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Breaking the Glass Ceiling with Sandy Doyle-Ahern: From Environmental Leader to Affordable Housing Advocate

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Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins
Breaking the Glass Ceiling with Sandy Doyle-Ahern: From Environmental Leader to Affordable Housing Advocate
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Sandy Doyle-Ahern

Breaking the Glass Ceiling with Sandy Doyle-Ahern: From Environmental Leader to Affordable Housing Advocate (Inspiring Women, Episode 60)

On this episode of Inspiring Women, host Betty Collins welcomed a genuine trailblazer in her field, Sandy Doyle-Ahern. Sandy discussed her journey as a female in the male-dominated construction industry, her role as president of one of the largest engineering and survey firms in Ohio, the role of taking risks and following through in her success, and much more.

The host of Inspiring Women is Betty Collins, and the show is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Betty’s Show Notes

I interview Sandy Doyle-Ahern, a pioneer for women in the male-dominated industry of construction and housing. From facing sexist comments to becoming the first female shareholder in her company, Doyle-Ahern shares her experiences and insights on leadership, risk-taking, and advocating for affordable housing in Central Ohio.

Through her inspiring message, women are encouraged to take small steps toward success and to make a positive impact in their communities. Listeners will be inspired to take risks, find ways to be impactful for others, and strive for success in their careers while making a positive impact in their communities. This podcast is a must-listen for anyone looking for inspiration and practical advice on achieving career goals and creating change.

Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.

For more information, go to the Insights page at Brady Ware and Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.  And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:02] Betty Collins Has anyone ever inspired you to change your life that made you more fulfilled? Well, as a leader in your business and in your community, what are those questions that you ask yourself on a daily basis? It’s these questions that we explore on inspiring women. I am your host, Betty Collins, and I’m a certified public accountant, a business owner and a community leader who partners with others who want to achieve remarkable results for themselves and their organizations. I am here to help inspire you to a positive step forward for a better life. Well, today on Inspiring women, we have a guest that in central Ohio is somewhat of a legend. She’s a big deal. She is. She’s already laughing. But it’s true. Sandy Doyle is. She’s she I’ve heard her speak at NAWBO events. She’s all over. She’s everywhere. And she’s a champion for women, that’s for sure. So today, you’re going to get to hear just some great things that she’s doing and great things that can help you as a as a woman that is trying to be inspired. Right. So Sandy, she’s the president of EMH&T, that’s one of the Ohio’s largest professional engineering and survey firms. And she lends her talent and leadership skills to a range of organizations to beyond what who she were or what she works with, but such as like Affordable Housing Trust for Columbus and Central Ohio.

[00:01:26] Betty Collins
The Columbus Metropolitan Library, Columbus State Community College and Franklin County. Rise Together Innovation Institution or institute? I’m sorry. And among the many awards she has received, she’s been twice been named the most admired CEO and a member of the Power 100, a progressive women honoree and named CEO of the Year. But she is truly a legend and she’s a woman in a man’s industry that is becoming more women. But she’s definitely been a trailblazer. So, Sandy, welcome to the program today. Welcome to my podcast and thank you for the time that you’re going to give us today and give us some great insight. We really appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me. That’s part of the day. Yeah. There we go. There we go. Well, I love that. I love it. So before we get started, though, I always, like just take 30 seconds, 45 seconds and tell us something fun. Tell us something fun about you. Something maybe that that, you know, is not all your words and your, you know, all this stuff.

[00:02:25] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Oh, gee, let’s see. Um, I was actually born in Canada, so that maybe is a little different. I grew up outside Philadelphia, but became a US citizen when I was 21. I think Awesome. And I’m a huge hockey fan. So is my favorite sport by far and the only one I actually really understand.

[00:02:44] Betty Collins
Yeah. Yes. Columbus Blue Jackets. And I assume you’re a big you go to those games.

[00:02:50] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
I do.

[00:02:51] Betty Collins
You know it’s one of the fastest paced games which I’ve gone to several, but not a lot. But it’s fun stuff. So. Well, I want to get down to kind of a little bit of background on you. Thank you for sharing about love hockey, too. But as a biology major from the East Coast, how did you end up in Columbus? How did you end up Ohio as the president of of your company this big, you know, huge, huge impact to the Columbus area for sure.

[00:03:19] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
So I’ll start by saying if you had told me that I was going to be the president of EMH and T someday, I would have laughed. So, you know, life is funny, but I actually ended up in Ohio for graduate school and that was a little bit of a coincidental thing, but it came from an internship opportunity that I had. I had started working for an environmental consulting company every summer between college semesters when I was 18, and I went back there every year. And when I graduated college, I was ready to go to grad school and they were all East Coast schools that I looked at, except there happened to be a gentleman I worked with who went to Miami University for his environmental science program, and I applied. And that was back in the day when you couldn’t look anything up on the Internet. So you had to actually go and see the place. And I did. And I remember driving out for my interview thinking this wasn’t going to be where I ended up. And then I did. You did. And, you know, it ended up being a great grad program for me. But what led me then to Columbus was actually an internship I needed to complete for the master’s degree, and it was going to be temporary, and I was going to be here just for about a six month to maybe 12 month period to to do the work for that degree. And I loved it. So the long story short is my husband also went through the same graduate program and he ended up in Columbus. And we kind of always thought we would see how it went. We had no family out here. We didn’t really know that many people thought we would go back to the Philadelphia area if it turned out that either one of us just, you know, weren’t happy here or whatever. And that never happened. And that was over 30 years ago. And we’re clearly not going anywhere now. But yeah, that’s just it was internships in school.

[00:05:06] Betty Collins
Yeah, I know. I’m like you. It’s like if you if you would have said to me, you know, when you’re almost 60 years old, this is going to be your life, right? I’d be going. Not a chance. I don’t see that happening. But we’re glad you’re in central Ohio. We’re glad. I mean, and Oxford. Did you like Oxford, though? Where where the. I mean, I just think it’s such a quaint town, that’s for sure. Yeah.

[00:05:28] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Yeah. No, it was great. And it led me to such a huge opportunity here. So it just it all was circumstantial.

[00:05:34] Betty Collins
Yeah. Well, one of the great things about your resume beyond many things, but, I mean, is that you are the president of this company and you became the president. And with a career path that really is predominantly male and male is going to dominate that position for sure. And the leadership, you know, what challenges did you face throughout the year? Tell us a little bit about how that all came to be.

[00:05:59] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Yeah. So when I first came to Columbus, my background’s in environmental work and I was around engineers all the time though, so a lot of what I was doing was regulatory compliance. It was restoration of natural habitats and it interfaces a lot with engineers. And so I started getting involved in projects really that MH was a part of, and I eventually ended up joining MH and T to open up their environmental division. And I think that was 1997. And, you know, honestly, it was a great opportunity because the owners of the company at the time said, you know, we don’t really understand what you do, but we know our clients need your help, so we’re going to let you just do what you do and do it here. And that’s literally what happened. So they’re very gracious about that and kind of gave me the opportunity to figure out how to fit within the realm of this engineering firm. But at the time, gosh, almost all of my work was out in the field. So I was out a lot with our survey crews. I was out with other engineering people. I was out with the clients literally in the field doing the work. And so over time, I just got the opportunity to to work on this environmental division for the company and it grew. So there’s there’s more to it. But I’ll stop there for a second and just talk about that first. Really nine, nine, ten years in my career with the I was doing that work and I loved it.

[00:07:25] Betty Collins
Yeah, Yeah. So, so with you probably being one of the few females and then you do something very, very different that they aren’t too sure. Yeah. Yet you become the president of the company and you’ve told this story a little bit at NABA where you were in the room with all the pictures on the wall and they were all men. Right? So, so tell us about this. The time that, hey, we’re going to become the president or I became the president, you know, I mean, I now I’m not just climbing up the hill for 9 to 10 years. I’m actually going to be in this leadership role.

[00:08:04] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Yeah, I think it was a lot of things coming together. You know, obviously I didn’t go into working at EMC having any idea this was going to happen. But the reality is there’s a couple of things I had both. That my children, when I was young here at MH and running the environmental group, and that was kind of an early time when there there were almost no women here. Right? So at first I don’t think they knew what to do with me because I was the first female manager, kind of the first project manager. They weren’t really sure I wanted to keep working. I was not interested in being at home with my kids for very long. So I actually ended up bringing them to the office with me when they were really little. Wow. Um, and you know, I think back on that now and it’s funny because that that first time I did that when my, my first daughter was quite young, I walk into a room with a project meeting and I’ve got my briefcase and I’ve got a baby carrier and I’ve got all this stuff I’m walking into the meeting with. And the first couple of times with a couple of clients, they were like, What? What are you doing? Like, it’ll be fine.

[00:09:09] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
She’s sleeping. The meetings after that, they’re all like, Can we hold the baby? You know? And it’s really funny. But, you know, I think early all I know early in my career it was really challenging. I had I was around a lot of people who not an EMT. The company’s always been amazing, but kind of out in the field with some of the guys that like to make comments about what I was wearing make like to make comments about, you know, a lot of different things that were really sexist. But I wasn’t it didn’t really intimidate me all that much. It was just more I guess I was naive. I was more like, why would they do that or say that? And it didn’t happen a lot. Yeah, it happened once in a while. And there are a few memorable moments that I think about when I look back and think, Man, there’s some stuff that happened that should never really have happened. The truth is now no one does that to me anymore. I think I’m too old to care anymore. So, um. But you know what really ended up happening with the leadership opportunity really came about probably around 2005, 2006, when I had been running the environmental group.

[00:10:19] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
And what that did is put me in front of a lot of other divisions in our company. So because that group tends to kind of service some internal clients, you’re working with transportation, you’re working with them in development, whatever the case is. So I got to interface with a lot of different people. Um, and I’ve always kind of had a mindset around people, around the employees and what it, what we need to be doing as a leadership team. So I think early in my career I had the opportunity to become a shareholder, which was a big deal, you know, first female shareholder. It hadn’t happened before. A company that was doing really well had a strong reputation. I learned a lot in the process. And then frankly, what occurred was a few years later we had the Great Recession and my current partner and I who run the company together today were running the company then with the with the current president. And it was tough. I mean, it was, you know, all of a sudden you’re getting you get thrown into a situation where you have to make decisions quickly and you have to do what’s best for everybody as much as possible. And so, um, I think really it evolved out of that, partly that we, we were running things together and trying to make some tough decisions and, you know, watching the world around us really change.

[00:11:40] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
A lot of our clients struggled because we did a lot of home building work. So, you know, as we all know, the housing crisis happened. And so I think part of what emerged from that is I am a really big believer in in talking to the employees, telling them what’s going on, the good, the bad, the otherwise. And so when all that occurred, I did a lot of writing to the company at the time, and I wasn’t the president, but the president and myself and my other partner were all on the same page about the need for that kind of communication. So we started to push a lot of it out very quickly, and I’ve never changed that. So I fast forward to today running the company, starting at the end of 2011 into 2012. We’re still very much like that. Lots of lots of communication with employees, lots of employee update meetings on the status of the company, that kind of thing. So I’m getting a little ahead and we can come back to that if you want, but that’s kind of how things evolved.

[00:12:37] Betty Collins
Yeah, well, it’s interesting. You know, you have no idea how courageous you were bringing that child to work. I mean, at that time today, nobody would think a thing about it. And I think COVID finally has fixed that whole stigma, right where this is the way it is. This is there’s nothing wrong with it. Women don’t have to be exceptional to bring their kid to work. Yes. Or whatever it is. They just need to do their job. And and raising raising kids is parental, by the way, not just maternal. So I look at that and go, that’s huge that they would allow you to do that at that time. But, you know, for me, I know that a lot of times your opportunity, your nevers or your opportunity, you would never see you doing this, right. You would say, I would never do this. But you women that were able to be confident and courageous enough to say, My kid is really important, but I’m going to make this company a priority as well. We just have no idea, like right now what that means to us in today’s world. But COVID really kind of helped put that all to rest, right?
Hopefully so.

[00:13:46] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Yeah. Yeah, We’ll see.

[00:13:48] Betty Collins
We’ll see. We’ll see. Let’s hope it does. Let’s hope it does. Because I know we could probably talk a lot about professional services in what we’ve got to do right now. Right. But in an article I recently read, you were quoted saying, I’ve learned to take risks and operate outside of my comfort zone. And you did that very early in your career. For young women, listening for any woman, listening for older women, whoever it is that isn’t comfortable taking risks, they’re not comfortable getting out of there. What suggestions would you have for them as they’ve started their journey or starting it or ending it or in between on risk and and operate outside that comfort zone? Let’s talk about that for a little bit.

[00:14:30] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Yeah, no, it’s a great question. And I think you have to start by talking about the definition of risk. So I think the problem with the word is to even say it. People assume it means throw myself off the bridge, right? Something really risky. And that’s not what it means to me. It’s not what I’m talking about. I actually get this question a lot, and it kind of fascinates me because it’s a question that a 25 year old will ask and a 65 year old person will ask. And so and I think it’s partly because women kind of tend to not see themselves as taking risk all the time when in fact, they may be doing more of it than they realize. So what I mean by risk is it can be a small thing. It can be, you know, take the assignment that no one else wants. Yeah, that’s a risk. Or me showing up to work and saying I’m going to work on a project I’ve never done before because I’m going to tap the people I know that are talented. The risk on me is to do something I haven’t tried before. And so I think what it does is when you take small chances and you have a victory, it sort of develops your your confidence, I guess, around the fact that you can do the next thing that’s a little harder and the next thing that’s a little harder and you might fail in the process and that’s okay. But, you know, I, I did take risk early on. But again, it was small things.

[00:15:51] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
It was like getting put in a room where I don’t you know, I don’t know any of these people. I’m being asked to weigh in on some major decisions that they have to make as a client. So my job in that moment is to know what I’m talking about. And so kind of back to your comment a second ago about, you know, how did things evolve and how do they change? Well, for me, it wasn’t just about taking the risk. It’s I’m going to show up. I’m going to do what I said I was going to do. And if I fail at that or don’t know how to do it, then I’m going to go tap the resources I need. But you have to be the person other people count on. You have to be reliable. And so if you’re willing to take some small risks and you follow through, I think what happens eventually is you will take bigger chances in life. Yeah. And for me, how I ended up in this role, I mean, I honest to goodness would never have thought as the gal walking around in the field with mud all over my boots that this is what I would be doing. But I believe in it also, right? So I come here every day thinking about the people that are here, taking the risks themselves and what I can do to support them. So a little bit of a long answer to your question, but I it all kind of interrelates for me.

[00:17:04] Betty Collins
No, I love it. And I hope my audience heard the one thing from that comment that I’m still thinking about. I showed up and a lot of times who shows up, wins, who shows up, who is in the room? I deal with it with my own company. When I first came into Brady, where in 2012, I there were two shareholders we had I think at that time we had 26 and there are different levels of shareholders, but 26 people in the room, two women. So I didn’t think a thing about being in that room. And then as we were trying to encourage other women to come to the room, they didn’t think it was for them because it was mostly men. And I said, Get in the room, you know, show up, be there, go. I’m I mean, I’m totally different than most people in my company. And and I do things completely different. Kind of maybe like you in the terms they didn’t really what to do with me at that time but showing up and then and then it shows others. I am in the room. You can be here. You don’t need to not be here. So I love that. I love that in your answer. So I’m going to shift gears a little bit because this is this is something you’re passionate about. Um, you become a strong advocate for affordable housing. I don’t know that there is affordable housing anymore. Right. But you are an advocate for it. And what challenges are you facing and what can we do to help and assist you with this? It’s a big issue. And you know, we’ve got a thing called Intel coming as well. We’ve got all kinds of things happening around our city and there will be people left behind.

[00:18:39] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
So I appreciate the question for a lot of reasons. And let me give you a little context to how I’m going to answer the question. I think you have to take a step back for just a second and look at the central Ohio region. You know, Columbus is a great place to be.
There’s no question about it. We’re still operating in some ways like a smaller city than we really are. And if you look around the country, it does not take much to understand what we don’t want to do. So if you look at some of the major metropolitan areas across the United States, we have a playbook right in front of us that says unless you want to become like city X, Y, Z, don’t do these things. So I think Columbus is in a place and I say that meaning the greater outer belt area, multiple counties where we still have some time to do something about the housing situation, but not a lot. And so let me let me frame it a little bit, a little bit better than that. You know, the situation really does stem from what happened during the housing crisis in 2008 because we were building here at a pace that was generally keeping up with population growth.

[00:19:50] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
But since that time, we are nowhere close to that. Our population growth is happening much quicker than the number of units we’re building and understanding affordable housing. It’s a tough term because it it means different things to different people. But we’re talking about everything from single family to multifamily to senior housing to even residential housing for for students. Et cetera. So where we sit today is we need all housing. It’s not just one price point or another, because what’s been commonly understood is that when you have a shortage, it’s just like anything with a supply and demand model. When you have a shortage of something, all of a sudden someone who could afford to buy something a little higher. Price point doesn’t necessarily do that. They’ll buy down because they’re going to use that income, that money that they didn’t spend on the house for something else. Right. And what happens is it affects the supply even more for someone that only could be in that price point if you follow what I mean. I do.

[00:20:52] Betty Collins
I get it.

[00:20:52] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
So that situation is what’s happening right now in central Ohio. It does put us thousands of units behind. And so if we level set that issue behind what’s happening with population growth, the number of units were behind is even more staggering. So there’s a lot of challenges here. And without making this into an affordable housing podcast, because it could be it’s okay.

