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Alinka Rutkowska With Leaders Press

December 23, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

Alinka Rutkowska With Leaders Press

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Alinka Rutkowska is the CEO of Leaders Press, a USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling press, where she creates books for entrepreneurs from scratch and launches them to best-seller with a 100% success rate. She runs a hybrid publishing house with traditional distribution (via Simon & Schuster) through which more than 500 entrepreneurs have been able to share their stories with the world. 172 of Leaders Press authors have become USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling authors.

Alinka has been featured by Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Entrepreneurs on Fire and numerous other outlets. Her mission is to help 10,000 entrepreneurs share their wisdom with the world by 2030.

Connect with Alinka on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Helping entrepreneurs write books
Business folks want books
The best way to get a book written and published
The most common mistakes new authors make when wanting to write a book
Leaders Press in helping people with their publishing dreams

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for high velocity radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] Lee Kantor here, another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Alinka Rutkowska and she is with leaders press. Welcome.

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:00:25] Thank you, Lee. Excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about leaders press. How are you serving, folks?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:00:32] Mm hmm. What we do is we help entrepreneurs get their books done, so we basically interview them, go write the book and launch it to the best seller list and get it into bookstores.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this kind of work?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:00:48] Well, I think that was my dream since I was a little girl because when I was in primary school, I created a school newspaper. So that was the editorial part, and I would also distribute it and sell it. So that was the business part. And now this is what I’m doing only, you know, real real life situation. So there was a school thing, then I did work at the at multinational company, so I had a corporate background, but I didn’t find that particular particularly fulfilling at a certain point. So I took a leap of faith left and created leaders press.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:27] So now the folks that you’re helping, are they primarily business folks that are trying to get a book out or do you do fiction as well?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:01:37] Primarily business folks. But we also are able to help with fiction that would be the launch. If we want to help an entrepreneur or a business person write the book or ghostwrite it for them, then that would be have that would have to be in the business area.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:53] So now for folks out there who are business folks that are, you know, maybe in the back of their mind, they’re like, you know, I always wanted to write a book. You know, I feel like I could help more people if they knew more about what I knew and what I went through. Is that something you think that every entrepreneur is that a must have at this point where you have to be able to have a book that kind of gives you that credibility and authority?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:02:20] Hmm. You know, it’s almost as if if you don’t have the book, you’re disadvantaged because let’s imagine a potential client considering working with two suppliers or consultants. And one of them is an author or a best selling author, and the other one doesn’t have a book. So if all the other factors are equal, they will. I’m pretty sure they will choose the author because of the authority that it brings. And there’s just so many other ways that a book is useful. It’s a it’s an enhanced business card, so imagine you’re talking to somebody that you’d like to do business with, and you can either leave them your business card or you can give them your book. Like how much more powerful will your introduction and presentation be when you’re able to give them your book 100 percent?

Lee Kantor: [00:03:12] Yeah, I’m a big fan of this strategy, and I agree with you 100 percent that this is something that if you’re serious about your business and growing your business, it becomes more of a must have than a nice to have. Hmm. Now let’s talk a little bit about the mechanics of this. You know, we’ve established that, OK, you’re a business person and you should have a book. So now how do you kind of know what is the right thing I should be writing about? What is the message that I should be trying to get across because of the goal of this is to give me authority and credibility. I can’t just write anything. I have to write something that is aligned with my values. It has to kind of align with my skill set and kind of bring out my superpower so that people understand why I’m different and why they should choose me.

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:04:04] Absolutely. You start by answering those questions, so you really want to make sure that your book fits in to a genre that readers are already interested and you want your book to stand out. So you want to give the reader a reason to pick your book and not the other ones on the bookshelf. That’s the way you start, and once you have that, you have your unique selling proposition. So you created that for your business. Now you need to create it for your book. And from that, from that place we can go and you can do your outline and then start writing your book or get interviewed to have it ghostwritten. But you start with imagining vividly where exactly the book will be on the bookshelf and why readers will pick yours now.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:52] You know, with the advent of online bookselling and e-books and audiobooks and things like that, ah, is it really a bookshelf that that people are going to put their book on or is it going to be, you know, in an online capacity where I got to have a cover that at least gets people to pay attention to it?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:05:11] Hmm. It’s a great question, and it depends. It depends on how you’re going to publish your book. You can go the traditional way and try to find an agent, pitch your manuscript and then the agent will try to sell the manuscript to a publisher. It’s a long, long process. There are several pros like you’ll get an advance, but there are also several cons, such as small royalties and just super slow. So if you have two years on your hands, then you can do that that will get your book into the bookstores. That’s their main advantage. Then you can also self-publish your book. You can do everything yourself. You go to CDP, which is Amazon’s dashboard, to publish any book and you put it on the virtual bookshelf. You have zero traditional distribution, but you do have that power to do it. You know, obviously, if you don’t know how to do it, it’s probably going to be a poor end result. But it’s good to know that you do have the power. And then the third option is the hybrid publishing model, which is what we do. We help entrepreneurs get the books out on Amazon and all the online platforms, and we make sure they are best sellers. And through our distribution partnership with Simon and Schuster, that is the one of the largest publishers in the U.S. We’re able to distribute books into physical bookstores, and there is some lead time because we need to respect the traditional publishing timelines. But it’s much, much shorter than what happens when you’re going through the traditional publishing process. So both.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:53] So like, what is it? If I raise my hand and say, you know what? This I want to work with leaders press. So what happens now?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:07:03] Right? So you’d probably go to our website and then you’ll end up talking to one of our team members who will see if we’re a good fit to work together because we won’t write, you know, just absolutely anything. We do have some, you know, ranges of topics and authors that we want to work with. But, you know, most probably most of the time we get serious, serious entrepreneurs and it is potentially is a good fit. Once we decide on what your goals are, what you want to achieve, you know, do you want to lead generation books to grow your business? Do you want to let us legacy book like we did for the co-founder of DHL International for DHL 50 50th Anniversary? Do you want a book to increase your authority? So depending on your goals on what type of bestseller list you want to hit? Amazon Bestseller. Wall Street Journal Bestseller. Usa Today bestseller. Whether you need help with the writing or not, how long you want your book to be, depending on all those things, we find the best solution for you. And then we get started. It starts with understanding what you want to achieve, and then it starts with that positioning that we described. So making sure your book fits and stands out. Then we do the outline, then the writing, then the editing. Then we publish it longitude bestseller. And then you can say you’re a best selling author. And use it to grow your business, to increase your authority, to give it away when you meet somebody and you want to make a really great impression and it’s now part of your toolbox.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:43] Now is it reasonable to think that the investment I make with leaders press I’m going to make back on the sales of the book? Or is it going to be more likely that I will make the money back on the sales of my service or just getting more business?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:09:02] Great question. Whenever you have a business and your book is tied to that business, the royalties will only be a fraction of the revenue that you’re going to get from the book. So it’s always the back end that will help you generate your ROI quickly. And that’s why we like to work with the entrepreneurial types because you’re, you know, it’s so tangible. You start using the book as a lead down. You put it on Amazon, so people are able to find you. We have our lead generation book called Outsource Your Book, and that’s how the co-founder of DHL International found us because it’s impossible to reach out to him. He has so many gatekeepers. So he found us through the book. Now our Legion book really works as a lead gen, and then we did the book for him. And as as a result, we were able to provide a great service for him. If you’re looking to do a Legion book, you know it’s not just Amazon that acts as a search engine, right? And people are able to find you. You can also use it on your website to get people to opt in and then have a conversation with them. It’s a great lead conversion tool as well, because imagine you have a person in front of you on a sales call and they’ve already read your book. You’re you’re already the authority in their eyes. Their only questions are about their specific situation. They won’t be asking any, you know, generic questions like, So what do you guys do? They already know they read the book and you’re the expert. So it’s much easier to convert a reader to a customer than somebody who hasn’t read the book.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:49] So now, if that is my objective, a lead generation book that’s going to help me close sales faster, are you do you have somebody on your team that with a marketing background that’s helping me strategically go through that process? Or is that on me as the author and the expert in my industry to know, OK, in order to move a person through my funnel, I got to answer these 12 questions. And so those become the chapters of the book. And then basically that that’s kind of my sales funnel is the book.

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:11:23] So that’s a joint creation. The entrepreneur comes with their brain full of ideas, and our job is to get the best parts out, structure them, make sure it’s attractive for the reader to read and then to leave their email, you know, click on the call to action, either an email to start working with the author. So we work together in order to make it the best book possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:50] And then is it something that you give me assignment to go, OK? Next week, I need, you know, 2000 words for chapters one through three? Or is it something that I just talked to your expert? And they’re kind of creative. You know, they have a facilitated conversation with me and they’re, you know, either recording it and transcribing it and writing it down and then writing the book on my behalf. Like, How does that work?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:12:17] Yeah. So it’s closer to the second option. Basically, you’re going to get a message saying next week we’ll be meeting and these are the 12 questions we’d like you to think about. So then you come to the meeting, you already know what the questions are. You’ve given them some thought and then you start answering them live. You’re talking to your interviewer and the interviewer asks, you follow up questions because you know, some things are so obvious to you as the expert, but not obvious at all to the reader. And the interviewer gives you a chance to to deliver a better product because they will ask questions that readers have. And you haven’t even thought of that. And once we have that interview, that’s all recorded and transcribed that then goes to the writer and the writer will write in your voice to produce a book that will be that you will be happy with, and that will sound extremely well. And no matter what your, you know, English writing skill is.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:22] And then what, like you mentioned that if I traditionally went to get an agent and get it published, like it could take two years plus, you know, what is the timeline from me raising my hand and saying leader’s press helped me to getting a book, you know, on the bestseller list?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:13:40] Mm hmm. So if it’s a super short book that’s meant to be a Legion book and we’ll only launch it on Amazon. We’re able to get you situated within three months, you know, so the moment you come sign on, then your book comes out in three months. If it’s a big fat industry standard book and we’re looking to launch it into bookstores and on the USA Today or Wall Street Journal bestseller lists, we’re looking at about 10 months here.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:10] Wow. So let’s it. It could be a fraction of the time a traditional, traditionally published book, and there’s no guarantee. Just because you write a book or have a pitch to an agent, you may never get a publisher to even go for it, right?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:14:25] Yeah, it’s very rare that you will get admitted and accept it. And when you do, you might not even get an advance like you’re hoping for. There are traditional publishers who will publish you. They don’t give you an advance and you know you still have to go through this long process. You don’t really have too much creative control, so you might not be able to have any say on your book cover, for example, or entire chapters will have to be rewritten. So you know you really want to evaluate what you want to do for your book in terms of what the benefits will be once it’s out. You know how fast you want it out. If you have a timely topic, you probably don’t want to wait two or three years looking for an agent. You probably want it out. If you’re a business person, I’m pretty sure you want to take things, you know, take matters in your own hands, in your own hands and get it done as quickly as productively as possible, so it’s important to know your options.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:26] So now, when people work with you, is there different levels of service like, say, I don’t want the ghostwriter, I want to try to write this myself and I only want certain services. Is it kind of an all or nothing thing? It has to be a turnkey or can I just buy services as I need them?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:15:45] Well, you have a couple packages when you go to leaders press, it’s all there. We don’t do menus like I want, you know, write me one chapter, edit the other and, you know, launch half of the book. We do things that are requested. So our main thing is from idea to bestseller. But if there’s a manuscript that’s already written and the author comes in with their manuscript pretty much done, then we evaluate it. So we send it to our editors. We get an evaluation and a score of what we think we can do with it. If it meets our criteria, then we will invite the author to work with us. Alternatively, you can come in with an idea. We’ll help you with the outline and then you’ll be doing the writer, the writing and checking in at specific time points. Like you mentioned earlier, the scenario, we can do that as well. So it’s, you know, our main offer. But if you already come in with the manuscript done, then we meet you where you are to help you deliver the best possible book.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:52] And if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, is there a website that explains you mentioned the website earlier? What is the kind of the the website URL?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:17:06] The website is leaders press dot com. And if you’d like to find out what the best type of book for your goals is, we created a really neat quiz that you can do and it takes one minute and it’s at lieders press dot com slash discover. It will tell you whether you should write a short book or a long book, or, you know, launch online or launch in bookstores, all depending on your situation.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:32] And then so it’s leaders with an espresso presseye.com. Discover Great. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:17:45] Thank you, Lee. So excited to be here today.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:48] All right, this is Lee Kantor Wassail next time on high velocity radio.

Morven Groves with 10 Point Capital

December 20, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Franchise Marketing Radio

Morven Groves with 10 Point Capital

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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.

Morven Groves has spent over 15 years investing and advising in travel and hospitality businesses, with 10 years focused on franchising. She is passionate about growing brands, in the right markets, with the right partners. She works closely with the management teams of 10 Point Capital’s portfolio companies, to help them set strategy, and execute on growth goals.

Prior to joining 10 Point Capital, Morven was a franchisee herself for a spa franchise, and was a Vice President on Franchise Development and Finance teams for InterContinental Hotels Group, where she had responsibility for the Americas Region’s market strategy.

Additionally, Morven spent over 7 years with McKinsey & Company, working extensively in Europe, Asia and the US.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

How can emerging franchise concepts can gain traction?
What do brand’s need to have in place before considering to grow?
How can brand’s grow their concept quickly with the right franchisees?
Other than WOM, what are some other recommended tactics to drive leads?

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, 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 that’s SeoSamba.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Morven Groves and she is with 10 Point Capital. Welcome.

Morven Groves: [00:00:44] Thanks very much for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about 10. capital. How are you serving, folks?

Morven Groves: [00:00:51] Absolutely. So at Ten Point Capital, we focus on investing in franchise. We’re looking for brands the potential to become dominant nationally. So oftentimes we’re investing with brands. Their founder leads. They’ve proven themselves in their home state. They’ve probably gone to a few adjacent states. And now really, it’s just a question of scaling. So that’s the kind of businesses that we work with as a team where we like to think of ourselves as fairly holistic in our understanding of the franchise world. So we’ve invested in over 40 franchise transactions. We’ve been franchisees or seven concepts, and we’ve even worked for four franchise owners. So we really feel like we have an understanding of what it takes to both be a successful franchise or what franchisees need, and then ultimately what it takes to make a franchise or a good investment for private equity group such as ourselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:49] Now do you work primarily with franchises that are B, the C B to be a mixture?

Morven Groves: [00:01:56] We are mostly mostly B to C, not for any. Particular preference, and in a sense, it depends how you define that, so we currently have two restaurant chains in our portfolio and slim chickens, which is a better chicken QSR. There are about a hundred and thirty five locations. We have walk on sports bistro. That’s another restaurant chain. They just opened their 60th location and then we have Phenix Salon Suites, which is essentially we work for beauty professionals. So if you’re a franchisee, you’re really a landlord and you’re renting space to beauty professionals. So to be to be clear on whether it’s B to C, B to to B, it really is a slightly complicated question in the board.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:44] And then so you’re just are you looking at franchise doors of a certain size before you get involved? Like, do they have to have some sort of escape velocity or are you kind of launching brand new brands?

Morven Groves: [00:02:57] Typically not launching brand new brands, probably the sweet spot for us is a brand that’s cash flow positive or on the verge of it, where they’ve got significant number of locations enough that, you know, the concept works. It might still need some tweaks, but you can see that it’s not just the the the local Arkansas concept. It’s, you know, in the case of a brand like slim chickens, that it really does have national national appeal. So we’re we’re coming in at that point where the proven the brand, but it’s about scaling.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:30] So what are some kind of elements you’re looking for when you see a brand that you go, Hey, this is going to be a good fit for ten point capital?

Morven Groves: [00:03:38] Absolutely. So for us, we believe it starts with strong unit economics. It’s quite possible to sell franchises, but they have to work, and that’s the only thing that is going to make a franchise or endure. And so we really need to understand the franchise economics. We spent a ton of time up front as we look at investments, understanding the units that work, the units that don’t work, why they don’t work and what really the model is. And so that’s that is the first thing for us. The second piece is really understanding how they they think about their relationships with franchisees. Growing a franchise is a partnership, and so you want franchisees who are supportive of your brand to talk well about your brand to future franchisees. And so we really want to see franchise owners who understand that. A key to success here is putting in place a support that your franchisees need to to grow in and survive. So that’s that’s a huge piece for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:47] Now regarding unit economics, are there are certain metrics you’re looking for the guy to hit a certain percentage of sales or recurring or year over year. Like what are kind of the metrics that matter to you?

Morven Groves: [00:05:00] We look a lot at the investment costs of what’s the out of pocket cost for the franchisee. And then we’re looking at. The returns they can get, so how long does it take them to get their money back? I agree investment for us is one with a three to one investment ratio. That’s that’s kind of where we look. But I mean, that’s that’s a fantastic investment that probably puts you in the top five to 10 percent of of franchise brands. So that’s a that’s a pretty high bar.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:29] Now, as part of you know, when you’re working with brands, is is part of your relationship, obviously is investing money, capital, things like that. But you know, for a a person who has talked to a lot of VCs and investment, they’re smart money and dumb money like money just for the sake of money is OK, but money with connections and skills and and tools that help me grow or better is that more along the lines of what Ten point Capital offers?

Morven Groves: [00:06:04] That’s definitely our approach. We we probably do one deal every 12 to 18 months, and that’s very deliberate. We want to have the time to partner with the brands that we invest in and to really help them grow. It would be rare that we’re not talking to our our franchise or brand partners. Daily might even be multiple times a day. We like to think of ourselves as alongside them, helping them to scale and grow, helping them figure out who they need to add to the team. What areas of the the organization perhaps needs some some additional investments or some additional partners to help them to find the right vendor or or the right third party to help in that area. So we spend an awful lot of time working with our with our companies, and I think that’s where our background really helps because we have been there. You I’ve I’ve been there trying to get permits from the city. I understand that pain and I understand that only so much of that is under your control. But I also understand that once you have those in hand, you can be very systematic about how long it takes to then open your unit so. And I’m, you know, set yourself milestones along the way, and so that that really is where we can get into the details in a way that perhaps someone who’s not as familiar with the franchise space might struggle.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:31] Now, if you don’t mind, do you mind sharing some advice for these emerging brands that are out there that maybe they’re not ready for you, but maybe they will be if they implement some of this advice? What are some of the kind of I mean, this is the beauty of your organization and your team is you. You’ve seen a lot of case studies in real life and not hypotheticals. You’ve got scar tissue and you’ve have successes and failures, so you have a lot of key learnings that you can share. So do you mind sharing some of this with emerging brands, just general brand growth conversation? A little bit.

Morven Groves: [00:08:10] So what? And oftentimes we we start talking to the brands we invest in several years before we actually invest. We love that we will love forming the relationships early on and watching the brand grow. Walk ons is a great example of that. We probably started talking to the team there two years before we invested. At the time, they might have been 15 units. As I said, they’ve just opened their 60th. So we like to follow them along that journey. What what we like to understand is how does the leadership team think about the brand and growing it? And that’s along a few dimensions. So what what is the brand’s differentiation from competition? What is the culture they’re trying to build that’s ultimately going to be what differentiates you? And we want to understand how you’re distinctive. I think the other piece that’s good to see is when brands are investing with the understanding of what it takes to be a great franchisor, so they might be putting in place some senior people before before they have enough franchisees, that that’s truly justified. They might be putting in place really good operations manuals, very clear brand standards. They’re just. Thinking of where they will be. 18 months down the line from where they are at that point in time. And that’s because that’s what differentiates great franchise laws from from many others that they’ve really thought about. I am now going to be supporting my franchisees in growth so I can sell franchises. But once those guys open, I need them to be truly successful, so. I think just really understanding what it’s going to take to be successful over time is is a critical part for a smaller, smaller franchisor.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:02] Yeah, I think that transition can be difficult for some folks going from the mentality of, you know, I’ve got to make one more chicken sandwich, how do I do that and turn into this kind of sales and training company? It’s a different or different business, really completely.

Morven Groves: [00:10:18] And that’s why a lot of brands aren’t suited to franchising. It’s a very different skill sets and mindset to. Supports others in running your brand and also to attract franchisees, so to to sell versus owning and operating units. Totally different skill set. Obviously, there’s there’s things to learn from both, but you need to be prepared to step back and be in that support and guidance role as a franchisor.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:51] Now is your role sometimes to install kind of a new CEO of the organization in terms of, OK, they’re in charge of really the franchise. You know, somebody founded it and got it off the ground, but now you need more of a CEO, manager type person to run the this new enterprise.

Morven Groves: [00:11:11] It really depends on on the concept. So I’ll take a few, for example, so Tropical Smoothie Cafe was one of our investments. We extended that last fall to live in Lincoln Capital Partners, where we are. In fact, the founder of Tropical Smoothie Cafe is an operating partner with 10. Capital Forever. After our investment, he was ready to take a role on the board rather than running the company. And so they added a CEO and Charles Watson is the current CEO there at Slim Chickens, another one of our investments. One of the founders, Tim Garden, is still the CEO and walk ons. Brendan Landry is the CEO. But we have a president that he brought in before we invested, who takes on a lot of the day to day operational. Pieces as well. And then Phenix on suites is is a little bit of a mix on that front, the founders Gina and Jason are still very involved. But we also have Brian Kelly there as our our CEO. So it really depends on what the founder wants to do. We don’t have any preconceived notions on what that would would typically amount to. And I think that’s that’s just typical of how we approach investments. It’s it’s a partnership. And so we spend a lot of time talking before investing with the with the founders about what they want and what they want over time.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:48] Well, that’s great, because it is a partnership, and that’s important for the the founder in the organ and the organization to decide, OK, what what outcome do I desire? And then in certain cases, you know, that way you’re both getting what you want out of this and it’s eyes wide open. Exactly. Now any advice for that emerging franchise or to help them attract the right franchisee because there just seems to be so many tactics when it comes to growing your franchise brand and getting leads in there and just you want to get the right folks, especially at the beginning, I would imagine that’s like critical because they’re the ones that are going to be telling the story to the next folks.

Morven Groves: [00:13:34] Absolutely, and figuring out who the right franchisee is for your concept can be a journey for a new franchise laws. So there’s some basics that I would say most people understand the financial qualifications relative its investments. There’s probably also just the mindset or the cultural fits. There there’s this kind of open question of what experience does the franchisee need to have? So take Phenix and Suites, for example. Should the owners be hairstylists who want to to own a bigger business? We find over time that that’s probably not the best profile of franchisee for or that brand that is typically a business professional. They may even have another another job. And so there’s it’s defining that really, really matters. As you think about how to grow.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:33] So now what is kind of that white boarding meeting look like when you’re discussing this with your clients? How are you determining, OK, this works. This is obvious. Maybe they’re not. Maybe this person is the right fit and it isn’t obvious. How do you kind of like, do you have any exercises that you work through to identify that ideal franchisee?

Morven Groves: [00:14:58] Typically, we look at historical units, so that’s part of why I say we when we invest, they tend to be brands that are proven in a few different markets and then we sit down with the management team and go unit by units and we understand the quality of the location. The the weather, the market is a good fit for that brand. And when I say location, it’s the market, but it’s also things like ingress and egress. It can be very specific. We’re also looking at who are the franchisee partners who. What was their? What was their history beforehand in the case of some chickens, for example? We find that QSR. But franchisees have sought concepts for other brands, make really good. Franchises for some chickens, but initially we had some casual dining franchises and they weren’t necessarily as good a fit. And so we’ve we’ve changed who we’re looking for in that profile over time.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:02] And that’s just part of I mean, that’s just good business, right? That’s just as you evolved, you become clearer on who’s the right fit and who’s the wrong fit and then you can, you know, react accordingly.

Morven Groves: [00:16:14] Absolutely. It’s course correcting as you go.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:17] Now for you, what’s the most rewarding part of the job? Haven’t been in franchising for so long and then being on this side of the table. The winds may feel different.

Morven Groves: [00:16:29] I think it’s some level. For me, it’s always the relationships. So I love seeing. Brands grew I love seeing the teams grow, the people on the teams advance in their positions and their responsibilities, and that’s that’s the super thing about working with fast growing brands the way that we do. You really see them transforming people’s lives. It can be a restaurant server who becomes a training manager who ultimately takes on the responsibility for a section of the operations team. So it’s really exciting to see that, and that’s very rewarding for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:10] Now is part of the council. You’re offering your clients or your partners help when it comes to employees because this seems to be a really challenging time for a lot of folks when it comes to attracting the right folks or maybe moving to some automation where they hadn’t had it before. Is this part of kind of the the things you bring to the table?

Morven Groves: [00:17:38] We’re probably less involved. And that made we certainly have all the conversations about labor and hiring. That said, our franchise or partners are running the business day to day, and they’ve all built really strong cultures within their company. And I think are doing a great job of translating that down to their franchisees. So truthfully, they’re they’re better at doing that than we will ever be.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:06] So you’re you’re giving them resources and advice as they needed, but ultimately you’re partnering with brands that probably are already doing a pretty good job in this area. Absolutely. So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Morven Groves: [00:18:24] We just love hearing from people who are building great concepts and looking to grow. That’s as I said, we’re happy to talk a long time before you’re even considering. Speaking on a financial partner, we love to see the brands grow and we love to build those relationships and to start learning how you think and. For us to start that, that kind of dating relationship in a sense. But that’s that’s really where we. We love to partner.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:55] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success you’re doing. Important work and we appreciate you. Thank you so much. Now, if somebody wants to learn more about Ten point capital, what’s the website

Morven Groves: [00:19:08] At 10. Capital dot com?

Lee Kantor: [00:19:10] And that’s the number.

Morven Groves: [00:19:11] That’s the number

Lee Kantor: [00:19:11] 10, right? One zero point pointy capital capital. Yes. Well, thank you again for sharing your story.

Morven Groves: [00:19:23] Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:24] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Carolyn Kopf With C.E.K. & Partners

December 13, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

GWBC Radio

Carolyn Kopf With C.E.K. & Partners

00:00 /

In 2008, Carolyn Kopf had been around the world—NYC, Boston, Madrid and Tokyo—working at top global agencies like Young & Rubicam, Arnold Communications, and Euro RSCG.

After moving to Atlanta while interviewing during the great recession of 2008, she started consulting. Upon the successful completion of several contracts, she saw the opportunity to establish a company to help businesses extend their expertise and capacity and thus C.E.K. & Partners was established.

C.E.K. & Partners, based in Atlanta is a woman-owned market research, branding and marketing agency that offers the following core services: market research, brand strategy, brand purpose, content marketing, creative design & web development. Today she manages a team of 14 across these core areas.

Today, the company continues to provide expertise and capacity to our clients.

They bring their clients big agency expertise with the heart and soul of a small marketing agency. Their clients are their top priority staffed with senior experts

Connect with Carolyn on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Benefits of conducting market research
Planning for market research
When to consider a rebrand for company/product/solution

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for GWBC Radio’s Open for Business. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of GWBC Open for Business, and this show is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Carolyn Kopf with C.E.K and Partners. Welcome, Carolyn.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:00:30] Thank you, Lee. I’m so excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Well, I’m excited that you’re here and I’m excited to learn what do folks at C.E.K. and Partners are doing. Share with us a little bit about how you’re serving folks.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:00:42] Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we’re here based in Atlanta as a woman-owned market research, branding, and marketing agency. So, what that means is, we help clients gather data to understand their customers and their marketplace develop brand strategy, and we do content marketing. So, we’ve got a team that supports clients as far as Australia to as close as down the street here in Midtown.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:12] Now, what’s kind of the genesis of the idea? How did you get involved in market research and the work that you’re doing?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:01:19] Sure. Absolutely. I started out on Madison Avenue. So, really, that’s my professional background, is, helping brands better communicate with their customers. And in order to do that, you have to understand them, so market research is a natural fit.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:38] Do you find that organizations are leveraging market research as much as they should?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:01:44] You know, that’s interesting because it’s really a mixed situation. Some companies just can’t get enough of the data and insights about their customers. And others want to skip that step and don’t realize how expensive it is to fail and not have the right information.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:06] So, if you’re an organization that maybe hasn’t leaned into market research enough, can you kind of share the pros and cons of kind of leaning into market research?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:02:15] Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, really, it informs business strategy, so it can really help a company get the right data and information to change their strategic direction and actually put them on the right course versus basing decisions on their gut or opinions. So, again, that leads into avoiding mistakes. Ninety-five percent of new product launches fail, that’s a stat from Harvard Business School. That’s expensive. I mean, product launches are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. And that could be avoided through making a comparatively small investment in market research.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:03:03] And then, I think the third piece is, it really offers credibility. So, if a board asks a marketing team why they made a decision, they can point to data and a real credible rationale versus, “Oh. It felt good” or “We wanted to go this direction.” So, it really offers credibility.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:26] So, now, on that stat of 90 percent of the launches failing, and everybody’s heard about, you know, 80, 90 percent of businesses failing, are those businesses that hadn’t done any market research or are those just businesses in general? So, even if they had done market research, there’s still a high probability of failing. But with market research, you’re kind of increasing your odds of success.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:03:50] With market research, absolutely, you are increasing your odds of success. It’s already challenging enough, to your point, to launch a new product or service. And if you have the right information, you’re going to increase the odds of success.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:09] Now, for some folks, though, they are afraid to take action. And this sounds like something that might make them feel more comfortable taking action because they have more research and statistics that kind of back an action to take. But how do you kind of work with your clients to not use research or kind of doing this research to kind of stall instead of taking an action?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:04:38] That’s a great question, Lee. I think part of it is, you know, research doesn’t have to be time consuming. I mean, we’re talking about a 12 week investment. Whereas, a product launch or repositioning project, that could be 18 months that a company is investing. And if they don’t take that initial 12 weeks to get smart, then they’re wasting 12 months of their time basing it on hunches and opinions, and that’s where the risk is.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:14] Now, is there kind of a right and a wrong way to do research? Like, I could see people feeling confident, like, “Oh, we’re doing research, so then this is going to glean that insight that we need.” But sometimes isn’t it difficult to really ask the right questions so you’re getting the right information so you can make these informed decisions? So, you need to partner with somebody who has kind of been there and done that when it comes to research, not just kind of getting in a room and saying, “Hey, let’s ask these six questions and see what people say.”

