nowhere near anywhere even in the stratosphere of these men, but Jeff Bezos and Mark Cuban both post their email addresses, and they will sometimes respond. And, actually, Mark Cuban and I had a really nice exchange. I emailed him and asked him for some advice and he responded, and it was just amazing.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:43:29] But I did have a final point. Sorry, we’re kind of all over the place. But you asked if I had a parting thought, and I was going to say, scrolling through LinkedIn, what we often see – and I do this too – is accomplishments. I won this award. We opened a new store. We were named best at blah, blah, blah, whatever, which is good. We should all celebrate those wins. But what you don’t see as much are the losses, are the hard times, are the missteps.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:43:58] And so, I posted that the other day. I posted about how I’d gotten rejected from Tractor Supply. And I didn’t say that to shame Tractor Supply. I absolutely love Tractor Supply. If anyone’s listening, I would love to do business with you. Give us a second chance. I put it up more to say, you don’t always win them. We just don’t talk about that. And that we actually should be talking about that more. Because I think if you’re being hit with these rejections and all you see out there is people who are winning, winning, winning, it gives you this false sense of success.

Stuart Oberman: [00:44:32] It’s easy. Right.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:44:32] Or yes, that it’s easy. It’s not. For every yes I get, I get nine no’s. I can’t tell you how many private equity investors have turned me down. I had one that said, “Well, we would be interested in Stuckey’s, but we would need to put in a real CEO.” Like, they basically said they were going to replace me. And I literally got off that call and cried. I had myself a good old fashioned cry. So, you get that every single day.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:45:00] And I guess that’s what I want to leave with, is, you just have to keep going and you have to not let the successes get to your head. And you can’t let the losses bring you down. Otherwise, you’re just not going to move forward. I always say, I’m two steps forward, one step back. I really feel like I’m overall moving forward, and I just focus. Every single one of us has down days, every single one. It’s just your turn. So, you just accept it like, “Yeah. It’s my turn. It’s my turn to have a bad day.” But it doesn’t have to be because you learn from it.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:45:40] And so, I’m just like such a huge advocate of – the Marines call it – embrace the suck. Just embrace the suck. Like, that is part of the learning. We should celebrate those losses. You celebrate them because you learn from them. If you don’t learn from them, then you just wasted a good loss.

Stuart Oberman: [00:45:57] Well, I mean, again, I can’t even thank you enough for coming on.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:46:01] This is fun.

Stuart Oberman: [00:46:03] Literally, I learned something. You know, every time I talk, I learn something. I can’t even begin to start writing stuff down. I just can’t.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:46:11] Thank you.

Stuart Oberman: [00:46:13] So, it’s an absolute pleasure. I know you’re extremely busy. So, I can’t really thank you enough for being on here. And I know that this will benefit to our listeners. There’s no doubt about it.

Stephanie Stuckey: [00:46:23] Well, I’m grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to to tell our story. Because that’s what it’s all about is getting the story out. So, thank you.

Stuart Oberman: [00:46:30] Yeah. My pleasure. Well, thank you for joining us on the Dental Law Radio podcast. And we’ll look forward to seeing you on air. If you need anything, any comments, concerns, anything we need to pass on to Stephanie, please feel free to email us at stuart@obermanlaw.com. Thank you and have a fantastic day.