[00:21:20] Betty Collins
It’s okay
[00:21:21] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Yeah. You know, one of the things that we have to really pay attention to is what happens when we make decisions in individual municipalities. And so when we live in a state like we do, where where every municipality sort of makes their own rules around what housing is going to look like, what transportation looks like. Et cetera. That home rule model that we have does make it difficult to cross over municipal boundaries to try and do collective work together. So what you’re hearing more and more now is you’ll hear a lot of conversation more about a regional housing strategy, a regional housing goal, instead of what’s Columbus doing, what’s Westerville doing, What’s Grove City doing what? You know, pick whatever. Yeah. Um, the challenge is significant and often it is the NIMBY syndrome. And there’s no question about it. It’s, it’s, you know, you understand it to some degree. But on the other hand, it’s it’s probably the most depressing part about trying to build housing is when you have neighbors that say, we don’t want that person here, we don’t want that type of housing here. So I do think when you ask the question about what can people do, I think have an open mind to neighbors, have an open mind to how we live together, have an open mind to how we grow and do all the things right for everybody. So it’s not just improving housing opportunity for people. It’s also transportation changes that need to occur over time. Here we have so much good stuff going on. We really do. We’re lucky to be in a region that is generally very positive, but these real challenges that we’re going to have are going to begin to affect us pretty significantly if we’re not careful. There’s a whole other aspect of this around homelessness that I want. I mean, I won’t go down that path, but I just have to mention it because the aspect around what it takes for somebody who’s not. Earning a true living wage to survive right now is getting more and more difficult.

[00:23:20] Betty Collins
It is. It absolutely is. I mean, we were talking today about just the cost of everything is like this and wages just are not following it. And so it creates other crisis and that’s just real. I appreciate your boldness and your tenacity about the issue. And I think just to get your thought on this, do you think having we got intel on this side of town and we got Marysville right now and they’re both doing major things right, that are going to take housing for everybody, It’s going to take infrastructure for everyone. Do you think the word region will become more about instead of Gahanna there and Dublin here? Because Intel’s here, you know, the stuff going on in Marysville, it’s it’s all encompassing. So maybe that will help us be more about a region.

[00:24:11] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Yeah I think time will tell. You know what I worry about the most is the window to make those decisions gets smaller every year goes by. But I do think that there’s more conversation now than I’ve ever seen about thinking about a regional strategy. The one comment I would make, though, I think it’s something really important for people listening to think about in order for all of the regional success to go on, we have got to keep a strong core downtown. We need strong core neighborhoods. We have got to talk about redlining. We have to understand the effects of redlining and how we have to do what we can to reverse it, because it’s easy for us to say we’re going to build housing units in Union County and Lincoln County and Northern Delaware County or whatever without understanding that the impact on the core, what I call City of Columbus, really is incredibly critical to all of this happening. So as much as we want to look outward and think about impacts and housing and transportation, we also have to look inward and all of it needs to be successful. So that means reconciling with some really difficult situations to do that.

[00:25:24] Betty Collins
What’s great is you’re so beyond empty. And what I love is I see that as probably, Hey, this is what I do, this is my platform, this is my venue that I can now have impact in something like this. That kind of relates obviously with, you know, you build things, you’re building communities. But I mean, at the same time, there’s a lot of passion behind it. And to my audience, women, you know, this is part of the role when you play the roles that that Sandy plays that are that we all covered, that we all look at and go, this is a legend. There’s other sides to it besides EMH and T, But this is this is probably the coolest thing about you. There’s tons of it. But this is this I love. A few years ago you formed what is now dubbed as the Edge Sisters. It’s a group of women in leadership positions to lift up the community. Right. And push equity and drive change. Just talk to me about how that started and how you you know, what are you going to accomplish out of that? Because it’s pretty cool. And I really want viewers to look into this and see it because it’s neat. It’s cool. So.

[00:26:30] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Well, thanks for asking. And I would start by saying, anybody can do this. This is not it’s not a club. It’s not an organization. It really what it stemmed from was all of us are in some way, shape or form in not only in our professional lives, but in our personal lives involved in community work. So we would see each other all the time. This philanthropic event, that event, whatever. And so every single time that I would see one of these women at one of these events, when you get past the, Hey, how’s the family doing? We’re all quickly in our conversations going to what’s happening in the community. Are we are we comfortable with the pace of change? Are we confident the things that need to happen to lift up other people? This is never going to be about us. This is always going to be about other people. Are we confident that that change is happening? Are we confident that we are doing what we can to kind of help push along a community that really looks at equity through the lens of opportunity and not just a buzzword, which it can be? And so what ended up happening was I guess it was right, It was right before the pandemic. I just sent a dinner invitation out to a bunch of these women and said, you know, I don’t know if there’s something here, but it just feels like we’re all talking about the same things all the time. So let’s go talk about it. And you really can’t get a group of 13 Typekit women together and not be like, Yeah, we’re going to do something. So Exactly. You know, we ended up having a great dinner. We talked for a long time about kind of what we all were seeing and what our concerns were and how could we help. So it ended up that we started down the path of meeting frequently for dinner and then the pandemic happened.

[00:28:14] Speaker3
Mm.

[00:28:14] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
And it was just the most bizarre and fortuitous thing because what actually ended up happening with all of us is we’re now all in these positions where we’re trying to figure out what the heck is happening and what we need to do to lead our organizations. So we ended up on weekly calls, and it was it was unbelievable. Some weeks, you know, you might be laughing about other things. Sometimes everybody was crying. I mean, it was just so much. But what we basically did is we we we brought Robin D’Angelo to to town to talk about race issues, which was, you know, controversial. And we knew it would be and that’s okay. But we purposefully wanted to try to bring people into a setting where they could just listen and learn and do with the information what they wanted. We also wanted to reach into the community to talk to some other women who had come into Columbus or central Ohio during during the pandemic. So I guess it was about a year and a half ago or so. We just sent an invitation out to all these women and we didn’t really know a lot of them, but we knew that they’d either moved here to take a job of some kind or had moved in. Their role in their organization didn’t know anybody. So we hosted an event basically and just said, Why don’t you come and we’ll get to know each other? And we’re actually getting ready to do the same thing here in about 2 or 3 weeks.

[00:29:38] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
We’re going to do it again. You know, we have all together, the group of us done some work around racism, the 13 of us, and been very honest with each other about it and learned together. It, you know, it’s been an incredible journey, really. Just to have them as as trusted sisters really is kind of how it is. So what are we going to do? We’re going to continue to in all the hats we all wear and we’re all in lots of different rooms around the community. We’re going to continue to push for doing what’s best for other people. I mean, it’s that is really how simple this is. I don’t think you’re going to see some big list of events we’re going to do. That’s not it. We’re just going to continue to kind of drive and push for change, especially with a region that’s really going through tremendous transition. Now you can see shifting power structures. You can see shifting dynamics about how to think of ourselves again, as a region much bigger than we used to be. We’re competing now with cities across the world, not just in Ohio. I mean, the whole situation is very different, and that’s the space we’re going to continue to be. We’re really kind of about that next generation and really, truly providing opportunity for everyone, not just certain people.

[00:30:57] Betty Collins
Right? Yeah, I could just sit and listen to you. I’m totally engrossed in what you’re saying. I truly love it. But, you know, to me, you know, what I like to have on my podcast is women who inspire other women. And you’ve certainly done that today. And it’s not just about I made it to the top in this company, you know, I’ve made it to the top. Okay. But these are all the other things that play into it. And and women need to be courageous. They need to show a lot of courage by touching and, you know, bringing your kid to work, coming together for racism, whatever it is. I mean, these are these are bold things. These are courageous. And it takes someone of courage to be that courageous. So I appreciate you coming on today and just talking and telling your story. I’ve heard it before. I always love it. I heard it pre-pandemic, but I had not really heard much about the Edge Sisters and I when I saw it, I thought I got to know more about that. So I really, really, really loved it. But thank you again for coming on today. And I would just ask you to do one last thing. What is it that you would want to say to the audience today for women who have they don’t need to be you know, Betty Collins is shareholder here and and Sandra does this and Jane Jane Greer. I mean, women every day, ordinary every day activities. What are we what’s the what’s what’s the word you what’s what? How do you want to encourage them? How do you want to inspire them as the last thing on the podcast?

[00:32:32] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
Well, I appreciate you asking. I guess I’d say two things. I think to the extent that you can do it, try to come from a place of gratitude. And that’s not easy for everybody. You know, some people have much, much more difficult situations they have to deal with every day. But finding gratitude, I think, makes you really begin to understand how impactful you can be because you’re not looking for what’s what’s going to be better for me. You’re looking for what’s going to be better for somebody else. So I think being grateful really matters a lot. And then I’m going to go back to the beginning risk. I think women need to be okay with taking chances. Women need to put themselves out there more. They have to be willing to take the assignment. Be the person that shows up and does something that no one else has done or do the assignment better. Because what happens is when you become that person who’s taken the chance and you become someone who delivers on what they say they’re going to do, you’re known as the reliable person then. And so this is what people forget when a colleague or a client or whatever says, I’ve got this assignment. Who do I want to work with?
They’re going to think of you because you are the reliable one. You are the one who showed up. You’re the one who admitted if you made a mistake, all the things that come with being reliable and it evolves, you know, it’s not like you have to kick in every single door all the time. Sometimes you do, but not always just be the person who shows up. And I do think risk taking gets easier for women when they try little things at a time to do it. Lady, you got this? Do it.

[00:34:07] Betty Collins
This is why I started the podcast with She’s a Legend. So again, thank you so much. Again. And I know my audience is going to love the love the time that they can spend with you.

[00:34:18] Sandy Doyle-Ahern
So thank you. Well, thanks for your time. It was good to see you. Yes.

[00:34:23] Betty Collins
As your career advances continue, your financial opportunities will continue to grow. Be prepared. Visit Brady World.com Backslash Resources to find everything about inspiring women. This episode, plus an outline of Brady wearing company accounting services can be found in the episode show notes.

Amy Franko and The Modern Seller

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Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins
Amy Franko and The Modern Seller
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Amy-Franko-Inspiring-Women

Amy Franko and The Modern Seller (Inspiring Women, Episode 53)

Amy Franko, author of The Modern Seller, joined host Betty Collins on this edition of Inspiring Women. Amy talked about the primary misconceptions services providers have about sales, imposter syndrome, delivering value, negotiating, and much more.

The host of Inspiring Women is Betty Collins, and the show is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Betty’s Show Notes

Amy Franko helps organizations transform sales culture, ignite sales growth, and build high-impact leaders through her strategic selling programs. Recognized as a LinkedIn Top Sales Voice, Amy is the leading expert in modern sales strategies—including in-demand sales training programs, sales strategy, and as a sales keynote speaker and leadership keynote speaker. She guides growth-oriented organizations to significantly improve their results through B2B sales strategy and sales team skill development.

In this episode we find out more about Amy, and

  • why she credits coming from a large family with her success in sales
  • what does “modern selling” mean?
  • what are the misconceptions of today’s selling situations?
  • what are her observations about women in sales?
  • what has she learned from her successes and failure?
  • and finally, her 3 pieces of advice (you will love #!)

Learn more about Amy and her background here.

And grab a copy of her book right here.

Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.

For more information, go to the Resources page at Brady Ware and Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.  And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Betty Collins
I’m Betty Collins. And today we are going to talk about something that scares me to no end, and that’s called sales. And when you’re a business owner, which I am and I’m a shareholder and all those things, part of my job, part of my responsibility is making sure that my clients are served. But it’s also out there getting new clients, new clients. And it’s a frightening thing for me. It always has been. If I can, just knowing that I’m out talking to someone, I’m not afraid of it. But if I think I have to sell something, that’s another story. So we’re going to talk about this topic today with someone who really, really knows a lot about selling. In fact, she knows so much about it that she’s written some great book. And I think you will will find her very, very engaging today and she will really help you get through some things. I’ve known Amy Frankel for quite a while. We are very involved in the central Ohio, Columbus area with a lot of the women’s organizations. So today we’re going to talk with a truly an expert because she’s written a book that is on the Amazon bestseller list, by the way, and it’s called The Modern Seller.

[00:01:15] Betty Collins
And so I think you’re going to love engaging with Amy Franko, who wrote this book. And I’ve known her again for a while, and we’ve kind of been in the same circles in businesses. And we’ve also done a lot with women’s organizations within the central Ohio area. She’s very big in the Girl Scouts of America. So just to get started, you know, Amy is Franco is the leader in modern sales strategy. She helps those mid-market organizations to grow sales results through a sales strategy, you know, advisory and skill development programs. And again, her book, The Modern Seller, which is an Amazon best seller. She is recognized by LinkedIn as a top sales voice. And she’s also, as I said, the board chair for the Girl Scouts of Ohio Heartland, a top 25 nonprofit in the Columbus region, serving nearly 18,000 members. And you can find Amy at w w w dot Amy Franco. So, Amy, I’ve talked a little bit about you, introduced you. We’ve had some fun. We’re going to have a great conversation today. Why don’t you just tell us a little bit about yourself before we get started on that thing called selling? Sure.

[00:02:28] Amy Franko
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me here. I was so excited to have this on my calendar and have this conversation with you and Betty. I’ve learned something new about you that you are selling like strikes fear in your heart. So I would have never known that about you.

[00:02:45] Betty Collins
Absolutely. Absolutely does.

[00:02:48] Amy Franko
But but to but just to just to give our listeners a little bit more about myself. I am I was born and raised in Ohio, grew up in Cleveland. I’ve been in the Columbus area now for 25 years, which is hard to believe. And from a from a personal standpoint, I am married to Dave and I have a wonderful, energetic black lab by the name of Roxy who gets all of my time and attention. Yes. And and and when when I’m not doing things sales related or related to the Girl Scouts or nonprofits, I love all things fitness and I love to travel. So I’m very excited to be able to get back to traveling. So that’s a little bit about me, and I’m sure we’ll uncover some more stuff here as we go.

[00:03:38] Betty Collins
We will. So what’s your favorite place to travel before we get started? What is it?

[00:03:42] Amy Franko
Oh, well, probably my most exotic place I’ve been to was we did a two week, two and a half weeks safari to Kenya in the early part of 2020 before the pandemic. And had you asked me, like, if Kenya was on my travel list, I it’s Kenya itself was not on my travel list, but being on doing a safari was we had some friends that planned the trip, invited us to go along, and it was absolutely life changing. And if we have time, I will tell you a story about that trip that ties into the book.

[00:04:17] Betty Collins
Okay. We definitely want to make the time to do that. So. All right. But I love to travel as well in my older age. Not old, but my older age. I like going back to the same places, so I’m really glad. In the forties I traveled everywhere, you know, and had that adventure side because now I’m kind of like, Here’s my favorite spot going to hang there. So but even talking about even having this introduction today of we’re going to jump into sales, it makes me a nervous thing, which really is crazy, right? Because I mean, I love the marketplace, love being out there, love seeing the success of it, because when it succeeds, you know, the country succeeds. And so sales is just part of that, especially as you have to be a rainmaker or you have you. Want to have growth and you’re that owner and you want to get out there, or maybe you work for somebody and this is what you have to do. So, you know, what is your background and how did you get into the sales profession?

[00:05:13] Amy Franko
So. So a little known fact about me is that I’m the oldest of five. I have four younger sisters and there’s a ten year age difference between me and my younger sister. So I think that perhaps sales and leadership, my sisters might call it being bossy, but I call it leadership. And so has probably probably been with me, right? It’s probably been with me since I was young. Right. So just like that’s the desire to start something or lead something has always been in my DNA as long as I can remember. But for those of you listening, if that’s not you, please don’t shut off this podcast because we’re going to give you some great ideas for sales. But so that’s kind of how I’ve grown up, but how I specifically got into the sales profession. I was doing an internship in college, basically, I had a summer job. I worked at a tech company in my hometown in Cleveland, and I answered phones. I answered phones, and I just did all kinds of things in the company to learn the business. And one of the things that I observed was that the salespeople seem to be having the most fun. They were always the one. They were always the one with the customers. They were coming and going. They they always look like they were having a great time. And I’m not sure, like I said, Oh, let me pick that as a career, but I think I might have tucked that away. And it’s like, Oh, like, this is interesting. If you’re going to spend a lot of time doing something, do something you like, right? Correct.

[00:06:51] Amy Franko
But but so I think that was maybe my my first taste of what the profession could be like. But I didn’t study sales in college. Now there are sales certificates and sales programs. The profession has come a long way in that regard with college programs and university programs. It’s not something I studied, but I got my first job out of college, working in an inside sales role for a tech company, and that was really my first journey into sales. And for my for the first ten years of my career, I had a variety of sales roles, starting with with that college internship and had a variety of sales roles and tech for the first ten years of my career. Then I took a pivot into entrepreneurship about 15 years ago, and that was my next foray into sales, which I kind of think of is more entrepreneurial type selling. I was running the company and I also had to sell and bring in all the clients, not unlike what you shared in the beginning in your intro. So I have really been selling for my entire career. It is just looked different depending on whether I was working in an organization or now. I work for myself and I work with organizations, CEOs, sales leaders. I help them with sales strategy and I also help to skill up their sales teams. And I’m, as you could probably tell, I am really passionate about about sales and all things sales and leadership. So I really get a lot of joy out of being able to do what I do.

[00:08:27] Betty Collins
And you’re still hanging with all the fun people, right?

[00:08:30] Amy Franko
I do that, I hang with the fun people and it opens up all kinds of doors that I would have never, never thought of. So I’ve had a variety of experiences, from big enterprise to entrepreneurial selling and the customers I get to work with today.

[00:08:46] Betty Collins
Well, your book is titled The Modern Seller. So. So of course, I think of, Oh, you don’t have to go door to door. Knock on the door. Right. But what do you mean by modern selling? Like, what does that mean?

[00:09:03] Amy Franko
Yeah. So, so as I was just a little bit of context as I was researching the book and the catalyst for this really came from the work that I was doing with my clients. And I’m a learning and development person. I love learning and I’m the person who loves to go to the conference and sit in the front row and take notes. So I’m a learner at heart. And what I started to observe in myself and also in my clients was, Hey, there’s there’s all these different sales and also marketing activities that we do and organizations on a day to day basis. But what I was starting to realize was that there were some other skills that were equally as important and maybe even more foundational to helping us be successful in the everyday activities of selling. And so as I was researching this and pulling this together, I have uncovered what I see as five capabilities of the modern seller. And we can certainly. We dig into those as well. But if I were to give our listeners just a working definition of the modern cellar, think about your clients and prospective clients that you maybe haven’t worked with yet. And there are some things that they expect of us today that maybe clients didn’t expect of us 15, 20 years ago. Our clients really expect us to be a differentiator in their business and we need to be recognized for that because our clients have so much choice these days.