Carolyn Kopf: [00:05:46] You know, that’s a really great reminder for our listeners, is that, certainly, asking the right questions matters. The questions you ask are the answers you’re going to get. So, if you’re not asking the right questions, you’re not getting the right answers. So, certainly, we always counsel our clients to definitely identify what do you want to accomplish with your business objectives? And what do you need to learn from research to close your knowledge gap?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:06:19] And then, from there, there’s other areas and pitfalls that those who don’t have research expertise need to avoid. Everything from who participates in the research, do you have the right people involved to answer those questions? Do those people know who’s sponsoring the research? Does that matter? Because if they are a customer, they know that you’re sponsoring the research. They may just agree with everything you’re saying because they want to be polite or respectful.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:07:00] But when you bring in a third party, you can have the research be blind or you provide an objective conversation because the participants aren’t trying to please the moderator or who the survey is sponsored by. So, there’s all sorts of areas to fall down outside of asking the right questions.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:22] Now, even using the phrase market research, is that something that has changed over time? Like, I remember there was a period of time, like, when focus groups and people would come in person in a room, and there would be a moderator, and they’d ask questions in the group. Dynamic would come into play, and that would be a way to glean research. And then, now, you hear so much stuff about polling where people are calling, nobody’s on the phone anymore. So, that’s not really getting the right people to ask any of the questions. And to your point, they could be just saying yes just to get me off the phone so it can be done. How has kind of, you know, research changed over the years? And where are we at today in this regard?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:08:04] Well, certainly, I’ll tell you where we are today, because those are the techniques that are going to matter to our listeners. Really, what we’re seeing, we’re still, unfortunately, navigating wearing masks depending on the market you’re in and these different situations.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:08:25] So, the role of digital and virtual techniques has really advanced in the past five years. We have techniques where, of course, online surveys. You can be anywhere any time of day and complete an online survey, whether you’re on your computer or you’re on your mobile phone. So, those are fantastic and a tried and true technique.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:08:49] Of course, focus groups, that you mentioned, are still a fantastic way to gather information and to complement an online survey. And we’ve got great ways to do that virtually. The platforms that are available, whether it’s Zoom or Proprietary One to bring people together online for focus groups has really taken off in the past two years, as you can imagine.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:09:14] But, of course, there’s other techniques. When you think about social media and how we all may use these different platforms, market research has started to come up with some proprietary tools that look and feel similar to social media, and they’re called bulletin boards, they’re virtual bulletin boards. So, again, people can go in, they can interact with one of our moderators, they can interact with other like-minded participants invited into the research study. So, there are some really great tools out there now that are heavily digital and virtual.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:57] Now, you mentioned that some of the services you provide include rebranding. Are there kind of some signals for a company to pay attention to when it comes to rebranding? Like, just because I’m bored of my brand doesn’t mean my customer is bored of my brand. Can you kind of inform our listeners about that, like when is kind of the time to rebrand or consider rebranding?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:10:23] You know, I’m glad you brought that up because, obviously, research is a critical component to a rebrand. But like you said, how do you know if you need to rebrand? If you answer no to some of these following questions, you probably need to rebrand. Do you know your customer’s current attitudes and behaviors towards your brand and the category of solutions you offer? Another question would be, can you clearly articulate how your brand is special, better, and different from your competitors? If you answer no, you probably need to rebrand to work on that.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:11:03] And then, a third question I’ll share is, do you have a brand story and messaging that effectively connects and engages with your buyers and your prospective buyers? If not, you probably need to rebrand so that you can create that.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:21] So, if I answered in a way that it said, “You know what? Maybe I should be considering rebranding,” is this something that is super hard or is it something that takes, like, a year? What is kind of the steps to a rebrand?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:11:41] Yeah. I think that’s a really important question. And there’s often so many interpretations of a rebrand. So, when we think about a rebrand, we think of it as a complete overhaul. Think about gutting your house and working with an architect on designing new plans and room layouts, that would be a rebrand. Whereas, a brand refresh, you’ll leverage existing brand assets, you know, the colors, the logo. And that would be more similar to updating your kitchen. You’re replacing some countertop tile, backsplash, changing the cabinet colors. So, that would be a brand refresh.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:12:21] If our listeners really need to undertake a true rebrand, they would start with discovery. Getting smart, getting the information they need about understanding the perceptions of their brand, understanding their competitors, and understanding their customers. And then, from there, once they have that intelligence, it’s possible to articulate a brand strategy. Those key components of how are you going to compete? What is your story? What is the messaging that you want to consistently put out into the public realm?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:13:04] Once you have those pieces, you can then work on the step that everyone wants to get to, bringing the brand to life visually with those creative concepts of what will it look like. So, those are really the three core steps to summarize at a very high level.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:22] Because a rebrand isn’t just changing the name, right?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:13:26] That would be a renaming. And, certainly, that can prompt a rebrand, but you can rebrand your company and not change the name. Maybe the rebrand, you change the logo, the look, the feel, the positioning, and the messaging.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:45] So, like Netflix, Netflix was sending you DVDs in the mail and now Netflix is a streaming service. It’s still Netflix, but it’s really a different brand.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:13:56] Yeah. It’s repositioned itself as it now has different offerings that are broader than when we used to get those in our mailbox. Absolutely. That’s a great example.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:09] Now, another service you mentioned was content, and for a lot of folks they think they’re creating content, and they might be, but they may not be creating thought leadership. Can you kind of explain the difference between the two and how you help folks kind of elevate their content into the positioning of thought leadership?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:14:30] Absolutely. I mean, I think what’s important about creating content is, we are in a digital first era. You need to be creating content. And you need to be creating different types of content. Really, you’re developing content and blog posts that are going to support search engine optimization. Ensuring that your brand shows up when someone searches in Google for the types of services or products that you offer. Lead generation content to support moving prospects through that journey. Or, just educating existing customers and the industry through virtual or in-person trade shows.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:15:13] But the difference with content that promotes a product or a solution, it’s very focused on the company. Whereas, when you develop content to establish thought leadership, you may not be referencing directly your own solutions or products. But you’re purely forward thinking and thought provoking to show that you’re looking ahead, whether it’s a couple of years out, you’re focusing on trends and the future landscape. But why should you do this? It’s important to really reinforce that your company is a leader and not just pushing products and solutions. But they’re really looking ahead and understand the industry and category.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:05] Now, when you’re working with your clients in this regard, are the people that are doing this kind of thought leadership, content creation, are they only the leaders or is this something that can permeate the entire organization?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:16:17] Oh, absolutely. This is something that should be for the organization, the leaders. It’s really about positioning the organization. Some organizations may have leadership attribute their name to the content, but it’s not necessary in order to reinforce a company’s position of leadership in their industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:42] I would think this is an interesting way for organizations to really keep their employees by positioning them as thought leaders. They’re establishing them as kind of the go-to folks for that area of expertise, which could help keep that employee around the organization longer because they’re helping them become kind of the best them they can be.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:17:05] Absolutely. I think that’s a great reminder that it really positions different individuals as experts while still positioning the company in that role. The other piece is, it’s not just for supporting – certainly, it supports lead generation and business development – but it also validates existing customers and why they’re working with a company of, “Oh, I’m working with them. They know what they’re talking about. They’re the experts.” So, like you said, there’s quite a few ways to leverage this to improve the company.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:41] So, now, in your work, is there a story you can share of maybe doing in the framework of kind of a before and after company that you were working with? They had a challenge. You were able to come in and help them overcome that challenge and then take them to a new level. Obviously, don’t name the name of the organization but explain the problem they had and how you helped them solve it.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:18:04] Yeah. Absolutely. Gosh, I mean, there’s so many examples that it’s hard to choose. But I’ll pick one that is probably a simple and relevant example for today. In supply chain today, there’s really this need to move towards networks that are digitized. So, if a beverage company is moving soda, the supply chain company can say, “Hey, you know what? That truck load is in Atlanta, Georgia. The delivery is happening in a few hours or days, or whatever it might be.”

Carolyn Kopf: [00:18:46] So, when we work with companies that provide that type of technology, it’s often easy to get lost in the text and specs of the type of network, the capabilities, and features for containers, devices, and people to connect and talk to each other, if you will. Instead of elevating to a higher level – which is where we come in – we tell a bigger story. Really positioning for leadership around optimization and sustainability, and helping the company get out of the weeds with the text and specs. So, that’s been a real, wonderful example where we can just elevate a company to reposition them. You know, getting them away from making the containers, making the devices, but that end benefit of optimization and visibility.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:44] And then, working with an agency like yours to take kind of the mundane to them, the day-to-day stuff that they might be taking for granted that they do, and they have a storyteller like you and your team to come behind it and make it real and tangible and visceral, that can make all the difference in an organization.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:20:04] Absolutely. And I think that we talk about – I mean, just how you mentioned earlier – connecting and engaging the employees. I mean, when they have a bigger story of why they’re at the company and what the company is accomplishing, it increases productivity engagement satisfaction as well as clarifies for customers and prospective customers the offering and why organizations should be working with them.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:34] And it goes full circle back to the research where, when you have clarity of information and knowledge, then you’re able to make better decisions.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:20:45] I think that’s a great way to bring it back to the research. Absolutely. It all starts with getting the information, getting that intelligence to provide the clarity.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:56] Now, what was kind of the impetus for you and your team to get involved with GWBC? Why was it important for you to join their community?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:21:06] Absolutely. Well, you know, we are a woman-owned business, and we have been for – gosh – 12 or 13 years. We just recently completed the exhaustive audit to be properly certified, because we’re seeing more and more Fortune 1000 companies want to work with diverse suppliers. And so, really being part of this community has helped us navigate those conversations and how we can support companies with meeting their objectives while also growing our business and getting our team projects that they’re excited to work on.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:47] Well, Carolyn, congratulations on all the success. If there is a prospect out there or somebody who wants to learn more about your agency or your team or you, is there a website they can go to?

Carolyn Kopf: [00:22:02] Yes. Our website is C as in Cat-E as in Edward-K as in Kite, and that’s partners.com. So, it’s cekpartners.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:14] Well, Carolyn, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Carolyn Kopf: [00:22:20] Thank you so much, Lee. I’ve enjoyed this.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:22] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on GWBC Radio.

About GWBC

The Greater Women’s Business Council (GWBC®) is at the forefront of redefining women business enterprises (WBEs). An increasing focus on supplier diversity means major corporations are viewing our WBEs as innovative, flexible and competitive solutions. The number of women-owned businesses is rising to reflect an increasingly diverse consumer base of women making a majority of buying decision for herself, her family and her business.

GWBC^® has partnered with dozens of major companies who are committed to providing a sustainable foundation through our guiding principles to bring education, training and the standardization of national certification to women businesses in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Decision Vision Episode 146: Should I Hold a Corporate Retreat? – An Interview with Jared Kleinert, Offsite

December 9, 2021 by John Ray

Decision Vision

Decision Vision Episode 146: Should I Hold a Corporate Retreat? - An Interview with Jared Kleinert, Offsite

00:00 /

Decision Vision Episode 146: Should I Hold a Corporate Retreat? – An Interview with Jared Kleinert, Offsite

Amid seismic shifts in the labor market and the ways people work, Jared Kleinert, Co-Founder and CEO of Offsite, joined host Mike Blake to consider what it means to have a corporate retreat in today’s world. Jared’s company, Offsite, creates retreats which engage employees and create measurable ROI for the companies they work for. Jared and Mike discuss what makes a great retreat, how often companies should have a retreat, work vs. fun retreats, and much more. Decision Vision is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Offsite

With Offsite, you don’t need to be an event planner to execute a transformational retreat.

Whether you’re the Co-Founder, Chief of Staff, Head of People, Executive Assistant, or another leader at your company, Offsite is here to help you bring out the best in your team.

Planning a team retreat? Offsite saves you time, money, and stress. They help you choose the perfect venue, plan an agenda that engages your employees, and generate measurable ROI on your Offsites. All in one place.

Company website | LinkedIn

Jared Kleinert, Co-Founder and CEO, Offsite

Jared Kleinert is the Co-Founder/CEO of Offsite, which helps you plan the perfect team retreat. Previously, he was one of the first 10 employees at 15Five, a leading B2B SaaS company powering over 40,000 teams to bring out the best in their people. Jared is also a TED speaker, award-winning author, and USA Today’s “Most Connected Millennial” who has personally facilitated Offsites for Fortune 1000 global executive teams, started companies ranging from a marketing consulting firm to a series of high-end summits for entrepreneurs, and more. To learn about Offsite, please visit www.joinoffsite.com.

Mike Blake, Brady Ware & Company

**Mike Blake, Host of the “Decision Vision” podcast serie**s

Michael Blake is the host of the Decision Vision podcast series and a Director of Brady Ware & Company. Mike specializes in the valuation of intellectual property-driven firms, such as software firms, aerospace firms, and professional services firms, most frequently in the capacity as a transaction advisor, helping clients obtain great outcomes from complex transaction opportunities. He is also a specialist in the appraisal of intellectual properties as stand-alone assets, such as software, trade secrets, and patents.

Mike has been a full-time business appraiser for 13 years with public accounting firms, boutique business appraisal firms, and an owner of his own firm. Prior to that, he spent 8 years in venture capital and investment banking, including transactions in the U.S., Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Brady Ware & Company

Brady Ware & Company is a regional full-service accounting and advisory firm which helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality. Brady Ware services clients nationally from its offices in Alpharetta, GA; Columbus and Dayton, OH; and Richmond, IN. The firm is growth-minded, committed to the regions in which they operate, and most importantly, they make significant investments in their people and service offerings to meet the changing financial needs of those they are privileged to serve. The firm is dedicated to providing results that make a difference for its clients.

Decision Vision Podcast Series

Decision Vision is a podcast covering topics and issues facing small business owners and connecting them with solutions from leading experts. This series is presented by Brady Ware & Company. If you are a decision-maker for a small business, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at decisionvision@bradyware.com and make sure to listen to every Thursday to the Decision Vision podcast.

Past episodes of Decision Vision can be found at decisionvisionpodcast.com. Decision Vision is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Connect with Brady Ware & Company:

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast series focusing on critical business decisions. Brought to you by Brady Ware & Company. Brady Ware is a regional full-service accounting and advisory firm that helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality.

Mike Blake: [00:00:22] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast giving you, the listener, clear vision to make great decisions. In each episode, we discuss the process of decision making on a different topic from the business owners’ or executives’ perspective. We aren’t necessarily telling you what to do, but we can put you in a position to make an informed decision on your own and understand when you might need help along the way.

Mike Blake: [00:00:44] My name is Mike Blake, and I’m your host for today’s program. I’m a director at Brady Ware and Company, a full-service accounting firm based in Dayton, Ohio, with offices in Dayton; Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Indiana; and Alpharetta, Georgia. My practice specializes in providing fact-based strategic and risk management advice to clients that are buying, selling, or growing the value of companies and their intellectual property. Brady Ware is sponsoring this podcast, which is being recorded in Atlanta per social distancing protocols.

Mike Blake: [00:01:13] If you would like to engage with me on social media with my Chart of the Day and other content, I’m on LinkedIn as myself and @unblakeable on Facebook, Twitter, Clubhouse, and Instagram. I also recently launched a new LinkedIn group called A Group That Doesn’t Suck, so please join that as well if you would like to engage. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast aggregator and please consider leaving a review of the podcast as well.

Mike Blake: [00:01:39] Today’s topic is, Should I hold a corporate retreat? And the timing of this is very interesting because, up until very recently for the last year-and-a-half, almost two years, having a corporate retreat was probably a preposterous question. Or if you did hold a corporate retreat, it would look pretty weird with a bunch of people on Zoom meetings, I’m guessing, or Zoom screens or whatnot. But, of course, now as the Delta variant subsides, and who knows what variant is coming past that in our trans-pandemic period, corporate retreats are back on the menu again.

Mike Blake: [00:02:15] And, boy, do companies have a lot to talk about. Since the last time companies have done their retreats, this thing called digital transformation has happened, we’ve seen a seismic, I think, fundamental shift in how labor and society relate to one another in our country and in our economy. And the very nature of leadership and the very nature of what we even think is productivity is being at least reevaluated, if not outright being called into question.

Mike Blake: [00:02:50] Interestingly, corporate retreats can have a bad rep. For example, there is a story in allbusiness.com that spoke of – and it’s in 2008 – while the Great Recession was underway and after immediately receiving bailout money, AIG executives spent over $400,000 on a corporate retreat hosted at the luxurious St. Regis Resort and Spa in Monarch Beach, California, it was reported that the executives treated themselves to over $150,000 in food alone in only one week. That’s a lot of avocado tacos, man.

Mike Blake: [00:03:27] And I do think that there’s a little bit of branding to overcome and, first of all, talk about. I don’t know that you could be much more tone deaf than that. But, nevertheless, I do think that, to some extent, corporate retreats do bear some of that stigma that they’re not necessarily as productive. They can be more of a boondoggle. And so, it’s important to get that right.

Mike Blake: [00:03:54] Now, in fairness, I’ve been on some corporate retreats which have been fantastic. And it’s something that I need to do for my group, I think, sooner rather than later. So, I plan to learn a lot from this conversation. And as I often do with the Decision Vision podcast, really, is simply disguised mooching to get some free advice under the auspices of giving somebody some publicity.

Mike Blake: [00:04:20] So, I like to welcome back to the podcast Jared Kleinert. He came back on, I think, he’s one of the first 30 or 40 people who came on the podcast, so it’s fun to have him back. And he has a new venture, he is Cofounder and CEO of a company called Offsite, which helps you plan the perfect team retreat. Previously, Jared was one of the first ten employees of 15Five, a leading B2B SaaS company, powering over 40,000 teams to bring out the best in their people.

Mike Blake: [00:04:52] Jared is also a TED speaker, award-winning author, and USA Today’s Most Connected Millennial, who has personally facilitated offsites for Fortune 1000 global executive teams, started companies ranging from a marketing consulting firm to a series of high end summits for entrepreneurs, and more. To learn about Offsite, visit www.joinoffsite.com. They are the easiest way to plan, manage, and follow up after team retreats and other offsite meetings. They help you choose the perfect venue, offer a detailed agenda that will increase employee engagement, and generate measurable return on investment from your offsites all in one place.

Mike Blake: [00:05:30] And their clients include some of the hottest seed and Series A venture backed startups, Inc. 5000 companies, Y Combinator backed teams, venture capital firms. They’re crushing it as we would expect from Jared because he’s a crush it kind of guy. He’s a power hitter. Jared Kleinert, welcome back to the program.

Jared Kleinert: [00:05:51] Thanks for having me back.

Mike Blake: [00:05:53] So, we talked a little bit before we started the program, I mean, you’re doing well, obviously. It seems like every day you’re posting about a new client and a new success story with offsite retreats – I presume offsite retreats. So, congratulations for your success there.

Jared Kleinert: [00:06:13] Thank you.

Mike Blake: [00:06:15] So, let’s start off, you know, and I do think this is important here. It probably seems obvious to a lot of people. But in light of the AIG anecdote that I spoke of at the start of this discussion, I don’t necessarily know that it’s obvious to everybody. So, what is exactly a corporate retreat?

Jared Kleinert: [00:06:34] The way I view it is, the future of work is changing very rapidly. I don’t think anyone would argue that the workforce is decentralizing, just like finance and many other industries, and this has been the trend for the last ten years. When I was at 15Five, I was one of the first ten employees and we were a remote-first company. I was an unpaid intern from South Florida working for this company in Silicon Valley, then I got on payroll. But, you know, team members were zooming in from all over the place and we got to reconnect once a quarter during these offsites.

Jared Kleinert: [00:07:19] And more and more companies have gone remote or hybrid since. The pandemic has pushed us five or ten years into the future, so much so that now Facebook is rebranded to Meta, and Dropbox is creating metaverse stuff now. And so, the future of work is changing very rapidly. And the companies over the last ten years that have built the best remote-first or hybrid company cultures have relied on these things called offsites or team retreats in order to bring their team together, build trust and intimacy, potentially do some strategic planning such as OKRs on a quarterly basis.

Jared Kleinert: [00:08:01] You know, there’s different types of offsites, even internally for your team. And regardless of how you run your offsites, it’s important more now than ever to get everyone together in-person when 330 plus days of the year we’re at home or we’re working from wherever we want, and we might be lonely, we might be disengaged, we might be looking for other job opportunities.

Jared Kleinert: [00:08:27] And so, what used to be something that the most well-funded startups in Silicon Valley are doing is now becoming essential for any remote-first company to do. And not just to do it once a year, but to do it, perhaps, quarterly, I would argue, to have different types of offsites for the entire team once a year and all-hands meeting, executive team meetings, a sales team meeting, perhaps some client facing offsites where you’re treating your most valuable clients to an overnight stay or two nights.

Jared Kleinert: [00:09:00] We haven’t gone into the corporate retreats that you started with as far as stereotyping, like golf outings and doing a lot of enterprise stuff quite yet. We’ve been working with fast growing startups and Inc. 5000, primarily. But there is a huge opportunity to go into corporate as well to take the offsites that are already happening and just make them more transformational, make them higher ROI than, maybe, what the tone deaf story you shared is.

Jared Kleinert: [00:09:31] So, yeah, it’s something that companies have been doing for a while. It’s only increasing in terms of urgency as systems are breaking when companies have been forced to go remote. And it was already hard to run a company now to run a remote-first company and keep people engaged and performing is really hard. So, offsites are one tool in the remote-first company toolkit that a CEO can bring out to re-engage their team.

Mike Blake: [00:10:00] So, I mean, I get the name of your company is Offsite, but companies have held retreats onsite. Let me rephrase the question this way, I mean, clearly you believe that offsite retreats are more effective, at least I think so or you wouldn’t be doing this. If that’s the case, why is it more effective to have retreats offsite versus on? Or am I putting words in your mouth? Maybe I’m saying that’s not true.

Jared Kleinert: [00:10:30] I don’t think it matters where you do your retreat, necessarily. The fact is that more companies are giving up their offices or their sites now more than ever. Or they’re giving up their big headquarters.

Mike Blake: [00:10:42] There’s no site to have it on.

Jared Kleinert: [00:10:44] Yeah. There are smaller regional sites, and so it may very well be that you need to actually bring everyone onsite. But, now, your workforce has left one city and they’ve gone to other cities, other countries. A lot of our clients that were signing on have team members that have been hired in the last two years and haven’t met their colleagues. And so, the place you have your offsite is less important.

Jared Kleinert: [00:11:09] To me, it’s more about having the intention to get everyone together, making the financial investment, but also really the investment of everyone’s time, collective billable hours, creating an agenda that engenders trust and intimacy, and then leveraging that trust and intimacy to accomplish your business goals. And, again, that could be learning and development, that could be simply getting some Facetime with each other if you haven’t seen each other ever, and that could lead to more trust or better cross department collaboration. It could be strategic planning. It could be thanking your clients. Again, there’s a million reasons to have an offsite, but it’s building trust and intimacy and then leveraging that for your business goals.

Jared Kleinert: [00:11:59] And the last time I was on your show, you know, we were talking about Meeting of the Minds, which is my other company. And it’s basically what we’re doing, is, we’re doing a meeting of the minds for other companies now. And so, I’ve been doing this for a while. My cofounder, Keir, owns a bunch of hotels, and so he’s approaching this from a hospitality angle, you know, taking care of the where we’re doing these offsites and making sure hotels can understand the needs of startups and other clients that we’re serving. And we’re just going for it because there’s a need of the market and, you know, we want to solve it.

Mike Blake: [00:12:33] So, sometimes everybody can go on the retreat. Sometimes everybody can’t because it’s just a matter of logistics and finances. In my case, my team is four people, soon to be six, when we have a retreat, we’re all going on. But if you have a company of 30 people, it may not be practical to have a 30 person retreat. It may not be desirable to have a 30 person retreat. But I can also see how that can be a very kind of delicate question to pick who gets on the retreat and who doesn’t, because somebody who’s not picked can read a lot of things into the fact they’re not being picked.

Mike Blake: [00:13:14] That’s a long preamble to the question being, how do you pick who’s going on the retreat? And then, to the extent that you can comment, how do you communicate that to the people that you’re not inviting on that retreat?

Jared Kleinert: [00:13:32] So, the way we think about it, we’re working with the person planning the offsite. And for the size companies and teams that we’re working with, typically, the teams are anywhere from 10 to 500 people right now. And the companies tend to, you know, 1,000 people right now, although we’re quickly exploring working with teams within larger enterprise companies. And the team leader is deciding the objective for the offsite. It could be an all-hands meeting, which means everyone at the company or as many people as possible. And we’re sort of actively planning all-hands meetings for 40 person companies, 100 person companies, and more.

Jared Kleinert: [00:14:23] Then, we’re looking at executive team meetings where it’s typically 8 to 12 people and that’s a C-suite. There is also team meetings for certain departments, so sales teams may want to have their own offsites, engineering teams may want to have their own offsites.

Jared Kleinert: [00:14:42] And so, that’s how we’ve approached it. As we’re evolving our company, we’re starting to talk to higher level people leaders within companies, people that are chief culture officers, chiefs of staff, maybe it’s a co-founder as well. But then, they’re establishing a cadence for offsites where they want to have a regular executive team meeting once a quarter. You know, give the ability for certain departments to have regular offsites and then also have an annual all-hands meeting. So, really the budget that was previously put towards offices, you could argue, being reinvested in these offsites, at least for a lot of VC funded tech companies. And that’s kind of where we’re starting. And so, it’s really up to whoever is planning the offsite.

Jared Kleinert: [00:15:39] One of the first things that we do when we bring on a new client is we give the planner of that offsite a customizable feedback form to actually send to the team. And in that feedback form, we’re getting the basics of travel preferences, blackout dates, if they have personal things like weddings or they’re going on maternity leave and they can’t attend. We ask for dietary preferences, other travel sensitivities. And so, you know, occasionally there are people that can’t make these offsites, but we do encourage the planners of these offsites to think inclusively about who’s attending.

Jared Kleinert: [00:16:19] And then, also, all the details that would make a more inclusive experience from your menu and catering to traveling to locations that are LGBTQ friendly, if you have members of your team that are part of that community. And just thinking holistically about your team, their needs, and what is the best environment for your team. That’s today.

Jared Kleinert: [00:16:43] We’ve also started exploring what hybrid offsites look like, where you have 80 percent of your staff in-person and 20 percent remote, and what are the AV needs that you’re going to need from your meeting space.

Jared Kleinert: [00:16:55] One of our investors is the co-founder and CEO of Convene, which is like a multibillion dollar Wheeler competitor, and they have hybrid solutions that they’re playing around with. I mean, I think in ten years we’ll be doing offsites in the Metaverse as well and doing virtual offsites. We’ll see.

Mike Blake: [00:17:15] So, what about timing? Is it better to hold a retreat during the work week or over a weekend?

Jared Kleinert: [00:17:23] Most of our clients are doing the work week, because to ask people to leave their families during weekends poses all sorts of challenges around child care, around their personal lives, and taking them away from family. And so, I would say 80 percent of our clients are during the week. And then, maybe some client facing offsites, like we have some consulting firms that are hiring us and then looking to do sort of high ticket conferences for a smaller group of clients, they may do a weekend. But some of the programming is inclusive of significant others and spouses and kids, so we can help with that too.

Mike Blake: [00:18:06] Now, do you have a view on whether or not you should hold a retreat in a place that is, I guess for lack of a better term, fun? A lot a lot of conferences, for example, happen in places like Vegas, Orlando, and so forth. Lots of fun things to do, but you can also make the argument there’s a lot of distractions. Versus a place that’s maybe more mundane, which might be a more dedicated conference center or event center that allows you to be more focused. But then, again, it’s not as fun to be in that place. What’s your view in terms of which kind of venue is more suitable for a productive retreat?

Jared Kleinert: [00:18:44] It could be another non-answer, but it really depends on the objectives of the offsite. And so, if you are doing strategic planning where you need everyone’s full undivided attention, perhaps you choose a more secluded environment where you are coming in to work, you get some flex time to workout, call family, take a nap, but otherwise you are there to get things done. Right now, a lot of companies are doing more team building oriented offsites, and so they want to do more “fun”. And then, you may choose cities, environments that lead to more fun.

Jared Kleinert: [00:19:31] There’s also an element of this that is employer marketing. And what I mean by that is, companies are looking to have offsites and capture photography, videography, increased employer net promoter scores from these offsites, and maybe use the offsites to then ask their team to introduce them to more high quality candidates for roles. And so, if you’re going to host an offsite with some of that intent, then you may want to choose a place like Miami, which is, notable, or Vegas, or something like that, or Austin. So, it really depends.