Pick an industry, they have so much choice. Also, a modern seller is somebody where you individually provide so much value to your client or your prospective client that they really can’t separate you from what it is your firm does or your company does. Whatever you sell a product, you sell the service, you sell a suite of solutions. You are so important to that that they can’t really separate you from it because otherwise you’re a commodity. Yeah. And then the last thing I would offer up for people to think about is how much do you help your clients be a have a competitive advantage in their industry? What you bring is unique that helps them to be better. And they look at you and they say, You know what, I really couldn’t imagine doing business without you. So so those are some tenets of modern selling that I see as as they’re foundational, but I think they’re even more important today. And if we can focus in on the way in which we show up and develop ourselves, that’s going to help us sell better and it’s going to help us help the clients better.

[00:11:45] Betty Collins
Yeah, absolutely. Of course, you had me at there’s five things you do because I’m a CPA, right?

[00:11:51] Amy Franko
Right.

[00:11:53] Betty Collins
If we have time, where to get to those five things? I absolutely. I love that. But, you know, again, as you heard me say in the beginning, sales is a scary thing for me. And a lot of it is really misconception probably on my part. Right. But what are some of those misconceptions about selling in today’s market, especially post COVID post pandemic? The word pivot. I’m so tired of it, but I mean, what are some of those misconceptions about today’s today’s clients when it comes to selling?

[00:12:24] Amy Franko
Yes, If you had buzzword bingo in front of you, pivot might be that center square and buzzword. Bingo, bingo.

[00:12:31] Betty Collins
Buzzword bingo. I like that. I like that.

[00:12:34] Amy Franko
But, you know, so if so, think about some misconceptions for for a moment. So many things have changed with COVID. It’s kind of interesting. Many things have stayed the same foundationally with selling, but many things have changed as well. So so a couple of misconceptions that I would would offer up for people to be thinking about is the idea that the sales is something that you that you have to do to someone, right? Yeah. I like if you were to envision in your mind’s eye working with your clients or a prospective client and then sort of envisioning being across the table from them, envision vision, kind of walking the path with them, and we can envision ourselves as walking the path with them. That takes some of the barriers down. And our role is really to be somewhat this is another buzzword, but the buzz phrase being a trusted advisor to our clients and our perceptive clients, when we take that mindset versus, Oh my gosh, I’ve got to sell this product or solution, I have to get a certain price for it. When we look at it as we’re walking with our clients and helping to navigate the terrain together, that’s that’s a bit of a different perspective. So I would bust the myth that you have to be doing something to someone versus you’re walking the path with them, right?

[00:14:00] Betty Collins
I love that. I mean, that’s like saying, Hey, let’s have lunch or Hey, can we break bread? There’s just different connotations. I love I like that taking the path with them.

[00:14:11] Amy Franko
And another misconception is that your clients don’t want to be sold to. And here’s what I mean by that. Our clients and our prospective clients, they they’re engaging with us. We’ve either engaged them or they’re engaging with us because they feel that there is something of value there to have a conversation about. So our clients actually have an expectation that we are going to walk them through a decision making process to help them figure out what is it that I need to do next. And if we take ourselves out of that equation, we’re not desperate for a sale. We are confidently helping a client to to navigate that. We’re empowering them to make a decision. So it’s not manipulation, it’s empowering them to make a decision. And that’s part of our role, is to empower them to make the right decision. Hopefully that right decision is working with us, but sometimes it’s not, and we have to either kind of disqualify that potential client out. We introduce them to someone else, or maybe there’s an entirely different solution altogether. So so don’t discount the fact that your clients, they want to be walked through a decision making process, be the leader that helps them to make that decision right now.

[00:15:38] Betty Collins
Those are excellent, excellent points, especially when you’re you have a fear of it or you think it is something that it’s not, and then you don’t have success with those two things hanging over you. Right. So.

[00:15:51] Amy Franko
Right.

[00:15:52] Betty Collins
Those are good. I’m going to take a second here and clear my throat. So that’s Brett. We’ll cut all that out. So as you know, this is inspiring women. And so the audience is going to be primarily probably women, honestly. And and women today. I always hate the terminology. Well, it’s a man’s world. I say it’s a woman’s world. I say it’s a sales world. Right. But what are the observations that you have about women when it comes to sales? Like what is it that you see specifically for them?

Yeah, And and these are generalizations. So I want to make sure that, you know, some some of these things, if you’re if you’re listening, you may say, oh, this doesn’t really, really apply to me and that’s totally fine, but I invite you to just reflect on these and see where maybe some of these things are, bringing up some, some challenges or let’s call them opportunities, right? To, to, to develop. I really believe that sales skills are leadership skills and they’re also life skills. So if we can embrace the idea that building our sales acumen is it can help us create a lifestyle that we want, it can help our clients create the business and the life that they want. There’s so much upside to embracing the idea that sales skills are really a positive thing and they are leadership skills. But I would say I’d say one of the things I’m seeing right now, Betty and I coach a lot of of clients and a couple of the conversations I’ve had of late with some really, really sharp women who are by any means they are so successful. But I’ve seen some struggles with confidence and a little bit of that imposter syndrome. So that is one of my observations that I tend to have that conversation more with women than I do with men.

[00:17:53] Amy Franko
And the idea that, gosh, I’m I need to need to build this or have that or I’m not good enough at that, or how am I ever going to to be successful with this and that. Those are little things that eat away at your your confidence. So that’s an observation that I have that a lot of very successful women still struggle with confidence. If that happens to be you listening, you are not alone in that. But I bring it up as an observation to reflect on for yourself if that is something that that you struggle with. So I would say confidence is one thing. And then the second thing is, and this may be is also a misconception that you have to be really aggressive to be successful in sales. And and my opinion, that couldn’t be further from the truth. And today’s buyer today’s client doesn’t appreciate aggression. I believe that they appreciate assertiveness, they appreciate confidence, but they don’t appreciate aggression. And so my observation is many times women shy away from the profession or they avoid sales altogether because they believe you have to be aggressive in order to be successful. And I would say you need to be assertive and you need to build your confidence, but you certainly do not need to be aggressive.

[00:19:21] Betty Collins
Sorry. Let me ask you this just because I think, first of all, when I when maybe this is a misconception sales, but negotiations are what we think they are. Right. And men are better at negotiating than women. It’s proven fact. But how do you see the negotiation process in sales or should it be? This is not a negotiation.

[00:19:47] Amy Franko
Good question. So I when I’m working with my clients, what I ask them to do is they’re going is they’re analyzing their own processes, how they engage the client and what their client’s decision making processes are. I encourage them to separate mentally the different parts of the process into sales skills and solutions and negotiation. Not not that you’re telling the client, well, hey, this is my sales skill bucket and now I’m moving into my negotiation skills. But for you to mentally compartmentalize these and the reason that I encourage clients to do that is sometimes we can muddy the waters and we can make things really complicated. So if you’re real clear on what parts of the process you need to be negotiating on. But maybe I can illustrate this with a story. So I was I was working with a client maybe six months or a year ago. We were talking about this very topic on negotiation. And and it was it was a mixed group of men and women. And so the person I was working with was working with their client, and their client had gotten to the end of their decision making process. Right. So we’re ready to sign an agreement. Yes. And so they get to the point where they are ready to sign the agreement and the client asks, Would you be willing to give us a 20% discount before they’ve got the pen in their hand?
Right.

[00:21:24] Amy Franko
And they’re getting ready to sign? Will you give me a 20% discount? So that’s your first data point that you really aren’t at the end of the decision process or the negotiation process because they’ve now asked for something different. And the kneejerk reaction many people have is let me see if I can do that for you. Instead of asking the questions. Tell me a little bit more about why this is important to you. Tell me walk me through your thought process around this. And so in my in my story and my coaching story, the my client had negotiated with their client a 10% discount before signing. And my question back to my client was, so what do you think that they’re going to do the next time you get to the agreement stage? They are going to ask you for more discounting because that is what we’re teaching them to do. And they’re like, the light bulb went on, right? Like, oh, boy, right now we teach our clients many times how to treat us and buy what we agree to do and how we navigate processes. So what you could do differently the next time is ask a question about why they’re thinking that they need that discount, because the discount is is a trade off for value.

[00:22:48] Amy Franko
Sure. And when you understand what that is, and I think one of our knee jerk reactions often is that we want to give the discount or we want to just rush to the end because they’re so close to signing the agreement. So I always encourage my clients, look at what they’re really asking for. You may need to negotiate some terms of your agreement or parts of your solution or your product, which you don’t want to do is put yourself in a position where you are giving them the same thing, but you’ve now dropped your price by X percent because that just that ends up being a race to the bottom. It eats away at your margins, but it also eats away at the relationship. And I think that’s sometimes what people don’t remember is when those types of trade offs are given, it can eat away at trust and credibility on on both sides. Right. So always ask yourself, is the decision that I’m making here a potential trade off not just financially, but a trade off in the relationship that might have some unintended outcomes?

And the reason I think of negotiations why I ask the question was, I love the movie Pretty Woman, right? And in this, you know, Richer, Richard Gere wants to hire Julia Roberts for the week to basically be his escort. Right. And so she starts out with a big negotiation, right? Like, well, I need that. And then he said, How much is it? Just tell me what that is. And he and he gives her the money and says, Now that’s over. We’re done. So let’s really talk about how this week is going to go. And I think that’s where I look and go. We tend to get focused on the Julia Roberts contract before we talk about the value of what we’re going to do for the week. In this case, he just needed somebody who could go in ten things with him. And yet she was really all all about the contract before she was about, hey, here’s how this week’s going to play out. And so I don’t know why I always think of that when I think of negotiations, because she was really thinking price was the whole negotiation, not here’s the value you’re going to get for the week and Right. And I think we can look at that with our clients as well. What is the value you’re you’re going to give them and then deal with the negotiation piece? Because if they see you as an expense, you’ve really lost, but they see a value that you really won at the end of the day.

[00:25:10] Amy Franko
So there is a one last point on that. There’s a book that I really like. It’s called Getting to Yes and Negotiating and Negotiating Agreement without Giving In. And it was written by a couple of a couple of gentlemen from Harvard, the Harvard Negotiation Project. And the idea being that we often see negotiation as this zero sum game. If I win, you lose. Yeah. And what if instead we looked at it as the ability to create? I like to think of it as a win win win. It’s a win for your company. It’s a win for the client and it’s also a win for you individually. And sometimes we leave ourselves out of that equation. So I how can you make something, a win win win? And but without giving away the farm, if you will.

[00:26:07] Betty Collins
Right. Know all those good points. Good points. We’ve got to keep moving on because I want to hear the safari story.

[00:26:13] Amy Franko
I we.

[00:26:15] Betty Collins
Do that. But you know, give us what’s a either a success or a failure that you have experienced and what did you learn from it as as you’re out there consulting with companies and people?

[00:26:28] Amy Franko
And I when I when I think about I’m I’m going to I’m going to share a success, I think we can learn as much from our success as we can, from our failures. And make no mistake, I’ve I’ve had I’ve had more than my share of fair share of failures in this. Profession. I think we can learn. We can learn from both. But I go back to a client that I had a number of years ago, and we don’t actively work together at this point, but we have we are still in each other’s networks and we’ve known each other for a long time. And this was a really, really big organization that I had the opportunity to earn a big contract with. And maybe one other misconception is if you’re a small company, don’t let that deter you from really going after the clients that you want to go after, because that can often be an advantage. Don’t don’t let it don’t don’t fool yourself into thinking that you have to be as big as your competitor to be successful. So so this was a really big contract, probably the biggest one I had in my career. And it was it was a lengthy RFP process requests for proposal.

[00:27:37] Amy Franko
I had to submit, submit a very lengthy proposal, and then I was chosen to be one of the three finalists to present to the clients and ultimately selected. So knowing that I’m a smaller firm, I’m thinking, All right, how can I get creative here and really build great relationships with the client? Because they were going to be a number of people in this presentation and showcase myself and to stand out because I said a modern seller is someone who is a differentiator, who really stands out and there they are attached to the value that they that the company brings. So any job in sales is our job is to legally, ethically, morally, on even the playing field, our customers subconsciously look to even the playing field because they think that that makes their decision making process easier when in fact all it does is drive the conversation toward price. So I’m thinking, all right, how do I on even the playing field and really stand out? So I asked my client, could I set up 30 minute conversations with each of the people that will be present at the presentation? I’d like to get to know them. I’d like to understand what’s important to them, and I’m going to use that in my presentation.

[00:28:55] Amy Franko
So my decision maker says, Well, yes, absolutely, you can do that. There was a naysayer in the group that said, Well, wait a second, shouldn’t we make this an even playing field for everybody and allow all the all the finalists this same access? And I had a very savvy decision maker who said, well, you know what, If they ask for it, I will give that to them. But if they don’t ask for it, I’m not going to I’m not going to just grant it to them, which is a really different way of thinking. Right. And so I was the only one that thought of that strategy. I got 30 minutes with probably six or seven people that would be a part of this. And I was able to create a presentation that nobody else could match, and I ended up winning the business. It was the biggest deal my firm had ever closed, and it was that one strategy that really made the difference. And it cost me nothing. It cost me nothing but creativity and my willingness to ask because I had I not been willing to ask, I would have never received it.

Right, Right. Awesome story. Awesome. Awesome. You know, and people don’t realize the gift of what you did. I mean, you really step back before you. Did just the same thing as you always do. I mean, you step back and say, this is a different this is a different deal. I mean, this could be a deal breaker. This could be the one, right? This could get me over. And then if I can get through this one, think of the other ones I can have, because now I’ve got a great resume on. Absolutely. So you have to you know, and that’s where in sales, I think I look at more as it just kind of happens with me. And that’s not always a great strategy. Instead being intentional, it’s got to be where you’re at no matter what you’re proposing. I think so.

[00:30:43] Amy Franko
And the willingness to be uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable asking for that. Right? Sure. But once once I got over myself and that that fear of that discomfort, you know, then I’m like, gosh, that just gave me more confidence for the next time to say, okay, how can I be creative and what can I ask for the next time?

[00:31:01] Betty Collins
Right? And, you know, women don’t ask. Men will ask. They don’t have one hesitation. So women in the audience learn from her success of her largest contract. She asked for something that would set her apart. And and that’s I mean, that’s huge success to me. You know, one of my funniest success stories and it was no intentional it just happened was I went to a meeting and and I went in and I said, I’m Betty Collins and I’m here to see so-and-so. And they said, okay. So they took me to a room and I’m sitting with all these people and I hand out my cards and they’re handing them out to me and I’m talking away. And, and and then I realized I’m in the wrong meeting. I’m not in the right meeting. And they started I go, This isn’t where I’m supposed to be, is it? And one person looked over because, Yeah, but you’re really entertaining. This was really good. I said, Okay. And about six months later there was an influencer in that room called the Owner, and he was so impressed with how I handled my exit from that room that he hired me a year later. But that has nothing to. It was my greatest story of sales that I have, right, because it was just so bizarre how it landed. But that’s not being intentional, you know, that’s not getting in there going. This is why I have success in sales. That was just one of those situations. But but once I realized I was in the room and I had to make an exit, I did have to become intentional, right? I did have to go, okay, how am I going to play this out? And then I ended up having success later, but I just thought I would throw that in there.

[00:32:40] Amy Franko
So well, and that’s a great example of not taking ourselves too seriously. Yes. And, you know, stuff is going to happen, whether it’s whatever it is. And great example of not taking ourselves. You didn’t take yourself too seriously. You just had the confidence. Maybe maybe you had to manufacture some confidence, but certainly have the grace to realize, all right, I’m not in the right room. Let me figure out how to exit here and maintain my my sanity. Yes. And people people do watch how we react. They watch how we react. They watch how we handle ourselves, like the gravitas that we have in these situations. And they do remember it.

[00:33:22] Betty Collins
Right? Right.

[00:33:24] Amy Franko
Well, that’s awesome. I love that story.

[00:33:26] Betty Collins
Yeah. It just was one of those. I will I and I’ve learned from just the little things about it. You kind of expanded on it at the time. It was just happening. But so so to the audience, what are your three pieces of advice? The best ones, right, for for them to take away today? And then I do want you to end with the Safaree story. So.

[00:33:48] Amy Franko
All right, sounds good. So so I would say my my first piece of advice is to invest in yourself, whatever that looks like for you at the point in time you’re at in your career. And investing in yourself is taking the time to listen to this podcast. Investing in yourself may be stretching yourself to go to a conference that maybe you wouldn’t go to or you wouldn’t necessarily pay for. Like you are waiting for somebody to pay for it for you. And they didn’t investing in yourself. So always ask, how can I invest in myself today, this year so that you are always working on yourself and showing up as the best version of yourself? My second piece of advice would be to get involved in a passion project of some kind. So for me, my the Girl Scouts of the Heartland is my passion project. They get my time, talent, treasure and ties and because I have invested in them, just see the outcomes that we’ve been able to create. And the reward it has brought to me is more than I think I could ever give back to that organization that those passion projects can really fuel you. So find that passion project that you love and want to kind of throw yourself into. And then my last piece of advice would be to. Have the ambitious life themes. This goes back to your comments about being intentional. So much of life can happen to us. I believe that the people who create the most impactful lives are the ones who intentionally have ambition about the life that they want to create, whether it’s their professional life, it’s their personal life. It all. It all mingles together. We get we get one life. So be as bold and ambitious as you can. Dream it up and and go after it. Because you don’t you don’t get necessarily get a second chance to go do that.

[00:35:49] Betty Collins
Great advice. Great advice. Especially the third one. I really definitely like that. Definitely. Very good. Okay, let’s. I got to know about this safari. Let’s finish that up.

All right. I’m going to try to give the short version of this story, but. So we took a safari to Kenya in February of 2020, right before the pandemic hit. And we got to travel to four different locations in Kenya. And when you when you get there, you take small bush planes from location to location. So we’re in a small regional airport in Nairobi. And there’s this young gentleman, Kelvin, who I came to know later. This young gentleman is our concierge. Really sharp. He was just wonderful and just walked us through everything, got our bags, helped us to our gate, the whole nine yards. And because it’s a bush plane, there’s only ten or 12 people on the plane. So this young guy is reading the manifest and he’s checking off everybody’s names and he gets to my name. And he said, Are you the Amy Franko who wrote the sales book?

[00:37:01] Betty Collins
Oh, my goodness.

[00:37:03] Amy Franko
Right. And of course, I’m looking at my husband. I’m looking at my two friends. And I’m like, all right, which one of you put him up to this?

[00:37:12] Betty Collins
Yeah.

[00:37:13] Amy Franko
I’m eight time zones away. And here’s this here’s this young man who asks me, maybe Franco that wrote the sales book. And I said, Well, yeah, And I totally did not believe him, Right? I’m like, Well, yeah, I did write the sales book. And he’s like, I would love to get a copy. How do I get a copy of your book? And I said, Well, probably the best way is to order it on Amazon. So we’re just kind of bantering back and forth, and I’m totally not believing this guy. He walks us to our plane and we go on our way. Three days later, we come back through the same airport and who greets me at the airport. But my new friends Kelvin. Wow. And he’s like, Ms.. Franco, Ms.. Franco, how do I get your book? And then he starts naming some other, like sales professionals, like people in the industry that my husband would know, probably, but my, my friends would not. And I’m like, You’re really serious, aren’t you, Kelvin? I said, You’re not joking, right? And he’s like, No, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.

[00:38:12] Betty Collins
Oh.

[00:38:13] Amy Franko
How do I get your book? And I said, All right, so here’s the deal. I said, Because Amazon is there, but it’s not there. It’s a challenge, right? So I said, All right, I’m going to take a photo of your badge. Let’s take a photo together. And I am going to mail you a copy of the book. So fast forward, I get home, I look up his airline, which is a tiny airline, and say, okay, I hope I have the right address. I mailed him a book and I’m okay. I don’t know if this will ever get to him. Three or four weeks later, I get this wonderful email from my friend Kelvin, who just this long email just thanking me for taking the time to send him the book. And he had photos of him with the book and went on to tell me about his brother and their nonprofit that they run together to help children with technology and so on and so forth. And it was just such a wonderful lesson and you just never know who you’re going to meet or who you’re going to influence. And now I have this friend who is halfway around the world. We couldn’t be more different, but I would say and all the ways that we are important and that are important, we’re very much, very much alike. So so that’s my my Kenya story with the.

[00:39:33] Betty Collins
Book that is just stunning. I mean, that’s just it’s not hilarious. That’s not a great word. I mean, that’s just amazing.

[00:39:41] Amy Franko
You can’t make.

[00:39:41] Betty Collins
That up, right? I mean, it’s it’s funny to the point, but it’s like, wow. And you’re right. What impact and influence you’ve had. So that’s that is cool. Now, I do see where you can download your latest e-book for the top two sale growth frameworks that help your teams excel and disruption.

[00:39:59] Amy Franko
So yes.

[00:40:00] Betty Collins
So they need to get to your website at w w w dot Amy Franco excuse me dot com so they can see the different things that you have out there because I think you could have great impact on some organizations for sure. So well thank you for being with me today, being my guest. And I’m still scared of sales. Amy Franco But maybe I’ll, maybe I’ll get some courage, as you have given me that today. So. But.

[00:40:28] Amy Franko
Oh, that’s funny.

[00:40:29] Betty Collins
Yeah.

Thank you for having me.

[00:40:30] Betty Collins
Oh, it was absolute pleasure. And we will make sure that also we get your link to the book so that they can see it when they listen to the podcast. So I’m Betty Collins, and I just want to thank you for joining today. And hopefully if you have a position where you sell or you want to sell or you want to learn more about selling, I think Amy Franco’s your person. And I really appreciated the insight that she gave us today. Amy Franco That is it.

[00:41:00] Amy Franko
Hey, that was a lot of fun.

Automated transcription by Sonix www.sonix.ai

The Power of an Ordinary Life, with Harvey Hook

by

Harvey-Hook-Inspiring-Women
Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins
The Power of an Ordinary Life, with Harvey Hook
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Harvey-Hook-Inspiring-Women

The Power of an Ordinary Life, with Harvey Hook (Inspiring Women, Episode 52)

Everyone, no matter how ordinary they might believe themselves to be, can leave a lasting impact on the world. That’s the message Harvey Hook, author of The Power of an Ordinary Life, offers in his book and in this interview with Inspiring Women host Betty Collins.

The host of Inspiring Women is Betty Collins and the show is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Betty’s Show Notes

As he states on his LinkedIn profile…

I create opportunities for people and communities to thrive.

Harvey Hook is my guest on this episode. I interview VERY few men on my podcast, so when I do, you know he has something big to offer my listeners.

He talks about his book, The Power of an Ordinary Life…

I wanted to write a book for what I would call the everyday, average, ordinary person, of which I am one who wanted to learn or discover if they could live a life that would leave an impact on the world. And I wholeheartedly believe every individual, every impact, every person can have an impact on the world around them. I wanted to bring others onto a journey where they could discover the steps that they could take to affirm themselves and recognize that an everyday, average, ordinary life are truly individuals who can change the course of the universe. And I truly believe that.

What did you learn when you wrote this book?

I began to realize what I was writing down in the book was who I am. I have found my purpose. That drives me. It’s the thing that leads me through life. I begin my purpose from this vantage point. All people of value, all people have hope. There’s always hope at the end.

Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.

For more information, go to the Resources page at Brady Ware and Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.  And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Betty Collins
I’m Betty Collins. And this is inspiring women. And today I’m doing something that’s a little bit different. I’m actually going to interview a man, but I guarantee you he will inspire you today. He’s got an amazing journey, and he and I have had some time together and I said, I really, really want you to be on my podcast. He’s just done some exceptional things and we’re going to talk about some of those things. But before we get started today, I have with me Harvey Hooke, and he has he’s a legend in Columbus, Ohio. As far as I’m concerned. He’s just done it. And he’s he’s just a great example. And he lives out who he is, which is what’s great about him. But, Harvey, I want you to just take a couple of minutes and tell us who you are and tell us a little bit about you.

[00:00:45] Harvey Hook
Well, thank you so much. I’m overjoyed to be able to be on the Inspiring Women podcast. So, Betty, thank you so much. So, Harvey Hook, I’m a the youngest of three boys born to a lumberjack and seamstress in Lincoln, Maine, northern Appalachia. I like to say that we were a hillbilly elegy, but without all the downside of that, we have, we had love, faith, family connectivity, and we stuck together through it all. Early on in my life, it was very important to me to know who I was and what I was supposed to do with my life. While my friends were searching for jobs and careers I was searching for what am I supposed to do with my life? Because this is how I was made and I wanted to live out my purpose. Background in Psychology, Master’s in Counseling, Denver Seminary and then piecing together 40 years of nonprofit work, serving incarcerated kids and inner city at risk youth in Denver and in Columbus, 26 years working with business, professional and government leaders. So when I was working with At Risk Kids, I was kind of a mentor, coach, counselor, guide, and I simply did the same thing with business, professional and government leaders. And so I’ve been in those roles over the years. I did some time serving children and families in the Dominican Republic with health care, housing, and the latest initiative is working with a friend to help serve homeless individuals here in central Ohio. Yes, married, two kids, both married and five delightful, delicious grandchildren.

[00:02:37] Betty Collins
There he goes. If you if you could see us, he he just lit up with a smile on that when we said that I had met you when you were in in that phase where you were really with the business community having integrity and ethics. And you always had an impression on me. And it was funny, when we had lunch a couple of months ago, you said, you know, we kind of know of each other. And so let’s just have let’s break bread together. We had a great time and.

[00:03:01] Harvey Hook
It was just the most natural thing to greet with a hug. Yeah, we just. It just was what we were supposed to do.

[00:03:07] Betty Collins
We did. We did so. But I but what has always I want to talk about today, something that you really achieve. And when people write books and they’re an author that the process is a big deal. Right. But you wrote a book, The Power of an Ordinary Life. And as we head into the end of 2022 and we head into the holidays and all those kinds of things, I want to say this book is powerful. It’s a good time to to be reflective. But your book, The Power of an Ordinary Life, I have the book and I haven’t read it thoroughly, but I keep saying it’s my next book, but it’s just the the title of it caught me from the beginning. So talk to us a little bit a bit about the book. You know, what’s the premise of the book premise?
00:03:56] Harvey Hook
I wish my next lifetime I’m going to be the guy that comes out with like the Nike logo statement saying just do it right in this lifetime. I can’t say anything that that quickly. What I wanted to do, I wanted to write a book for what I would call the everyday, average, ordinary person, of which I am one who wanted to learn or discover if they could live a life that would leave an impact on the world. And I wholeheartedly believe every individual, every impact, every person can have an impact on the world around them. I wanted to bring others onto a journey where they could discover the steps that they could take to affirm themselves and recognize that an everyday, average, ordinary life are truly individuals who can change the course of the universe. And I truly believe that.

[00:04:58] Betty Collins
And we’re in a time where we could. Really use some change in the course of our universe, right? For sure. Why did you write the book? What’s the why behind it? I mean, you kind of talked about that, but is there more to the why? Because that’s important to my why.

[00:05:13] Harvey Hook
There’s a practical reason why I was turning 50 and I needed to do something to leave my mark on humanity. So I was going to run a marathon until my orthopedic doctor said, Your left knee will not allow you to do that. And I was very disturbed. It really, really bothered me. I want to do something and I’m I journal I go through seasons of journaling every day or weeks and months at a time where I write my reflections down. And I was reviewing my journal and I discovered in my journal the game plan for the book. I wanted to help people come and know and understand what’s your what’s my destiny, what’s my purpose, what’s my mission? What are my gifts and abilities? What are my priorities? What’s my strategy for getting it done? How do I leave an impact on the world around me and what will my legacy be? And those were notes. I had journaled. I put the I, I wrote those down. I’m fairly well read.
And so I literally went to my library and sorted books into stacks that applied to each of those categories. And I looked at what others said about those things. And then I began. Then I wrote the outline to the book, and I started from there.

[00:06:38] Betty Collins
So how many years have you journaled and did you keep? Have you kept all.

[00:06:42] Harvey Hook
That journal for 40 years? And I’ve kept everything I’ve journaled. Oh, that’s why now there are, there are times in seasons where eight or nine years in a row there’s kind of nothing. Yeah. And then there are seasons where it is just flush with thoughts and poems and reflections and notes.

[00:06:59] Betty Collins
And so that was what started. Well, in the opening to your book, it’s there’s this unknown young woman named Ashley Smith. So who is she and why would her story matter to us?

[00:07:13] Harvey Hook
Oh, she really she really touched my life. I could have began the book with a story of someone that we all would know. It could have been Mother Teresa, right? We know that story. Ashley Smith, 26 year old young woman, single mother, her daughter had been taken from her because of repeated drug and alcohol abuse. 18 months prior to this event in her life, her husband had gotten into a fight, was stabbed and killed. This was a Friday night. Saturday morning, she is going to go visit her daughter, Paige, who’s living with a relative. Hours before this, there’s a man named Brian Nichols was on his way to court in Atlanta. He overpowered the female deputy, took her gun, took her handcuffs, her handcuffs, handcuffed. A deputy he met along the way, went to the courtroom, found the judge in the court. Reporter murdered. Both of them murdered. Another officer on the way somehow found his way into a federal police officials home, killed him, took his truck, made his escape. So Brian Nichols, subject to the largest manhunt in the history of the state of Georgia on the run. Ashley, it’s now 2:00 in the morning and ashley steps outside her apartment, smoke a cigarette. Brian Nichols shows up, gun into her ribs, pushes her into apartment. Ashley says to herself, My life is over. Long story short, he ties her up. He takes a shower. She’s in a chair in in the in the bathroom with him, towel over her head.

[00:09:05] Harvey Hook
He cleans up and he wants to talk. She began to talk about herself, her abuse lost her husband, lost her child drug abuse addiction. And he came to realize he was talking to somebody who was very much like himself. He untied her. She convinced him to take the truck. She would take her car. They went and hid the truck. And then they came back to her apartment. She began to read from the book Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. He began to ask questions. He agreed to let her go visit her daughter and gave her 40, $40. She made pancakes for him. And put real butter on the pancakes and. That transpired into her calling the police. And when the police arrived, Brian Nichols walked out the front door waving his t shirt in surrender and gave himself up to the police. And so she was he had offered her to take drugs with him. And she figured if she was going to die, she was not going to leave a legacy of drug abuse in her blood system. And she refused, no matter what it would what it would take. And so that’s why her life matters. She was just struggling to hold on. But in those hours, those 7 hours that took place between 2 a.m. and 9 a.m. in the morning, everything came to fruition in her life. And Brian Nichols was given an opportunity for the beginning of a new life. That’s why her life matters.

[00:10:55] Betty Collins
Ordinary life. The power of an ordinary life. Yes, I’ve heard I’ve heard that. I’ve read the work worn book. It’s fabulous. And they’ve gone through all of that. So that’s why you started with her? Powerful. So if anything else, find out who she is, right? Yes. What did you learn when you wrote this book? What did you learn while you were doing this?

[00:11:22] Speaker2
I began to realize what I was writing down in the book was who I am. I. Going to fast forward from when I wrote this book ten years into the future and the greater clarity is come. I believe that people who know who they are, it’s your identity, why they are here, that’s your purpose, how you should live. Your character are best prepared to love, love, serve and lead themselves and others in healthy, high impact ways. And there’s a study out of London, in London, England, tied together with, I believe, State University of New York. That literally shows that people who know and understand their purpose in life are healthier, happier, and they live longer. There’s something that takes place all the way down to the cellular level that really transforms those people who know their purpose in life.
And if I fully believe that if I’m employed somewhere, my number one job is not sorry, Betty, serving the needs of my employer. It’s bringing my purpose to work with me each day. And then myself and my purpose together are then best combined to serve the needs of my employer and whatever clients and vendors are that we serve out there. Hmm.

[00:13:00] Betty Collins
That’s a lot to learn. That’s a book in itself, right? It is. It is. Well, in your mind because you’re very focused on purpose. What is purpose to you? Oh, man.

[00:13:13] Harvey Hook
Purpose is. Wow, you would think I should be the expert having the expert answer for this. Ask Rick.

[00:13:20] Betty Collins
Warren. Yeah.

[00:13:22] Harvey Hook
So it is that thing that. Drives me the thing that leads me through life. So I’m going to tell you what my purpose is while I search for a much better answer. Okay, well, purpose. It’s your reason for being right. My your reason for being. And then I’ll come back to my purpose. Thank you. Brain cells for kicking in.

[00:13:50] Betty Collins
Okay.

[00:13:51] Harvey Hook
Use your reason for being. Conversation. Three years ago, company CEO. We’re talking about my book. And he says, Harvey, you when I was 25 years old and this guy has done well, I was looking for a job in a career. I didn’t give one iota of thought to purpose. And it was it’s always been my wiring. It’s nothing. I don’t think I decided to do it. I think I had to do it to know what my purpose in life was. So it’s the reason why I’m here. It’s the reason behind everything I’ve ever done in my life. And there’s been different iterations over the years based on how I viewed or what particular segment of the world I was serving it. My purpose in life is to create opportunities for individuals and communities to thrive. That’s what I that’s what I do. So what does that look like? It looks like when I was leading the the organization, the gathering. And we would we would bring business, corporate faith, government leaders together, and we would listen to Tony Dungy, Elizabeth Dole, zig zag, you name whoever these people were.

[00:15:18] Harvey Hook
I wanted to give deliver the best of the best to the leaders in Columbus so that their lives maybe could have a better impact on those people that they led and served. So it was always about seeking to make the person better, create opportunities. Part of that was, you know, as a as a white guy from small town USA, I jumped into in Denver, in Columbus, working in this area of reconciliation and race. And I’ve done it my entire adult life and maybe somewhat of an anomaly to my peers in the community. I went out to the significant African-American leaders in our city, and I put together forums and conversations, and they were always held in the black community, not the white community. Don’t come to where we’re at. And then I would seek to bring the white community to them on their turf. The significant speakers were always black, so it was always an opportunity. So I would lead in those areas that they weren’t necessarily in my job description. But it was a it was a way to make our community a better place to live.

[00:16:39] Betty Collins
Which is your underlying purpose. That’s just who you are. I know that when I read Purpose Driven Life, I also did Simon some x y went to the University of Why with Betty Clark. She helped me and I kind of took those two and kind of they intertwine, but yet purpose was kind of the first and then the why. They worked hand in hand. So I don’t know if you’ve ever gone through that. I’m sure you have, but.

[00:17:05] Harvey Hook
It just fabulous. I’ve read I read some of his works.

[00:17:09] Betty Collins
It just putting those two together on purpose. And it really, really helped me have a whole new I’m not about depreciation your tax return, you know. And so it just really solidified things for you.

[00:17:21] Harvey Hook
And knowing and understanding your wire on knowing and understanding your purpose, whatever path of life you’re on, they’re going to be broken toes, busted ankles, skin, knees, successes, failures, bruised divorce, drug addicted children, cancer, you name it. But if you’re pursuing your why, your why will help to sustain you through all of that as opposed to, well, this is just a job. This is just a career.

[00:17:56] Betty Collins
No, I mean, when I did those two things together, my whole entire outlook changed.

[00:18:02] Harvey Hook
Yes.

[00:18:02] Betty Collins
Which which is why I’ll go into this next question. I mean, you told me that people who have purpose know I’m going to put the why in there as well. They live longer. They’re healthier and happier than their peers. I’m sure my audience would love to hear more about how do we know that? How do you know that? I’m sure it’s because, you know. But why are these people happier? Why are they living longer? Why is their health in order? Because life isn’t easy, but it can be easier, is how I describe it.