Jared Kleinert: [00:20:13] But we’re also learning, so at the end of the day, we’re building software to automate a lot of the offsite planning process. We are still in the early days, so we’re doing white glove concierge service. But in a matter of months – maybe by the time this comes out – we might have MVP software out there and then over time, we’ll be able to learn what people are really looking for. Are they looking for more secluded environments? Are they looking for more urban environments? And we’ll probably be able to track based on the type of offsite they’re planning, and the team size, what environment is best for them. So, who knows, maybe there’s like an AI component to this as well that we can build out.

Mike Blake: [00:20:55] I’m sure that there is.

Jared Kleinert: [00:20:55] I mean, this is like inning number one in terms of this company, I’m hoping. So, we can have another rendezvous in ten years and see how it turned out.

Mike Blake: [00:21:07] Yeah. Well, I don’t think we’ll need that long. So, in terms of best practices, how much runway do you need to give yourself? And I understand, I guess, it’s going to vary depending on the size of the organization. But assuming that’s not a huge retreat, mega conference kind of thing, how long does it take to plan a retreat? How much advanced planning or how much time lead time do you need to to put on a good retreat?

Jared Kleinert: [00:21:38] If you’re planning for six people, like yourself, you can do that in three weeks. If you’re looking to do more of what our clients are doing, you know, the 10 to 50 person offsites, I would ideally hope that you’re giving yourself 90 days. And part of it is the planning, you know, the farther out you plan, the better rates you’re going to get with hotels and other vendors, the better agenda you’ll be able to create because you’ll have more intention around it. You’ll be able to assign reading materials to your team and pre-work so that they show up to the offsite already thinking about what you want to discuss. And then, you can use the offsite for high level decision making, high level planning things like that, versus actually having to play catch up once you’re there.

Jared Kleinert: [00:22:30] But, also, there’s an element of giving your team or your clients something to look forward to. And just the anticipation of going to an offsite is valuable in it of itself. And so, in a perfect world, you’re giving yourself three to six months of runway. And by doing that, you’re saving money, you’re actually engaging your team, starting to have those back and forth conversations. Ideally, you’re creating a cadence of these offsites so that you’re building anticipation three to six months out. You have this peak transformational experience. And then, it starts to taper down, and right when it’s about to go back to normal, bam, you have another offsite that everyone’s invited to.

Jared Kleinert: [00:23:13] And, again, it goes back to inclusivity as well. You know, people are busy and so the more advanced notice you give people, especially if you’re looking at an executive team or sort of high level VPs, then the more likely you will get full attendance.

Mike Blake: [00:23:27] So, many retreats, not all – but I think many. I don’t know if it’s a majority or not, you can tell me – have an external facilitator for at least part of the retreat. What are the arguments for that? Why do companies hire external people to to kind of run the content portion of their retreats?

Jared Kleinert: [00:23:50] Yeah. So, I mean, we take the approach of not mandating external speakers or facilitators. I do personally think it’s a great idea. The benefits of outside facilitation are, (1) just being able to stay on time, (2) being able to stay on task, (3) there is an opportunity cost of having someone else on the team lead the session.

Jared Kleinert: [00:24:20] So, if it’s not an outside facilitator, then it’s probably the team leader, which could be a CEO, it could be a department head. And that person can certainly facilitate and also offer their opinions, help influence the decisions being made. But it requires a lot of skill to do that. And a lot of CEOs, a lot of department leaders, don’t necessarily have facilitative skills on par with their other decision making skills or team leadership or overall leadership skills. And so, those are some of the positives.

Jared Kleinert: [00:25:01] You know, another one would be that you don’t want any offsites to fall into a category of having negative experiences. And so, you want to have heated debates and conversations that lead to positive outcomes, but you don’t want to risk having those lead to negative outcomes. And so, a skillful facilitator can sense when the conversation is getting heated, sort of step in, reorient the room, refocus everyone. And if you’re looking at the biggest investment in these offsites, there is a financial investment that you’re making.

Jared Kleinert: [00:25:38] But I would argue the biggest investment is everyone’s time. Especially the larger the offsite, the larger the company, you’re looking at anywhere from 20 to 40 billable hours per person, if it’s like two to five days and then you multiply that times ten people or times 25, 50, 100, you’re talking about thousands of billable hours for these high tech startups that are paying premium salaries. You’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars of billable hours. And so, it makes sense to pay an outside facilitator a few thousand dollars a day to make sure everyone stays on track.

Jared Kleinert: [00:26:17] So, the negatives of outside facilitation could be the added cost. It could also be that you’re bringing in someone from outside of the team. And so, if you already have a team that hasn’t seen each other in two years and then you’re integrating this other person for your offsite, then that could take the energy that people should be investing in each other. And they may be sort of working with a facilitator a little more than they should with their other team members. And so, I think a skillful facilitator would know when to actually lead sessions and then when to go to their room and let the team have fun at dinner as opposed to going with the team and having dinner and enjoying nice tequila or something like that.

Mike Blake: [00:27:03] How do you choose the right facilitator? I got to imagine facilitators are differentiated. Each has a different skillset, different background, different capability set. How do you choose the right facilitator? What do you consider in making that choice?

Jared Kleinert: [00:27:25] So, many of our clients actually haven’t chosen facilitators yet, but I think it’s because we haven’t placed options in front of them. Part of this software that we’re building is a vetted marketplace of facilitators. And so, I think simply having a vetted group of facilitators and speakers versus the Wild West of the National Speakers Association or Google to go find anyone that says professional speaker or facilitator will be helpful right then and there.

Jared Kleinert: [00:28:03] Additionally, companies have different operating systems for how they run their business. So, there’s a book called Traction, and they have an EOS system that a lot of companies follow and there are facilitators specifically trained in that modality, you could say. And then, there’s other facilitators that are trained in the way that YPO runs their meetings or EO runs their meetings. So, that’s one way of looking at facilitation, is, how do you run your company and who has experience in that.

Jared Kleinert: [00:28:37] Two is a relationship oriented approach. And so, I’ve definitely heard of facilitators sticking with startups over the life cycle, especially with an executive team, where it’s more intimate because there’s already trust that’s there.

Mike Blake: [00:28:59] Right. And they’re going to build institutional knowledge too.

Jared Kleinert: [00:29:02] Correct. Third, could be to look at the specific objectives you have for your offsite and what facilitators match that. So, if you are doing something related to, like if you’re running a board meeting for a nonprofit or a Fortune 1000, are you bringing in someone with experience there?

Jared Kleinert: [00:29:25] For example, I used to work with Keith Frazee back in my teens. And before I worked with him, I got to shadow him for a few days in Los Angeles. And I got to sit in on a state board meeting for the March of Dimes, which is a nonprofit. And Keith was brought in as an outside facilitator. They brought him in because he had been an outside facilitator for a lot of Fortune 500 companies and was a C-suite executive himself previously. So, he had a lot of social proof and a lot of previous experience with similar stage and sized organizations.

Jared Kleinert: [00:30:05] So, it all comes down to a relationship and social proof. It’s the extent offsite can shorten that cycle of vetting someone, I think, we’ll be able to help our clients.

Mike Blake: [00:30:18] So, when you plan a retreat, in your mind, is there an optimal length of a retreat? Is there a minimum size or sort of a sweet spot of duration for a retreat to be effective?

Jared Kleinert: [00:30:33] It can be effective with two days, one night, if you’re mindful of your agenda. I would say the average that we’re working with is a three day, two night. And then, the longest I would recommend is a one week offsite. I’ve heard horror stories of companies bringing, like, an entire engineering team together for two weeks, keeping them away from family. But that’s only doable if you have a really young team that’s more college kids.

Mike Blake: [00:31:07] That’s bizarre.

Jared Kleinert: [00:31:07] There are some companies that have international teams that are only doing one all-hands a year, and they might stretch it to five, six days, and then have optional weekend stays that they’re willing to pay for. So, that is one strategy to have. Maybe five days of work time as your max and then have optional hangouts before or after, which would typically fall on a weekend. So, that would probably be the max I would recommend.

Mike Blake: [00:31:37] What are the most common goals that retreats are trying to accomplish? Or if you want, you could reframe this as one of the most realistic goals that a retreat can accomplish. Take your pick on how you want to answer that.

Jared Kleinert: [00:31:51] Yeah. At least right now, I mean, we’re recording this in late 2021, I imagine this will be true for early 2022 as well, is that, for a lot of the companies that we’re working with, they’re newly remote and/or they’re fast growing and they’ve doubled, tripled their headcount over the last two years during the pandemic. And so, their biggest need, they keep saying, is team building.

Jared Kleinert: [00:32:21] When they say team building, it could be as simple as making friends at work, and that will lead to actually retaining your top talent longer. Because on the days that they feel lonely or isolated, they’ll be able to reach out to a friend, maybe, in another department, or they’ll be able to make jokes and slack, and then that makes for a more fun organization.

Jared Kleinert: [00:32:46] Sometimes you have issues between departments because one group is getting more budget, or hiring more people, or the sales team is promising too much, and the customer success gets mad at them or engineering and gets mad at them, sales has a quota so they need the other teams to understand what they’re doing. So, cross department collaboration is a big hot button issue or a big place companies want to invest.

Jared Kleinert: [00:33:16] It could be that we’re just all in these Zoom screens, and even having two or three days in-person with someone gives you enough of a relationship if properly facilitated, where you can really trust the team leader, the CEO, with your career for the next six months to a year or possibly longer. And so, I would say team building is the word or phrase. But it really goes down to employee engagement, retention, also, innovation. You know, if you’re considering some of the benefits, potentially, of an office environment, it’s the water cooler talk, it’s people bumping into each other, having side conversations, going to lunch. And we lose a lot of that in Zoom. And you know, you could try and recreate it in Slack or in all the other myriads of virtual spaces that have been created.

Jared Kleinert: [00:34:11] But, now, offsites are your chance to really facilitate those environments and those conversations and, possibly, get some of those idea generating sessions or planning sessions where you can then go back home and get to work on the things that you came up with.

Mike Blake: [00:34:30] What about for post M&A integration? One of the most important reasons that, I think, mergers fail is because of the integration phase. Are retreats ever used to try to help mesh new teams from two different companies that suddenly need to work together? And if so, is that an effective way to address it?

Jared Kleinert: [00:34:51] It sounds like a great reason to use an offsite. And that’s why I’m excited about this company is because there are so many use cases for offsites and many that haven’t even been introduced to the market or haven’t been created, like a metaverse offsite. Or if you have a 1,000 person company and 20 people want to go work remotely because you can work from anywhere, and why not go work in Tulum on the beach, we can help you maybe facilitate that.

Jared Kleinert: [00:35:22] Anecdotally, my former employer, 15Five, did acquire a business during the pandemic and had to integrate about 50 employees, from my understanding. And almost all those people stayed at the company after the acquisition and many have been slotted into leadership roles. And so, I know that they’ve been desperately waiting to have an all-hands meeting to better integrate the team. And then, I believe they’ve had executive offsites to address sort of the highest level integrations. But, yeah, I mean that is a great use case for an offsite.

Mike Blake: [00:36:02] So, in your mind, has the pandemic changed or maybe even sharpened the use case for retreats? Are they more important now than maybe they had been previously?

Jared Kleinert: [00:36:14] Yeah. I wouldn’t have started this company or maybe not this soon had it not been for the pandemic. I mean, who knows? All the pieces were there with my 15Five experience, my Meeting of the Minds experience, being a facilitator occasionally for executive offsites, I already had the relationship with my cofounder. But, definitely, as the pandemic went on, I realized this would become more and more of an issue in that our way of working would never really be the same.

Jared Kleinert: [00:36:46] I was actually looking back to when our last recording was, and it was, it looks like, July 2020. And so, we were really only a few months into the pandemic. And, yeah, who knows, in an alternate universe, if we really did contain the pandemic in three to six months, maybe I wouldn’t have started Offsite. Maybe I would have started it in 2022. But because the whole playbook on work has been thrown out the window by force, we’ve all gone remote.

Jared Kleinert: [00:37:20] Now, tools like Notion to run your sort of internal documents, tools like Asana for project management, Slack for asynchronous communication, these have all become necessities, just like office space would be your in-person team necessity. And so, my hope is that Offsite becomes part of that tech stack for running a remote first company. And there’s a couple of competitors that have the same thesis, and we’ll see how we stack up.

Mike Blake: [00:37:52] Why do retreats go bad? You know, I don’t know if you’ve been on bad retreats, but I have. I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories of retreats with the best of intentions that wind up being disasters. Why do bad things happen to good people trying to do retreats?

Jared Kleinert: [00:38:09] Yeah. I think there’s only a few things you can truly control. The first is, who you bring to the offsite. So, in Meeting of the Minds, it would be curating a diverse group of high integrity entrepreneurs and individuals. If it’s a team retreat, then let’s assume you’ve already gotten high integrity individuals to work at your company. Now, it’s about making sure that they have advance notice to come to an offsite, that you’re thinking about all their travel needs. Some people might be anxious to be around others after the pandemic. Some people may have more travel sensitivities than others, or dietary preferences.

Jared Kleinert: [00:38:50] I mean, I show up to the Atlanta Airport an hour before my flight, and it’s like part of my personality to show up with as little extra time as possible.

Mike Blake: [00:38:59] You like to live dangerously, man.

Jared Kleinert: [00:39:00] Yeah. I’m 6’2″ and white, and I don’t feel a sense of danger when I travel. Typically, I travel pretty easily. But that’s not true of everyone. And so, we have to be mindful of that. We have to plan accordingly. And so, if you carry the right people, give them advance notice, and then you set up an agenda that’s intentional, that’s really all you can control. And so, high level agenda planning always start by building trust and intimacy upfront.

Jared Kleinert: [00:39:36] So, you have your travel in day, typically. Leave some flex time for if flights are delayed or there’s border issues right now. Have your first night be something that is welcoming, inviting, people can make friends quickly, get to know everyone. I would even continue building the trust and intimacy on the second day or your first full day with different icebreakers. There’s different activities. Some can be done with an outside facilitator. Some could be self- facilitated. Then, get into the business stuff, you know, day two afternoon, first full day, and that’s where you start doing your high level decision making, strategic planning, training.

Jared Kleinert: [00:40:24] And so, the way you structure your agenda is something you can control. And then, getting the basics right, like having enough breaks. If you need to do AV stuff, make sure ahead of time that your meeting space can accommodate that. Get your catering right. But there is a chance that the hotel can screw that up. There’s a chance caterers can screw that up. Airlines can screw up. COVID can make for all these wonky policies that are ever changing. So, really, you just got to get the people right and you got to get the agenda and facilitation right, in my personal opinion, and that’s all you can control.

Jared Kleinert: [00:41:06] And we’ve had clients, like Canadians coming into the U.S. and have had border issues. And so, they showed up six hours late and then they went to the this beautiful massive Airbnb, and then the power went out, and it took two or three hours to get on. But they still had an incredible time and, like, post on social media that it was the highlight of their year, because they had the right people there and they were able to do the right things with their time together.

Mike Blake: [00:41:33] When you started to answer that question, you started down a path which I thought was really interesting, so I want to push down that path a little bit, which was, you thought it was important that the participants have integrity. And I can see where that has a lot of meaning. There’s integrity in terms of how you interact with people. There’s integrity in terms of the seriousness with which you just take the exercise and you’re not getting drunk and you’re in your minibar and whatnot, and you’re you’re ready to sort of do your thing. And, you know, I think that’s really important.

Mike Blake: [00:42:14] And to that point – and correct me if I’m wrong – if that’s the case, then a lot of the ingredients that are required for a successful retreat are actually in place or not in place long before you ever even think of having one. The matter of culture, the matter even how you hire.

Jared Kleinert: [00:42:38] Correct. Yeah. And maybe we’re choosing clients that have great cultures already and that we’re just elevating those, and I’m sure there’s a case to be made for that. But you’re absolutely right, if you’re building an amazing remote-first company, you should start with how you hire, the diversity of your hiring pools, your ability to compensate those people, and your onboarding practices. And then, maybe part of onboarding is having an offsite, and that could be another use case. Or learning and development or training could also be, you know, added to offsites. But, yes, a lot of ingredients could or should be there already.

Jared Kleinert: [00:43:22] But then, if you’re planning an offsite, you don’t want to take any of these things at service level. You set the intention that we are here to work or we’re here to have fun. If you’re setting the intention to have fun, set some ground rules. Like, no sleeping with colleagues or don’t get crazy drunk, have some drinks, have a good time, but don’t do anything stupid.

Mike Blake: [00:43:47] We’d rather not have to bail you out.

Jared Kleinert: [00:43:49] Yeah. Maybe get some event insurance, and that’s something that we’re looking to help broker in the future through our marketplace, just for the what ifs. And then, you know, at the beginning of each day, remind people why you’re here and thank them for being here. You have an intention of gratitude, end each day on a high note. So that if things got testy during any given session that you remind them that we’re here for a positive reason and that we want to end on a high note. And sort of engineer ending on a high note by having awards or by having your sort of most spectacular, unique shared experience on, like, the last night. And then, everyone flies out the final day.

Jared Kleinert: [00:44:34] So, you’re right that, hopefully, you have a company already where you’ve hired great people and you just let the great people be great. But you can also go above and beyond for the specific purpose of an offsite and remind people to represent the company in the best way. If you’re going to a major city, you could set the ground rules of go see your friends, go see your family if they happen to be here. Or we’re here on company dollars for a specific purpose, so hang out with your colleagues, not with your friends. I would set the rules.

Mike Blake: [00:45:08] That actually segues nicely into my next question, which is, my experience is that most successful retreats have some mix of work and play. And the mixtures and formulas may be different, but it’s not 100 percent one or the other. And so, my question is this, is that, are you aware of any best practices that have evolved or are revolving around ensuring that the retreat doesn’t just become, basically, a boondoggle. And a boondoggle can be immensely damaging, not least of which in that it may be very hard to get budgeting for retreat number two if number one sort of declines into having to bail people out in a wet T-shirt contest, all that stuff. So, what are the best practices to ensure that the retreat stays on mission?

Jared Kleinert: [00:46:02] So, at least for us, we’re just not interested in serving any boondoggles as clients, and so that’s clearly outline on our website and our marketing materials. As we build software, essentially, you will have this onboarding click a few buttons to tell us team size, budget, objectives of your offsite. And then, based on your answers, you’ll be able to launch into a venue selection experience similar to Airbnb, a vetted marketplace of hotels, meeting spaces, places like convene that are equipped for your meetings and hybrid needs and AV needs, et cetera.

Jared Kleinert: [00:46:48] Then, we have an agenda builder we’re building, so you can start with one of our agenda templates. And at the beginning, we’re not going to even give you the opportunity to build your own agenda. Like, you have to choose one of our templates to start with, because we’ve done the hard work of thinking what is the best and optimal way to have different types of offsites. And so, based on how long you’re offsite is, based on your meeting type, maybe based on your facilitation type, if it’s EOS system versus YPO versus the Keith Frazee system – I’m kind of just making this up. But you pick a template and then you start from there, and you can customize like Squarespace or something else.

Jared Kleinert: [00:47:31] But we’re trying to do the hard work for clients that they never have a boondoggle. In the future, maybe some large company decides to have a boondoggle through offsite. But then, hopefully, at least we’re giving them quality vendors. We’re making it clear that here are the rules that your sort of team leader set for this offsite. They’ve also gotten insurance so that it doesn’t fall off the company if anyone does something stupid.

Jared Kleinert: [00:48:04] So, I’m sure if they fully run this company long enough and we become large enough that bad things will happen, just like Airbnb, there are horror stories of people staying in Airbnbs, and that’s probably going to happen if we are successful enough. But it’s definitely our goal to create the best offsites possible, and that will happen through how we create agendas, how we pre-vet and pre-negotiate with vendors through even having diverse vendors on our platform, like diverse speakers, and facilitators, and photographers, videographers. By educating team leaders on how to facilitate if they want to do it themselves. These are all the things that we’re going to be thinking about over the next decade plus so that, hopefully, the average offsite is just better.

Mike Blake: [00:48:57] We are talking with Jared Kleinert and the topic is, Should I host a company retreat? Is there an ideal time of year to have a retreat?

Jared Kleinert: [00:49:08] I would argue once a quarter is. I mean, there’s a lot of companies planning, like, January offsites to kick the year off. Certainly, a few December to celebrate the year. So, I would encourage companies to think about the lifecycle of their business and how they operate. And if you have a quarterly system of planning, then maybe you want to have your offsites mirror that, at least for your executive team or for department leaders. If you’re doing an all-hands, you may want to consider when you can have the most attendance.

Jared Kleinert: [00:49:48] I guess I don’t have a clear answer. And over time, our AI and our analytics will best determine that. I mean, we’re looking at a lot of all-hands meetings in Q2 2022. I guess probably avoiding summer, if kids are out of school is going to make some sense. And then, avoiding major holidays for an all-hands meeting. But it’s also going to come down to, like, where your team lives. And if we’re dealing with truly international teams, different places have different seasons, so if you say you want to go somewhere warm, what does that mean?

Jared Kleinert: [00:50:22] We’re going to come into all these geographical challenges as well, which I’m excited about. It’s really based on how you run your company, and what you want to celebrate, what you want to plan for. If you’re doing an offsite around integrating a new team from an M&A, then you probably want to do it right after the M&A stock. And that may happen in January or June, you know, we don’t know.

Mike Blake: [00:50:48] Should employees or should people who are going to participate in the retreat be involved in planning the retreat itself?

Jared Kleinert: [00:50:58] Yes, with a caveat. I think one route our clients are taking that we encourage is the top down approach, the team leader knows the dates, knows where they want to have the offsite because they have a certain vision for it. They know that everyone’s going to get a private room versus maybe shared accommodations to save on costs. And then, they are integrating their team in the planning process by asking, certainly, for their dietary preferences, sensitivities. And then, maybe select questions, like what would make this a great offsite for you? Or, what’s an idea you have to improve company? Or, can you give us an employer net promoter score rating now, and then after the offsite, we’ll do that again.

Jared Kleinert: [00:51:53] If team leaders don’t have strong opinions about where, when, and even some details, like should it just be team members or should it also be significant others and kids that are invited, then some of those questions we would roll into an intake form and invite the team to sort of vote on that or have a say in it. And so, yes, you should include your team with at least one pre-offsite feedback form. The specific questions you ask can lead to how much, say, they have, which could potentially influence where, when, and sort of how the offsite will happen. Or it could just simply be we’re going to get your travel needs right, we’re going to get your diet right. And then, maybe be inspired by something that someone says.

Mike Blake: [00:52:48] Jared, I know we’ve got a little bit of a hard stop with you, so I want to be respectful of your time. I know we didn’t get to all the questions that I had prepared, and there probably ones that our audience would have wished we would have covered or maybe ones we might have covered in more depth. If somebody wants to contact you to ask for advice or more information on whether or not to host a retreat, can they do so? And if so, what’s the best way to contact you?

Jared Kleinert: [00:53:17] Sure. You can go to joinoffsite.com. And then, jared@joinffsite.com is my email related to this business.

Mike Blake: [00:53:29] Well, that’s going to wrap it up for today’s program. I’d like to thank Jared Kleinert so much for sharing his expertise with us.

Mike Blake: [00:53:36] We’ll be exploring a new topic each week, so please tune in so that when you’re faced with your next business decision, you have clear vision when making it. If you enjoy these podcasts, please consider leaving a review with your favorite podcast aggregator. It helps people find us that we can help them. If you’d like to engage with me on social media with my Chart of the Day and other content, I’m on LinkedIn as myself and @unblakeable on Facebook, Twitter, Clubhouse, and Instagram. Also check out my new LinkedIn Group called A Group That Doesn’t Suck. Once again, this is Mike Blake. And our sponsor is Brady Ware and Company. And this has been the Decision Vision podcast.

Kelly Gay With OnBoard

December 1, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Kelly Gay With OnBoard

00:00 /

Kelly Gay is the chair of OnBoard and immediate past chair of Venture Atlanta. She also serves on the boards of 1105 Media, the Atlanta CEO Council, ATDC, and Acivilate.

Kelly has led companies ranging from billion dollar organizations to startups. As CEO, she has led both private and public companies, all of which resulted in successful exit transactions for shareholders and employees.

Kelly is the former head of Vertical Markets for Sierra Wireless (NASDAQ: SWIR), as well as co-CEO and COO of Numerex Corp (NASDAQ: NMRX), which was acquired by Sierra Wireless in 2017. She joined Numerex with the acquisition of Omnilink Systems, where she was president and CEO.

Prior to leading Omnilink, Kelly was chair, CEO, and president of KnowledgeStorm, and led the company from startup to acquisition by TechTarget (NASDAQ: TTGT). She also led IBM in the media, entertainment, advertising, sports, music, publishing, broadcast, and cable markets as vice president of IBM’s North American Media and Entertainment division. Under her leadership, this division grew to $1.2 billion in annual sales, with 18% annual growth over a three-year period.

Kelly’s management and accomplishments have been recognized by industry-leading publications and organizations, including The Indus Entrepreneurs’ inaugural Atlanta Top Entrepreneur, IoT Now’s first Top Women of IoT, Connected World’s inaugural Top Women of M2M, and Pathbuilders’ first Inspiria Award. The companies Kelly led were recognized with Inc.’s Inc. 500, the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, BtoB’s Media Power 50, and Software Magazine’s Software 500.

Kelly serves on the boards of directors of OnBoard, where she is the chair; Venture Atlanta, where she is the past chair; 1105 Media, where she is the lead digital marketing director; Acivilate, and the Atlanta CEO Council. She also serves on the governing board of the Advanced Technology Development Center, named by Forbes as one of the Incubators Changing the World.

Kelly is a magna cum laude graduate of Tulane University with a bachelor’s degree in economics. She was the first Newcomb College recipient in the school’s history to receive the Murphy Prize in Political Economy, awarded by the Murphy Institute.

Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

The transformation of Atlanta’s tech community
Advice to up and coming female technology leaders
Perspective on where the future of Atlanta’s tech ecosystem is headed

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by on pay built in Atlanta. OnPay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at Onpay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one, but before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on the Atlanta Business Radio. We have Kelly Gay, who is the first female that was awarded the John Imlay Leadership Award. Congratulations and welcome, Kelly.

Kelly Gay: [00:00:55] Thank you, Lee. Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] Now, before we get to 400 things, can you let our listeners know a little bit about your career? It spans a year or two and then the history of Atlanta, the technology scene. But you have such an interesting background. Can you share a little bit of the highlights?

Kelly Gay: [00:01:13] Yes, absolutely. So highlights I. Hi, my Atlanta and my non Atlanta, a portion of my career, my non Atlanta portion of my career, essentially this of IBM starting as a marketing rep or sales rep at IBM and partying after 19 years with IBM from Atlanta. Actually, by then, we’ve been moved back to Atlanta or to Atlanta, departing as the vice president of media and entertainment for IBM. And that meant serving the industries that made up media and made up entertainment, not not dealing with the media in in terms of marketing. So always using all these customer facing love that. And in Atlanta, I have run two venture backed companies and sold both of those two public companies. One was knowledge, storm one was Omni Lane, and then I was asked to sell the public company to another public company, which was Sierra Wireless out of Canada. And that has all occurred. While I’ve lived in Atlanta, I would say the most significant part of my Atlanta. Her tenure, though, has been the joy and the involvement I had had in this Atlanta technology community. Lee, as you know, I’ve been very involved in the Technology Association of Georgia over the years then to Atlanta, where, well, I was the chairman of the tag. I was chairman of Venture Atlanta involved in on board, which is an organization focused on women moving women forward in both their leadership opportunities as well as helping them get on board. And then Techbridge and early days with Sidetrack and Atlanta CEO Council and HTC, et cetera, et cetera. Just those are the kind of things that this technology community affords all of us and I have taken full advantage of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:15] Now, how have you seen the community evolve over the years? I know women in technology. We’ve been involved with that group for a long time and that was the, you know, born because of the lack of women in technology, and they needed a place to kind of hang out together and help each other. How have you seen kind of females fare in technology over the years?

Kelly Gay: [00:03:38] Great. If you don’t mind, I’ll start with technology overall in the Atlanta community and then add to it with the what I’ve seen for women because it all a continuum. When I first became involved in the Atlanta technology community with the 1999 2000 kind of time period, the fabulous entrepreneurs are fabulous companies. You know, that was the heyday of of DSL and internet security systems coming of age and certainly MSA and, you know, early successes, lots of fabulous entrepreneurs and executives. But it wasn’t all bundled up, shall we say, as a community that relied upon each other and built off of each other’s successes over time. It was a little more wild, Westy, just because that’s where we were at that time in terms of the development of the technology community in Atlanta. What I see now is a clear understanding by the leadership and the base technology base of people who work in this industry in Atlanta, a clear understanding. We are all pulling each other up every penny, the rest of the companies of every venture firm that has a great exit or invest in a unicorn or lead the unicorn. The rest of the venture community by virtue of the airtime that it creates for the city and and that investing community overall startup community, we are second only to New York. So I guess we’re third and San Francisco, but we’re in terms of raw volume of startups.