[00:18:32] Harvey Hook
Um. I. So much of this is rooted. It comes from my worldview. Yeah. Whether our you or our audience can relate to this or not, if you. If you can’t look for transferable concepts, that will work for you. I believe myself in humanity. I believe we we were created by God. And I believe he has created me with incredible worth and value. And if I am part of humanity, all of humanity comes equipped with inestimable value and worth. So I begin my purpose from that vantage point. All people of value, all people have hope. There’s always hope at the end. The glass and I have been depressed. I have been curled up in an inn on my bed before. You know, I have had all of those things going on in my life, but there has always been a purpose that would bring me back up out of that. Right. So it’s in that context, I’m not sure I’ve answered your question, though.

[00:19:48] Betty Collins
So you have I mean, I think when people understand the why and purpose, which is why I like doing and talking about your book at this time of year, because people do a lot of reflecting. They do a lot of, hey, we’re having holidays, hey, we’re in in the year. Hey, you know, we’re starting a new January 1st seems to be this reset. So I think people need to get a hold of the purpose and the why and they will have a healthier, happier life.

[00:20:13] Harvey Hook
So and so and a variety of ways to put yourself on a on a pathway to discover your purpose in life, of course, Kindle version or buy the hardback or swap back the power of an ordinary life from Amazon. The Internet’s a great place. How do I how can I know and understand my purpose in life? There’s a variety of resources out there with a series of questions. I began by journaling. I began by listening to others, and then I add practical application to that, as in, you know, the emotional quotient, the disk, Briggs Meyer, the Enneagram strength finder. There’s a variety of tools out there. Unfortunately, I didn’t discover most of those tools till later in life, but onto OC. So Harvey, your purpose is to create opportunities for people in communities to thrive. Well, how do you do that? Well, my my results tell me. I’m a visionary. I’m a. I’m a connector. Yeah. This introvert, when he goes out to networking events, just becomes the big extrovert who’s connecting with everybody. I’m a connector. I’m strategic, I’m an advocate. I’ve got to be fighting for something or someone. I’m I’m a builder and a maximizer. That is the profile of somebody who is is an entrepreneur who starts things and builds things and maximizes them. So I have a history that goes with that. So I add the internal discovery that comes by answering key questions, boiling it down to discovering your purpose. And I add on to that some of these resource tools that give me the freedom to forget about my weaknesses most of the time and give most of my attention to my strengths. I early in my life, in career, I was doing it backwards.

[00:22:19] Betty Collins
Yeah. I think we all do that, though. You know, it’s easy to do it. So. Obviously, you know your purpose. You define it. Well, it’s it what’s interesting is you could be on a beach somewhere and instead you take on this whole new big thing, which I’ll let you talk about. But so obviously, knowing your purpose, it’s your life’s work. It isn’t. I’m this age. I’m done. Right. And so how has knowing your purpose impacted life work? You know, I don’t know if I’m asking that correctly, but you’re you’re not retired at all. You’re not stopping at all. You’re just doing something differently because it’s life’s work.

[00:23:04] Harvey Hook
It’s it’s my life work to live my purpose until I’m gone. I’m 69 years old and there are other things in life I could be doing. Every significant role I’ve ever had in life came because somebody picked up a phone and called me. I’ve never needed my resume and I’ve got a pretty good resume. I’ve sharpened it multiple times and nobody ever wanted me when the resume went through the door first. But so so for me, it was an opportunity. I got a phone call. Yeah, from an attorney friend here in Columbus, Ohio, Juan Jose Perez.
And he is starting a. Nonprofit organization, Vista Village Vista, Beautiful View, Vista Village. And what we are doing is we are developing a tiny homes community to serve homeless individuals, tiny homes, 420 square feet, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living area, front porch. And we are putting all that time and energy and effort into the beauty of the home, because we want to embrace the dignity of the individuals whom we are going to be serving. It is in southeast Columbus. We have 15 acres of land we’re developing it in. In two phases. And the people we’re going to serve will be truly the homeless living in their cars or living in the camps who want to come off the land. Young adults aging out of foster care.

[00:24:42] Harvey Hook
Ex-offenders returning to society. Veterans and those coming through substance recovery programs. We’re going to put those populations together. There’s a great meal and need in each one of those communities. Every individual who comes into this village, this is what we’re doing to seek the best outcomes for success for them, not for us. Each one of them comes in, will have an existing relationship with the service provider. So they’re not meeting anybody new, so to speak. They have a service provider. They have a case plan. They make a commitment to continue that case plan to live at Vista Village for 18 to 24 months. Yes, we will be the new people. We will facilitate and coordinate the services. We will have rules and guidelines. But our hope is to provide these individuals hope, help love healing, professional services, financial literacy, mental health care, health care, dental vision, workforce development. So our community partners will provide all of that. And then over 18 to 24 months, they will secure employment, have a savings account. And then at the end of that, we will work with other community partners to move them to their own independent living and the broader community. And at that point, that opens the door for the next resident to come and live at Vista Village.

[00:26:25] Betty Collins
And the reason I wanted you to to talk a little bit about that was just everything’s driven by purpose. You don’t have to do what you’re doing, right? You’re 69 years old. You don’t have to do. But yet your purpose drives it. Your wife drives it, and you’re the power of your ordinary life. Continues, yeah.

[00:26:46] Harvey Hook
Continues. And I’m here to help my my younger associate, John Perez, who’s 66, who the reason we’re all in this thing together as an attorney, he has clients. One of his clients was sued by the city of Columbus to move a homeless camp off their downtown property. And John chose to work with the city, work with Mount Carmel health care system and their homeless outreach ministry to transition that camp off to an alternate location. So we handled it ethically, morally, spiritually and not legally. And so as he got engaged in this process, he said he asked, what about the homeless? How are we serving the needs of the homeless in this community and nationally? Two years of research. It’s from there that we discovered tiny homes. It is more cost effective. Yeah. Wraparound services does provide a much higher degree of success on the back side. And and then John and I get to continue to live out our purpose, and others will join us in this effort.

[00:28:07] Betty Collins
Well, what I know, my audience knows now is you’re obviously your book is amazing. You should read it. You understand purpose. Talk to my audience as we kind of wind down about. How do you get started in knowing that for you? You said it came really natural to have my purpose, right? How does someone get started when they’re going to get ready to start a new year they’re getting? I mean, everyone does this. What do we call them?

[00:28:34] Harvey Hook
The the New Year’s resolutions.

[00:28:36] Betty Collins
Instead, how would you direct people in my audience to go know, start with your purpose and here’s how you start doing that? How do they do that?

[00:28:44] Harvey Hook
Well, however you want to do this, whether it’s an iPad computer. I love paper and pencil. Right. You ask yourself the question, why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? I would ask five other people in your life, What do you think my purpose in life is? On the beauty of that is they get to think about their purpose as well. I would look at the five or six significant things you’ve done in your life and what brought what gave you joy from doing those four or five things where you sensed you were successful? Not that the final results were were worthy of an award, but successful because it filled up who you were. I would look at those things. I would and I can provide to you and to your audience resources such as the Enneagram or the Emotional Quotient. I’m connected to leaders in those fields in Columbus. I can provide a series of questions and a process for people to go through, but it really, you know, it’s not worthwhile. You know, it’s not you know, you don’t you’re not going to come up with in six guesses, so to speak. Right. But but you stay with it and you’re right and reflect. And I had a friend I shared with him my version of my purpose at that time. And he said, Harvey, that’s way too many words. I think it’s I think I’m down to seven words now to create to create opportunities for people and communities to thrive. It may be longer, but I know and understand what.

[00:30:28] Betty Collins
What that is what.

[00:30:28] Harvey Hook
That means. And it doesn’t mean it’s it’s not it’s not tiny homes. It’s not the business community. It’s not my work in the Dominican Republic or incarcerated kids. It’s all of those things. It’s simply who I brought to each one of those situations and then what I brought out of myself while I was there.

[00:30:49] Betty Collins
I know our audience would love it and we’ll we’ll connect and make sure that they can go to these resources that you definitely can to get people started and get people thinking and getting the mindset change the purpose. And of course, you didn’t say they should read the power of an ordinary life, but I will. Oh, please. It’s right now. It’s on Amazon. Still, correct? Yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. It is. So you definitely just want to go out and find that, but I want you to leave. What are your final thoughts on today’s conversation? We just enjoyed listening to you. I can get very you notice I haven’t talked much, which is not like me. I’ve done more listening today. But what would be some final thoughts that you would like to leave with the audience.

[00:31:30] Harvey Hook
For on those occasions when someone wants me to autograph my.

[00:31:35] Betty Collins
Book? Yeah.

[00:31:37] Harvey Hook
I write the date, I write the name and I ask the question, What will you do today in some small way to change the world forever? I always ask that question. It’s so. It’s not. So I’ve chosen not to quote. Give a short quip, inspirational comment or best of luck in life, which for those who do it great, good for me. It’s a throwaway line I don’t want to use. I want the person to read what I wrote and look at themselves. And that’s that’s the starting point. So what will you do today in some small way to change the world forever? Because I can’t be in Ukraine today alongside a Zelenskiy. I can’t do that. But I’m going to encounter people in my neighborhood, people in my family, people in the workplace over the next three or four days. And there’s something I can do there.

[00:32:40] Betty Collins
Ashley Smith did it 2 a.m. in the morning.

[00:32:42] Harvey Hook
Yes, she did.

[00:32:43] Betty Collins
Correct. Well, it’s been a pleasure having you today. I enjoyed getting to connect connect with you a couple of months ago. And I just wanted my audience to really hear the message that you have so powerful. So Harvey Hooke, he wrote The Power of an Ordinary Life. He’s lived a very powerful, ordinary life and just does it so humbly. So thank you for being with us today. And we’re looking forward to some of those resources that we can my audience can take it a step further.

[00:33:11] Harvey Hook
Wonderful. I’ll put those together and get them.

[00:33:13] Betty Collins
Over to you. Sounds wonderful.

[00:33:15] Harvey Hook
Thank you, Betty.

Your “Nevers” Are Your Opportunities

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Your-Nevers-Are-Your-OpportunitiesInspiringWomen
Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins
Your “Nevers” Are Your Opportunities
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Your-Nevers-Are-Your-OpportunitiesInspiringWomen

Your “Nevers” Are Your Opportunities (Inspiring Women, Episode 51)

As host Betty Collins explains in this episode of Inspiring Women, what you say “never” to may represent a life-changing opportunity for you.

The host of Inspiring Women is Betty Collins and the show is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Betty’s Show Notes

The “nevers” became my opportunities once I chose to consider them.

Why do we say “never” first?

  • Youth and inexperience
  • Lack of confidence
  • Easy is easier
  • No guidance
  • Fear is paralyzing

My “nevers” included:

  • Never – going to use my accounting degree
  • Never – going to be a CPA
  • Never – going to be the employer, content with being an employee
  • Never – going to merge

My “never” became “Maybe, OK, Probably” and finally “Yes” due to influencers and facing my challenges.

What are your challenges?

  • Do you value who you are – no one will ever value you as much as YOU
  • Are you leveraging your uniqueness?
  • Are you paralyzed by fear?
  • When and how you do say NO – that is not a never!

“Nevers” just may be your opportunities.  Be more aware of the people in your life. Ask more questions versus acceptance.  No one will value you more than you. Paralyzed by fear, you will miss your moment.  Leverage your uniqueness, it is your journey.

This is THE podcast that advances women toward economic, social, and political achievement. Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women’s Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.

For more information, go to the Resources page at Brady Ware and Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.  And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:06] Betty Collins
So here I am 30 years later and I’m a shareholder and a director of a CPA firm. We’re regional with about 20 owners. We hover in that area. Probably 150 plus employees. I’ve been elected to the board of directors in my company by my peers. And then a year ago I was appointed to be lead of one of our offices. So we have four of those people in our office. But the fun thing probably the energy that fuels me to do what I do is I get to direct a Women’s Initiative. 60 percent of our employees are women in Brady Ware.

[00:00:56] Betty Collins
And so it’s not about entitlement, it’s about empowerment. So that’s why I get a lot of energy from that. I love what I do every day. Probably what makes the “Why” for me is I’m a business owner advising business owners. I wish I would have had that a long time ago in my own life as a small business owner. So it’s really my passion because I believe that the marketplace is huge and the business community plays a role in making sure that employers have employees who are families and households. And so I get to do that every day. And then I get to give back. I support a really great organization, the WSBA, which is about women in business.
Small, accelerating, moving along. And then I’m the president elect for NAWBO, which is the National Association of Women Business Owners. And the Columbus chapter is the largest in the country. So that’s 30 years later. So I go “Wow, how did I get here? Why am I here?”.

[00:02:04] Betty Collins
And here’s my story. And really it comes down to all the “Nevers.” Everything I said never to really became my opportunity. And if it would have not been open after I said “Never” I would have never been where I am right now. So what I want to do is is kind of go back 30 years ago and talk about the process of those “Nevers.”

[00:02:30] Betty Collins
You know I’m a practical thinker. My world is really small which a lot of us live in. But the greatest thing along the way was others saw in me what I didn’t see. And that’s a good thing. And it’s a bad thing. But I’ll talk about that later. But generally I would start a sentence “I would never do that.” Now any time I say never I go “I shouldn’t be saying never. What am I missing?”

[00:02:56] Betty Collins
My “Nevers” were this. I was never going to be an accountant. Even though I had a college degree to do that. I was never going to get a CPA. It was “Who cares about that? Right?” I don’t want to takea test and go through all that agony. Let alone own a CPA firm or stay in public accounting or now go to a big company merge into a company. Every one of those things I said no to. Never an accountant. Never a CPA. Never an owner. And never going to merge. And those four things were the catalyst to all my opportunities.

[00:03:34] Betty Collins
So “Never” going to use my accounting degree. I chose accounting because I had to choose a major. It was not a passion. It was a good way to get a job, right?! Fortunately, I did find that when I was 50 that accounting can be passionate and I can be passionate about what I’m doing. I definitely see that in my two kids who at 20 chose college majors because it’s what they wanted to do in life. I didn’t do that till 50. So I took the first job, of course, that’s offered to me. Now I have a job and I have that paycheck every two weeks. And it took me to an upstate New York town called Rochester. And I loved it. Except I was a Buckeye at heart and want to be back in Ohio. So I came back. And how I came back was, my neighbor of my parents owned a CPA firm and said I can give you a job tomorrow. But I go I don’t want to be an accountant. But I need a job to get back to Ohio. So my second choice was that I would come and be an accountant. But I said I’m only staying for a while. This is not what I want to do. So no passion, no dream, everything was logical. Those types of things.

[00:04:40] Betty Collins
So I came back, started working there and I actually kind of liked it. But I was “Never” going to be a CPA. He challenged me over and over to do and I didn’t want to do it. And then he moved on and another owner came into play. And he said, “You act like an owner, why wouldn’t you be one?” I said, “Well, I don’t want to be a CPA.” I didn’t really want to be an accountant. I’m “never” going to be a CPA because I “never” want to own the company. And so he made me a great offer and said, “You act like an owner. I’ll make you one immediately if you just get your CPA.” How do you turn that down? Because most people had to have clients and build rapport. I didn’t have to do that. So I said okay fine, I’m going to be an accountant for a little bit longer and I’ll go get my CPA and maybe become an owner. And so in 2009, I became that owner. And for 10 years we built an amazing business. I was content. It was a good thing.

[00:05:38] Betty Collins
Well then people started calling saying “Hey, would you like to merge?” Of course I “never” going to merge. I’ve got a nice little gig. I know my next 10 years. I live in a small world. Remember I’m a logical person. And so I said this is what I’m going to do. I don’t want to merge. So my partner at that time said I think you need to meet Brian Carr of Brady Ware. I said bring him on. I will be glad to meet him. I’ll see what he’s like. And we immediately had this synergy.

[00:06:08] Betty Collins
And so I said I guess I could merge. I mean, if I can be a CPA and I can own a business, I guess I can merge. And so that’s what I did. So it was those “Nevers” that was like “Wow.” But I didn’t want the pressure of making payroll. I just wanted to be paid. I didn’t want to take risks. That isn’t comfortable for me. And I wanted to work for clients not find clients. That’s two very different things. So all of this went against my little small world. All of this went against the things I didn’t think I wanted to do. But yet I started this podcast with “This is what I’m doing today.” So I’m certainly glad that I now can look back and think if I would have said never and stuck with that I would not have this opportunity that I have right now.

[00:06:58]
So you have to go. What are the things I’m saying “Never” to? And I don’t care what age you are. Because the “Maybe,” the “OK,” the “Probably,” and finally the “Yes,” may really just turn into something that’s amazing.

[00:07:14] Betty Collins
So how did that happen for me? Because I look at this as I just evolved into this and now hindsight shows me this along the way. So I want to make sure people know you don’t have to go and evolve and hope it all works out. So influencers are the biggest thing about your “Nevers.” Because there are times you need to say no. There are times it’s just absolutely no.

[00:07:41] Betty Collins
But I have great influencers. So Jane Davis was probably really my first mentor. And she, in the 70s, went through things, like divorce, when it wasn’t popular. And she married a guy named Randy Nipps. He was the first accounting firm that I worked for that merged into Nipps Brown Collins, eventually Brady Ware. But Jane was a big huge influencer. And when you look at the influencers right now in your life. what are they influencing you in?

[00:08:12] Betty Collins
So my first boss was Austin Swallow, who showed me that integrity and faith could be drivers and you could still be a business person and make money. So it’s all OK.

[00:08:24] Betty Collins
The second one was Randy Nipps who showed me the value of your employees. You don’t have that, you can’t continue to grow, you can’t grow at all. They’re your biggest asset.

[00:08:36] Betty Collins
Gary Brown showed me loyalty and focus. Those are the things that drive you to next levels. And he had a passion for his client which are people with disabilities. That was always the underline of everything he did.

[00:08:49] Betty Collins
And then Brian Carr, who is now the CEO I work for. He’s a person of vision. He’s always thinking about something bigger and that there’s always more. And I worked for each one of these men. And I was always the “Never.” And they were going you need to say yes. So I was lucky that I had that. They saw in me what I didn’t see. And while that’s all sounds great, what if I would have seen it? Then I could have had maybe a little more control of my destiny. Not that I needed to but you have to look back and ask that, right? So if I would just say yes on my own instead of yes to maybe what somebody else was saying I should be, I might have gone further and farther. I don’t know. So I look at that and say great, I had these influencers and these were the different things. However, I needed to see in me that I could do this. They saw it. But there were challenges with like anything in any career. And now I want to make sure that people don’t go through the challenges, the things that I went through.