Kelly Gay: [00:05:33] It’s pretty funny that we’re in when you’re when you’re being mentioned and have that kind of success in the startup community and then we have a whole set of organizations and community, well, community organizations that support that community, the sort of community and those entrepreneurs. And what I see is it’s all we’re all working together to create this phenomenal technology community that Atlanta has, which then leads to women. We have got so many, just so many talented, capable women leaders, women executives, women CEOs, women engineers. You can go on and on in the city. And I think the technology community, the business community overall and our industry here in town have all rallied around. This needs to be a moment to start recognizing. And I don’t mean with awards, I mean, recognizing the talent and the contributions that not only women, but all underrepresented communities in this in Atlanta can contribute to our growth and our success and on the brand of Atlanta community technology community. And I’ve said a number of times if we can’t in Atlanta, take advantage of the fantastic, underrepresented, very diverse, very broad technology community that we have here in Atlanta. What city can? And I, you see it all coming together and and that does include women.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:10] Only now do you think that something that kind of leans in our favor here in Atlanta and I think Atlanta is unique compared to the other cities you mentioned that are kind of these startup communities in that Atlanta has such a diverse economy and there is there’s multiple industries that touch technology and it’s primarily be to be like there’s not a lot of B2C companies in technology that are the household names, but there’s a lot of B2B companies that are kind of running maybe those B2C companies or they’re or they’re the kind of the background of those B2C companies. But the fact that it’s B2B may be kind of a little more anonymous and not kind of front page news that allows leaders to kind of jump maybe from one company to another a little easier here in Atlanta than maybe in these other areas.

Kelly Gay: [00:08:04] Yeah, I think there’s there are both good and bad to what you just said in terms and you know, somebody who’s on the other side of the equation as you just outlined it, there’s good and bad on that side, too. I actually don’t think that this Atlantic technology community in general, I don’t think I don’t think we took jobs like in general, like you see happen in San Francisco. I do think there is a higher level of, you know, loyalty will use that word or commitment to what you’re doing. And part of it is we’re not as big as San Francisco or the New York communities because we’re not as big a city in terms of technology and the respect of community matters and your reputation matters and people are aware of that. Additionally, we have a pretty youthful community here, which is a great strength of ours, just a fabulous strength of ours. And many of them are joining smaller entrepreneurial companies where they can make a real difference. And then you’re very invested in the difference that you make and and you become a critical, critical part of the growth of a company. And people aren’t going to switch jobs when when that’s your situation.

Kelly Gay: [00:09:19] So those are the good things related to the B2B and the size and scope of what we have. You are right. We are more the things that make it all work. There’s nothing wrong with being the things that make it all work, like being so, so big in the city with us being the number one financial payment processing clearinghouse, Atlanta being the number one Georgia, really because there are some outside of Georgia. So outside of Atlanta, the number one payment processing, clearing technology stations, shall we call it, in the world? That’s not glamorous, that’s not A. But it generates billions and billions of dollars of revenue, some of which much of which gets infused back into the Atlanta community. So I do think there are some things. No, we don’t have the big big retail names or the big consumer names that do your brand. So that’s a little harder to come by when you don’t have it. But. But you know, to me, the B2B element with Atlanta, overall, we’re very functional city. We’re a very practical city. We are. Pragmatic in our approach, we’re not showing General as a city. It all comes together to me.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:37] Yeah, and I had a funny thing happen to me. I was doing broadcast from Fintech South a few years ago and that was a global conference and people were coming from all over the world to come to Atlanta. And I would ask some of these people who were when they were leaving their country and they were saying, Hey, I’m coming to America for this big global fintech conference. And and I said, when you told them you were going to Atlanta, did they know like what was their take on that? Because I’m sure their assumption was, Oh, this has to be in New York or in Silicon Valley or in Boston. But Atlanta, you know, for people who don’t know, like you said, this were the world where all the action is in that space. But it’s not just common knowledge and and it’s frustrating. I remember at the time when you were beginning, you know, Atlanta always had kind of a chip on the shoulder that, hey, why aren’t we getting any of this attention? There’s a lot of great things happening here. And it’s like you said, when we’re the people that are running kind of the companies that are making headlines, it’s frustrating that we’re not getting our due. But I think. But just by doing the, you know, grinding and doing the blocking and the tackling of the work that it is starting to come, you know, everything is kind of leaning our way nowadays. So many people are exiting and staying here and doing more to help the community grow. It’s really kind of a golden age, I think, for for the city when it comes to technology.

Kelly Gay: [00:12:04] I completely agree with you and on a point you said about people growing and being successful and staying with the city. We’re so fortunate that we have people willing to do that. That is how San Francisco became. San Francisco is in terms of technology, is this wealth of knowledge and capability and expertize that you need there and grew the next thing and next thing. So we’re very lucky on that. It is frustrating. At one level, we we have to beat the drum seven times more loudly. To do that, we are worth the city. That’s bad in terms of the contribution we’re making certain industries. Technology is one, but communications is another. Iot is another distribution, technology, transportation. I mean, there are a lot of great hub for that’s bad. Good of it, however, is that we don’t have a hyper. We don’t have a tulip bulb bubble occurring because everything is here in Atlanta. It’s more rational. It’s more pragmatic. If at a time, a company at a time, a person at a time. And so it just generates a better result in terms of our growth.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:21] Yeah. Like our foundation is strong and it’s diverse so that it can withstand, you know, a downturn in any one given market where we have enough infrastructure here that’s going to support us.

Kelly Gay: [00:13:37] Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And our infrastructure, you know, we’re a we’re a backbone to so many of the things that travel on the internet was quietly, just quietly in the background being this this, you know, infrastructure city that makes the internet work makes companies make payments work. You know, I don’t know that we mind being this quiet. You know, megatropolis in terms of technology and that contribution, because we wouldn’t attract the companies, we have been able to protect this city, all we were doing was yelling right here.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:20] Well, and you’re seeing the ripples go beyond Atlanta in terms of the southeast now in Nashville and Birmingham, Chattanooga. There’s other kind of areas sprouting in technology. And, you know, we might have been the catalyst to get it going or at least kind of have people looking in this area of the country, at least. But you’re seeing some of the ripples, you know, appear throughout the southeast.

Kelly Gay: [00:14:48] You’re right about that. And while not every city recognizes that Atlanta is a bit of a hub, not with not the we’re the only ones in the southeast. There’s one or two, shall we say, in Florida. And then burgeoning burgeoning success in Nashville and Charlotte and that kind of thing. But if you look at, for instance, just center Atlanta, we had over 400 applications from 16 states to come to Atlanta, and any venture conference in the southeast will tell you that venture. Atlanta has figured out the formula to to showcase. Hard southeastern companies, certainly Atlanta based companies, both early states and more world stage companies, over 60 percent of the presenting companies on stage at Venture Atlanta, of which there were almost 100 presenting companies ninety one overall. But of that, 91 over 60 percent were from 12 different southeastern states, with a little bit over to the West as well. And get this late fifty nine percent of the of the companies that ultimately presented were led by underrepresented founders back to where we started with both women and diverse populations. And we in Atlanta can can attract that and showcase it. Yeah, very unique among the southeast

Lee Kantor: [00:16:13] And not only unique, it’s important because there’s a lot of folks out there that fall under that category that deserve a chance to be seen and heard.

Kelly Gay: [00:16:23] You’re completely right. I wish I’d been here to the punch on that critically important. And beyond the critically important. You see, Atlanta has always had such great corporate leadership outside of technology as well in terms of being good citizens, being proper shepherds of the human race. And you see companies overall, yes, many in technology, but many not in technology and in many consumer brands, for instance, looking at each other and saying, you know, we’ve an obligation and an opportunity better for a company and our community by lifting up this population of diverse, talented people that we represent. You see it happening all over the city. And technology is just one of the places that has been smart enough to take advantage of the great base of both leadership and a base of employees from every walk of life.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:27] Now, if you look into your crystal ball, what are you seeing coming into 2022 and then beyond as we hopefully get out of this pandemic? And then we go back to some sense of normalcy, even if that normalcy is just dealing with these kind of an endemic at this point?

Kelly Gay: [00:17:45] Right, right? You know? I think we all would like to believe there will be a moment it’s over. I think we all would like that. We’re desperate for that. I don’t I do think we’re headed towards an endemic, but I don’t think it’s fun and it will. You know, the flu is an endemic olarinde and endemic. There’s a set of things you can just not wipe out. The flu is a great example, but we manage it and we manage it fine. I think technology stands at a wonderful place in terms of being able to deal with whatever comes our way because people can work remotely. We have the technology to work remotely. We are all about providing populations with the ability to do your job with with great tools from wherever you are. That’s the great strength of technology, much of the work. Yeah, it’s much work technology companies being able to do that work from wherever you are and, you know, so many collaborative tools and and the ability for those teams to work collaboratively. I think that we will. No, I’m not worried about technology industry in the population of industries that Atlanta and its very diverse set of industries represents will be fine as an industry. I think that our big industries, let’s just use fintech and payment processing as an example. I think those will continue to thrive because there is no question that scale drives scale.

Kelly Gay: [00:19:25] And I hope it continues at a rate that can be consumed properly by the city, by the employment base, by the number of companies that are created so that we don’t create, you know, the equivalent of a Dutch tulip bubble and some trouble. I don’t think it will. We’re just too practical a city and too diverse for us to lean all in on one thing and create a problem for ourselves. So I do I. We’ll continue to drive scale. I think that the our diverse population. Is it down? And I think there are many technology companies realizing it’s a gem and there as a group that is a gem of humankind, that other companies in other cities would love to be able to replicate where they are, but they can’t. And so you see a fair number of companies. Yes, many of them are smaller. Moving to Atlanta and Georgia, but certainly the Atlanta metropolitan area to be able to capitalize on the opportunity of. Having a diverse workforce, which, you know, has so many benefits, it has so many benefits to your current employees, you know, who want to live in that kind of a world. And so I do think that we’ll see companies continue to to move to Atlanta to participate in this in this fabulous environment that we have.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:06] Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s a true melting pot, and I’ve been fortunate to do some of the radio for ATC and Georgia State University’s Entrepreneurship Institute and to see those the startups that come out of each one of those are totally different, even though there are just a few blocks apart, you know, from there just down the road from each other. But it’s a different group of people, a different kind of mission and different kind of activities that interest them and they’re good at. And it’s just fascinating to see them both have a place to grow and learn, and people are investing in them and helping them get to new levels. And I think that that is, you know, that raises all boats, that kind of effort and that type of collaboration. I think that’s what we need here in Atlanta. More of and that’s what the country needs as a whole.

Kelly Gay: [00:21:54] Mm hmm. I completely agree and you said an important thing, but the populations are different and the support and raising up is probably a little different. But the strength is in all of us. No one of us, the strength is and the strength is in the diversity. And I mean that broadly, not just underrepresented communities. And that’s an important point that you just make.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:21] Well, thank you so much for all that you do, and congratulations on the John M. Leo Award. We really appreciate you and your work here in the city and beyond. And if there’s anything we could be doing for you, please let us know. We think your work is important.

Kelly Gay: [00:22:38] Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Liane. Thanks for the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:41] All right, this is Lee Kantor Willis Hale next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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Elizabeth Carter With Elizabeth L. Carter, Esq., LLC

November 23, 2021 by Jacob Lapera

Bay Area Business Radio

Elizabeth Carter With Elizabeth L. Carter, Esq., LLC

00:00 /

Elizabeth L. Carter is a crowdfunding securities attorney who represents investment companies, small businesses, nonprofits, cooperatives, and other social enterprises with the legal strategy and compliance of raising capital from both accredited and non-accredited investors.

Her most recent work includes assisting a driver-owned ride-share cooperative with the legal compliance of its $1.07 million debt crowdfunding offer through Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF). Similarly, she assisted a consumer cooperative with the amendment of its by-laws and articles of incorporation in order to prepare it for an upcoming capital raise from non-member investors.

She also assisted a number of investment funds with the securities legal strategy and compliance of a SEC Rule 506(c) crowdfunding offer, including a cooperatively-owned investment fund that offered $2 million in equity to accredited investors, as well as a community development financial institution that offered $1 million in slow equity to mission-aligned accredited investors

Connect with Elizabeth on LinkedIn and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Legal Fund
The importance of representative legal services for underrepresented entrepreneurs using crowdfunding
Legal matters in crowdfunding

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:06] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in the Bay Area. It’s time for Bay Area Business Radio. Now here’s your host

Lee Kantor: [00:00:17] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Bay Area Business Radio and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Leah Davis, coaching inspiring women of color to claim their wealth legacy. Today on Bay Area Business Radio, we have Elizabeth Carter with Elizabeth L. Carter, Esq., LLC. Welcome, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:00:39] Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:41] Well, I’m excited to learn about your practice. Tell us a little bit about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:00:46] Yes, thank you. So Elizabeth L. Carter, Esq., LLC is a crowdfunding securities law firm that represents investment companies, small businesses, nonprofit and cooperatives with the legal strategy and compliance of raising capital from investors.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:02] So for folks who aren’t familiar, can you talk a little bit about crowdfunding? I’m sure everybody’s, you know, heard of Kickstarter or Indiegogo or go fund me where there’s, you know, people go out to the crowd or grow it to people they know and say, Hey, I got this project or I got this thing. But there’s also a place for it in, in business and in the investment community as well, right?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:01:24] Yeah. So crowdfunding is a particular area or specific area of the law concerning capital raising and to be more sort of specific. So you have the business law, right, which is an area of law and underneath business law, it’s securities law, which is more specific in the area of business law. And then underneath the securities law is crowdfunding law. So security securities concerns the legal rules and federal state rules regarding private fundraising from investors. So not the GO Fund Me, which is more donation and not the Indiegogo with your rewards, but actual securities or when you’re giving money with the expectation of significant return. Right. So that’s the difference between a donation. You’re giving money. You’re not expecting things. Return rewards. The only thing you’re expecting in return is sort of a small token, really. You’re just there to support the business. But the investment piece as an investor, you are actually expecting some type of return, whether it’s in no time is guaranteed. But the idea is that I’m giving you money so that you can work hard and provide some return or money back to me, plus whatever gave you plus interest or something, right? And so with crowdfunding does is basically is that area of the law. But there are exemptions under the Securities Act, which is the securities law that we’re speaking about, that allows that business to raise capital from investors without having to register with the SEC or do ongoing reporting requirements, which again can amount to hundreds of dollars a year. So crowdfunding designed for small businesses to cost effectively raise capital from investors.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:08] Now this type of raise is kind of new, right? Because historically, the only people that can get involved with investing in small businesses in this manner were kind of accredited investors. And those are people who had, you know, a certain amount of wealth that was kind of vetted and kind of deemed that they were able to take this kind of risk. But now through this vehicle, people that aren’t accredited can invest as well, right?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:03:40] Right, exactly. So crowdfunding in a nutshell, there are two aspects to it. One is the fact that now, as you’re mentioning, a business can raise capital from non accredited investors just as they would accredited investors. So accredited investors are defined as investors, individual investors as people who have over $200000 in income, annual income, or over a million dollars in excluding the value of someone’s home. So these are just people who have investments elsewhere that are amounting to more than $1 million and then not accredited. That’s basically 90 percent of the rest of the population, right? Most people are not accredited investors. They do not have over many dollars a net worth, nor do they have possibly over $200000 in income and so would allow a small business to publicly advertise. That’s the other quality so publicly advertised to non accredited investors without having to register previously. And this is since 2012 Jobs Act of 2012. Allow for that. Previously, the business would have to have known that that investor privately. So whether a friend, family or business associate to then be able to ask them for money, what without violating any securities rules, right, whether they’re credit or non accredited. You have to know them. And so it kind of. Right, so only people who actually had wealth and people who were that, you know, right, so there’s a network thing that you are able to support, have them able to support your business. So now today, though, with crowd funding, you can go online. You don’t have to know this investor. You don’t have to be friends with them or have a long relationship with them. You can publicly advertise to them and they do not have to be wealthy, right? Just so long as you disclose properly, let them know what the offer is that they know will be businesses and do not misrepresent. So that’s what the legal or securities legal lawyer comes in to help you communicate that effectively through your disclosure documents.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:39] Now, does crowdfunding in this way have to only be equity in the company or can it be debt as well?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:05:48] That is included? That is a security as well as membership interest in an LLC operating agreement when you have that agreement and people are signing on. That is also considered a security. So right in equity can include stocks, but it also can include, again, like I said, that that operating agreement where you’re agreeing to provide money for some type of ownership stake, but that is also very commonly used. And the reason why that is included is because even though you’re not getting an ownership stake, there still is an expectation of return in the form of interest rates.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:21] And are your clients contacting you before they’ve begun this or after they began it and realized they were in over their head? And it’s too complicated?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:06:31] Ideally, before most of the time is before, and this one is more cost effective because before I have people who have gone either gone through the process by themselves and and we’re told that they need a securities lawyer or found out later like one one case. Actually, the SEC denied their filing and said it was actually fraudulent, even though the founder didn’t intend for it to be fraudulent or or misrepresenting. That’s really what it is because fraud is more intentional, but they all run in the same category. There’s a rule against misrepresentation, fraud, and so misrepresentation can simply be that you’ve been disclosed properly or you didn’t disclose fully. You miss some information, you admitted something. And so that is more costly because that particular person pay for an attorney to do that work, and the attorney didn’t do it properly. So now they have to go find another attorney and almost pay double right because the new attorney is saying, Well, I have to review everything with to start over. And so ideally, they should come before they make the offer, before they file anything, before they start asking people for money. You’ll save a whole lot of money just getting that advice and strategy going and then later.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:35] Now is this something that somebody should contact you at the very kind of beginning of their business if they’re thinking of launching? Like, should startups contact you if this is one of the ways that they might try to access funding? Or is this something that they have to have already established a business with clients? And it’s kind of ongoing and they’re trying to get it to a new level. So then they’re going to explore crowdfunding and then they would contact you.

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:08:01] Yeah, I think both legally, both. I mean, legally, so long as you have a strong business plan that shows the really lay out lays, lay out your plan to a operate, be bringing revenues and see generate returns for your investors. You have to lay that out. There should be some formula. There should be some visualization that shows the investor that if I give you X amount of dollars, which is what you’re asking for, that over time, some amount of time and that should also be laid out. You will get X amount of dollars in return or X amount of percentage in return that should be laid out. So usually the founders should have access to someone that can really work through those numbers and those financials for them, right? Whether it’s an accountant or a financial advisor that can guide them through really coming up with numbers that are more accurate. Now again, these are projections. So they’re not they’re not truly accurate or facts. They’re more saying. More likely than not, this is what you can expect. And so for me, that’s what I’m going to ask. They’ll they’ll say, I want to raise X amount of dollars and I want to know just how much I’m going to give them time.

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:09:04] So I’ll ask them, Well, how do you what did you come up with that number? How do you what was your basis? What’s your standing behind that? It’s not just you can’t just say that, right? And so I do help guide, but the idea is for them to come up with a strong team marketing accounting lawyer to then be successful. So legally, we can draft the documents, make sure they’re not misrepresenting or misrepresenting anyone. But for me, as an attorney who represent underrepresented founders where it’s already difficult to obtain capital, the traditional means, I want to make sure that they’re more successful than not. So I to the team, call them what I call the ecosystem around me so that we can make sure that they’re more successful than not. And in crowdfunding, what makes you successful is the crowd, right? Is your particular investors right or your who are also your friends, family or neighbors and then strangers that just want to support you so you want to be able to build that prior to or sooner than later when you’re starting to make your offer.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:59] Now, when you’re working with a client? Are you coming in just as this expert in crowdfunding or do you also take on some of the kind of general business law issues they might have?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:10:11] Oh yeah. So so I do. I do the general business law. And then what that looks like is I help with the strategy of choosing what type of entity or entity. Sometimes there’s a strategy to create one entity that will be the parent company. Another would be a subsidiary, especially if they’re interested in becoming an investment company or fund. Because the other part is we’re looking for an exemption. There’s two statutes that we want to make sure we exempt from the Securities Act of 1933, which concerns the act of asking people for money. And then there’s the Investment Company Act of 1940, which concerns the entity itself. So if you’re saying I want to create a fund that will then ask people to invest and then reinvest in other companies. My mind is saying, OK, you’re trying to invest in or investment fund. So if you want to prevent that sort of yearly, ongoing, costly reporting requirements, we need to find an exemption. So part of that is looking at the strategic way of structuring these entities, these companies, so that they’re exempt from both the from both acts or, you know, just generally in securities, but also just depending on what their needs and wants are right. They may have certain membership privileges for certain people, certain classes. So we do that sort of structuring the governance and then we go into the particular investment specific and structured the term sheet, the subscription agreement, the offering statement or disclosure documents in times call the Form C. And so, yeah, so it’s both so the general business governance and then the contract surrounding investments.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:37] Now, can you share a kind of one of your success stories of one of your clients that have been able to get that escape velocity and make a go of this?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:11:46] Yeah, yeah. So I’m happy to share one of my clients called the drivers pull up. Based out of New York City, created an alternative rideshare company alternative to like Uber or Lyft, right? And their model is designed to allow the drivers to be owners of the company, right? So unlike Uber or Lyft, Uber, Lyft, the drivers are more independent contractors. They’re not they don’t receive any equity. They have to have their own sort of business business model or business costs and in revenue. So it’s costly for the consumer because the profits are going to certain shareholders that are or that are not necessarily the drivers, but the drivers co-op. The drivers are actually co-owners of the Co-op or the company. And so what they did was in addition to the equity piece, which are owned by the members member drivers they. Created an offer a debt offer based upon the revenues of the company and up to two point five million, they raised over one million and they barely raised up fairly quickly, I’ll say in a couple of weeks. They raised one million dollars through regulation crowdfunding. So through that exemption, they’re able to raise from both accredited non accredited investors and they receive a lot of support all over the country. People are very interested in the co-op model, but also the fact that they’re providing an alternative to sort of this conglomerate. Big, big corporations write over and live.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:15] So that was said, they were able to kind of use that those funds to launch and then maybe are they only in New York? Are they around the country now?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:13:23] Right, so they were so the funds were designed to be set to launch to hire new staff and then to eventually to expand to other cities. That is the goal they want to expand across the country with the same model.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:35] So now you use the term co-op. Can you explain what that is and why that entity might be kind of better for these kind of projects?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:13:46] Right, right, right. So co-op is any entity that is owned and controlled by those that use the services. So if we’re talking about a worker co-op sort of with the driver’s co-op is it is owned and controlled by its workers, those that that provide labor to the company. If we’re talking about a housing co-op, we’re talking about the tenant owning, controlling the residential building where they reside. Sort of like a condo, but instead of individual deeds, it’s only one master d, so to speak, or blanket mortgage on top of the building. And then the members own a share of the company that then owns the building. And in terms of a consumer co-op, a lot of them are grocery stores. Those who consume or credit unions. Those who bank at the credit union are also co owners or, if it’s a nonprofit, just have the ability to control and vote on decisions within the entity. So that is attractive because it counters sort of this disconnect between particular worker co-op sense this power imbalance and disconnect between the owners or the employer and the employees and the workers, right? So now take away that power imbalance and the workers are the employers. They’re wanting the same.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:54] And that’s something that you help firms with as well, right?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:14:57] Yes. Yeah, so I actually thought co-ops is something that I have particular knowledge and expertize and actually was part of forming a nonprofit back in 2016 that was designed to create and support co-ops, which is why I have affiliation with a Sustainable Economies Law Center based in Oakland, which is also designed to do the same thing not only just co-ops but other economies to help support legally these new sort of alternative business structures that are more supportive of social enterprise or more supportive, supportive of something beyond profits for your business going beyond profits. And so that’s what co-ops are really known for. And yes, I have a particular expertize in creating and being being creative in coming up with unique structures to create that model.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:44] Now let’s talk about that work in Oakland. Can you talk about that Black Capital Matters legal fund and the work that you’re doing to help in that area?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:15:54] Yeah. So as I mentioned before, my firm is a mission based firm specifically to support the legal strategy and compliance of small businesses, investment companies that are owned and controlled by underrepresented founders, namely black black entrepreneurs. And the reason being is that, for instance, black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs and the least likely to be supported by Venture Capital Bank financing or just generally philanthropy and et cetera. Right? And so the idea is to be able to be a resource, a representative representative resource to these companies and businesses so that we can come up with unique strategies like the co-op model, right? Or like forming ecosystems with credit unions to be able to offset or counter those disadvantages. So so the the Black Capital Matter’s legal fund is one way that the firm is doing that. We decided to create the fund to offset the legal costs of raising capital, so the firm itself already provides one of the most, if not the most affordable legal rates when it comes to securities law. But even then, it’s still the law firm and law firms. Billable rates can be out of reach for many small businesses. And so even with that in mind, we’re thinking, Well, how can we be more accessible or have you more democratized so that more businesses who are, you know, equally talented have great ideas if need that legal support and marketing support to be able to shine through and grow? How do we best do that? And so as a law firm in this space and its law firm that is particularly designed to be accessible, we want it to be able to be creative and unique to partner with a nonprofit organization, to be a fiscal sponsor to help put forth this legal fund designed to again provide subsidized legal costs while they’re raising capital. Otherwise, what happens is these businesses just go along and do it wrong or just risk doing it wrong and risk being flagged by the SEC, which could amount to financial fines or criminal penalties, right? And so we want to prevent that.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:51] Now, what type of firms should think about going the crowdfunding route, or is that you think any firm that’s thinking about getting into business that this is appropriate for them?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:18:04] Anything, anything. So crowdfunding is a means of acquiring investors. So even today, venture capital, which is has historically always been a private equity space but historically have been a type of investor that controls the deal. Right. They’ll come in and they’re the ones who provide the term sheet. They’re saying this how much are we going to invest and how much control we’re going to have? So historically, that was sort of the way these startups to get funding because again, banks thought it were too risky, like, what are you? You don’t have any revenues. You just have a business plan, right? They didn’t trust it. But the venture capital wasn’t a professional investor. And to do their own due diligence and see farther ahead in the future and say, actually looking at the market, looking at your traction, your mailing list, whatever we know, we can value this company a certain kind of way. And so we’re going to see ahead in the future, but we’re going to make sure we put terms in there that are more favorable to us so that, you know, we can cash out at some point or we can go make this company go public at some point.

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:18:57] So with crowdfunding, did was actually said no, actually, the business is going to actually control the terms they’re going to put in their own term sheet with what’s best for the business, for the long term longevity of the business and then Venture Capital Fund or others. If you want to invest, you have to agree to these terms, right? So it flips the control a bit with the investor and within investment space. And so really any business can get involved. But I say the business was a startup or small business, but I will say that it’s a startup is really interested in traditional route and going through the investment or VC funds that invest. Traditionally, they may be they may not be attracted to the crowdfunding means because again, it terms of the terms where the business is actually in control and the VC may not like that. So so yes and no, it just depends on who is that particular investor and what they’re interested in.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:50] Now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website w-w-what ELC?

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:19:58] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:00] Well, Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Elizabeth L. Carter: [00:20:05] Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:07] All right, this Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all. Next time I’m Bay Area Business Radio.

Decision Vision Episode 143: Should I Learn Another Language? – An Interview with Lýdia Machová, Language Mentoring

November 18, 2021 by John Ray

Decision Vision

Decision Vision Episode 143: Should I Learn Another Language? - An Interview with Lýdia Machová, Language Mentoring

00:00 /

Decision Vision Episode 143: Should I Learn Another Language? – An Interview with Lýdia Machová, Language Mentoring

Lýdia Machová of Language Mentoring says that you don’t have to be a genius to learn multiple languages. You only need to be motivated and use the right tools. On this edition of Decision Vision, Lýdia and host Mike Blake discussed the ease of learning a language in the internet age, methods that work and don’t work, what it really takes to succeed at learning a language, and much more. Decision Vision is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Language Mentoring

Language Mentoring is Lýdia’s way of guiding anyone on their language learning journey – whether starting from scratch as a beginner or trying to achieve fluency in a language that’s got rusty. The main pillars of Lýdia’s philosophy are having fun (enjoying the process), having intensive contact with the language, using effective methods, and building a sustainable system in one’s learning. The methods range from watching TV shows and listening to podcasts through learning vocabulary using the Goldlist method to learn vocabulary, to talking to oneself in order to practice speaking. Lýdia has already helped more than 10 thousand people learn more than 30 languages.

Company website | Instagram | Facebook

Lýdia Machová, Ph.D., Language Mentoring

Lýdia is a polyglot from Slovakia who has learned 9 languages on her own, without ever living abroad. In 2016, she turned her language passion into a business and founded Language Mentoring – her own way of helping people learn any language by themselves, using natural and fun methods known by polyglots. Formerly, Lýdia worked as a professional conference interpreter and interpreted several high Slovak politicians as well as international speakers such as Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy. She also organised the world’s largest event for polyglots and language lovers called Polyglot Gathering. Her TED talk has received more than 12 million views within the first 2.5 years of being online.

Mike Blake, Brady Ware & Company

LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Brady Ware & Company

Decision Vision Podcast Series

Past episodes of Decision Vision can be found at decisionvisionpodcast.com. Decision Vision is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Connect with Brady Ware & Company:

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast series focusing on critical business decisions. Brought to you by Brady Ware and Company. Brady Ware is a regional full-service accounting and advisory firm that helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality.

Mike Blake: [00:00:22] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast giving you the listener clear vision to make great decisions. In each episode, we discuss the process of decision-making on a different topic from the business owner’s or executive’s perspective. We aren’t necessarily telling you what to do, but we can put you in a position to make an informed decision on your own and understand when you might need help along the way.

Mike Blake: [00:00:43] My name is Mike Blake, and I’m your host for today’s program. I’m a director at Brady Ware and Company, a full-service accounting firm based in Dayton, Ohio, with offices in Dayton; Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Indiana; and Alpharetta, Georgia. My practice specializes in providing fact-based strategic and risk management advice to clients that are buying, selling, or growing the value of companies and intellectual property. Brady Ware is sponsoring this podcast, which is being recorded in Atlanta and also Slovakia for social distancing protocols, probably the ultimate in social distancing.

Mike Blake: [00:01:15] If you like to engage with me on social media with my Chart of the Day and other content, I’m on LinkedIn as myself and @unblakeable on Facebook, Twitter, Clubhouse, and Instagram. And, also check out my new LinkedIn group that is called a group that doesn’t suck because they wouldn’t let me use LinkedIn in the title, but most LinkedIn groups suck, so this one doesn’t. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast aggregator, and please consider leaving a review of the podcast as well.

Mike Blake: [00:01:44] So, today’s topic is, Should I learn a second language? And, I’m just going to get out in front of this and I will freely admit that this is something of a self-indulgent topic.

Mike Blake: [00:01:55] Language learning has been a hobby of mine for a very long time. I grew up in an environment where I was very fortunate to have exposure and training in foreign languages that frankly most people did not in the United States and it’s been a passion of mine.

Mike Blake: [00:02:13] And so, one of the benefits of the internet, believe it or not, there still are benefits of social media was, there’s been no better time to be somebody who likes languages. There’s so much material out there now. You can learn so much about language learning. You can learn so much about a particular language and you can engage with languages to an extent that’s simply when I was growing up many centuries ago was simply not – was not available.

Mike Blake: [00:02:43] But I do think that that the discussion of learning a second language does have applicability in business. I can tell you that in my own dealings with others who weren’t perhaps as comfortable in English as I am and speaking in other languages that it delights somebody when you make an effort to make their life easier and communicate with them, especially if it’s a language they don’t expect somebody like me to speak. But that may be a podcast for a different time.

Mike Blake: [00:03:16] According to the data that I found, 20% to 30% of Americans can converse in more than one language. I imagine most of those are immigrants. I imagine if you’re actually born here, I bet that statistic is much lower, but it’s compared with 50% to 60% of Europeans and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that in most European countries, you take a two-hour car drive and you’ve crossed three borders.

Mike Blake: [00:03:38] Bilingual workers in the United States are 5% to 20% more than their single-language counterparts, and bilingualism is associated with brain and mental health benefits as well, including the delay of the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as fighting anxiety and depression. The most popular second languages in the United States are Spanish, German, and French, the usual suspects.

Mike Blake: [00:04:03] And so, I am so delighted to have joining us today, you know, really one of the neatest, I would say, language thinkers. We’re going to talk about why I put it that way in a minute. I discovered her on a TED Talk that I think about a million people or two million people have probably watched. So, that’s pretty darn good marketing, but also other YouTube videos that she’s done and not just about languages themselves, but the process of learning a language. And I think that that’s so important because learning a language is a challenge, but I think it’s often assigned a greater challenge than it necessarily needs to be.

Mike Blake: [00:04:45] So, joining us today from Slovakia is Dr. Lydia Machova of Language Mentoring. Lydia is a polyglot from Slovakia who has learned nine languages on her own without ever having lived abroad, which is hard to believe. Her English is just outstanding, better than mine.

Mike Blake: [00:05:02] In 2016, she turned her language passion into a business and founded Language Mentoring, her own way of helping people learn any language by themselves using natural and fun methods known by polyglots. Formerly, Lydia worked as a professional conference interpreter and interpreted several high Slovak politicians as well as international speakers such as Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy.

Mike Blake: [00:05:26] She also organized the world’s largest event for polyglots and language-lovers called Polyglot Gathering. And that’s on my bucket list to get over to Europe and do at some point.

Mike Blake: [00:05:34] Her TED Talk has received more than 12 million views, excuse me, I underestimated it by a factor of 10, within the first two-and-a-half years of being online.

Mike Blake: [00:05:44] Language mentoring is Lydia’s way of guiding anyone on their language learning journey whether starting from scratch as a beginner or trying to achieve fluency in a language that’s got rusty. The main pillars of Lydia’s philosophy are having fun, having intensive contact with the language using effective methods, and building a sustainable system in one’s learning.

Mike Blake: [00:06:04] The methods range from watching TV shows and listening to podcasts through learning vocabulary using the gold list method to learn vocabulary to talking to oneself in order to practice speaking. Lydia has already helped more than 10,000 people learn more than 30 languages.

Mike Blake: [00:06:20] Dr. Lydia Machova, welcome to the program.

Lydia Machova: [00:06:23] Thank you, Mike. I’m very happy to be here.

Mike Blake: [00:06:28] You know, there are lots of people who teach languages out there, but quite frankly, I don’t know anybody that has branded themselves as a language mentor. So, tell our audience, tell me what is language mentoring and how is that different from a language teacher?

Lydia Machova: [00:06:45] Right. So, it’s a term that I introduced. When I started in 2016, I was looking for someone doing what I considered to be different from language teaching, helping people to learn languages, and no one was doing it at that time. So, I said, “Okay, I’m going to call myself a language mentor.”

Lydia Machova: [00:07:00] And basically, the biggest difference is that I don’t teach anyone a language. I am not a teacher, so I never cover any grammar points with anyone. I don’t test anyone vocabulary. That’s very different from what I do because I teach people languages, which I don’t even speak, so to say.

Lydia Machova: [00:07:20] I help people learn any language by themselves. I always put a lot of stress on this themselves. No one can ever teach you a language, give it to you on a platter. You need to spend some time with it. And, I help people find the best methods and the best system to do it in a way which is enjoyable.

Mike Blake: [00:07:37] So, and I’m going to approach this conversation from an American perspective because that’s who I am and that’s who most of our audience is, I think. And, you know, I can tell you that among Americans who are not people who study languages a lot, they view people like us who are multilingual, especially those of us who are self-taught as opposed to having lived in a place where you learn five or six languages because that’s the country you live in, like India or something, they think we’re geniuses. Are you a genius or people like us geniuses because we’ve learned a couple of extra languages?

Lydia Machova: [00:08:14] Definitely not. I do not believe in that. Not any special talent or anything like that. We have a special knack. We like something that most people don’t. I’ve always considered myself as someone who simply loves learning languages, and that’s why I’ve spent a lot of time with them. But just like that, I could fancy gardening or computers or anything like that, and I would spend more time with it and I would have results in that area, right?

Mike Blake: [00:08:42] Yeah. Doesn’t it come to at the end of the day? And, I know you emphasize fun in your approach to language learning. At the end of the day, doesn’t a lot of it have to simply do with if you like doing something, you’re more likely to devote more time with it, be more focused, as opposed to viewing it as a job or a chore, or you’re forcing yourself to have to do it, and you don’t like it, and therefore it’s just not going to be as effective.

Lydia Machova: [00:09:08] Yeah. Exactly. And I believe this is a really, really strong factor. And, actually, that also answers the question why most people fail in language learning. Because when you look at the process that they have tried to learn the language, it’s usually not much fun, is it?

Lydia Machova: [00:09:22] I mean, when we look at the school methods, I know I didn’t enjoy learning languages at school using the traditional methods. But I have seen people now, as in my job as a language mentor, where this can really change. Because if you show someone a different approach to language learning, which can be fun for that person, suddenly they say, “Oh, why, why hasn’t anyone told me this? For 15 years, I’ve been trying, struggling to learn a language. I never enjoyed it, so I never had any results with it. Now that it’s fun, it actually works.” So, yes, I think this actually applies generally to anything, not just language learning.

Mike Blake: [00:09:59] And, I think and I’m curious as to your opinion, but I think maybe that desire might be a little more important for foreign language learning or, yeah, learning, which you can use that term, than in many other fields of study because when learning a foreign language, failure is a constant companion. Right? Mistakes are a constant companion. And, many of the mistakes are public, right?

Mike Blake: [00:10:28] If I mess up, if I make a mistake in a math problem, nobody knows except for me and my teacher. If I make a mistake in a language and I’ve made plenty of them that I wish I could have back, it’s out there and it’s public and it’s socially embarrassing. And, the human mind is hardwired to avoid those things, right?

Mike Blake: [00:10:49] So, doesn’t that mean that there has to be kind of an extra incentive or an extra way to make it fun to make it worth that vulnerability, to make it worth that the failure that is a necessary part of the learning?

Lydia Machova: [00:11:05] That’s a very interesting take, and I agree. It is more embarrassing for people to make a mistake when learning French than learning this and learning math.

Lydia Machova: [00:11:16] But I’m thinking this – I think this really has to do with one’s approach to making mistakes in general, in learning anything. And, I believe this is a problem that the school system again has taught us. Making mistakes is bad because the teacher is there to test you. And if you fail the test, if you make a mistake, then you will get a lower grade, right? And, that means that you are, let’s say, in inverted commas, but they are worth less or something. That’s what the students get, right, the feeling from it.

Lydia Machova: [00:11:46] So, obviously, they want to not do that because they don’t want to get bad grades and feel inferior in a way. And, I believe this has to change in the mindset of anyone trying to learn a language. And, just as you said, you need to embrace the fact that making mistakes, that is really what you want to do. Make as many mistakes as you can because that’s how you improve, right? If you don’t practice, you will not make any mistakes, but you will not learn.

Lydia Machova: [00:12:12] So, language learning really is a skill. It’s a skill that needs to be trained. And, just like any other skill, whether it’s playing the piano or doing any sports or anything, when you start working with it, when you start doing it, you will definitely make many mistakes. But that’s how you learn and you get better at it.

Mike Blake: [00:12:31] So, let’s dive in to, I think, what may be the most important question from a business perspective, and that is why learn a foreign language and in particular recognizing that. I happen to be fortunate. I was born in a country where my native language is one that is effectively the global trade language, right? Someday it might be Mandarin, but for now, it’s English. And so, a question that will come up here is, well, isn’t everybody that matters going to speak English and they’re going to speak it well enough so why do I need to devote my time to this? What’s the answer to that?

Lydia Machova: [00:13:13] Well, yes, you are lucky. If you were born speaking English and that is currently the lingua franca, the international language let’s say, yes, you are lucky, and it’s probably you are not that motivated to learn other languages. And, I think that’s okay for someone who doesn’t come in contact with people from other cultures.

Lydia Machova: [00:13:32] If you’re living in your little town and you don’t interact with people online or live and you plan to stay all your life in that English-speaking country, then, yeah, it’s okay. I don’t think anyone, everyone needs to learn a language at all costs.

Lydia Machova: [00:13:46] But if you do interact with other cultures, then just like you said, it makes a huge difference if you show even a tiny bit of interest in the other person’s culture, which definitely has to do with the language itself. So, even if you learn some basics of the language, you can actually go to great lengths with that.

Lydia Machova: [00:14:07] But personally, I’m a promoter of learning a language to fluency. So, not just basics of many different languages to impress many people in a two-minute conversation but what I try to do is to learn a language to a comfortable fluency level where I can really use it. I can read any book, talk to anyone, watch any movie. And that gives me immense possibilities in my life. But I understand that if someone is stuck in a little town, in an English-speaking country, then that’s a different scenario.

Mike Blake: [00:14:36] So, an interesting trend that I have noticed is, during the pandemic, and I don’t know if this is a cause or they’re simply a coincidence, but more people seem to have an interest in learning foreign languages now, which I find ironic because the opportunity to travel was closed, making it less likely that you would encounter somebody where a foreign language would be useful. Yet, many people, I think, who never would have considered trying to take on the challenge of learning a second language have chosen to do so during the pandemic. And, I’m curious, A, have you noticed something similar? And if so, do you have any kind of ideas as to why that might be?

Lydia Machova: [00:15:27] Yes. I have noticed that. We have noticed a greater interest in our courses. And, I think it’s not because people would want to use the language right away when speaking to foreigners, but maybe because they realize they know on some level that in order to speak a new language, you need to give it more time, right? And it seems like a never-ending process, and you never have time for it because you are so busy doing your everyday life. And so, when COVID came, people started to think, “Well, how could I use this time? I’m at home. I could do something useful.” There were so many videos out there, right? People calling to others, “Okay, do something with your life, learn some new skills.” And, I think for many people, the language has been probably on the backburner for some time and they have wanted to learn it, but they never had the time, right?

Mike Blake: [00:16:07] Right.

Lydia Machova: [00:16:17] I think this is the natural way of looking at it. So, now that people have time, they wanted to spend it with language learning, which I think is cool.

Mike Blake: [00:16:27] An observation, excuse me, that’s often made is that children learn languages much more easily. And, there’s a perception that one can be too old to learn a foreign language that if you’re at my old age of 51 years old, I’m too old to learn a new language. Is that true? Is there something to that or there’s a significant benefit to being younger, even very young, and does it create a big obstacle if you’re older?

Lydia Machova: [00:16:58] It’s definitely not true that someone is too old to learn a language. But it’s a very convenient excuse, right, for people who have tried a little and they found, “Oh, this is quite difficult. Maybe I’m too old. Okay, I will keep telling everyone I’m too old to do that and I don’t have to explain myself why I don’t speak other languages.” Right?

Lydia Machova: [00:17:15] I know for sure that this is not right because this is not true because I have met people at the polyglot events that you’ve mentioned at the beginning, someone who has started to learn languages in their 60s and I had a conversation with them, with him, in at least six or seven languages and he was very good at it. He was fluent and he was, when I met him, he was 72 or 73, and he just got so excited about language learning. He couldn’t stop learning new languages, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:17:43] And then, I asked him, “Well, why start so late? Why in the 60s? Why didn’t you do it earlier?” And he said, “Well, I didn’t know about the amazing possibilities and they weren’t there when I was younger.” Just again, as you mentioned.

Lydia Machova: [00:17:43] So, this only proves to me that it is possible if the person is really interested in doing it and spending time with the language obviously. It doesn’t come within a week or a weekend. Language learning takes its time. But if you dedicate the time to it, then you can achieve the results at any age.

Lydia Machova: [00:18:11] At the same time, I have to say that obviously children are more able or they learn quicker. But it’s not just languages, it’s anything, right? This is a natural thing. This is how our brains work. They are like sponges when they are very, very young, and then it gets a little bit more difficult. But there is definitely not an age after which you wouldn’t be able to learn a language at all.

Mike Blake: [00:18:36] Now, you touched on something, and I want to move into this now because I think it’s really important. And, that is, one of the things the internet and, I believe, social media has done is that it’s made it possible to have an outlet for a language in a way that was not possible when I was learning, when I was studying languages at first in the 1980s. Right? You know, there might be five-year-old magazines in the library and some old tapes or even records, Pimsleur came out on records initially, and a foreign language bookstore or something. But nothing in the order of today, whereas one of the languages I’m learning now is Swedish and I can walk out and I can use it today. I can engage on social media. I can listen to podcasts. I can watch anything that I want. And, you know, talk about that, you know, does the fact that we have the opportunity to engage in foreign languages does that lead to a greater interest and even a greater benefit of learning a new language?

Lydia Machova: [00:19:46] I think so, yeah. I mean, I was born in ’89, so I cannot say how it was in the ’80s or ’70s learning a language, but I think it would be very difficult. I cannot imagine how I would do it, even how I would go about doing it and learning a new language. But I also think that if people didn’t have so many opportunities to travel and to interact with other people, then obviously the motivation was a lot lower.

Lydia Machova: [00:20:12] And, I’m speaking of someone coming from Slovakia. We were a communist country at that time. You could not travel anywhere. The borders were closed, right? You could go to Russia or Ukraine, and that was it. So, no one really was motivated to learn English or some other Western languages.

Lydia Machova: [00:20:29] So, yeah, I think this is very natural. But I also look at it from the point of view of the process of the methods, how to learn a language. I think if someone just had one book available at the library with some tapes that go with it, that must have been really boring. I personally hate this type of learning because you listen to a short recording. It’s usually very artificial. It’s nothing, nowhere close to real-life conversations.

Lydia Machova: [00:20:59] And if you compare it to today, we have, I mean, just YouTube is the immense source of materials for any language. I mean, I used YouTube to help me learn Swahili, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:21:10] Any language that all you can have any content you like. It can be about a topic you’re genuinely interested in, and you don’t only listen to it because you’re supposed to practice, you’re listening right now, but because you actually want to learn about this interesting topic and you can see how much you understand. And it’s such a fascinating process when you are interested in the topic, right, and you listen to a recording, you’re still just a beginner, you only get a few words. But then you keep on listening and working on your language, improving your vocabulary, getting to know the grammar, and in a few months, you can actually start understanding whole pieces of the video. It’s such an amazing, fascinating process that I think people who were learning in the ’80s, ’70s just couldn’t get.

Mike Blake: [00:21:57] So, you mentioned that you learn Swahili and, of course, you know, nine languages. Somebody listening to this podcast may now be intrigued about learning a second language. How would you go about deciding which one to pick? I mean, there’s so many of them. How do you decide which one to learn?

Lydia Machova: [00:22:23] I would definitely say you need to have a solid reason for learning that language. Because if you pick a language randomly, like, “I think it would be cool to speak whatever,” right? Then you will have to put a lot of effort into something which doesn’t really enrich you in any way, right? You need to know why you want to learn that language or where you will practice it, how you will interact. As you said, you can use Swedish on social media.

Lydia Machova: [00:22:49] It can be just a hobby of yours, so you don’t need to necessarily have something to do with Sweden or the language that you want to learn. But you need to find it interesting to actually use the language in practice because otherwise why bother? Why learn the language at all?

Lydia Machova: [00:23:06] So, I personally had a reason to learn all of my languages, and some of the reasons, most of the reasons, were traveling. For example, I really wanted to do the Trans-Siberian Express, from Moscow to Mongolia. And, I said if I do this, I only want to communicate in Russian the whole time. I want to have a full experience, not be a tourist, smiling politely and hoping someone speaks English, right? I wanted to have genuine conversations with the locals. So, I spend two years learning Russian. And then, I took the trip and it was the most amazing trip in my life.

Lydia Machova: [00:23:39] So, yeah, definitely have a reason to learn a language. So, if someone is listening to this and thinking, “Hmm, I might learn a language just because.” I would actually say think twice or think how would that language enrich you? And if you have a strong reason, I believe you can get it to fluency. If not, if it’s just like I can give it three minutes a day, well, that will not work. You will not learn a language with three minutes a day.

Mike Blake: [00:24:06] So, yeah, I’ve never done the Trans-Siberian railroad, but I lived over there for a number of years. That’s another bucket list thing. That has to be an amazing experience, but anyway.

Lydia Machova: [00:24:22] It is.

Mike Blake: [00:24:22] So, you talk about fluency – actually, there’s one other question I want to ask before I get into that, and that is, you know, in business there may be something of a conflict in terms of which language to study. There may be a language that you want to study because it will help you in business. But that may not necessarily be a language that you’re interested in because you have an interest in the culture or interested in other things that are connected with the language.

Mike Blake: [00:24:49] So, I’m curious, have you mentored people that maybe kind of felt like they had to learn a language for business, but their heart really wasn’t in it? Maybe, there’s another one that wasn’t as useful immediately, but that was really – you know, maybe they had to learn Spanish, but they wanted to learn Finnish or something, right. Have you encountered that? And if so, how does that work? Are there people that can sort of overcome the feeling like they have to learn a language for business or does it have to be more organic to really be successful?

Lydia Machova: [00:25:26] Yes. So, my answer in that question, I have obviously met a lot of people. This is actually quite a common problem. “I feel I should improve my German because I have learned it at school and it’s useful and, you know, I want to put it on my CV, but actually, you know, my heart calls me towards Italian or something.” In that case, I tell those people to go where their heart calls them because you cannot really trick your mind.

Lydia Machova: [00:25:54] If you are not genuinely interested in learning that language, you can do whatever you want. You can have the most effective methods, but your brain is just not interested, right? I believe learning is a very natural process, and our brain wants to learn stuff that it finds interesting and useful for life.

Lydia Machova: [00:26:12] So, if you feel you should and maybe, you know, like kids at school, my parents want me to learn the language and it will be useful to me one day but I have no idea how right now, then it just doesn’t work, and you will not really pick up any of that language.

Lydia Machova: [00:26:27] So, that’s one way to put it. I would say start with the language that you really want to learn because then you can see what an amazing progress you can make in a much shorter time, and I believe that you will get so interested in the process of learning the language that you can then easily apply it to learning other languages that you will need later on in life. Right?

Mike Blake: [00:26:47] Right.

Lydia Machova: [00:26:48] But also, so if someone has a situation where they really need to learn that language, it would really help them and they cannot quite get interested in that, I would say work on making it interesting for you. And, I can use my own example. Speaking of German, that was my second language. So, my first language was English when I was 11, and then we added another language when I was 15, German, at school. And I just hated it for the first two years. I thought it was the most boring language in the world. I didn’t like the sound of it. It was too complicated. I just didn’t like it. I got good grades, right? I could learn those words and learn some grammar, but my heart wasn’t in it.

Lydia Machova: [00:27:28] And then, I realized that I wanted to become an interpreter and I will need two languages for that. And, now I’ve already spent two years learning German, so German should be probably the other one. So, I was thinking, how can I make this more fun? How can I make it more interesting? And that’s when I actually started developing the methods that I now teach people. And, for example, with German, I started to watch German TV massively, half an hour every single day, and I didn’t understand almost anything at the beginning. But I got into it, and then I started watching some sitcoms that were repeated on TV and that got me interested. And, it was just fascinating for me to see how I fell in love with the language just simply by spending time with it, by using materials which I found interesting, by being hooked to the content, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:28:20] So, you can change your attitude to the language to sum this up. But I think that you cannot really force yourself to learn a language that you are not interested in and you do not find any joy learning the language.

Mike Blake: [00:28:36] I have my own sort of language abandonment story, and I’ll probably come back to it at some point as a matter of personal pride. But for a while, I was learning Dutch, and for whatever reason, Dutch and my mind just did not click. Everything was such a struggle. And I think it’s because Dutch is so close to English that I couldn’t get my mind off of applying English to Dutch. And, you know, I never got the word order right. And, I can explain to the grammar, I could never get the word order right. And, at the end of the day, I wasn’t so interested in Dutch culture. I didn’t have so much interest in doing the business in the Netherlands, especially because that’s one of those countries where everybody really does speak English quite well, so, and they’re happy to do so, that I just could not sustain the motivation.

Lydia Machova: [00:29:30] Yeah. I totally understand that. And, actually, again, you are not the only one. I have so many friends who told me that they found it extremely difficult to practice their Dutch in the Netherlands because everybody replies in English and the Dutch find it a nice gesture like, “Oh, I see you’re a foreigner, so I’m going to switch to a language which you are comfortable with.” But then my friends, polyglots, wanted to practice the language, right? They came to the country to practice and they felt really heartbroken. It’s like, “Oh, is my Dutch so bad that you switch to English?” But that’s because it’s so natural for them to switch to English, right?

Mike Blake: [00:30:05] Yeah. The Scandinavians are the same way. I probably learn Swedish more by not actually going to Sweden because if I’m engaging on social media, it’s just there’s no incentive for them to switch the language, right? But if I try to speak Swedish in Sweden, they’ll look at me and they’ll say, “Well, you’re kind of cute, but let’s not do this.” Right?

Lydia Machova: [00:30:26] Sorry. That just proves the point that you don’t need to travel to that country to learn it. And as you said in your case, maybe you even shouldn’t, because that can be counterproductive, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:30:40] With the internet and with the immense possibilities we have today, you can create that country in your mind, right? You can put on podcasts and YouTube videos, and you can have people speaking in that language to you in your ears all day long. So, yeah, you really don’t need to travel to another country to learn the language.

Mike Blake: [00:31:01] So, you mentioned a term that I want to explore with you because I think, to me, it’s a very sensitive term, almost an explosive term in learning a language, and that is the term fluent or fluency.

Mike Blake: [00:31:21] I learned years ago or I decided years ago I was never going to tell somebody I was fluent in a language because somebody will always come along that knows it better than I do. And, it served no useful purpose for me. And so, I tend to use the term I’m comfortable in a language or I can generally speak it without a translator unless it’s something that, you know – if I were representing the United States in a nuclear arms discussion with Russia, I would have a translator regardless. It’s too important to miss that, right? Even though there’s nothing I couldn’t do in that language if I wanted to.

Mike Blake: [00:32:03] But, but fluency, you know, the first question I receive if it comes up that I’ve learned a language – fluent – are you fluent? How fluent are you? I’m not even sure you can say how fluent are you where it’s sort of how pregnant are you.

Mike Blake: [00:32:20] So, I’d like you to comment on how you see the word fluency. What does it mean to you and do you sort of have the same – do you have a similar experience with the word that it can be almost a dangerous word in learning languages, the term fluency?

Lydia Machova: [00:32:38] That’s a very good question, and I really love this metaphor about how pregnant are you. Actually, I think we can explain this using this metaphor because with language fluency, just like you said, there is – we kind of tend to think about it that there is this highest level of speaking that language. And if you are not there yet, you shouldn’t call yourself fluent, right? You shouldn’t tell other people that you know this language already.

Mike Blake: [00:33:04] Right.

Lydia Machova: [00:33:05] But this is just like with a pregnant woman. Is a woman pregnant when she’s one hour before giving birth? Probably not, right? You see her with a belly, so you will say that she’s pregnant even earlier. But in the first three months or four, she doesn’t really show, so, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:33:22] This is really quite similar to learning a language. So, when the belly starts showing, coming back to this metaphor, that’s when you are gaining fluency. And, I believe there is a certain level when you are really comfortable using that language, although you are still making mistakes and this is perfectly fine. Fluency doesn’t mean that you don’t make any mistakes, that you know every word and you understand everything.

Lydia Machova: [00:33:52] For me personally, this is my definition of it. It means that you can easily have a conversation with a native speaker of that language, and it is not unpleasant or painful for the other person to have this conversation with you. Because a native speaker can have a conversation with a beginner and be very patient, right? But they need to be very careful about how to express themselves and what words to use, and then this learner will ask them, “Well, can you please repeat it? Can you say it in a simpler way?” This is not a very natural and nice conversation to have, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:34:24] So, I personally try to achieve the level where I can have a nice fluent conversation and I can read stuff in that language, which was meant for native speakers. So, not some simplified text, but normal textbooks, usually nonfiction, that is understandable to native speakers. If I can understand it, if I can read the book and it’s not painful for me, it’s actually enjoyable, that’s how I know that “Okay, I got to this. I got to this level and I can now use the language in practice.” Right?

Mike Blake: [00:34:57] Right. So, in Europe, of course, as you know, but our listeners may not, there’s a testing system to determine your level of facility with a language A1, A2, et cetera. I forgot what it’s called, but I know it goes all the way up to C2 as my understanding. In your mind, what is your experience with that system, and how valid is it as a measurement of your command of a particular language?

Lydia Machova: [00:35:27] All right. I believe it’s quite unfortunate, actually. It’s called the European Framework of Reference for Language Learning, and it’s very heavily used in here, in Europe. So if you ask someone in the street, they will tell you, “Oh, my French is B1 and I’ve got a certificate of B2.”

Lydia Machova: [00:35:47] But again, it’s unfortunate because it kind of gives you the idea that what you want to achieve is the highest level, the C2. That’s when you can say that you can stop learning the language and you don’t need to work on it anymore, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:36:01] So, just to clarify, there are six levels. A1, A2. This is beginners, just basics in the language. Then, we have B1 and B2. This is intermediate. And then, we have C1 and C2. But what most people don’t really know is that C1 and C2 levels are for people who want to use the language professionally. That’s for translators, interpreters, language teachers. You do not need to be a C-level speaker in order to use the language comfortably.

Mike Blake: [00:36:27] Okay.

Lydia Machova: [00:36:28] So, getting back to the metaphor, sorry, these [inaudible] fluency level, that’s what I would call a B2. And, I have a nicer metaphor, maybe to explain this. Have you seen the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks?

Mike Blake: [00:36:44] I’m familiar with it. Yes.

Lydia Machova: [00:36:45] Okay. So, he gets stuck on an island, right? And, I hope I don’t make any spoilers here, but he tries to get away from the island and he fails several times. He builds a little raft and he cannot get across the last wave because the waves further away from the island are bigger and bigger and they always kind of drag him back, right? So, he stays there for a long time.

Lydia Machova: [00:37:08] I believe this is very similar to language learning because you are trying to overcome those waves and they are very small at the beginning. That’s when you are learning your first words and everything seems easy because, you know, you learn hi and thank you and everything else. But then the waves start to get bigger. So, the more advanced you are in the language, the more difficult problems arrive. And, for you to get to a comfortable fluency level, you need to overcome that last wave so that you get away from the island and you are not dragged back towards it with the waves.