[00:09:55] Betty Collins
You have to value who you are. It can’t be somebody else valuing you. You have to do it. You have to leverage your uniqueness. I’m surrounded by experts. I’m surrounded by technicians. I’m surrounded by people with really big careers. Yet I have things that they don’t. Which is I’m very personable and very passionate. I make sure I find the right technician because they’re everywhere. And I have a relationship with a client because I’m a business owner helping business owners. And I can see that the business marketing community has to have us in order to have those households that form communities. So I have a uniqueness of looking at things differently.

[00:10:44] Betty Collins
Paralyzed by fear will get you nowhere, even if you say yes to your opportunity. When I first came to Brady Ware, the first day I was downtown in my big office I could see The Scioto Mile on one side and the Capitol on the other. And I had the same computer, the same mouse, the same software, the same employees. And I sat there having no idea what to do. I was paralyzed by fear because I’m surrounded by experts and big career and now I’m in a big company. So I said yes but yet I’m paralyzed for the opportunity. So I left that day knowing what to do, which was go to lunch. And I went to lunch and I came back, because I talked to my husband he said, “This is your moment don’t miss it. Are you kidding? This is your moment.” So I didn’t. I did not let fear paralyze me once I said the “Yes.” And so again the opportunity came out. But there are times you have to understand there’s a “Yes” which promotes the opportunity but there’s “No” which means you didn’t go down the wrong path. And sometimes you just need someone to help you understand which ones those are.

[00:11:51] Betty Collins
So hopefully what your takeaway is today from the things of my story to you, because we all have a story, is “Nevers” just may be your opportunity. So take a mental note of when did I say never today. Or just even how many times you’ll say “Never” and “No” in a day. You’ll be surprised.

[00:12:13] Betty Collins
You have to be more aware of the people in your life, the influencers you are with right now. How are they influencing you? Are they the things you really believe? Are they the things that want to drive you? I mean I had great people of integrity and loyalty and vision and big picture. You have to ask more questions before you accept something. And women don’t do that. They just accept the circumstance. Men always ask questions.

[00:12:39] Betty Collins
No one will ever value you more than you. Don’t let somebody dictate your worth. And don’t let somebody take advantage of what you’re worth. Because they will.

[00:12:51] Betty Collins
Don’t be paralyzed by that fear, because you’ll miss your moment. And others saw my value and directed my path. My next 10 years I’m directing my path and I’m never going to say never. Ha. It’s a mindset. I only want opportunity if I choose to take it.

Automated transcription by Sonix www.sonix.ai

Decision Vision Episode 173: Should I Purchase Trade Credit Insurance? – An Interview with Janelle Foy and Carlos Garcia, Allianz Trade

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Allianz Trade
Decision Vision
Decision Vision Episode 173: Should I Purchase Trade Credit Insurance? - An Interview with Janelle Foy and Carlos Garcia, Allianz Trade
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Allianz Trade

Decision Vision Episode 173: Should I Purchase Trade Credit Insurance? – An Interview with Janelle Foy and Carlos Garcia, Allianz Trade

On this episode of Decision Vision, Janelle Foy and Carlos Garcia of Allianz Trade joined host Mike Blake to discuss the ins and outs of trade credit insurance. Janelle and Carlos explained how this insurance comes into play and what it provides for, why this insurance is a reliable source of due diligence of trading partners, and much more.

Decision Vision is presented by Brady Ware & Company and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Allianz Trade

Euler Hermes North America Insurance Company and its affiliated debt collection company are part of the Allianz group and market their products and services using the ‘Allianz Trade’ trademark. They are the global leader in trade credit insurance and a recognized specialist in the areas of surety, collections, structured trade credit, and political risk.

For over a century, they have been helping businesses like yours anticipate risks, act with speed, make informed decisions and grow securely. Headquartered in Paris, they are present in more than 50 countries with 5,500 employees. In 2021, their global business transactions represented 931 billion Euro in exposure.

As a member of the Allianz Group, they are a strong global community committed to a culture where both people and performance matter. They truly care for their employees and their individual needs and aspirations. They all shape an environment in which everyone has the confidence to dream, to explore and to grow.

Company website | LinkedIn |Twitter

Janelle Foy, Senior Agent, Allianz Trade

Janelle Foy, Senior Agent, Allianz Trade

Janelle just celebrated 15 years with Allianz Trade. She works in business development and is focused on fostering her clients aggressive sales growth while protecting against credit risk.

Prior to Allianz Trade, Janelle spent 7 years in sales and account management for BellSouth Business, selling telecommunication services to middle-market customers. She is an active member of multiple professional organizations and currently serves as President of the Secured Finance Network (SFNet) Atlanta Chapter.

Janelle lives in Chamblee, Georgia with her husband and two teenage sons.

LinkedIn

Carlos Garcia, Sales Vice President, Allianz Trade

Carlos Garcia, Sales Vice President, Allianz Trade

For over 15 years, Carlos Garcia has been consulting with a variety of companies in diverse industries to help them navigate the growth of their business.

As a part of Allianz Trade, he has access to a wide range of B2B trade receivables protection and credit management solutions, including credit insurance and debt collection.

His goal is to leverage the knowledge he has amassed over the years to help you deal with the inevitable hiccups that happen while growing your business. He can make sure your business continues to thrive in the face of the unexpected.

LinkedIn

Mike Blake, Brady Ware & Company

Mike Blake, Host of the “Decision Vision” podcast series

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 by John Ray and the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Connect with Brady Ware & Company:

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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: [00:00:21] 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 the Managing Partner of Brady Ware Arpeggio, a data-driven management consultancy which brings clarity to owners and managers of unique businesses facing unique strategic decisions. Our parent, Brady Ware & Company, is sponsoring this podcast. Brady Ware is a public accounting firm with offices in Dayton, Ohio; Alpharetta, Georgia; Columbus, Ohio; and Richmond, Indiana.

Mike Blake: [00:01:08] 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, and Instagram. I also host a LinkedIn Group called Unblakeable’s Group That Doesn’t Suck, so please join that as well if you would like to engage.

Mike Blake: [00:01:24] Today’s topic is, Should I purchase trade credit insurance? According to the Federal Reserve, U.S. non-financial firms had $4.5 trillion in trade credit outstanding, equal to approximately 21 percent of gross domestic product.

Mike Blake: [00:01:40] So, accordingly, trade credit is the largest form of short term business financing. And I want to cover this topic today because, even though it’s a niche topic, it’s foundational to the import-export business. And we haven’t really done foreign business in a while. I don’t remember what podcast number it is, it had been within the first 50, when we had Gene Plavnik on to talk about Should I export? And we didn’t really touch upon trade credit there is my recollection.

Mike Blake: [00:02:17] But I think what we’re going to find from one of our guests is that one of the key things that allows import-export to go, especially at scale, is the existence of this kind of insurance product. And so, whether you are exporting, or perhaps even importing, now or you’re thinking of doing so in the next couple of years, this is a topic that you’re going to want to understand as you go down that path.

Mike Blake: [00:02:48] So, joining us today are Janelle Foy and Carlos Garcia of Allianz Trade. Janelle just celebrated 15 years with Allianz. She works in business development and is focused on fostering her clients’ aggressive sales growth while protecting against credit risk. And protecting against risk is something near and dear to my heart. Prior to working with Allianz, Janelle spent seven years in sales and account management for BellSouth business, selling telecommunication services to middle market customers. She’s an active member of multiple professional organizations and currently serves as president of the Secured Finance Network, Atlanta Chapter.

Mike Blake: [00:02:48] For over 15 years, Carlos Garcia has been consulting with a variety of companies and diverse industries to help them navigate the growth of their business. As part of Allianz Trade, Carlos has access to a wide range of business-to-business, trade receivables, protection, and credit management solutions, including credit insurance and debt collection. Carlos’s goal is to leverage the knowledge he has amassed over the years to help clients deal with the inevitable hiccups that happen while growing their business.

Mike Blake: [00:03:52] Headquartered in Paris, Allianz Trade is present in more than 50 countries, with over 5,500 employees. A member of the Allianz Group, they are a strong global community, committed to a culture where both people and performance matter. Janelle and Carlos, welcome to the Decision Vision podcast.

Carlos Garcia: [00:04:10] Thank you for having us.

Janelle Foy: [00:04:12] Thank you for having us.

Mike Blake: [00:04:14] So, let’s start off with something very basic, because I think a lot of our listeners are not going to necessarily be familiar with this topic, what is trade credit insurance and why do people buy it?

Carlos Garcia: [00:04:29] Well, trade credit insurance, it’s very, very easy to understand, but a lot of people want to make it very difficult. Imagine – to use something that everybody discusses and knows, brands – Samsung, so let’s say Samsung is going to go and sell $100,000 worth of T.V.s to Best Buy. Well, we insure is that if Best Buy goes bankrupt, disappears, slow pace, or there’s any type of political risk, if they’re in an export market, we’re going to pay them 90 percent of that loss. So, it’s basically an insurance when you give a customer terms.

Mike Blake: [00:05:15] Now, I think something that will be helpful is to explain to our listeners, and to me – because I don’t do a lot of import-export. I have some sales to foreign customers, but nothing of the magnitude you guys deal with – how do import-export deals generally work? And where does trade credit insurance fit into that process?

Carlos Garcia: [00:05:39] Well, from import-export, once you import the product, if you’re distributing it within the U.S., the minute that you reach out to us where we would approve a buyer, as soon as you cut that invoice and that product has left your warehouse, at that point is where the receivable starts and the insurance begins.

Carlos Garcia: [00:06:06] On the export side, it basically starts either it goes to the freight forwarder or you deliver it directly to the customer. That’s where the insurance starts when you’ve lost control of the product.

Mike Blake: [00:06:23] And so, how does it work? I mean, to me, it’s fairly obvious about how this works from an export perspective. You sell something. You expect to get paid for it. Something happens. All of a sudden you don’t think you’re going to get paid. That’s when the insurance comes in. But what about on the import side? How does trade credit insurance work on the import side?

Carlos Garcia: [00:06:53] It’s not a product for the import.

Mike Blake: [00:06:56] It’s not. Okay. I want to make sure I understood that.

Carlos Garcia: [00:06:58] Once you import the product, what you’re going to do with that product, so if you’re going to sell it to a customer and give them terms to pay you, for example, within the U.S., that’s where our insurance starts.

Mike Blake: [00:07:12] Got it. Okay. So, what are the reasons that deals go badly? What are the most typical reasons that your insurance is ultimately called upon?

Janelle Foy: [00:07:22] I think, like you had mentioned before, when you talk about that 4.5 trillion in trade credit outstanding, essentially, when you give somebody 60 day terms, you’re giving them a loan. It’s basically a small business loan. A bank would never do that without getting collateral, without getting financials, without getting credit terms, all the information that they need. But buyers expect you to do that on virtually no information.

Janelle Foy: [00:07:48] So, what credit insurance does is, essentially, provides that collateral for the loan. We’re going to help you know if that customer is a good customer and a strong one to work with. And then, if in the end they don’t pay you, we’re going to cover you and pay you for it.

Mike Blake: [00:08:02] Not being paid by a customer is something that is a risk, of course, whether it’s an international or a domestic deal. Why is that risk different when you’re exporting to a foreign country versus, say, a deal between a company in New Jersey and a company in Indiana?

Carlos Garcia: [00:08:27] Well, the biggest thing is because we cover political risk. So, if you’re shipping overseas and there’s a political risk situation, that’s the biggest thing of exporting why people require the insurance or the financial institution requires the insurance. It’s because of that political risk factor.

Mike Blake: [00:08:48] Okay. So, let’s dive into that because I think it’ll be helpful for our audience to get granular. What are some examples of a place where political risk puts being paid at risk?

Carlos Garcia: [00:09:04] A real easy one, for example, is a couple of years ago when Argentina or Venezuela said, “Hey, you’re not pulling any money out of the country to pay a U.S. debt.” So, a situation like that where the government gets involved and either seizes the products at the port or says, “Hey, there’s no money coming out of here to pay U.S. debt.” Those are political risk events that would cause our insurance to trigger and cover that.

Janelle Foy: [00:09:32] I think another timely example is sanctions in Russia. We had a client with a barge full of perishable goods that we’re shipping into Russia. We put the sanctions in place. They were no longer able to deliver those goods. So, that then becomes a political risk claim as well.

Mike Blake: [00:09:50] I’m glad you mentioned that because I was going to ask about that. One day you’re able to do business in Russia, another day you’re not. And, to me, the interesting risk or dynamic that political risk brings into these deals is, you may have a customer who is perfectly willing and able to pay. But because of some policy intervention, they may not be allowed to. Russia’s interesting and that the policy intervention has not been within Russia itself, at least not initially. It’s been on Western countries, including the United States.

Mike Blake: [00:10:30] But the more classic case for what you described, in Latin America, where they put in currency controls, for example. The point is that, even with the best of intentions, the buyer, the customer, may simply be legally prohibited from paying, even though they can and want to do so.

Mike Blake: [00:10:52] So, you bring Argentina – I’m curious about this – Argentina is a very interesting case because I’m old enough to remember at least two debt defaults. And we’re old enough to remember at least two currency devaluations where another comma was put on the currency, maybe two commas, in fact. I’m curious, in your experience, once a country kind of commits those acts, which then compel you to pay out insurance claims, how long does it take to get comfortable to go back into that country?

Mike Blake: [00:11:35] Because it’s kind of interesting how short memories we have when during the 1980s default, the chatter was, “Well, Argentina can’t default because nobody will ever put money into the country again.” Within five years, it was as if nothing had ever happened. I’m curious about that phenomenon. This is kind of a philosophical question, but just fascinates me, if you’re going to be an international risk, international credit, do you sort of have to have a short memory? Does that come with the territory?

Carlos Garcia: [00:12:06] Absolutely. From every aspect of what we do, we have a short memory. Our head underwriter tells me that all the time, when we go through difficult times and I tell him, “Hey, Steve. Do you think we learned that we’re not going to do this again?” And he tells us, “Hey, we’re going to have short memory and we’re going to do this and worse.” Because you never know what’s going to happen.

Carlos Garcia: [00:12:36] And in the situation with Argentina, yeah, sometimes we come off the political risk. Currently, we’re off the political risk. So, if you purchase credit insurance in Argentina, for example, we tell you, “Hey, this is excluding the political risk factor because the chances of there being a political risk event in today’s world in Argentina is extremely, extremely high.” But we do have very short term memory when it comes to things.

Janelle Foy: [00:13:05] And, ultimately, we are in the business of paying claims. So, we can’t live in a no risk market. Ultimately, we do pay claims to our clients, so we have to take on some level of risk.

Mike Blake: [00:13:18] So, I’m also curious, we hadn’t discussed this before, we talked about Argentina and talked about Russia, places which, historically, let’s just say, had had some volatility to them. Do you ever write policies with more, frankly, stable political environments? Maybe even somebody, the G20 or the G7, that we wouldn’t ordinarily have political risk. But maybe there’s a perception in each area where there could be political risk. Or is it purely so-called developing world?

Janelle Foy: [00:13:55] Political risk for certain countries is very valuable. But when we look at foreign receivables, there’s multiple reasons why companies buy them. A lot of banks will not lend on any foreign receivables that aren’t insured, so to help them prove a borrowing base and their lending capabilities.

Janelle Foy: [00:14:13] But, in addition, as much as we insure foreign receivables, we also insure domestic. So, companies look at it for a credit management tool. They look at it for an insurance product. They look at it to just protect the risk that is out there, regardless if it’s in Argentina or Germany, the risk is still there. And the ability to go collect a receivable in Germany is going to be just as difficult as going to Argentina and collecting it. So, that’s where we kind of step in and make sure they’re going to get paid for those receivables.

Mike Blake: [00:14:40] Yes. That’s really interesting, too. So, the political risk is not limited to a foreign or a distinct policy, but simply the risk of trying to collect on a judgment in a foreign judicial system is something that also is insured against.

Janelle Foy: [00:15:03] Absolutely.

Carlos Garcia: [00:15:05] It’s got a default. The easy way to understand it, is, we cover the inability to pay. Not I don’t want to pay. But it has to be I can’t pay for X, Y, Z reason. Not I don’t want to pay because the product was bad. Now, there’s got to be an inability to pay.

Mike Blake: [00:15:27] Got it. Okay. So, let’s say someone’s been listening to this and they’re thinking, “Oh, I really ought to think about trade credit insurance. I just didn’t know that this existed or hadn’t learned anything about it.” What is the process like to apply for an insurance policy from you guys or somebody similar to you?

Janelle Foy: [00:15:50] The process is really pretty simple. It’s an application and a recent copy of their aging report. Oftentimes, we can help them complete the application. But it’s a pretty simple process. Turnaround, we can do it in five to ten business days. So, we can have a quote for them and a proposal in front of them pretty quickly.

Mike Blake: [00:16:10] And over time, does a relationship with the customer matter? In other words, is it easier once you’ve done a deal or two with a particular customer? Do you find that it’s easier to underwrite more policies for that person? Is there benefit to that relationship to go back to, for example, you guys, Allianz or somebody else? Or is each opportunity purely a standalone exercise that’s evaluated on its own merits?

Janelle Foy: [00:16:41] We don’t generally write transactional policies. When we write a policy, it’s usually for a one to two year term. The idea being that then we bundle all of their customers in, or a portion of their customers, and we continue to insure those for the policy period. So, unlike, say, a letter of credit, where for every transaction you have to get a new letter of credit, with credit insurance, we set a policy in place and you’re covered and insured for all those buyers for the policy period.

Mike Blake: [00:17:09] Okay. That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. I presumed that these would be transaction-based policies. But, in fact, you’ll write a policy for all transactions, presumably between a customer and all their customers in one country for a fixed period of time. Is that how that works? So, like, if I were going to do business in Germany, for example, you’d be writing a one to two year policy on all the business that I do in Germany over a one to two year period?