Lydia Machova: [00:37:40] And for me, this level is the B2 level. It doesn’t mean that you cannot get any further. You can always go deeper and have a better, more professional understanding of the language. But if you get to B2, you are above that, beyond that last wave, and that means that you can stop rowing. You don’t need to work on the language. You don’t need to keep learning and go to language schools and pay teachers. You are already there. You will not get dragged back towards the island to zero knowledge, to complete beginner. And, the only thing you need to do is to brush it up when you need to activate it.

Lydia Machova: [00:38:15] So, you can afford not to use the language even for several years. And then, when the occasion comes, you will say, “Okay, give me a weekend or a week or maybe a month, you know, and I will get back into the language and I’m back on that fluent level.” This, I believe, is something that most people don’t know and that’s why they try to either get to C2 or they think that they don’t speak the language yet. But this is just like with the pregnant woman, right? You are pregnant even when you are not one hour before giving birth.

Mike Blake: [00:38:47] I like that. I like that way of analogy. It takes me back to my Russian experience. I had the very good fortune to start learning Russian in high school, believe it or not, and then through college. But then I got a job in, sorry, I studied in Moscow, and then I got a job in Minsk. And, the first three months that I was there, I realized that my school Russian was not going to be enough. And in a place like Minsk, nobody spoke English whatsoever. I either spoke or starved. And, I remember for the first three months I was in bed by 7 o’clock because I was so exhausted from learning the language and the flying because I was translating it. I didn’t have the brain pathways that I was speaking it as a language. I was translating in real-time all the time.

Mike Blake: [00:39:36] And then, there is one day where I crossed that wave and I don’t know exactly when the day was, but there did come a time when I realized I was now thinking in that language. That was now – that time was a third language, and it was no longer that kind of effort. But I never thought of it that in that metaphor. So, I may borrow that.

Lydia Machova: [00:40:01] Please do. Yeah. I think it explains it well because you don’t need to achieve the highest point of a mountain or something, right? But you get to that level. And, I’m sure that it was a great feeling for you when you woke up that day and you realized, “Wow, I can speak Russian.” It’s an amazing feeling, isn’t it?

Mike Blake: [00:40:19] It was actually a great day when I realized I got home from work and I didn’t want to go to bed right away. That was the big thing.

Mike Blake: [00:40:19] So, it’s interesting. So, your definition of fluency then I think is very important because I think there’s a belief that if you don’t achieve sort of your level of fluency where you’re a professional linguist, you’re a professional translator, that therefore that you fail. But in point of fact, and again, this gets into – again, you know what your definition of fluent comfort level, whatever, you can still get a lot done in a language without achieving that level, right?

Mike Blake: [00:41:10] I think the statistic I saw was that if you learn 2000 words in a target language, you can engage in 80% of what you need to engage with, and then if it’s ten thousand words or it’s about 95%, which isn’t that much if you pick the right words, right?

Mike Blake: [00:41:26] And, is that kind of what you teach your clients that it’s not about knowing every word because even native speakers make mistakes. You know, a lot of Russians don’t fully know all the grammar rules with all the connections and so forth. Is that what you teach them to sort of set their expectations at a realistic level?

Lydia Machova: [00:41:52] Yes, yes. And, I think that many people don’t even know that there is, as you say, an attainable level that will not take you ages. We are used to, at least in Europe, we are used to learning languages all our lives, and most of the people I meet here, they will say, “Lady, I’m just – I’ve been learning English for 15 years. I still cannot speak it. What does that tell me? It tells me I’m obviously not talented. It tells me I obviously cannot learn a language because I’ve been trying for 15 years.”

Lydia Machova: [00:42:24] But then when we dig a little deeper, we realize that, well, what were the methods? How did you enjoy that process? How much time did you really spend? Because if someone goes to a lesson once a week and there are 10 people in the classroom and then they spend one lesson reading and then on one learning grammar, and then they speak every fifth lesson and they say two sentences. Well, no wonder you don’t speak the language because you haven’t practiced the skill of speaking, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:42:47] So, this is one problem that people feel that they have been learning the language forever and they still don’t have the results, but also they don’t realize that the result is actually usually very near at their stage. If they’ve been – if they’ve spent some time with the language for 15 years, then they can actually achieve amazing progress within half a year or a year if they give it maybe half an hour, an hour tops, a day, they can actually get to that fluent level and stop learning. You don’t need to keep on learning forever, so it actually saves you time, right? Rather than, if you decide to give it a little bit of your time, one hour one lesson a week for 15 years, and you feel you will never ever get there. It’s a huge difference. So, yeah, people don’t usually know about this comfortable fluency.

Mike Blake: [00:43:36] I’m really glad you brought that up because I think that point is so smart. Because when you look at it, if we tried to learn any skill, it could be computers, it could be making shoes, if the only exposure we had to it was one hour of lecture a week and hands-on experience of five minutes a week, you’d never make very good shoes. You’d never be very good with computers either. So, there’s no reason that should be different with a language.

Mike Blake: [00:44:06] And, I want to kind of pause on this a little bit because, and you’ve mentioned this before that people say they’re too busy to learn languages. I suspect you and I agree. It’s not that you’re too busy. It’s, A, you don’t know how – you don’t really understand what time it takes. And, B, you’re just choosing to do something else with your time, which is fine, right? But unless you tell me you never watch television, you never surf social media, you have time to learn a language. You’re just deciding those other things are more important.

Lydia Machova: [00:44:35] Exactly.

Mike Blake: [00:44:36] But, you know, and there’s a common, I think, misconception and I think you agree, but please tell me if you don’t, that the only way that you can – sorry, I was going to say the bad word, that you can learn a language well is through immersion that you have to live in that country or you have to be in a U.S. Military Monterey school, which is really good, or a three-month – live in a farm for three months where they only speak Egyptian or something. But that’s not really true, is it?

Lydia Machova: [00:45:10] No, definitely not. And, I believe it’s so comfortable for people to think of language learning in this way because it is easy, right? It’s like, “Hey, here’s my money. Come and teach me or bring me to your course where you will give me exactly the right material I need to have every day and walk me through your process. And after three months, I speak the language.” Right?

Lydia Machova: [00:45:34] I think that people like to approach it in this way. You need to travel because they want to maybe get rid of the responsibility for learning, right? And, obviously, it helps. I mean, if you can immerse yourself in the language by going and living in the country or being around the native speakers of that language, that’s awesome. Use it, use those opportunities. But you don’t have to in order to learn the language.

Lydia Machova: [00:45:59] And, I know so many people and actually, I’m an example of that too, that you don’t have to do it because you, as I said, you can create that environment, that language environment in your headphones, on your computer. You can look out for those opportunities to talk to people with today’s international world. Even for me living in Slovakia, it’s very easy to find native speakers speaking French or Spanish or Polish here in Bratislava, right. So, however you decide to approach this, make sure you find the right opportunities to practice the language and you can absolutely do it if you take the responsibility for doing this by yourself, right?

Mike Blake: [00:46:42] What in your mind is the most common mistake people make when setting out to learn a language?

Lydia Machova: [00:46:50] Well, it boils down to this responsibility again. They look for external resources that will feed them the language, spoon-feed them, right. They want a ready-made solution, a shortcut, something that will not cost them any energy, any time. They are willing to pay money but just do it quick, right, preferably in my sleep. And people just –

Mike Blake: [00:47:16] I was going to ask you about that. I take it you’re not a big fan of these programs that say they’ll teach you a language while you sleep.

Lydia Machova: [00:47:25] Well, I won’t say that they don’t work, but I haven’t found one that works yet. If someone comes and convinces me that this work, I’m very happy. I believe that technology has still to bring us a lot of inventions, amazing inventions, which will probably change even language learning.

Lydia Machova: [00:47:42] But so far, nothing like that has ever worked. I haven’t met a single person who would say I learned a language effortlessly. It doesn’t work because it’s a skill. You need to learn so many new words and you need to have listened to so many recordings, right, and need to have had so many conversations that it just doesn’t work. It does take time.

Lydia Machova: [00:48:01] So, most people realize this and they want the shortcut. And, usually, they look for the easiest solutions. So, they download an app, right? There are many very popular apps and they just want to give it this five minutes a day and they expect that this is how to learn a language, but it’s just not enough. It cannot work like that.

Lydia Machova: [00:48:20] So, I believe this is the biggest problem, taking responsibility for the learning and approaching language learning as a skill that requires some time.

Mike Blake: [00:48:29] We’re talking with Dr. Lydia Machova of Language Mentoring, and the topic is, Should I learn a second language?

Mike Blake: [00:48:35] Just a few more questions because our time is nearly up. But I did want to – you just touched on something I want to ask you. What is your opinion of all these new apps that are out? The Duolingo, the Memrise, the beams of the world. Maybe, even Rosetta Stone gets lumped into that. How useful are they as a language learning tool?

Lydia Machova: [00:49:00] I believe they are useful, and I’m personally also a fan of them. But I take them as a nice, playful addition to my language learning because I believe it’s very difficult for an app like this to cover all of the language skills that you need to learn.

Lydia Machova: [00:49:19] So, if I only put words to pictures within the app or I only repeat some phrases, I’m not forced to really think about some words and say them to create content in the language. It cannot help me to learn to speak. There is no process in this app that can help me to speak because the only way to learn to speak a language is to practice speaking it, right.

Lydia Machova: [00:49:44] So, these people expect that just by being playful with the language and playing with the words, they will somehow magically learn to speak the language. I don’t get it how it should be even possible. I don’t expect this from the app because I know I’m not practicing that, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:50:01] So, I’m not opposed to the idea. I think they’re a great gateway to learning languages, and I like it when people get excited and they’re very addictive. Let’s face it. They are built to be addictive, right? And, I myself have been hooked on Duolingo and Memrise and all of these apps. But I’ve always realized that this is a very nice game, right, to be in contact with the language but I need to work on the language elsewhere, too, if I want to really speak it. If I just want to kind of dabble in it and learn a few phrases to use on my holiday, then they’re the perfect solution. Go for that. Use them and go on holiday and impress the native speakers, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:50:40] But if you want to actually use the language, learn it, know it. Be beyond that last wave. Be fluent in it. The apps will never be enough, at least not the ones that we have so far. I haven’t seen an app which would cover all that.

Mike Blake: [00:50:54] I think I agree with that. I’ve found Duoling – I tend to use Duolingo and Memrise, and to me, they’re a good start, but I quickly found that if I really – if I wanted to achieve the level of comfort that I wanted to achieve, I needed to have an actual textbook in front of me where I could see how the language is structured. And, I’ve also found a word frequency dictionary to be helpful, as well as flashcards. Of course, everything’s different for other people.

Mike Blake: [00:51:30] In your system, and I hope I’m not asking you to give away too much intellectual property, but when somebody sets out to learn a language and maybe they did start with Duolingo but they realize that Duolingo can only take them so far, what are other tools does a person need to have in order to be successful?

Lydia Machova: [00:51:50] Right. At the very beginning, I agree that a textbook is a must. I have known a lot of other courses. I tried learning some of my languages with them so that I can test different resources and different materials. But at some point, I agree that in order to really understand the language and start understanding the nuances and the differences and why does it work like this, you need to have certain textbook material, right?

Lydia Machova: [00:52:19] But afterwards, if you get over those first two stages, A1, A2, beginner stages, and you become a lower intermediate where you can already understand roughly what texts in the language are about or you watch a movie and you don’t understand everything but you get different phrases and you can kind of get by, that’s when it starts getting really interesting because that’s when you can use immense resources online and you can start using them according to the topics you enjoy.

Lydia Machova: [00:52:49] So, that’s when you can introduce podcasts and start reading books. You can start with simplified books or bilingual books. There are hundreds and thousands of them online available. And, you can pick materials that you are interested in and then spend time with them systematically so that you can acquire new vocabulary and understand more of the grammar and also gradually start speaking, practicing the output as well.

Mike Blake: [00:53:16] So, just a couple more questions before you go. I want – I’d like to talk about the word polyglot because, you know, at least in the English language, I can’t speak for other languages, but the term polyglot has almost a magical meaning, in a way probably too magical, if I’m honest about it. Is a polyglot somebody who, in your mind, is that somebody who speaks three languages or more? Is it five? Is it 12? Does the term really even matter?

Lydia Machova: [00:53:56] I wouldn’t say it does, and there is no official definition of the word. A polyglot is a person who speaks multiple languages. But in today’s world where there are so many people from different backgrounds and countries, it’s very natural for people to naturally go through life and pick up two or three languages, right? Your mom is Spanish and your father is American, and you spend a lot of time in France, so you end up speaking three languages.

Lydia Machova: [00:54:24] But I believe polyglot is really someone who enjoys the process of learning new languages and learns them also for pleasure. So, it’s not that you picked up the languages because you had an international life or your dad was a diplomat or something, but because you are truly interested in the language, right? So, I see polyglots more as people who take language learning as a hobby.

Mike Blake: [00:54:50] Okay. Yeah. I think that’s right. I like that definition, and maybe it’s no different than somebody who just learned as a musician, who learns different instruments. Right? Maybe, someone plays the guitar and the piano, and that’s just what they decided to do.

Mike Blake: [00:55:05] Lydia, this has been a fun conversation. I could talk to you for hours, but I know it’s Friday evening where you are. So, I want to be, of course, respectful of your time. There are probably questions we didn’t get to that a listener would like to know about, or maybe a question we didn’t go into as much detail on. If a listener wants to contact you to find out more about this topic or maybe take advantage of your expertise, can they do so? And, what’s the best way to do that?

Lydia Machova: [00:55:35] Yeah. I would be happy to. So, you can find me at languagementoring.com. And, we are on social media as well, Facebook, Instagram. You can watch some YouTube videos. I have some lectures and presentations in polyglot events, also findable on YouTube. So, yeah, language mentoring is the term.

Mike Blake: [00:55:59] That’s going to wrap it up for today’s program. I’d like to thank Dr. Lydia Machova so much for sharing her expertise with us.

Mike Blake: [00:56:05] We’ll be exploring a new topic each week, so please tune in so that when you’re faced with your next big business decision, you have clear vision when making it. If you enjoy these podcasts, please consider leaving a review with your favorite podcast aggregator. It helps people find us so that we can help them. If you’d like to engage with me on social media with my Chart of the Day and other content, I’m on LinkedIn as myself and @unblackeable on Facebook, Twitter, Clubhouse, and Instagram. Also, check out my new LinkedIn group, a group that doesn’t suck. Once again, this is Mike Blake. Our sponsor is Brady Ware and Company. And, this has been the Decision Vision podcast.

Shannan Collier, PC. and Kelly Nagel from Nagel’s Bagels

November 12, 2021 by Kelly Payton

Women In Business

Shannan Collier, PC. and Kelly Nagel from Nagel's Bagels

00:00 /

This Episode is brought to you by

Shannan Collier, The Law Office of Shannan S. Collier, PC

We truly believe that once you are a client, you are a client for life. We concentrate on building and continually facilitating our relationships. We work closely with each client, whether a business or individual, and endeavor to exceed expectations and shatter myths. We are proud to state that we have had numerous clients for over fifteen years and that we have assisted clients in all types of matters, from business formation, restructuring and acquisition to business succession and ancillary personal estate matters to complex franchise establishment and development.

When clients have legal or other professional needs that are better satisfied outside of the firm, we offer and contribute unparalleled assistance in managing the professional team and assisting accountants, financial advisors and other attorneys in performing their tasks to accomplish a final goal. We constantly strive to fulfil our mission statement: To provide professional, competent service to each client to the extent required and desired and in a diligent manner, so as to encourage continued confidence in our abilities.

Connect with Shannan on LinkedIn

Kelly Nagel, Chief Marketing Officer at Nagel’s Bagels

Experienced Marketing Consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in Nonprofit Organizations, Event Management, Media Relations, Corporate Communications, and Fundraising. Strong marketing professional with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) focused in English / Creative Writing from Florida State University.

Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Speaker1: [00:00:08] 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. Now here’s your host.

Speaker2: [00:00:29] Hi, I’m Laurie Kennedy with Business RadioX, and I’m here in the studio with our producer Stone, as well as Kelly Nagel and Shannon Collier Salvi. Did I say that properly? You did. All right, I’m going to start with you, Shannon. How are you doing today? I’m doing well. Thank you and you. I’m doing fantastic. I wanted to ask you what originally? Now tell us what you do and then tell me how you originally chose to get into this line of work.

Speaker3: [00:00:58] So I am an attorney. My practice is primarily limited to business, estate and tax planning. How I got into this line is since I was three years old, I have wanted to be a lawyer, so I made it happen.

Speaker2: [00:01:13] That’s awesome. And so I’m guessing that times at your house when you were growing up were probably a lot of fun. Did you tell your parents, like, you know, how they were supposed to do things properly so that they would stay out of trouble? Or did you just create the trouble and then make them keep you out of it? I don’t know.

Speaker3: [00:01:33] I was the typical goody good girl, so there was never trouble on my side. I was definitely the one who was the straight and narrow. Maybe more out of fear than anything else. But my father was the one who taught me. Really, everything in law, he’s not was not a lawyer. However, he played well on TV as I tend the joke. His best friend was a lawyer and he always told me, Mean what you say? Say what you mean? He used real words with everything. So at probably five, I knew what oxymoronic meant. At eight, I knew what subterfuge was because my father would throw those words at me when he was fussing at me and I’d stop to wait. What does that mean? Because he’d be fussing at me and I didn’t know what that meant, he says. Go find out. I’d run upstairs, open the dictionary, see what it meant, run downstairs. I was not engaging in subterfuge. I was telling the truth from the beginning. So, so I would say that really, the household was was led by my father and he guided me to be able to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish.

Speaker2: [00:02:36] Ok, did you grow up in Georgia?

Speaker3: [00:02:38] I did not. I was born in Georgia. I am old Savannah. But when I was very young, my parents moved to Jacksonville, Florida, and that is where I spent my formative years.

Speaker2: [00:02:48] Ok, all right. All right. Well, Kelly, tell us about your business and how long you’ve been in business and how you got there.

Speaker4: [00:02:56] I guess it’s a funny story. Kelly Nagle with Nagel’s bagels and obviously our last name. It was clearly God intended us to make bagels. But I’m from the south and my husband is from Southern California. So, you know, how do we make bagels? Well, he would do a lot of traveling with his job as a consultant in New York, New Jersey, Boston, and he’d come home because as a, you know, a good boy, he brought his southern girl back to the south. And we come home here to Georgia and there’s no bagels here. And I kidded him and said, Well, then figure out how to make them Nago bagel. And it was in June of 2019. We were sitting on the couch, and I only remember because it was the week of Chrissy, the youngest daughter’s birthday. And he goes, I’m going to figure out how to make a bagel. And he started researching and watching YouTube videos, and he did some batches and they were awful. They could have been a boat anchor. They could not have been a bagel. And that was the really the best thing that could have happened because he was like, Oh, this isn’t going to beat me. And so he just started, you know, making batches, giving them to every Yankee Jewish person we knew and to really, you know, say, OK, this is this a bagel? It’s this right? And he tweaked some things, of course. And then we have the bagel that we have. Well, this was supposed to be his hobby, and it turned into my full time job because of COVID. I got laid off. I was doing marketing and business development and for a company and obviously couldn’t do that anymore with the pandemic, everybody being home. So I got laid off and one of our friends said, You know what, if anybody can make this work, you can so see if you can make it work. And we’ve been drinking from a fire hose ever since and it’s just been exploding so well.

Speaker2: [00:04:47] I find that interesting because I jumped into helping my husband with Alpha and Omega Automotive during COVID as well, and it was really challenging to try to figure out what things like he’d been in business 20 years. What things could I help do that he wasn’t already doing? Or how could I not step on his toes and bring something that helped alongside him? Did did you find that you were walking through any of that as well?

Speaker4: [00:05:13] Oh, absolutely. I tell people all the time that our marriage counseling has worked so much more within our business than it ever helped in our marriage. We have a great marriage, but that learning what lanes we’re supposed to be in and learning to be able to say, Oh no, no, that’s my lane and this is your lane. So he’s the baker. He does all the back of the house stuff and he is very, very organized. He writes everything in an SOP and I am the front of the house person. I love doing these kind of things, speaking to people, being in the community, marketing, business, development, that stuff. So that’s that’s what I do. I go out and get the accounts and, you know, I’m in the community and he bakes.

Speaker2: [00:05:58] Yeah. Shannon, with you. I know you’ve been growing your business and adding people like what it would is. How has that transformed what you were doing like before COVID and now?

Speaker3: [00:06:09] Honestly, COVID has not affected me. I’ve been very fortunate where I’m not seasonal and when the economy is good, my business is good. When the economy is bad, my business is good because there’s always people starting businesses, losing jobs, starting their own businesses are growing. People always need a state planning tax planning. So I’m very fortunate in that aspect. It’s been somewhat coincidental, however, that around the COVID time my business has exploded. You’re right, I have been attempting to expand. It’s very difficult, though, in this day and age to find competent professionals who upon whom I can rely. So that has been the hardest growing pain for me. I’ve been fortunate enough. I found a fabulous associate attorney who I have now. I have a great paralegal. I have a fabulous administrative legal assistant who is my right hand upon whom I rely entirely. But I would love a couple more people to maybe take the pressure off and let me spend more time, as Kelly says, doing more things like this. Being in the community. Meeting with people who might be able who might need my help, whom I might be able to provide assistance because that is my goal.

Speaker2: [00:07:15] So I want to hear from both of you. But since we’re speaking with you, Shannon, right this minute, go ahead and tell me like, what are the things that you are involved in in the community and that you like to do in ways that you like to to serve others in that way?

Speaker3: [00:07:30] Closest to my heart is truly the veterans and first responders. My husband has a very, very soft spot for the same, so he has his own business as well. And through his business, we have focused on hiring former veterans and homelessness homeless individuals to get them real jobs. Unfortunately, my husband can only employ so many people, so what that led to is doing is forming our own 501c3 that we use to hopefully one raise funds to contribute back to being able to get veterans displaced, homeless and the like back into the workforce and then also to provide another opportunity for them to have a job. If we can give them training in something as basic as stalking and retail, as opposed to having to be trained to go into an office environment or have a skill that they are just not in a position to learn, this, we believe, is something at a level that is not being addressed sufficiently. And we’re hoping that we can possibly get more of these people in the workforce to work at local retail establishments. Unfortunately, these people don’t have addresses, don’t have showers, don’t have phones. So we work closely with most ministries and other types of veteran support organizations. They identify people. We are looking to give them that six months through our five one three and or through Brian’s, my husband’s company having them work, getting them a resume, getting a even if it’s a temporary like a housing or a long term stay facility, it gives them an address, lets them take a shower, let’s give clean clothes, lets them afford a phone. And then that way, when they have the opportunity to apply for a job, they can give an address, they can give a phone number, they can show up and clean clothes, they can show up showered and they have a letter of rec and a resume from me. So they have a lawyer and a Wednesday and maybe another business who are all giving them vouchers for saying This person wants to work. This person is reliable. We recommend you hire this person.

Speaker2: [00:09:39] Well, it gives me chills. I love that. I love that. Kelly, what about you? How are you? What are things that you’re passionate about in the community?

Speaker4: [00:09:47] I love being with people, as we said, and I one of my biggest things. One of the most important things to me is that people feel sane no matter where they are or what station they are in life, you know, whether they’re homeless or whether they are the CEO. So often we don’t see people as people. So that is truly my passion and the fact that we do make bagels. I also feel like we can’t make something as basic as bread and live in a community where any one person has food insecurities. And so we truly our goal is to ensure that no one is without food. There’s actually a really amazing tradition in bakeries in Eastern Europe, where they there they go and they buy bread every day. So you walk into the bakery and you buy your bread and you say, I want, I want a loaf of bread, and then I want one for the hook. And that they would pay for two loaves of bread and one goes on the hook and they take one home. And then if somebody comes into the bakery and can’t afford bread, they asked, Is there any bread on the hook? And the baker gives them whatever loaf of bread is on the hook. And so rich and I have have decided that that’s we haven’t gotten to the point to be able to form a 501c3 yet. But we use that tradition of on the hook, you know, being able to provide for others in the community. Law enforcement is really close to my heart. My father is a retired police chief here in Georgia, and so no one in uniform ever pays for anything. And any time I have leftovers, I’ll go to fire station or the police station and give them extra bagels, or just bake some for them just to to give back. Because gosh, especially in these last few years, they are so under appreciated and so underpaid. And so if I can just in a little way, let them see be seen and loved. And it’s true for anybody, but especially that those groups people.

Speaker2: [00:11:56] Yeah, I love that I love. And also the be seen part like that’s something that’s close to my heart as well. I spent a lot of my childhood feeling unseen, and so I want to make others feel same because it kind of stinks to not feel seen, you know?

Speaker4: [00:12:13] Absolutely.

Speaker2: [00:12:14] Do you think that off the hook, like the the saying off the hook came from something like that?

Speaker4: [00:12:20] You know, I’ve heard mixed reviews because I am one of those weird people that likes to go down the rabbit hole and figuring that out. I just, yeah, so I have I’ve. Heard that it’s that or there’s a few other theories, but yeah, that whole, you know, hey, are you on the hook for something or you know that that it is possibly related to that tradition?

Speaker2: [00:12:40] Yeah, because letting somebody off the hook means they don’t have responsibility for whatever it just was. And basically, if you’re getting free bread, then you’re getting something without the responsibility of paying for it, I guess. I don’t know. I think that’s pretty interesting.

Speaker4: [00:12:55] I think we can deem it so right here.

Speaker2: [00:12:57] Ok, let’s do it.

Speaker4: [00:12:58] Let’s see how done we’re so powerful.

Speaker2: [00:13:02] So, Kelly, what motivates or inspires you?

Speaker4: [00:13:07] Well, that’s such a good question. Ultimately, ultimately, that’s Jesus, ultimately, that’s my relationship with Christ is what motivates him as far as me, I believe that he put me on this Earth for specific reasons. In order to give a purpose and show love, I tell people that my motto is Love God, love people in that order, and nothing else really matters beyond that. But what gets me out of bed in what we do now is the fact that I do get to be out in the community, I get to meet people and I get to help meet people’s needs. Sometimes that involves Nagel’s bagels, sometimes it doesn’t. And I’m OK with that. I don’t care if I, you know, know somebody. Actually, I did it. What? A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine was in desperate need of a lawyer. He didn’t even know it, and I was like, I’m hooking you up tonight with my friend, hooked him up with Shannon, and he literally texted me before while I was walking in here and said, You saved my life. And it’s just to be able to do that because I know different people in the community that makes me know that I’m doing what God put me on the Earth to do.

Speaker2: [00:14:12] Yeah, that’s awesome. Shannon, what about you? What motivates and inspires you?

Speaker3: [00:14:17] When you ask that the first thing that popped in my mind, of course, was family. But when I thought about, in reality further how it goes, it really is people. It’s so difficult to answer this the way I can’t verbalize what’s in my head, it’s so emotional to me. I always want to do the best for my family. But as I’m out there, what I find myself doing is interacting with people and. Finding that what I can give gives me so much more. So similarly, a lot of the guys who work for my husband, like I said, they were homeless. They’ve been off the streets for 18 to 24 months now. And everyone who comes to my house or everyone whom I see on a job site calls me Mama. I get hugs from every single one of them. They ask Brian to invite me to lunch if they know they’re near where I’m working that day. It’s it’s events like that at situations like that that motivate me to continue to go out every day and do what I do.

Speaker2: [00:15:27] That’s awesome. So. That really kind of goes into my next questions, which were, how does who you are as a person reflect in what you do and what makes your life significant. So I feel like we kind of addressed all of those at once, don’t you all? Pretty much. Yeah. So and also the next one was how do you use your influence in the community? And you guys have already talked about that as well. You are so far ahead of me.

Speaker4: [00:15:56] All right.

Speaker2: [00:15:57] So tell me about how do you handle mistakes in your business, Shannon? Like what? How do you? I’ve already heard you say something like, let me see if I can remember what this was like. There are no mistakes. There’s just another way around something that was it was kind of something like that. Tell me,

Speaker3: [00:16:15] Ok, first off, there’s no mistake. Only a learning opportunity, OK? However, as a lawyer, we can totally make mistakes. And when we do, the first thing would be me cursing for a stream. And then after I calmed down, it is addressing it. It’s owning up to it. It’s fixing it immediately. As a lawyer, if we file something wrong, we have to fix it. If we put something out there wrong, we have to retract it. If we, you know, if we are, we’re at a different level where it’s such a high fiduciary level of representation and honesty to the courts and to each other as lawyers that I cannot let something false stay out there if it’s a mistake. Of course, everyone understands that, and I have before reached out to an attorney to say, I’m sorry you misunderstood me, or I’m sorry I misunderstood you, or I’m sorry, I don’t believe I clearly stated what it was. Let me clarify. Let me fix. Let me retract if we flat out mess up, file something wrong. It is a matter of going back and fixing it immediately and owning up to those mistakes and then learning from them. This week, my associate made a huge mistake by copying opposing counsel in something he shouldn’t have. Oh, and there was a quick apology. And reaching out for that and warning that we don’t do things like that in the office, but that we all make mistakes, so let’s learn from it.

Speaker2: [00:17:38] Yeah, I think when we were talking at one point in time, it had to do with a, I don’t know, something that like we had closed on this house and it was about how we were filing these. Oh, how we filed it this way or that way. And you were like, We just need to figure out, like if he did it this way, we’ll figure out how to make it work the other way. So what are some things that you have found for your business people that you’ve been able to redirect the way that they’re? Doing something.