Janelle Foy: [00:17:42] Essentially, we underwrite at a buyer level. So, they would let us know they’re doing business with ABC Company. They would tell us how much they need that insured for. And that goes to our local underwriting department. So, like you had mentioned earlier, we have offices in 50 countries. We cover 200 markets. So, if you have a customer in Germany, that request goes to our local German risk department, and they determine whether or not that customer is insurable.

Janelle Foy: [00:18:07] So, in addition to the insurance, you’re also getting a credit management tool that helps you understand if a company is insurable. We continue to monitor their risk throughout the policy period. And you know that ABC Company is insured for X amount of dollars. So, you know based on that policy exactly how much coverage you have on that particular buyer.

Mike Blake: [00:18:26] Oh, I see. Okay. So, it’s really focused on one particular trade relationship over a period of time, right? One buyer, one seller.

Janelle Foy: [00:18:37] Average is at a buyer level. The policy itself is combined of all those buyers, a combination of those buyers together.

Mike Blake: [00:18:46] Understood. So, that brings me to another question I want to make sure to ask, because it seems to me that bringing in trade credit insurance can actually have a useful sort of – no pun intended – collateral impact in that what you do must be a great source of due diligence. And that’s got to be one of the hardest things with a new foreign customer how do you kind of check them out. You know, is there a German or an Austrian version of D&B or Hoovers? Does that even matter anymore? But your analysis can be very useful tactical intelligence to the customer.

Carlos Garcia: [00:19:28] Exactly. An easy way to understand it, we’re like their credit manager with a checkbook. So, if your credit manager makes a mistake, you can’t go to them and say, “You made a mistake. I need 200 grand for this loss.” That’s what we do. We review the buyer, look at their financials, in some cases, make a decision. If we make a mistake, you receive a check.

Mike Blake: [00:19:52] Now, most of the time when we talk about doing foreign business, I think we automatically think about selling products to foreign buyers. But point of fact, of course, America is a pretty big exporter of professional services abroad, especially architectural services, among others. Can services be insured in this way as well?

Carlos Garcia: [00:20:18] Yes. Any service, any product, as long as you give terms, 30, 60, 90, 120 days, we can ensure it.

Mike Blake: [00:20:30] Okay. And I’m curious. This may be a silly question, but it occurs to me, I wonder if in the terms of a particular transaction there might be a question or discussion over who actually pays for the insurance policy. Is the insurance policy going to be paid for by the seller or the buyer, maybe both, depending on the structure of the transaction? Is that a thing or does the seller always pay for the insurance or maybe the buyer always pays? I truly don’t know.

Janelle Foy: [00:21:04] As a general rule, the seller will pay for the policy. But I’ve certainly had situations where a bank has required credit insurance and the bank has paid for the policy parent company, even the insurer’s supplier. There’s multiple cases where somebody else may pay for the policy. But, generally, as a rule, the supplier or the person that owns the policy and manages it, they’re the ones that pay for the premium.

Mike Blake: [00:21:27] Okay. And how long does it take? So, let’s say somebody wants to take out insurance on a particular trade activity, how long does it take from somebody contacting one of you guys? Assuming that the policy is writable, that that works out, how long does it take to go from phone call to being insured?

Carlos Garcia: [00:21:52] Two or three days.

Mike Blake: [00:21:53] How much?

Carlos Garcia: [00:21:54] Two or three days.

Mike Blake: [00:21:55] Oh. Two or three days. That’s pretty quick. So, you’re not going to get in the way of a transaction happening.

Carlos Garcia: [00:22:02] No, absolutely not.

Mike Blake: [00:22:04] Now, within the context of political risk, does that in any way cover currency risk or is that just a totally separate thing?

Carlos Garcia: [00:22:15] It’s separate. We don’t cover devaluation of currency.

Mike Blake: [00:22:20] So, in an insurance policy like this, how are they priced or how is the pricing expressed? And what I mean by that is, I have car insurance, so I just pay a number of dollars per month. But I think there are certain other kinds of insurance or financial instruments that are expressed as a percentage of the amount of the transaction or expected transactions over time or maybe something else. So, can you talk to me about kind of what the model looks like in terms of pricing these policies?

Carlos Garcia: [00:22:58] The policy, most of them, they go based on an insured sales volume annually and then it’s a percent. So, to give you a little bit of an idea. Let’s say a company comes up to us and says, “Hey, I want to insure my receivables. My sales on credit are $10 million a year.” Our underwriter will come back and say, “Okay. Your rate is going to be a quarter of one percent.” We take a quarter of one percent, multiply times 10 million, and it’s 25 grand a year. And we give you two options, either you can pay it in full or you can finance it 25 percent down in quarterly payments. It’s basically that simple.

Carlos Garcia: [00:23:37] We do have policies that are coverage based, for example, single debtor transactions. A big hot topic now as the cruise line, “Hey, I need $5 Million on cruise line.” We’ll tell them, “Okay. It’ll cost you 0.42 percent a month.” So, we have two options to price policies.

Janelle Foy: [00:23:59] And I think –

Mike Blake: [00:24:00] Sorry. Go ahead, Janelle.

Janelle Foy: [00:24:03] Well, I was just going to say, I think one thing to point out that the big misnomer in credit insurance is you do not have to insure the entire portfolio. So, if you only want to insure your export business, if you only want to insure key accounts, we can carve out that business. And, essentially, every policy is customized for the customer’s needs. So, depending on what they’re looking for, we can structure a policy to meet their needs.

Mike Blake: [00:24:26] And do the terms vary on the policy? My world is M&A, so I tell clients all the time that in an M&A deal, price and terms are dancing partners. And you might get a better price, but you may have to give up more strict terms. Or maybe from an insurance perspective, maybe there’s a “higher deductible” in order to lower your fees. Does that kind of conversation happen in your world? Or are the terms pretty much standardized no matter what you’re insuring?

Carlos Garcia: [00:25:01] No. There is a little bit of a wiggle room, you know, increase in deductible and increase of price share. But at the end of the day, there’s a cost to turn the lights on. So, at some point we’re going to say, “It doesn’t matter if you lower that another 20 percent, it’s still not going to change the price.”

Mike Blake: [00:25:24] So, when a customer approaches you for an insurance policy like this, what sorts of information are you going to be requesting to review?

Janelle Foy: [00:25:38] So, on the application, the information is pretty simple. We’re looking at the annual sales of what we’re insuring, and we talked about being able to segment your business. So, we look at the annual sales. In the event of foreign receivables, we look at how those break down by country. We look at the industry you’re in, your loss history, the terms you sell on. All those things kind of rolling together to determine the premium.

Mike Blake: [00:26:03] So, is there a minimum – not transaction. I keep thinking transaction. That’s not right. Is there a minimum amount of sales volume, let me put it that way? Or even a maximum sales volume that you or others like you will consider?

Carlos Garcia: [00:26:25] No. There is no minimum. What we have is a minimum premium. So, for a domestic policy, the minimum premium is going to be 10,000. For an export policy, it’s going to be 15,000, because of the coverage of the political risk. And, basically, there is no maximum.

Mike Blake: [00:26:40] Okay. So then, at that point, customers will self-select that. Obviously, if it’s a $10,000 transaction, spending on insurance doesn’t make any sense.

Carlos Garcia: [00:26:49] Exactly.

Mike Blake: [00:26:50] Interesting. Okay. So, I think one of your competitors, either directly or indirectly, is going to be somebody like EXIM Bank or Maeda over in Japan, entities of that nature who are designed to be in particular export promotion entities. And if I’m not mistaken, they also provide some sort of trade credit insurance, typically based on political risk. How do you coexist with them? Or where does it make sense to come to you guys versus to go to an EXIM Bank or a similar authority? How do you help clients navigate that decision?

Janelle Foy: [00:27:32] EXIM Bank really was developed to help support small businesses. And really where its strength is, is at that transactional level, like you were talking about earlier. So, if you do four or five transactions a year, small export business, that’s where EXIM really does well.

Janelle Foy: [00:27:49] Once you start getting into regular business and you really are doing a decent amount of volume on the export side, at that point, private insurance is going to be more cost effective. We also have the access to more information. So, we have the risk underwriters throughout the world that are providing the data that somebody like an EXIM Bank wouldn’t be able to offer.

Janelle Foy: [00:28:09] And in addition, we don’t have requirements for where the products are made. EXIM requires that a large portion of it be manufactured here in the United States. And, also, we can cover domestic receivables, and that’s something that EXIM can’t do.

Mike Blake: [00:28:24] How does the company prepare to work with somebody like you? What do they need to do in order to make your job easier so you can quickly and effectively put up an insurance policy in place?

Carlos Garcia: [00:28:38] Basically, it’s very, very easy. All we’re going to ask them for, like Janelle said, that information on the application. But moving forward, all we ask them is for three pieces of information. What’s the name of the customer you’re going to sell to? What’s their address? And how much you need? That will go to our underwriting team. And on the U.S. side, from instant to 48 hours, you’re going to get an answer. One of three answers. Either (1) the buyer is insured for that amount; (2) the buyer is insured for a lesser amount and the reason why; or (3) stay away from this buyer, they’re not insurable, and this is the reason why.

Carlos Garcia: [00:29:11] On an export, it’s a little longer. It could be from instant to five days with the same information. So, from a customer’s point of view, it’s basically taking it from a situation where they’re going from the credit manager sitting on their desk to review it, to maybe going to the credit manager, he or she looking at it, putting it in our system, making a decision, and now they can make a business decision, do they want to still sell to that buyer or not? So, it’s really not a lot of effort that they got to put on their part to get a transaction insured.

Mike Blake: [00:29:50] I’m talking with Janelle Foy and Carlos Garcia. And the topic is, Should I purchase trade credit insurance? So, a question I like to ask in almost every show is, Who shouldn’t get trade credit insurance? Is there a profile of somebody that maybe should be thinking about it but you kind of tell them, “Don’t waste your time. This probably isn’t the right kind of product for you”?

Carlos Garcia: [00:30:14] Customers that don’t give credit to their customer. Someone that does prepaid, COD, on delivery. But as soon as they want to grow, the only way to grow is for them to start giving terms to their customers. At that point, they have to come get the insurance. I would say anybody that’s got an accounts receivables should have credit insurance.

Mike Blake: [00:30:38] So, are there countries right now that are basically on a no fly list? Are there countries that pretty much an application is going to be dead on arrival that that risk is just simply uninsurable?

Carlos Garcia: [00:30:53] On my world out of Miami here, the biggest one is Venezuela and Cuba. Those are non-starters.

Mike Blake: [00:31:06] All right. So, this has been a good conversation. I’ve learned a lot. I’m sure there are questions that my listeners would have liked me to have asked or that our listeners would have liked us to spend more time on, if somebody wants to contact you for more information about this topic, can they do so? And if so, what’s the best way for them to do so?

Carlos Garcia: [00:31:30] I’m sure you’re going to provide our email and phone number. Janelle and I are readily available. You can just shoot us an email or give us a call. And if we don’t answer the phone on the second, within 24 hours, they’ll have a call from us.

Mike Blake: [00:31:48] That’s going to wrap it up for today’s program. I’d like to thank Janelle Foy and Carlos Garcia so much for sharing their expertise with us.

Mike Blake: [00:31:55] 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.

Mike Blake: [00:32:10] If you would like to engage with me on social media with my Chart of the Day and other content, I am on LinkedIn as myself and @unblakeable on Facebook, Twitter, Clubhouse, and Instagram. Also, check out my LinkedIn Group called Unblakeable’s Group That Doesn’t Suck. Once again, this is Mike Blake. Our sponsor is Brady Ware & Company. And this has been the Decision Vision podcast.

 

 

Aree Bly from Alignment Ally

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Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins
Aree Bly from Alignment Ally
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Aree Bly from Alignment Ally (Inspiring Women, Episode 46)

It could be in a career path, pursuing personal development, or working with a team, says Aree Bly of Alignment Ally. Alignment “allows you to find success, be an effective leader, and show up authentically as you evolve through your career.” Aree joined host Betty Collins to discuss various aspects of alignment on this episode of Inspiring Women.

The host of Inspiring Women is Betty Collins and the show is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Betty’s Show Notes

My guest, Aree Bly, is all about alignment. What do I mean by “alignment?” As she puts it on her LinkedIn profile, “Alignment is about recognizing where you lead at your best, identifying your next learning and growth opportunities, and exploring how to support those around you. It allows you to find success, be an effective leader, and show up authentically as you evolve through your career.” Here’s what her take is on how the pandemic reawakened our alignment…

Maybe this comes back to like a Leonard Cohen quote of “the cracks are where the light comes in.” The pandemic forcing people to break those routines. Raise the awareness of, “oh my gosh, I did not realize that my 50 hour, 60 hour workweeks were violating my desire to connect with people.” Or “I didn’t realize how much conflict I was feeling until I stepped away and went, OK, this is not working and this is why.” And we can start to see and become more aware of what is and isn’t working.

So how often does she think someone can reinvent themselves?

I think you could do it daily, honestly, depending on how big a change. The reinvention can and should be coming regularly, and it should be something that we’re looking at deliberately as we’re kind of saying, “Okay, where do I want to be going and what steps do I take to move in that direction?” And then it also means looking up occasionally and going, “Okay, I was headed on this path. Is it still right?”

Not only is alignment for you personally, but it can be an alignment change for your team. How does she approach this?

Let’s rearrange things to make sure that we’re setting ourselves up for success by recognizing how people operate. And that helped to clarify some of the decisions because some people were saying, “Well, You just like them better. So you’re moving them to this role” and you’re like, “Well, no, there’s a reason to it.” And once you put it all on paper and let everyone see, you know, and talk about it, it’s like, “Oh, you know, I’m really good at this, but I’m really tired of doing that because I’ve been doing it for years. I’d like to learn something new.”

What is the first step that people can do to make a change?

The first step is awareness, and it’s so hard to see the truth. And then from there it’s activating it.

Here she is from a recent Tedx Talk. Her website to find out more.

This is THE podcast that advances women toward economic, social, and political achievement. Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.

For more information, go to the Resources page at Brady Ware and Company.

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TRANSCRIPT

Betty: Well, welcome to inspiring women today. What a great day that we’re going to have with a really, really guest who is out in Colorado. And she does all kinds of speaking and podcasts and TED talks. And you’re going to really, I think, enjoy her. She has a great company and her name is Ari Bly. And we met because of my women’s conference. And so she and I just connected and I loved her content and I said, Man, would I love to have you on my podcast. And she readily agreed. And she has a company called Alignment Ally and realigning yourself. First of all, I like it just seems positive the whole the whole connotation. But it’s about realigning so you can take your path forward and it’s it’s getting you to be able to navigate challenges and create success. And and on top of that, she gives you so many tools to make sure it happens so that you do it confidently right and to build and conquer and go. So reinvention through alignment is the takeaway for me when I’ve talked with her and gone through some of her TED talks and looked at her information. So, you know, the challenge is for us to be able to evolve with changes while we don’t lose sight of who we are. And I like that because sometimes when we reset or re re change or we realign, we forget maybe who we are in the process or this is really who we want to be. So but she’s going to do all this today. I’m kind of giving you my highlights and my take away. So first, Ari, I would love for you just to talk about you talk a little bit about your passion and what you do and why you do it, all those kinds of things. So let’s just take a couple of minutes to get to know her.

Aree: Absolutely. Thank you, Betty. And it’s a pleasure to be here with you. So my background is very much not as a coach and as a speaker. I went into actuarial work coming out of college. I got my degree in accounting and math and combined the two into the actuarial world. So it was a very. Technical corporate role for 25 years and. It meant leaning on all my skills, right? What do I do? Well, I did well with math. I did well with connecting with people. I did well with strategic thinking. And as I got farther in my career, I started to realize that it wasn’t. Engaging me anymore. It wasn’t as energizing anymore. And when I really started to look at what changed, it was my own evolution of I became someone who was much more focused on the people and the mentoring and the coaching and developing others. And so instead of pushing harder into the skills that I did have, I decided to lean into those values and develop those skills that I wanted to build a little bit more. And what that turned into when I looked back on my own journey was the idea of alignment. It was really about understanding not only what I was good at and what I wanted to be doing, but who I was, what were my natural strengths and what was what were my values today? Because they shift with you over the seasons of your life, and how can I combine all of those to really understand the landscape in front of me and where I could make choices for for how I wanted to move forward?

Betty: Well, certainly for for both people who are accounting degrees and technical skill sets have to be really on there. Yet we both have a lot of soft skills. We both have a lot of things that we are energized by. And it’s probably not technical things, right? I’m sorry. I’m surrounded by people who are so using the right, you know, what am I going to try to say, using the right tools and using the right strengths that you have? Did you struggle with that as an actuary? Because I struggled that as a CPA, because I thought this is who I have to be, because this is my technical skill or this is my industry. Did you struggle with that?

Aree: Absolutely. Because as a CPA, as an actuary, we spend a lot of time building the credibility and going through the exam processes and getting the certification to be the CPA or be the FSA or be what’s attached to our title. And it can feel like. Your failure might be a hard word, but you’re stepping away from all that success that you kind of built. And that’s a hard thing to do because everyone that you work with connects you with that name and with those letters at the end of your your name as well. So yeah, it’s it it takes a little bit of soul searching to say, okay, but we are everybody is so much more than the letters at the end of their name. And the path that you took to get to where you are today has built other skills besides the ones that you deliberately studied for and deliberately went to get a degree in. And those are a lot of the soft skills that when you start looking at it and you realize that, Wow, I really enjoy that.

Betty: Yeah.

Aree: You’ve got to listen to that voice too and say, Okay, so what does that mean? Who am I now? How do I want to show up and how do I want to contribute to other actuaries, to other CPAs in my life? Right. Well.

Betty: And to the audience, we’re not just going to talk to CPAs and actuaries today. This will apply to everybody. But let’s just dig into some some kind of help, the audience kind of get some definition. So what is alignment? You know, when you say that and why is that important?