Speaker3: [00:18:11] Ok, so if a client comes to me and they’ve done something they shouldn’t have and I don’t mean criminally, I mean, it would have been more advantageous to do something a different way. It might be more tax benefit.

Speaker2: [00:18:21] Thank you for specifying that.

Speaker4: [00:18:23] I’m just saying I don’t do criminal. She’s not going to be our alibi. Is that what you’re saying?

Speaker3: [00:18:27] No, I did not say that. No. Two really different things here. It’s not just that I won’t be defending you in it, but I can totally be your book the. The possible means or ways in which that can happen is too expansive to say, how have I done that? But what I’ll do is I’ll say, OK, you did ABC. And really, that wasn’t the best way to do it. You really should have done this. We can’t go back and really do this. But let me find an alternate way to get us to a same or a similar end without taking that ABC or I guess ABC’s we should have done. Def-, we can’t do DPF now, but let’s go ahead and do guy because that will get us. So the end result that is more advantageous in the ABC. So I will definitely look now. Sometimes we can’t. Of course, sometimes things are done. An example I had someone call me yesterday and say, OK, it’s year end. I’m going to have horrific tax consequences. What can I do? So we can’t go back and undo anything. Unfortunately, there’s certain things we can fix before the end of the year. Luckily, if you call me on January 1st, I can’t fix the year prior. That’s too late. But so I gave him some ideas of what he can do now to go back. This calendar year can’t do last calendar year, but so I’ll do what I can to the extent legally and ethically proper in the client’s given situation.

Speaker2: [00:19:53] Yes, that just made me reminded me. I’ve got to call my financial advisor about my I.R.A..

Speaker3: [00:20:01] Whatever triggers up, either. Think of it. Remember? Look, now everybody, don’t wait until December 1st. Look at everything

Speaker2: [00:20:07] Now. Yes, absolutely. What about you, Kelly? How do you deal with mistakes that are made? And I and let me just before you answer this, I’m just going to say that from what Shannon says, at least an automotive. Yeah. I mean, you’re not going to do everything perfect all the time, but owning up to it and fixing it is like, I don’t think anybody expects you to be perfect. I mean, they want that. They really hoped for it.

Speaker3: [00:20:31] But they could be mad when you’re not.

Speaker4: [00:20:34] Yeah. But the truth is, is that no one’s perfect, right? We all know that and we all know that about everyone. But and so what our philosophy, what my philosophy has always been is authentically and honestly on what you did and extravagantly apologize. And what I mean by that is, for example, we had someone it was very, very early on. We were testing out different packaging for different bagels and we had someone purchase some bagels from a place and within 24 hours they had molded. Obviously, it was poor packaging on our part. He called us and said, Hey, well, first of all, thank you that he called, you know, they don’t always do, right. Most of the time they’re like, Oh, well, I’m never going to buy them again. But he called us. Well, he literally bought two bagels from this place for three weeks in a row. I does. I delivered a dozen bagels to his house every week for three weeks in a row, completely free. And you know, that cost me some money. But that was two years ago. He is still a client. Are you still a customer? I don’t even like to call them anything but friends. You know, he’s still one of our fans, and he still comes out of his way to find our bagels. And he almost always is telling other people about, Hey, this is the company you want to go with. This is who you want to talk to. This is who. And it’s because we extravagantly apologized and that it it doesn’t matter how much it costs, it costs the bad will that you create by not doing that cost so much more in the long run.

Speaker2: [00:22:11] And yeah, for sure, absolutely.

Speaker4: [00:22:13] But it does have to be honest and authentic to. I do believe that being honest and authentic, even back to when I was a waitress and I messed up someone’s food, I was like, You know what? I truly, totally screwed up. I know that you said this and I put in the wrong thing. Let me fix it. And I think when people see that and feel that honesty it, it goes a long way because everybody deep downs knows that they’re not perfect either.

Speaker2: [00:22:38] Right, right? Yes, for sure. So what are some misconceptions about your industry,

Speaker3: [00:22:44] Kelly,

Speaker4: [00:22:48] That what you see on the surface really is all there is to it, and I bet everyone could say that in this room, right? That what they just see, whether it’s that they see one of our bagels at a coffee shop or they see us at a farmer’s market or they see what we bring into their office when we’ve catered something that that’s all it took. They don’t see the 48 hour ahead of time, all of the work that it took, and they also don’t see the amount of money that bagel equipment cost. And that’s why if you go to a bakery, a lot of times a regular bakery won’t make bagels because bagel equipment’s very specific and ridiculously expensive. And so they they don’t see that kind of planning. I think they also don’t see the the care that my husband. And took in choosing everything that we do, everything down to this specific flower, to this specific oil, to the specific sugar to, I mean all of those things to make sure that it comes out the way that it should come out and that he truly we both truly that he is amazing how much he cares about that end product.

Speaker2: [00:24:04] So I am curious now that you talk about this equipment, what is different about Baikal equipment versus other baking equipment? And on my assumption is it has something to do with the thickness of the dough.

Speaker4: [00:24:15] Maybe well, most bread is you have a mixer and you mix up the ingredients and then you’ll let it proof and then you put it in an oven. Well, bagels, if they’re done correctly, are boiled and baked. So you, you do. Really? Yes, I had no idea. So we do have the same. We do use now. We are not New Yorkers, we are. So we do not say we have New York style bagels, although we do produce in the traditional New York style. However, we’ve tweaked those six ingredients just a little bit, not a ton, but to to to elevate it. A little, I guess, is the way to put it. And so we do mix those ingredients and we have a very specific proofing process that causes them to always be soft, which isn’t always true with bagels. And then you boil in water and rich can geek out with you on water and the chemistry and what all has to happen there. But it’s water and and you boil them and then you decorate them. You put, you know, whatever the seasoning is or whatever, and then you bake them and and the oven that you bake them in is you can either do like a pizza type oven. They have to be very, very hot or a very hot convection oven and steam has to be present as well in the baking process, too. So it’s not like you can just do it in any old regular oven as well. It’s better to have so like a kettle that is the boiling thing. Could, you know, is really specific to bagels or that type of bread? Most people aren’t using a kettle for anything but that

Speaker3: [00:26:01] Bagels one

Speaker2: [00:26:01] On one. I know it’s well, it’s really interesting. I know, like my husband’s from New Orleans. So French bread in New Orleans is different than French bread here. And a lot of it has to do with the altitude and the weather and that sort of thing. So when you said you tweaked some of the recipes, I was the first thought that came to my mind was maybe that’s specific to our climate or, you know, how much moisture we have in the air, humidity and that sort of thing?

Speaker4: [00:26:28] Oh, absolutely. And we have to treat we have to tweak things as seasons change. So the weather just got colder. And so our proofing time went from 20 minutes to. It could be as much as three hours simply because you can only control the environment in your bakery. So much so, yeah, right.

Speaker3: [00:26:50] And of course, there’s that high quality of ingredients that you offer without all of the extra garbage that we see. And maybe some commercial brands

Speaker4: [00:26:58] Know there isn’t a single preservative or artificial ingredient in ours

Speaker2: [00:27:03] At awesome. Where is your store located?

Speaker4: [00:27:06] We actually don’t have a storefront. We have a commercial kitchen in Cartersville and we sell wholesale as well as doing home delivery and we do at Farmer’s Market. So there are about 15 coffee shops and cafes that use that sell our bagels. And what I love about that is kind of goes back to my purpose, right? Is I love that I can also help other small businesses elevate their business. I can use that marketing and business development background that I have to go into a coffee shop or a brand new cafe and say, Hey, let me help you. Let me help you do some marketing. And you know, let’s wheel. Both of our ships will rise by doing that as well. So that’s been fun to do. And and then we do farmer’s markets, home delivery, business delivery. But we are actively looking for a bigger space. We’ve kind of outgrown our kitchen, our commercial kitchen. And so we wouldn’t mind a storefront to go with our new place if we can find one.

Speaker2: [00:28:01] Anyone listening? Yes, please just get in touch. Well, so Shannon, what are some misconceptions about your industry? I know as as a lawyer, there are lots of them, but why don’t you share some, some situations that you’ve personally seen?

Speaker3: [00:28:16] In my sight, at least because I am not the personal injury attorney, so I’m not the ambulance chaser. But a lot of people do believe and to some extent they might be right that the services are very expensive and relatively yes, legal fees are expensive. What people don’t realize, though, is if you don’t set the proper groundwork, it’s much more expensive on the other side. And that sounds like the sales pitch. But as we stated earlier, mistakes the clients make think about now how much they’re paying me to go back and find that alternative. Like I said, the deaf or the guy or whatever, that costs a lot more now that I’m working at a different level and trying to work around the mistake as opposed to if I put it in place in the first place, right? So that’s probably the biggest. Another is people think, Well, if I if I own almost nothing or if everything is jointly with right of survivorship, I don’t need a will. You always need a will. I find so often there is that one asset someone didn’t think about that has now made it so that we have to file intestate probate, which is more expensive just because there’s a couple extra steps.

Speaker3: [00:29:20] It’s a little more time consuming, which means more legal fees. So misconception that you don’t need a will. Also, don’t forget something to think about. I’m going to bump me off. Let’s say that that I die and before my estate is administered. But after I died, my mom dies. Well, if if things are passing, either before I die or after I die for my mother, to me, it can affect what assets are now in my state that weren’t previously so. Mom dies. I die a month after mom. I don’t have a will, because everything I own was jointly with right of survivorship with my husband. But guess what? The assets had just passed to me from my mom are not jointly with right of survivorship. And now there has to be an intestate filing to get my assets from mom to flow them through to my heirs who are actually my husband and my son.

Speaker2: [00:30:13] Ok, so how often should you update your will?

Speaker3: [00:30:17] That is really a relative question. I tell people the big things to look for are birth, death, marriage, divorce, inheritance or lottery. Things that primarily change your financial or social position in life because it’s been 20 years is not a reason to revise your will. It’s a great reason to review it. I had someone this morning say, Look, we have no kids. We have had no changes. Or will, as 20 years old, do we need to revise it? Let me just look at it. Let’s see. I’m willing to bet you you don’t as long as it’s a Georgia will and you executed it properly. If the people are still the people or if someone has died, but you’ve named the successors to that person, there’s no reason you’re going to need a new will.

Speaker2: [00:31:03] Yeah, I think many of the times that we’ve changed ours, it’s had to do with when our children were at different ages, you know, like when they needed somebody to keep them. If something happened to both of us, then that was a different. Document or whatever. Then now that they. Well, we think they’re grown up.

Speaker3: [00:31:21] It depends, really. Even that is not necessarily if you have one child, which is a birth. So that was a reason for new will. Yes. And you name a guardian and you have a second child if it’s drafted properly, that guardian should apply to both children or under the third and to the fourth. Now, if that person dies again, there should have been a successor named if it was drafted properly. I’m hoping it’s a good will. There should have been a successor named now if there wasn’t or if you decided to change the successor. That’s not even a reason for new will. You can do a codicil just saying, Hey, everything else in here is still good, but I do need to change my name as Guardian. That is much quicker and easier than having to do a full will, unless there’s other reasons that you need a new will as well. Now, when the kids become adults, what happens? The guardianship provision just won’t apply because they’re adults. But at that point, you may want to name the children as fiduciaries in your will, and that may be a cause for a further adjustment. Possibly a codicil, possibly a full new will depends on how smart you are.

Speaker4: [00:32:18] No, I will say a misconception that I have heard people have about lawyers that you have actually rectified. For me, Shannon, is that you won’t have a conversation without charging, and that is so not true. It’s so, not true.

Speaker2: [00:32:32] You just invite her to lunch. And by all means

Speaker4: [00:32:34] She’s fine, right? Absolutely. You can’t get

Speaker3: [00:32:37] Me to stop

Speaker4: [00:32:38] Talking at that point.

Speaker2: [00:32:40] Like, I couldn’t write fast enough

Speaker3: [00:32:42] Now I I can’t help helping. It’s it’s sort of in my nature. Of course, when it comes to the actual work part, yes, they’re going to get charged for that. No, I’m not going to say come into my office for free console, but you know what you call me or you have a friend call me or you call me with a friend, or I walk into a meeting with three other people and I hear someone say something and I give him advice because I overheard a conversation. Little things like that happen to come out of my mouth without me even thinking,

Speaker2: [00:33:10] Yeah, I hear you. Well, tell me what is. Tell me a situation. Obviously not people involved, but a situation where you change the course of direction for a company and how and why. Like, what are the details around something like that?

Speaker3: [00:33:26] I don’t know if I’ve ever changed the course of it, but I have facilitated in the direction of a company more than one. I have one client who was undergoing a merger and they had a plan, and for tax purposes, I saw taxes that can be triggered upon the sole owner. When the merger happened that we could avoid or minimize, we could reduce the tax consequences if we structured it slightly differently. So we did that. I facilitated in changes of of. The one company was an Inc and we change it to an LLC because the structure they were heading, it would be more advantageous for the way they wanted to own it moving forward to have it be an LLC as opposed to stay in Inc. So things like that are more where I’m integrated. They call and say, Shannon, we’re thinking about this. Can you help us get there or what do you think? And that’s when I came in. So I don’t really change the direction they know where they want to go. My job was not to change that. My job is to maximize the benefits and efficiency for them in getting to wherever it is, they decide they’re going to go.

Speaker2: [00:34:32] Ok. All right. I love that. And. I lost my train of thought because I was enveloping all that within my being. Let’s change the subject. Mentored, mentoring and mentored, so, Kelly. Are you being mentored and are you mentoring others and what does that look like?

Speaker4: [00:34:57] Oh, absolutely. It is a huge passion of mine. I feel like I’ve said to people before, if you were not growing, you’re dying. And so and the only way to grow, obviously, is you have to have two parts of that you do need to mentor. But you also need to be mentoring someone else, you know, to to learn is. I mean, part of learning is teaching in someone else. And so yes, I have both of those in various aspects of my life. You know, I have a spiritual mentor, a woman that is amazing, that helps me learn and grow in my biblical and spiritual life. I have several actually business mentors, women that help me stay grounded. And one of it which doesn’t even know she’s my mentor because I don’t know her personally. But if y’all have ever heard Sarah Blakely, who owns banks, I mean, just I just read and listen to everything that she does because she’s amazing and so grounded and has just taught me so many ways to think of things and perspectives on that. So I do love. I love that, and I love her and love listening to her. And most mostly, I mentor my children, my 15 and 16 year old daughters when they allow that. You know, they are 15 and 16 year old daughters, so they come back.

Speaker4: [00:36:23] They please from your mouth to God’s ears. No, they are amazing women. They are strong, strong willed women. And as my mother would say, you would never want to raise weak willed women. So they are wonderful and I cannot wait to see how they’ll change the world because I know they will. And they do. They’re starting to allow me to to mentor a little more. But I have some other little. They’re not little girls, they’re teenagers, but they’ll help in the bakery or they help it farmer’s markets and stuff. And we’re able I’m able to mentor and speak life into them. And I mostly, I mean, the biggest thing that I try and teach people is, do what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it, and that just changes so much. If you can do that and just, you know, own it on what you do and on what you can’t do, that’s OK, too. So yes, I feel like if you’re not teaching, you’re not showing the next generation. Well, then you’re kind of leaving this world in a bad place. And if you’re not learning, then you’re dying. So yeah, we have to be in that place in the middle.

Speaker2: [00:37:37] I definitely am all like on board with that. I feel like and there’s scriptures that say, you know, choose life like you’re either living or you’re dying, like you say. And I feel like if you don’t so into others, then that that attaches back to being seen like being seen as also being remembered by other generations and as you sow into the lives of others than part of your remains, you know?

Speaker4: [00:38:01] Absolutely. I think it was Maya Angelou that said people might people will probably forget what you say, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel and making, you know, really authentically hearing and listening and pouring into people. You make them feel good. You make them feel seen, make them feel loved and known. And in our society that says all about, it’s all about me, it’s all about what I want. If you can model giving to others, I mean, there’s no better thing to model, no better witness to give.

Speaker2: [00:38:35] Yeah, that’s great. What about you, Shannon? And mentoring and being mentored and also tell us who’s in your family?

Speaker3: [00:38:43] Oh gosh, I consider my family really everybody. I’m very southern in that aspect, so we’re very extended. My dad had two brothers. My mom has a sister, so there’s plenty of cousins and children of the cousins. So I consider them all family in my household. It’s my husband and my son. My husband and I have been married three and a half years, and my son is 22 and similar to Kelly. I’m fortunate enough that he’s not a teenage girl, and because it was the it was only two of us for 15 years. He he’s always asked me questions and asked for my advice and come home and told me about his day and to this day, still living with us. He will come home from work and he will come to me and say, This is what’s happened and this what’s going on and this is what’s happened. My last medical school application and what do you think about this? And would you review this for me? And I’m honored that, you know, since he was in sixth grade, he asked me to help him put his plan in order to get where he is today. And he listened to me and he worked with me. He continually followed up and touched down just to his goals with me. So that is probably my proudest Mendy.

Speaker2: [00:39:53] You know, for me, Kelly, did you hear her say medical school?

Speaker4: [00:39:56] I did. I guess we’d need a doctor in the family,

Speaker3: [00:39:59] My son, the doctor.

Speaker2: [00:40:01] I can’t wait to say that.

Speaker4: [00:40:02] You know

Speaker3: [00:40:04] What? More could a Jewish mother ask for?

Speaker4: [00:40:06] That’s so true.

Speaker3: [00:40:08] And then as far as mentor, my first mentor, as I referenced earlier with my father, my father guided me. He raised me as his son, which I don’t want to, you know, pooh pooh the women in business aspect here. But he raised me to to really have no preconceptions, misconceptions, directions regarding what I can do. And there were never limits, and he raised me to be outspoken and strong and never really think that there’s anything I can’t do. I’ve never particularly set a goal because I just in my head. I think I decide to do something and I do it or I don’t, and it is what it is, and it’s not what it’s not. So he’s probably my, my primary and strongest mentor I’ve ever had as far as professionally. I was fortunate enough to have a local attorney, Frank Bird, to be my first true mentor when I graduated law school. Unfortunately, that’s when the hiring freeze went on in the government, so I was going to be hired by the IRS and they could not hire me because of the hiring freeze. So I was a struggling little girl by myself and he met me and he saw my tax background and my business background, and he brought me on.

Speaker3: [00:41:18] And here he is, relying on me for my tax and estate planning, and he was truly my mentor and truly guided me and supported me and will ever forever be my heart as that as far as professional mentees. I have had several attorneys come through my door who found me because they graduated the same law school I did, and they moved to Atlanta and they would talk to me. And of course, I was not hiring at that time. But I always said, You know, if you need to call me, if you if you want to talk, I’m always here. Whenever I teach continuing ed classes, I always tell the lawyers I am there and I have gotten calls and I have gotten questions, and I will help anyone any way I can because I don’t see any reason not to. I’m fortunate enough now. I have an opposing counsel who’s one of my mentees that I had years ago, which was so cool when he called me as a Shannon. And I don’t know if you remember me, but you were kind enough to help me out when I graduated and I’m now representing this client. And you’re opposing counsel. That’s fabulous. I’m so happy for you.

Speaker2: [00:42:20] Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:42:21] So that’s kind of my my history of mentor mentorship.

Speaker2: [00:42:25] That’s awesome. All right. Well, this will be our last question. I’ll start with you, Shannon. Ok? What advice would you give to others who are trying to enter the field that you’re trying to enter?

Speaker3: [00:42:36] Oh. I know you caught me off guard.

Speaker2: [00:42:40] No, I didn’t write that one down because I just thought of it.

Speaker3: [00:42:42] Oh, really, it’s stay within your wheelhouse because in law, it’s so easy to get lured into an area in which you’re not competent because you need the money just flat out. You need to survive, you need to make the bills. And I get that. But what you can do is find somebody and they will either mentor you through it or they will help it, or they will do it for you, or they will do it with you. So be very careful. Don’t stretch yourself too thin and don’t take on the client that your gut tells you you shouldn’t. That’s sort of

Speaker2: [00:43:20] That sounds like a story for later. Lots of stories

Speaker3: [00:43:23] On that one, but yes.

Speaker2: [00:43:26] Wow, OK. What about you, Kelly? What advice would you give to a woman in business trying to get into her, trying to get into a business or into food industry or

Speaker3: [00:43:37] Anything of that nature? Yeah.

Speaker4: [00:43:39] I mean, food is cutthroat, I will tell you. A lot of people make a good something and then say, Oh, well, then I’m going to open this. And I would say, whether it’s food or anything, I kind of have three things. One is be humble, be very, very humble, be used to being uncomfortable and be lean into uncomfortable and well, I guess it’s for things now. Think about it, ask for help, ask questions. And I guess that goes along with being humble. Ask, ask, ask, ask everybody that, you know, don’t ever let anybody think, Oh, well, I have it all together because they all know you don’t. So it’s OK. And the last one is have about three times as much money as you think you need. Oh, heck yes, right? If you’re going to play the lottery, I mean, you save, say, save, save, save, save, save.

Speaker2: [00:44:37] Awesome. All right. Well, thank you, ladies, for being here. And remember, if you if you think you know everything, then you’re sure to learn nothing like, that’s one of my go to saying. So that’s my advice for today and thanks Stone for helping us out and we’re son and off.

Seth Morgan from MLA Companies

November 11, 2021 by Kelly Payton

Austin Business Radio

Seth Morgan from MLA Companies

00:00 /

Seth Morgan, President and CEO of MLA Companies

Seth Morgan is the President and CEO of MLA Companies, which he founded in 2006, As a strategic advisor, he brings insight and accountability to business leaders. He also represents sell and buy sides in M&A transactions. Seth’s experience includes mergers and acquisitions, operations, internal consulting, controller operations and general management, bank negotiations, compliance audits and negotiation, business valuation experience, risk management, budgeting, and forecasting, and dealing with the pressures and dynamics of small business ownership.

Connect with Seth on LinkedIn

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Speaker1: [00:00:08] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for workplace wisdom sharing, insight, perspective and best practices for creating the planet’s best workplaces. Now here’s your host.

Speaker2: [00:00:30] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Workplace Wisdom Stone Payton here with you. You guys are in for a real treat this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast CEO with MLA companies Mr. Seth Morgan. Good afternoon, sir.

Speaker3: [00:00:49] Hey, thanks for having me, stone. Good afternoon to you and all your listeners. Thank you.

Speaker2: [00:00:53] Well, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show. Man, I know we got a lot of stuff to talk through. Before we go there, though, could you give us a little bit of a primer, overview, mission and purpose of MLA companies? What are you guys out there trying to do for folks?

Speaker3: [00:01:08] Well, that’s a great question. And don’t we spend a lot of time trying to answer? We started in two thousand six, so with really fractional CFO work is the center of our of our business that quickly expanded into. We do some merger and acquisition now, some back office bookkeeping support. We still are very involved in fractional CFO support, which really looks like a mix of consulting and on the ground execution with our clients. Recently, we started to expand in different disciplines outside of finance, so some organizational development and process improvement, et cetera. We believe business is a force for good in the world, and we believe it’s best led by people who view it through a stewardship lens. We spend a lot of time on that and we just really want to help those stewards be the best stewards they possibly can be. I know that sounds a little cliché, but we think because of that, it’s it’s it’s really an effort and creativity and innovation and ingenuity that these stewards are bringing to the table on a daily basis, whether they’re leads of departments or owners of companies. We have real passion for that. And MLA, that’s the that’s the succinct answer.

Speaker2: [00:02:16] Well, I’ll tell you, it seems like an interesting dynamic to me because not only are you courting and striving to serve the end user client, but you also find yourself, I suspect, working to recruit, develop, retain the practitioners themselves, at least with this fractional CFO. Where can you speak to that sort of finding yourself in two different environments and having to serve both?

Speaker3: [00:02:44] Yeah, that’s a great question and one that we spend time on. So as the CEO, you can imagine, you know, early on and in my in my career running MLA, it looked like making sure that diapers got changed and food got put on the table. And as the company has grown, I’ve had to do what everybody does in business and and really look myself in the mirror and say, Am I trying to build an enterprise here or am I just practicing a craft? And I suspect some of your listeners are facing the same question, and I made the decision to try to build an enterprise. So a board has been put in place for working very hard at getting MLR ready to go beyond me, and that means thinking very carefully about our clients who are the best clients, how do we recruit them? And then exactly what you said, Stone, are people who are the best people and how do we recruit them? So. So much of my time today is devoted to working to promote our brand, working obviously in business development. I still serve some clients from time to time, but absolutely then it’s thinking about who are the folks that we have at the leadership level, who are the folks that we have in the trenches? And how do we continue to keep that fresh and exciting, not only for our current team, but for our recruiting activities and then ultimately to serve our why to serve our purpose, right? How do we have the right people that will give the best advice to those stewards leading these organizations for good that we call businesses?

Speaker2: [00:04:05] Now, have you found that this labor pool, if that’s the right word, has changed or been impacted to any great degree with the advent of the pandemic coming on?

Speaker3: [00:04:18] Oh, I think it has grown, and there’s all kinds of theories on why that is. And so mine are no better than anybody else’s. Or maybe the better way to say is they’re just as good as everybody else is. You know, we probably see it more dramatically playing out inside of our client base where, you know, almost every client, regardless of what industry they’re in or complaining about labor shortages. It’s not to say that we don’t see our own challenge, but frankly, in our space, good people, we’re challenged to find pre-pandemic. It’s not new because of the pandemic that there’s a shortage. And I really think so. This is I was doing an interview over the weekend. This is playing also off of the generational shift that we’ve we’ve been talking about for years as business leaders. And that is the move from boomer to X to millennial. And we’re seeing that in many ways. I think stress and uncertainty really just drives to the surface the deep seated issues or changes or or shifts that we sense. And I think the pandemic maybe just sped those up made them more evident to us. So I think as businesses are grappling with this labor shortage, they’re also grappling with what’s really. A cultural shift underneath the surface of how employees and talent are thinking about what they need from their employer and vice versa. So I really think all the pandemic did is put a put a spotlight on it. We could talk about public policy, we could talk about macroeconomic conditions. I think all of those things are playing a part in making this labor shortage feel more acute. But I really think it’s simply it’s isolated and highlighted issues that were already there under the surface. It’s really what the pandemic did to us and maybe even for us.

Speaker2: [00:06:03] So the work itself that these practitioners are engaged in and the environment in which they find themselves, I got to believe that’s changed, too. Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:06:13] Well, absolutely, if you’re referring specifically to our team. Yeah, I mean, the one is not changed and what won’t change is, you know, it’s a pretty noble thing to lead a business, right? And I’m not talking about my role that wasn’t a self gratifying or promoting statement. But I think if you think about the risk takers of America that that that are evident in our history and their evident in the living rooms that we’re talking to right now and in the offices, it’s a pretty noble thing. At least it can be. And those nobles, if you will, that are taking that challenge on and putting capital to risk and putting reputation to risk because it’s so much more than capital putting, putting their their own energy into and trying to build something that’s so often goes well beyond the generation that thinking about that they’re living in today, those stewards are still asking the same questions, which is the same basic questions we’ve seen thousands of books written on and the timeless questions How do I serve my community? What’s my value proposition? If I serve my community, I don’t necessarily mean, what’s the social impact or social good, although that’s obviously part of it. But so much of that social impact and social good is in the products or services we produce. It’s not necessarily the check that we write to the YMCA, although that might be a very wonderful thing. But it’s it’s the fabric that’s being built by these these stewards in business through their communities, through making for great team members and employees who are responsible citizens who are able to provide for their families and and do good in in the in the passion in areas that they have access to.

Speaker3: [00:07:50] This is a the beauty of business is we all know is is it can be a tree that continues to reproduce, not just not just inside that business itself, but then in the families of living rooms that that it’s affecting. So there’s a way long winded answer, probably not what you’re looking for, but those stewards. The questions are the same as the environment change. But of course, uncertainty is high right now. I really don’t care if the economy is doing well. I think if you talk to the average CEO, they are concerned and rightfully so. The macro conditions are just unsettling. And while there might be great short term stories of economic success and even maybe some of our clients are feeling that some are not as much, but some are feeling it. They’re seeing it. Their balance sheets are flush with cash. There’s still a level of uncertainty, certainly that the labor shortage is hurting us. The supply chain concern is out there that there’s a lot that the stewards of businesses today are struggling with. It absolutely has changed how our practitioners have to think about their flexibility, their empathy and even practicality. Like some obviously things like social distancing and distancing and businesses closing that obviously affected us as well. So all of those things, we’ve just looked at those just speed bumps along the road that frankly are not much different, not much more difficult than what our average business owner or client is facing. Anyway, that just required us to be flexible and quick on our feet as we continue to try to serve them as they serve their customers and vendors and importance.

Speaker2: [00:09:22] I got to ask me and I got to ask about the Seth journey, the back story and maybe even some insight into when and how it shaped this wide of yours. And I love the Stewart frame. But yeah, tell us a little bit about your back story. And if you, if you might, how that has come to influence, where you’ve landed on your why?

Speaker3: [00:09:46] Yeah, that’s thanks for asking. And I’m just going to be really direct. You can hit the mute button if you want to do so. You know, it’s not a very sexy story. You know, I joke with people that MLA started because I was about to be fired. I have a background professionally and public accounting and started to feel that entrepreneur itch as I started to work inside mergers and acquisitions for that public accounting firm, realizing that the world was so much bigger than the debits and credits and tax returns. And that really just fed my dissatisfaction, if you will. With that, there is nothing wrong with the public accounting industry. I’m not picking on it. I own a little public accounting firm that kind of serves as a system that is not picking on that. But for me, it wasn’t quite enough. And so I had the opportunity to work for a turnaround from a very experienced, well-capitalized entrepreneur that was taking a company off the Nasdaq, taking them through a three sixty three restructuring bankruptcy. It was looking for new talent. Two years into that, we weren’t turning around and I was probably going to be fired if I didn’t raise my hand and say, this is my turn to go. So at the age of whatever, I was twenty six or twenty seven, I don’t exactly recall, partly because I don’t remember the timeline I can. I can think that through what it was, twenty six MLA launched, I was backed by that CEO, my boss.

Speaker3: [00:11:01] We put a little business plan together. He was a basically a passive investor and we exited him in two thousand nine. It really probably wasn’t until twenty eleven or twelve MLA was a nice company. That had a small team, and we just did our thing. But that I really had that, if you want to call it, come to Jesus moment where I looked in the mirror and said, What am I doing like? I’m giving these clients this advice about building companies, and I was obviously growing in my career and my my confidence. And but I had to make that my own decision, which was, you know, I could probably make more money if I just went and found another job someplace. Or do I want to take take a shot at building a company that can actually scale and live beyond me? And that was the choice I made. There’s been an awful lot of hard knocks along that way professionally, personally and every way along the way. I reconnected with a pastor of a church that I had attended, and we really spent a lot of time building in some theological background. Even to that why question for us, which we now call our business consulting model about trying to get all weird and cliche, but we call it the business redeem process. We don’t think there’s anything really new there. We think it’s an orderly way to observe created order is what we would call it and how people and organizations address challenges.

Speaker3: [00:12:21] And we get a real kick out of getting in the mess with our clients, rolling up our sleeves and not just giving good advice, but actually putting pressure against those questions, doing some calculated risk taking with them. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that writing a check or even just writing a check, what it means more is, is those those calculated risk in business that we’re all facing every day where we put pressure on a team member and we put pressure on a department, we put pressure on the market in some way and we watch the feedback and we help our clients process that iterative learning that we’re all doing. Whether we recognize it or not, we happen to believe finance is the tool that got us here. We’re going to stay. We’re going to stick with that. We’re excited about it. But there’s plenty of tools that use that same iterative learning process to really steward well. And that’s why we eventually just recently started to move into some other disciplines as well opportunistically. But that’s again, I hope I’m getting back to the why, but for me, it’s really a merge of personal challenge, personal opportunity and even and even a pretty strong, not pretty, a very strong faith element in that and kind of how we think about the world that that has led us to the place for that today.

Speaker2: [00:13:36] So so I fall into this trap here in business. I’m the number two guy in our Business RadioX network and I and I run a studio. I fall into this trap at home and that is, I’m a little quick, a little too quick, I think, to start implementing a strategy before I have some of the foundation pieces in place. What counsel, if any, might you have to offer in general and with specific respect to your domain? Some ducks we should get in a row before we start even trying to form a strategy.

Speaker3: [00:14:10] So, so you’re probably, you know, if there’s any great MBA, I have one, by the way, that’s neither here nor there. If there’s any great MBA out there, consultant, they’re probably going to call you up in a little bit and say, don’t ever invite that idiot Steph back on. I think if you’re I think if you’re a three billion dollar business and you can go out and hire Deloitte and McKinsey and spend time doing market research and building up this case for what your, you know, every possible outcome you might be able to perfectly form. And I still don’t actually believe that. But let’s just for the benefit of the doubt to bless my brothers and sisters at Deloitte, McKinsey, you know, you might be able to get to the point where you’re like, You know what? Within a margin of error, we know exactly what the risk is to this, to this question that we’re that we’re struggling with, where we have to decide, when do we start to actually execute? I think the more realistic version for all of us, but I’ll just lop off those that are able to hire the Deloitte’s and McKinsey and say the rest of the peons in the world like us are are more likely going to need to spend some time thinking and planning and being thoughtful, maybe praying about that decision and then seeking counsel from your board of advisors or your management team or just the people that you rely on. And then what we’re going to do, and this is very much what our model is built around, is we’re going to execute on some portion of that and we’re going to watch the response.

Speaker3: [00:15:37] And I know that sounds again, maybe a little counterintuitive. It might sound a little clunky. It doesn’t normally happen. And like their step one, their step two, it normally happens in a very kind of organic way. But the reality is we’re doing that all the time. What it is? Take an example. We have a question with our kids. We are iterative learners. That’s what we do. It’s part of our creativity as people, at our ingenuity, as people, we are constantly processing the data of what just happened and how do we respond to that. And I think that’s a very useful tool in business as well. So I’m. Not going to argue, going back to your question with, no, you’re y know your vision and mission, of course, know your values. Those are all extremely nice and important things to understand. It’s not like we had MLA for ourselves. Don’t spend significant time on those questions, but we believe they are best contextualized with actual data. If you and I started a business tomorrow, we could absolutely theorize that we were blue in the face about awesome grand plans and ideas, missions, values, visions. But the reality is it would be stone and sus starting a business with certain skills, certain weaknesses, certain fears, certain courage, courageous moments. We would be in essence at that moment the sum, if you will, of of our own weaknesses, failures and opportunities that existed. And so we believe very much an MLA of we’ve got to get those things understood.

Speaker3: [00:17:04] And sometimes the really only way to understand that is to actually put it into action and watch it. And I don’t mean for three years, I’m talking about sometimes even the course of a meeting. I can’t even tell you the number of times we have purposely walked into a meeting and kind of a control setting with with the steward of that client that we’re serving, knowing this is about to happen. And we purposely instigate an argument with the intent of drawing to the surface the things that we suspect might be there so that we have better data to then actually go back and solve the problem that’s been presented to us. We find so often that’s where our clients are stuck is. They go off and talk to some consulting and they get told will clarify your vision or someone else has a in the cam process. We very much believe in the fact no, those of you sit around the table that have to make this decision, you’re going to be responsible for it. You’re the stewards of it. We’re not. We’re going to help you see what’s actually underneath that surface to help clarify the question that’s actually in front of you. So you can then get to the solution that probably you already know what it is. You just don’t have the context to get to it. So I don’t know if I’m answering your question, stone, but that that would be that would be how we have learned process those types of questions.

Speaker2: [00:18:14] Well, you absolutely have asked the question. I’m so glad that I asked it. My interpretation of it in stone speak is throw your hat over the fence, get the data in, make adjustments accordingly. That’s that’s what I took away from that.

Speaker3: [00:18:28] That’s pretty accurate. I think I think it can always be made a little more complicated, but but that’s pretty accurate.

Speaker2: [00:18:36] Well, and

Speaker3: [00:18:36] They’re staring at the fence whole the whole time, wondering how you’re going to jump over it. You’re never going to get there. No.

Speaker2: [00:18:41] So, yeah. Amen. Well, my listeners already already know this, and you’ll quickly learn here that one of the great benefits and one of the things I thoroughly enjoy about doing all the shows and particularly this one, is I get so much great counsel, you know, as a product of a 15 20 minute conversation. So thank you for that. I really am glad I asked. You’ve mentioned a couple of times board or board of advisors. Can you speak to that? The value of it and maybe even some insight for, you know, small, medium size outfit like ours to go about creating such a thing?

Speaker3: [00:19:19] Yeah, I think it’s a real opportunity that carefully used can be of great service. I’ve seen clients of ours implement a board of advisors and frankly not use them. And I can tell you that. So I’ll start with the negative. Is a good finance person, right? The downside to a board if you don’t spend the time trying to set it up correctly and I’m going to get to what I mean by that in a moment is it can simply become a nuisance. There’s a level of embarrassment if you’re not ready for that board meeting. If you’re constantly educating those board members on what it looks like to operate inside your industry, you’re not going to get much value out of that. And what you’re going to end up doing is just kind of wasting your time, probably wasting your money if you put some money behind it, frustrating the board members, frustrating yourself. And it’s just going to be another one of those things that kind of sucks life out of you as an entrepreneur. Again, not going to say, we’ve got it right, but if you haven’t already figured out, I’m a little bit of a contrarian, maybe even a rebel. And so when we thought about our board of advisors, we tried to take a different approach. Now part of that stone is because and again, we’re we’re living by our own advice.

Speaker3: [00:20:23] We threw the hat to use your phrase over the fence and got started. We have changes to make, but we did spend a little bit of time saying, what are we trying to accomplish here? And one of the original goals, those goals have changed now a little bit, but one of the original goals that still is true was to was to set in motion almost a a organizational comfort with the idea that we had a board, an organizational comfort with the idea that the CEO was going to be accountable to a group of people. That was very intentional and it was intentional for the purpose of thinking about my future, thinking about MLR future and saying if our goal is to get to the point where we can transfer value and I don’t mean just financial value, but beyond Seth Morgan, the founder, then we have to get to a point where there’s a group of men and women who can. Take that governing responsibility and oversee it, because the intent is not likely for me to magically overnight go from majority owner to zero owner and somebody else is majority owner. No, it’s probably because of the model we’re in. Just start to share that wealth and ownership inside of a bunch of minority owners with a CEO being selected, perhaps among them, perhaps from the outside, and then some board required to oversee and give give oversight and governance to that.

Speaker3: [00:21:41] And not every business model works like that. So some of the things that I would say are probably that might be good counsel and thoughts for your listeners. For those that are the professional service world where you’re thinking about maybe distributing equity over time to your team, but then some of the things that I would say that just have been practically useful to us. We purposely this is another one of those rebel moments for me. We have purposely selected a board that is now has team input. I’ll be honest with you, Stone. We don’t get near as much participation from the team as I’d like for us to probably an opportunity for us to go back and rethink. Pick the hat up off the ground and think about a different way to throw it back over the fence again. But it’s an opportunity for us to allow the team to have some input into the board, so there’s a nominating process for them. That’s very unusual from what I can see in the private market. We have purposely allowed certain internal individuals to be on that board so that they bring to the table that specific experience set now that there’s a lack of perspective in that in some degree, right? Because they’re not outsiders. But we purposely have designed something where we have some outsiders, we have some insiders and then bluntly stone when I, especially when I was setting up the first board and working through that alongside of someone that I trust deeply, that works inside our business regularly.

Speaker3: [00:22:58] I spent some time making sure that there were people on that board that could hold me personally accountable. I’m not just talking about, did you hit your your business marks? I’m talking about people, for instance, someone that knew me intimately, knew my marriage, intimately, knew, knew and frankly, he was my pastor at the time, someone that was already walking alongside of me because I wanted the opportunity in those board meetings for us to go wherever we needed to go. And for me to be able to look at other people in the room and say, Is that true about me and not get some bull crap answer that they thought I wanted to hear or worse, because this is so hard for business leaders who are already kind of lonely, right? Worse, they get some negative answer that isn’t really contextually correct. Or is it correct that can be just as damaging? We often think of it as yes, men and yes, women, but we don’t want those around us. But the reality is you get somebody that’s just a contrarian, it’s just blown up the room because it makes them look good. That’s almost that’s worse, right? So people that I trusted that I could look at and say, Is that really true? Like, help me work through that problem now is our organization grows.

Speaker3: [00:24:01] I’m sure our board will continue to mature. Our intent is to move that advisory board into a governing board. Eventually, that would not probably be wise for many of the listeners that you have. But because of those early steps when we meet as a is a group and I have a board meeting actually this week, I’m just going to say I get one to one value out of the time put in on specific advice that they give me. But I do get a lot of value out of that board. And truthfully, stone, we’ve even started to use it inside. The organization is a little bit of a buffer for me. So it does bring an extra set of power when my number two announces to the team. These are changes we’ve made. We have vetted them with the board. This is what the board has asked us to do and this is what Seth is doing. There’s some value in that as well. So those would be my I don’t know if that was three or 10 pieces of advice, but it takes work. It does take work. It don’t do it just for the sake of, say, I have a board that is a complete waste of time.

Speaker2: [00:24:58] So tell us a little bit about the MLA methodology or process. I guess maybe walk us through the high points of what an engagement might look like, especially maybe the early pieces.

Speaker3: [00:25:09] Yeah. So I guess I’ll give you kind of the nirvana here for us, but I’ll briefly answer reality first. And that is just, you know, I was just editing a proposal from one of our team on an M&A process that’s going to look very much like a typical M&A process. We pride ourselves in stepping in with our client wherever they’re not to sound touchy feely, but there felt need is we’ve got clients that start with us on succession process improvement on the floor, some organizational problem. More often than not, it’s obviously a financial issue. It’s they need fractional CFO or accounting back office support. I think if you were to say Seth, but talk to me about purely applying your model, we have seven steps to what we call the business redeem process. And we believe again, institutionally organizations are doing this, whether they realize they’re doing it or not. We just think there’s value in identifying them and having for our team at least. I mean, in many ways that that model is more about our team understanding where we are in this process than it is telling our client, you need to think about it this way because fundamentally, we want the client to be transforming and changing and. In a good way, regardless of exactly how that they understand how they got there, so so many of our clients, just like most small business people, are so focused on the daily matters of running a business they may or may not want to read another book about it.

Speaker3: [00:26:26] And we don’t think we’re necessarily smarter than any of the other, any of the other books. But and kind of in a vacuum, if you will, if you could like pause time, if none of us can do and say, this is how we think about it, we would say there’s there’s these seven steps. And for us, it would be reality. What is the current situation that it’s kind of that’s kind of a historical look, right? So obviously, it’s finance people that there’s all kinds of history, right? Most accounts are accused of running a car from the rearview mirror, right? Right. So it’s that it’s that historical lesson. What do we have today? It’s perspective around that. So what perspective does MLA bring to that conversation? Sometimes that’s not just MLA, but once you start to get that data perspective starts to flow, right? Sometimes they’re just simple, easy, low hanging fruit things that we can immediately move on, that it’s coming out of a historical look. Once we start to transfer into the future, we think about it in terms of what we call runway. So what can we define? How big of a plane can you get off the runway? You have that runway may be confined. It’s really a constraint question by cash could also be people talent. It could be just plant capacity, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah. And kind of only then are we going to say, OK, what dream got us here? And how does that dream need to be affected and changed? We believe most consultants make the mistake of starting with dream.

Speaker3: [00:27:40] You know, Stone, what do you want to do? I want to solve world hunger, who is not going to get behind that? But the reality is we have a reality question, a prospective question and a runway question for Stone to answer before he can really contextualize that dream. So what is it about that? What do we know about the dream now in the context of reality, perspective and runway? Then we think about what we call the map. That’s really strategic planning. We also think then there’s a point, and this is where we believe the past meets the future because we would say runway dream and strategic planning are obviously all future exercises where the past meets the future is when you stone decide as that business leader to execute. That’s where we come full circle and we come back to, Okay, now we have something to do. So the question is now now you’ve got those done. And again, we’re talking robotic because this is happening in a much more organic, natural, quick way. Sometimes it’s a long process. Sometimes it happens over the course of a two hour meeting. Now we’re hitting the button and we’re pulling the trigger on some decisions in a great world. We then pause, we move back into past tense and we see how that what’s the reflection of that? What’s the reward? What’s the like? What do we learn through that process? And guess what? We start the process entirely all over again.

Speaker3: [00:28:55] What did that do to our reality? What’s our new perspective? What’s our new runway? If there is one week recalculate that inside of the dream, we’re trying to accomplish what’s next decision we’re making? We think it’s not like MLA has said, Look, this is the way we think every organization is doing this in some capacity already. We’re doing it with our families, we’re doing it with our spouses, we’re doing it to our kids, we’re doing it with our businesses. We think there’s just value in saying, frankly, again, more for our team than anything for us to teach our team, this is what your client is going through. Sometimes there’s great value in us giving that to the client and saying, this is how you’re experiencing this pretty much every case. They said, Oh my goodness, that’s relieving. We can see it, but we try very carefully not to, like, lay that on them and say, you must now go through this step because that’s not the speed of business. So again, I hope I answered your question. I feel like I’m going to be taking the longer path with all these. I hope that’s OK, but that that would be our nirvana. Engagement is where we have a client systematically working through that and seeing it, and we try to do that as best we can, whether they’re fighting a huge fire or have the time to work through a more organized process as they go.

Speaker2: [00:30:04] Well, it’s more than OK. I personally, and so many of our listeners love to go back and listen again and of course, review the transcript. So no, I sincerely appreciate the the depth and the breadth of response. How does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a firm like yours? Are you at a point where the phone rings or do you still have to have some sort of structured approach to going out there and developing new client relationships?

Speaker3: [00:30:30] That’s a great question. Stone and I should just stop and let you give me advice. You’ve got a great sales background. You know, we don’t have that solved quite yet. The phone is ringing more and more, and obviously we’re excited about that. That’s good news for us. You know, I think that’s a credit to our team. It’s a credit to the reputation we’ve built in the markets for most active in. But it’s not good enough for me. You know, most of our client buys do opportunities come through referral sources. That’s not going to change. We’re in a very highly personally relational business, meaning stone, if you came to. Me today and said, I want to hire MLA, you would not only question MLA as a brand, but you would probably even more so question who’s the team assigned to me? Right? Because you would want and I want that as the owner of MLA, I would want Stone personally connected with the individuals that we’re working on your account. And so that that’s tough, right? So we struggle with that for years. We’ve gotten to a point where we’re confident enough in our brand and our why and our mission and how we do life, that we’re now more proactively spending money on brand development with the intent of giving our people on the ground more ammunition to talk about in the market. But the reality stone is most most of our team are finance.

Speaker3: [00:31:54] Most finance people don’t like to sell. So generally speaking, their phone is ringing too. And so we’re trying to empower them with confidence that they’ve got something to talk about. We’ve we spent a lot of time on collaboration so that a CFO that’s really good at what we might call a financial planning and analysis doesn’t have to be an expert in M&A. So we spent that time on collaboration so that they’re more and more comfortable to pick up the phone and call the M&A expert in our firm and say, Can we have a joint launch? Whatever. So I realize is again, long answer, but there was no one short answer to this. We we are working, but have not quite cracked it to our ability to say we’re going to roll into a new market. We’re going to turn on a machine and we’re going to expect to see X number of results from that. We’re just not there yet. I’m not entirely certain if we’ll ever get there because we we have again, we have a model that is just so personally involved with our clients that I think we can tell a story that is attractive that’s been proven enough. So again, that we’re spending money on it that the market will respond to. But we can’t accurately predict when that business owner is going to get to a point where they’re kind of at their end of the rope and they need a helping hand and they pick up the phone and call.

Speaker3: [00:33:09] And not every client for us looks like that. They’re not all problem sets, but but sometimes it’s that sometimes it’s they’re ready to make a decision on a CFO. They’ve grown to the size they needed or they don’t like who they have or their bank is telling them they need some extra help, whatever. But in so many ways, that’s a market education question for us. Not because, you know, frankly, we’re not we’re not a CPA firm. I own one on the side, but that’s not what we’re talking about right here. So it’s not like every business has to have our services. So it’s about market education, how the value we bring to the market. There’s not many firms like us out there, so we’re fighting all those battles. But I’m going to say, and I’m not saying this to sound good is on the CEO, the guy. It’s a blast doing it like it’s fun to be a kind of a market that we get to define. But there’s a downside of that too, which is we’re in this constant market education mode and personal development relationship development. So we think we’ve identified the tools to get us to that point, but it’s still not a perfect science for us by any stretch of the imagination.

Speaker2: [00:34:10] Well, it certainly sounds to me like you’ve got a pretty good handle on it and in terms of not completely cracking the code. Welcome to the club. I will tell you, if you want to build relationships and get to know some really smart people, get yourself a radio show. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker3: [00:34:25] Yeah. The funny thing is, I used to do one of these in politics back in the day, you know, having a long time. But I enjoyed sitting there with the headsets and hitting buttons. I don’t I don’t know if that’s still how it works. I’m probably dating myself. But yeah, good for you stuff. Congratulations. I’m sure you’re right about that.

Speaker2: [00:34:44] So this is kind of tactical, but you know, hey, it’s my show. Oh, right. What? What insight might you have, if any, on working with finding and I guess, retaining just managing top talent? You know, maybe contrasted to, you know, the also rans and the and the folks that are, you know, doing good work. But maybe you wouldn’t characterize as as top down anything we ought to be doing differently or make sure we do or don’t do in that regard.

Speaker3: [00:35:17] Oh, you know, we have a model stone that allows us a lot of flexibility, it’s one of our kind of core attributes as a firm that we don’t want to change. Partly that’s because it’s reflects its own right. I pride my flexibility, perhaps more than anything. So one of the keys for us has been to apply that than to our recruiting to that top talent. You know, I don’t know if that’s a perfect application for your listeners, but what seems to always come back. So even if you’d ask the question, so what are what are some of your clients doing? What did you do through the pandemic? You know what? What advice would you have on retention? I think it’s kind of similar to the answer on top talent, and that is really understanding what what do they desire and need? So we spend a lot of time as a company thinking about our value, our core competencies, our value sets, what what are the traits that are going to set us apart or just we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to and we have to recognize that individuals have that same, that same question and answer. Most of the time, individuals have not thought through it well enough to actually answer it. But they do have an answer. And your job is someone who is supposed to be caring, especially about probably about anybody, but certainly about that top talent candidate you’re after is to try to extract from them. What are those core values that they care about as well? And then can you craft something to accomplish that? Partially, probably because we’re a financial firm and we think like this, you know, I tend to think I try to break things down, so, you know, frankly, we’re not big enough to to to hire or to have on full time W-2 staff all the top talent that we have have.

Speaker3: [00:36:59] Yeah. So instead, we find the top talent that is I’m thinking of one gentleman right now who is very active in overseas missions, who is active in his own discipline of sports competition. He’s a triathlete. So those things take up a lot of time. He has aging parents. He’s made a lot of money in his life. I don’t know the specifics of that, but it’s pretty clear. But he wants a place to market his talent through, right? So we’re not going to him and saying, here’s the box fit in it where instead saying, how do we how do we take that, that inventory, if you will, and the things you clearly value because of how you’re using to steward your life and put them side by side with us? And now what value can be created between us? So some of the best talent we have in house is or under our umbrella is where we’ve taken that very direct approach. You know, some of the younger talent that comes to us that we’re trying to develop, it looks very much more traditional. It’s salaried hours being tracked because we’re obviously trying to mold and craft them into something because they don’t have those questions to find or even answer for themselves.

Speaker3: [00:38:09] But some of our very top talent hats, and so I view it as our job to learn to be flexible with them as well. The other thing quickly, I would say, is we’re always recruiting and you’re your listeners should be to like people come to me and say, Well, I don’t know if you’re looking for and I’m like, Well, you know, obviously there’s there’s the clear capacity question for me. Do I have enough capacity to meet the demand I either perceive or know about in the market, whether that’s whether it’s coming or already in house demand. But the reality is, I’m always on the prowl for somebody good. And if I find that person, I’m probably going to do what all good entrepreneurs do, and I’m going to figure out a way if they’re interested to take risk and get them on the team. Now, partly if you think about it, our product and I hate to talk about our team this way, but that is our product. It’s our team, right? So that may not be exactly the same for all your listeners. But if you want to think about top talent, you should never stop recruiting. The most effective thing you can do is bring in that rock star who’s truly a rock star. While we’re all scared of that is how many guys have gotten burned by not being appropriately flexible, not thinking it through carefully enough not skips some cliché checking the references. And I don’t just mean picking up the phone and calling you, I mean, like working through a if that if that top talent is in too big of a hurry, you’re probably not the right talent for you, right? But where that time is taken, relationships are built.

Speaker3: [00:39:29] You understand their why and you match it up with your why. My guess is you’re going to figure out how to get them in and when you get them in, that’s going to be a good match and that relationship is simply going to grow. The gentleman who’s had the most effect internally on us, this former pastor I talked about who helped us flush out with some of the theology behind it. It started over a cup of coffee where he wanted to test some theories on me that he had about macro cultural effects and something triggered in me. And I looked at him and said, I think there’s an opportunity to do this inside businesses. Let’s keep talking about this. Well, what we ended up doing was matching our wives. And he’s been with us now for, I don’t know, five, six years. He chairs a board of advisors. He’s instrumental in our clients. He’s instrumental on my management team. He is a wonderful asset to our organization. And yet there’s still a piece of him that he holds outside of L.A. because it doesn’t directly relate to business that goes back to some of those theological roots. And we are more than happy to give him the freedom to do that because of the effect he’s not only having on our clients, but on Ebola itself.

Speaker2: [00:40:32] That counsel alone is more than worth the time and energy for me invested in this conversation. We’re probably going to cut that clip out and just and share it stand alone. I’m so glad that I asked, like so many entrepreneurs, people who have built something like you have from the ground up, I’m sure that occasionally you might run out of steam and need to recharge. And I suspect because you’ve mentioned it more than a couple of times your faith, I’m sure that’s part of the answer. But where do you go for for inspiration, refreshment, recharging? Is it reading? Is it, you know, where do you go for that?

Speaker3: [00:41:13] Yeah, it’s a great question. And, you know, kind of like the story of the start of the business. I wish I had something like, you know, mountaintop experience and a vision from on high and MLA was birth that I don’t have a good answer on that one, either. It’s like exciting. Like, you know, I’ve tried a bunch of different models, you know, not models, but things. And truthfully, you know, I always fall back to the same spot. People don’t believe me, but I’m an introvert by nature, and I don’t get energy out of constant people interaction. So. It’s time for me is a quiet date with my wife or just some quiet time at the house with the kids, or even just a long nap on a day where I should otherwise be working. So I hate I hate Stone, and it’s not something more dramatic than that. That’s the truth when when I’m really up against the wall, those that know me best would say I’m a pretty determined guy, and I think that’s true. But so the question I might rephrase it a little, although it’s your question in your show and that is what what keeps you going when you don’t want to keep going, right? So some of that is, yes, how do I rest and reflect? But it really does come back to that stewardship question.

Speaker3: [00:42:21] When I hit the wall, most often I have to remind myself that I’m not the only questioner in that frustration story in that moment, right when I’m feeling that urge that there’s a team of roughly thirty five people that that call themselves part of the melee that deserve a CEO to get off his lazy, you know what? And I’m not calling myself lazy and get back in the game that there’s frankly to make it personal. There’s a wife and children that that that need that same thing and I shouldn’t have. It’s not just I don’t have like, woe is me. I shouldn’t have the luxury. I don’t even think it really be a luxury. Don’t have the right to take myself out of the game like that because I’m just so worn down and beat up. So now all that said, sometimes I find the most rewarding thing I can do is take a break, right? And so but for me, that really does simply look like reconnecting with the people I deeply love. I would people sometimes think I’m a reader.

Speaker3: [00:43:21] I’m not. I’m not on a hit song, but I have found, yes, reconnecting with my faith. And I don’t mean, like some again, mountain top experience. I’ll give Gary credit again, sometimes simply reminding myself of what I believe about God reminding myself, and that sometimes I comes as reading the Bible or reflecting or listening to a worship, music or a song, or even a sermon, a speech or but where I’m reconnecting. I learned this from Gary, too, with what are the what are the foundational things that you really believe? What that often does is it reopens energy and creativity for me to reengage in that stewardship mandate I have for my team, for my clients, for my family. And so it energizes that determination that for all of us gets sucked dry sometimes. But if you really say, well, what do you do for fun, for me to be ahead to the mountains for a couple of days with people, I love to be able to shut the phone off and do stupid stuff while I’m able to lay by the fire or the pool, kind of all at the same time, if that makes sense. So that’s the best answer I can give.

Speaker2: [00:44:27] Well, I think it’s well said. All right. If our listeners would like to reach out and have a conversation or learn more with you or someone on your team, let’s leave them with some coordinates whatever you think is appropriate, whether it’s a LinkedIn or a website or an email. But let’s give them a way to connect with you guys.

Speaker3: [00:44:47] Of course. Yeah, so the best and easiest way is just simply to go to our website MLA companies. That’s MLA, just like it sounds, companies is plural. You know, it’s a typical marketing brochure online, of course. But if you’re just looking to get in touch, click on the about the let’s see it’s MLA team. I’m looking at it now. You click on the MLA team tag and my name comes up right at the top. There are other principals and staff members on the team that are listed. It’s not the entirety of our team, but they’re there. I’d be honored to get a note and I’ll either direct it correctly or respond directly myself, so we would be happy to. Our phone number is LinkedIn. Emails are all there, so so that would be the best way and most efficient way for your listeners to connect, and we hope they do.

Speaker2: [00:45:32] Well, Seth, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your insight and your perspective, man.

Speaker3: [00:45:41] Yeah, it’s great to be with you, Stone and I got to just tell you, you know, I my folks are from Kentucky, even though I live in Ohio and I love I love the Georgia voice that you have. And being an FCC fan because my cats aren’t going to make it, I’ll just say, go dogs. So you keep it up.

Speaker2: [00:45:58] All right. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Seth Morgan, CEO of MLA Companies and everyone here at the Business RadioX family, saying We’ll see you next time on workplace wisdom.