Aree: Right. The way that I think of alignment is really and again, this because my brain works very much in models, it’s adding another dimension to the skill sets that we have. So we push through and create success with our skills very easily. But when we start looking at our values and our natural strengths and kind of what’s innate to us, that the elements that don’t change very much for us, that creates kind of a two layer of things that we can line up with. So the alignment, if we start thinking about that, I like to think about it as a grid. You could think about it as a Venn diagram, whatever works for you. But where those two overlap, when you’re working within your your values and your natural strengths and with your skills, that’s when you’re really fully aligned to kind of what you’ve got today. But there are other areas that allow you to learn optimally, really effectively. When you’re within your values, you can step out of your skills and you won’t have as much friction. You’ll be able to more efficiently learn what you need to when you’re out of your values.

Aree: You can find yourself working with your skills and kind of pushing through and being a little gritty and getting things done. Supporting your team, maybe. And when you get completely out of both of those elements of alignment, that’s when we really find ourselves in the danger zone, when we don’t have the skill set to do what what the task calls for in front of us. And we’re pushing against all of this friction because we’re violating our current values. That’s when we start seeing a lot more burnout and we feel helpless and we don’t see the the path out. So it’s really understanding how important kind of recognizing your alignment is and being able to intentionally move through the different areas because it’s not about staying aligned at all times. If we were, we would never grow. We would get very complacent in our comfort zone. So it’s about moving through, but doing so deliberately and knowing what’s best for us so that we can kind of choose the path that we want to and find the challenges that we want to along the way.

Betty: So when somebody moves deliberately and they take that where you said stepping out, what do you think the number one challenge for that person is in saying, I’m going to do this?

Aree: Getting comfortable with change. I think that’s what a lot of people struggle with. I know I did because it’s easy, especially when we’re successful in our current role. It’s hard to be a novice again. It’s hard to step in and learn something new, or it’s hard to kind of get outside of where we know we can check the box and we know we can. We can perform. So that change is difficult.

Betty: Yeah, I’m sure there’s it really. When I think of that, I think of fear. I think of what is the fear of of what if I do this and I don’t do it? Well, how am I going to step back?

Aree: Absolutely.

Betty: Absolutely. But, you know, values can change. Right. And what we thought even in this season, we don’t maybe think in this season, but in your mind, what causes your values to change because you’re really trying to align now these values. So what?

Aree: Right, right. And and that’s that part of that is another reason why you can’t just stay in one spot because, you know, your skills change much faster than your values, but your values do shift with you throughout the seasons of your life. For me, connection to people and family and friends has always been a very important value in me. Now, in my early career, when I was living thousands of miles away from my parents and my my family, it looked very different than when I needed to move closer to home to take care of aging parents. And the needs that come with living into those values is very different. So early in my career it was important, but it wasn’t a highlight. It wasn’t demanding as much time, and it could show up differently because I was connecting with other people in my new career right now as I as I got older and my parents got older and I had my own family, that’s kind of shifting some of the needs. And I know women feel this a lot as our ability to play different roles in our careers shifts, our values look different at different points, right? So we need to recognize that maybe learning and ambition is a big value, but it looks different in the first ten years of your career than it does in the Middle Ages of your career. And then it does when you’re stepping back in and pushing harder. Right.

Betty: I know I tell the women of Brady where your twenties are, not your thirties and your fifties don’t look like anything of your forties. And I don’t know what sixties look like. I’m getting close, but it’s what you’re saying. You do your values change. They can even change in your mid-forties. They don’t have to be like, now I’ve hit 50, but seasons are different and all of a sudden what you value or what you what you will put your time into changes. And what did you see with the pandemic? People changed a lot of values during that time. Or not change values. Their values changed. I should say it that way. What did you what did you see when you were, you know, because, like, I really want to be home now or I really don’t need to work this much or, you know, I’m cherishing whatever. They just thought about things through that time.

Aree: Right. I think what happened during the pandemic and you know, maybe this comes back to like a Leonard Cohen quote of the cracks are where the light comes in, like the pandemic and forcing people to break those routines. Raise the awareness of, oh my gosh, I did not realize that my 50 hour, 60 hour workweeks were violating my desire to connect with people. Or I didn’t realize how how much conflict I was feeling until I stepped away and went, Och, this is not working and this is why. And we can start to see and become more aware of what is and isn’t working. Right now I know people that during the pandemic, once they were working at home, some of them just absolutely loved it. They’re like, This is the best thing ever. I can focus. I can eat when I want, what I want. I can go for a walk. And other people were struggling a little bit because they lost the connection. They were more extroverted and they wanted to connect with people. And so it’s not a one size fits all. It’s understanding what is and isn’t working for you and why. So it’s recognizing those those frictions and kind of the inner conflict and what that’s telling you. We can before the pandemic, I think people were much more willing to. Push through those frictions and set them aside and ignore them because I’m using my skills. I can do this. I got it checking the boxes. And I think now they’re starting to see it’s not just one dimensional anymore. It’s understanding and creating the whole life that we want to have.

Betty: Right. And of course, I really did get kind of tired of the word I’m going to have to pivot. I’m going to pivot. I’m going to have to do these things. But but I like where you’re coming from is kind of reinvention, right? Reinvent. And we did a lot of reinventing during that time, but really it should be before that and after that. So how often do you think someone can reinvent themselves?

Aree: I think you could do it daily, honestly, depending on how big a change. Obviously, my I had a huge reinvention when I retired from actuarial work and stepped into consulting or coaching and speaking and shifted away. But throughout my whole career, I could see that I was reinventing myself periodically. I started in a big insurance company and then I went into consulting. That was a reinvention when I shifted from being the individual contributor to managing projects and teams. That was a reinvention. When I started working with our HR team to kind of. Teach actuaries on our teams how to mentor each other a little bit better. That was a reinvention. So. At different levels. The reinvention can and should be coming regularly, and it should be something that we’re looking at deliberately as we’re kind of saying, okay, where do I want to be going and what steps do I take to move in that direction? And then it also means looking up occasionally and going, okay, I was headed on this path. Is it still right?

Betty: Yeah.

Aree: Or should I? What have I learned? What is The View look like now? And who’s with me now? Who’s on my team? Yeah, so all of that can change. I always think about it as when you’re wandering out in the landscape because I’m like, you mentioned, I’m from Colorado, I grew up in Wyoming. I spent a lot of time outside and I love hiking and I love exploring the wilderness and. Your career and your your life is a lot like that. It’s about getting around the next hill or looking over the next bend or crossing the river and seeing what it looks like from that side. So you have your goals, especially your long term goals that are more setting your direction. But at every point you can kind of say, okay, what do I see now? Where do I want to go? Do I want to go left on this path, or do I want to blaze my own trail to the right? What might I find there? Am I equipped to go in that direction or not?

Betty: Well, too, I think we look at reinvent sometimes as a major thing had to happen. So now I’ve got to reinvent versus just know. I’ve got to this top of this hill like you’re talking about. So now, now which way am I going to go? Which way am I going to? Yeah, I think we. I think look at it that way. Sorry.

Aree: No. Yeah, I think reinvention. Sometimes people tie the idea of I’m reinventing because I was wrong in my original direction. You know, it’s a correction where really it’s a realignment or an evolution. You’re not leaving everything that you’ve learned, who you are, your personality, all of that behind, all of that’s coming with you and building from there. You’re changing direction. Yes. But you’re not negating everything that happened before.

Betty: You know, and I think that’s really crucial when you’re looking at reinventing that. You I mean, what you’re saying it it isn’t all or nothing. It isn’t it might just be just enough step around just to get around something that you don’t want to get into. I don’t know. But that’s interesting. I just am this person like when I finished 418 for taxes. Now I think it’s this big life is going to change or January 1st of every year now is, you know. Yeah. And it really isn’t that way. I mean, life just continues to go on and I do do a really big reset and maybe, maybe I’m confusing reset with reinvent. So I need to think that through. But I do really like what you said. Cracks are where the light comes in. That is. I’m going to take that with me for sure. Well, so so, you know, you’ve talked a little bit about you’ve had teams because you’ve led teams and such. And and so what is alignment look like for a team? Like how does a team, whether you manage them, whether you’re the owner, you’ve got this executive team, small teams, whatever teams, how does that work? How does alignment look for a team look like for a team?

Aree: Yeah, it’s I love it because it’s it’s layering on the individuals alignment. You’re going to have teams where you can identify some values that are common through all of you and you can lean into those and you have other ones where you’re like, okay, these people are just very different. Their priorities are different. Ones focused on, you know, personal, professional financial success, which is a great value to have, and someone else is more focused on relationships. So when you’re thinking of teams, it’s about recognizing the similarities and the differences in the values and finding ways to lean into those and help them work together. Right. So and and also when you’re talking about the skills, I think a lot of times I saw this, you know, in my career, there was a lot of, well, you’re at this level, therefore this is the work you do and you’re at this level. So here’s your skills and your your challenge. But when you really step back and take the labels away and the roles away, you kind of say, okay, who’s equipped to do this and who wants to learn to do it? So it’s it’s really looking without the labels and without the the hierarchy of who is on our team and where are we headed and how do we best organize our people, given the skill sets that we have, given their natural strengths, given the time frame that we have in order to make this happen. So alignment when we’re talking about teams is about, first of all, understanding who’s on the team and then working together to say, okay, here’s where we’re going to go and why we’re going to go with that direction and how it’s going to work. Leveraging everybody’s skills and trying to keep people in their values as much as possible so that we can all be comfortable and more effective along the way.

Betty: You know, when you think about teams, I think sometimes we’re more wrapped up in in what is Betty Collins comfort. So I just want this person to do this because I trust them or and really, at the end of the day, you’re going, this is not what they do well or this isn’t something they’re thriving on because maybe they don’t really value it or it’s not in their DNA. It’s not the skill set, but it’s the team leader’s comfort. And that’s what I’ve always done. And so, so really, you know, how do how does Betty College Bridge to go? No, I’ve got to look at my team, which is about ten people and see their strengths and and focus on that. How do how do I start that? It’s a big question and I know it’s not on our list, but it’s. You just made me think about that.

Speaker2: Yeah. And so I actually worked with a team in my old company that wasn’t they were all very, very individually successful people, yet they were struggling to really make the progress that they should be making. And we actually did the exercise we use Strength Finder to really say, okay, let’s take a look. Going back to the facts, let’s take a look at the facts of who each of you are and what your strengths are. Because this is when you’re busy, when it’s April 1st and you’ve got two weeks or you’re in crunch period, we fall back on our natural tendencies, we fall back on our knee jerk reactions because those are innate to us. So we took some time to actually say, let’s take a look at that and put them together and line them up and be like, okay, this person’s very strategic thinking, this person’s relationship oriented, this person should be spending more time planning and this person should be working more closely with the clients. So let’s rearrange things to make sure that we’re setting us up for success by recognizing how people operate. And that helped to clarify some of the decisions because some people were saying, well, you’re just you just like them better. So you’re moving them to this role and you’re like, Well, no, there’s a reason to it. And once you put it all on paper and let everyone see, you know, and talk about it, it’s like, Oh, you know, I’m really good at this, but I’m really tired of doing that because I’ve been doing it for. Five years. I’d like to learn something new. How to get people’s input on. What they want to be building if it’s something new as well. So but yeah, I think a lot of it was just finding the time and I know it’s hard to do that sometimes, finding the time to get all that down and get the facts in front of you so that you can see where the pieces line up the best.

Betty: Because everyone doesn’t see their skill set. Right. I mean, that has been something where all my career someone sees my strength and I call it the five guys I worked for. I’ve worked for five guys, and they all saw something in my strength, right? They saw these things that I didn’t see. And so trying to convince me sometimes that those were my strengths and that’s where I would be valuable to the team was always has always been. It’s just been something I’ve had to work at. And then I’m like, Why didn’t I see it? You know? And so as the leader for them, it was this is a great skill. We’re going to use this in her and she’s going to do these things and boom. But I didn’t see it until about 50. And I’m like, Wait a minute, this is my journey and I should be seeing these things. But I still had to have people around me help, help me see it. Yeah. And so you’re doing your team of favor when you’re going. These are the strengths, these are the skills. And and they’ll be more motivated because when I focus on what I do well, I’m a lot happier. A lot.

Aree: Happier. So. Absolutely. And that that goes to when we focus on what we do well and intentionally kind of building the skills we don’t, but also pushing into and leaning into intentionally activating our values. We find more sustainable success. We’re not pushing as hard to achieve the the goal that we’ve set. But we’re finding more happiness. We’re finding more comfort. We’re finding more natural. Consistency. Ability to show up without draining our energy along the way. So it makes it a much more sustainable path when you can kind of pay attention to that. And a lot of times, like you said, people see it before we do, right?

Betty: Yeah. And they’ve got to be as a leader, you’ve got to be able to go, this is really what you do well. And chances are it’s because it’s a natural skill or they value it. Right, right, right. And I know Betty Clarky with CPMedia, she said, I really think you need to find out your why. And I think that you need to listen to Simon Simek and go through his stuff. I said, Oh, sure, you know, but I really did go from saying I can do your taxes and your QuickBooks, and these are the things that I do. And that’s what I was engrossed in to the marketplace needs to work in our country when it works, the world works because helping business owners be more of a business advisor, it’s what I’m better at. Right.

Aree: Well, in that example that you said, you’re good at QuickBooks, you have the skills, right? But once you start looking at the other elements that’s getting into your values, that’s touching your heart, not just your brain, it’s tying it all together.

Betty: Right. And I just started that was something that changed my whole perception of what I am about. And that’s where I could start seeing these are my skills and these are the things I’m in, and I do value the marketplace in our country. It’s just important. It’s provision for households. You know, when an employer can be your you have an employer who has employees. Those are households that form communities. And so you’re starting to see this bigger picture and then it doesn’t become accounting anymore to me. So. Right. But it’s a hard thing to challenge and to get people to see that side of who they are.

Aree: But yes. Yes.

Betty: So alignment for a team is huge, huge, huge. But what is with with alignment and reinventing ourselves and and just bringing our values, knowing our values, all the things that we’ve just kind of talked about. What is the first step that people can do to make change?

Speaker2: The first step is awareness, and it’s so hard to see the truth. Sometimes there’s if you start paying attention to what people are coming to ask you for, you know, they come to you to I had I had people that would come to me and say, hey, you know what? I know you’re not on this project. That’s kind of a difficult client. Can you just sit in on the call and listen and tell me where the challenge is? Where is the miscommunication? Because my skill was listening. Like I could pay attention and and hear what wasn’t being said. And, you know, not anything that an actuary is ever trained to do. It was something that was natural in me. But when I started paying attention, I’m like, Wait, people are asking me for things that I don’t go seeking. And and then I and then I start paying attention. I’m like, does that actually make sense? Is that something I enjoy doing? Is that something that when I get to do that, do I come away energized and pay attention to that? Pay attention to the negative things to pay attention to? What are you procrastinating on? What’s the friction that’s kind of holding you back? Is it something that’s pointing to a value that’s being violated? It’s like you just hesitate to do something because it doesn’t line up with your values. There’s usually a reason that your body is not jumping right into it and going, Okay, let’s get this project done.

Aree: So start paying attention to those things. So awareness is huge. And then, yeah, and then from there it’s activating it. I think that the, the big step that we miss once we start knowing what our values are is we tend to say, okay, you know, my value, I value curiosity. So I’m going to hope that it shows up. And when it does, I’m going to really enjoy it. But, but when we take that step of how do I create it for others, or how do I bring it alive in myself, adding a verb to what curiosity is for you or what collaboration is for you? Bringing that intentionally, bringing that value to life, whether it’s internal or with others, or just spreading it in the world, that will help you and create the habit of of making it a part of your days, not just waiting for it to show up and go, you know? Yeah. You know, I love authenticity and I’m glad I saw it in three people today and, you know, but intentionally saying, here’s how I’m going to do it. I’m going to start encouraging my team to show up. I’m going to ask them about what they’re doing at home so that they can bring their whole self. I’m going to act into these values, not just wait for them to show up.

Betty: That’s really good. I’m going to say that again, act into the values. And not just waiting for them to show up. That’s really good. So chances are you really have to get people to to define their values, you know, I mean, they really got to tap into what do I value?

Aree: Right.

Betty: Right. And and we think of sometimes that as well. We don’t want to hear about how you want to make money. That’s not a value. But it it is.

Aree: It can’t be.

Betty: Yeah, sure.

Aree: It’s financial security is a big value, especially for people who grew up without it. It’s important to have that because it keeps them safe. It helps them feel comfortable.

Betty: Acting to the values and not waiting for them just to happen. I really I’ll put that in my one of my quotes somewhere. I’m taking I’m stealing your quotes. I shouldn’t be doing this.

Aree: Perfect. Please do.

Betty: What is the one thing that you would want the audience to really take away today about alignment that so they can kind of maybe get started or really do some soul searching and thinking about it. What would that be?

Aree: I think the one thing is that with alignment, when you start seeing the the dimensions open up, it gives you choices. So you get to be the pilot. You get to navigate into what you want your future to be. So it’s it’s about taking those controls back and we all have that opportunity.

Betty: Right. So two more questions that have nothing to do with this. So what’s your favorite place to hike and go out? Where’s where’s the spot? Because you’re in you’re in beautiful country.

Aree: That’s for sure. I yes. And. Well lately around the Denver area. Roxboro is a it’s it’s right in the foothills and it’s got some beautiful, towering red rocks. And it’s just a very unique landscape where you never know what you’ll come across. There’s a lot of birds and wildlife and it’s just gorgeous because it’s got the red rock and the green grass and the blue skies. And yeah.

Betty: I love Sedona. Probably is one of my favorite places to go because of that Red Rock. But you also have a whole, I don’t know, whole series. I shouldn’t. But you have something about navigating and you use a lot of that. So if you’re looking for that, it’s it’s it’s a pretty cool. I’ve watched some of your TED talks and some of that. So but tell us where we can find you because she has been on a TED Talk. I don’t know how many you’ve done, but I saw some of them and and they’re pretty interesting topics. But tell us a little bit about about where they can find your information and maybe some of the other things that you speak about.

Aree: Yeah. So the best place to find me is on LinkedIn. It’s Aree Bly. Aree Bly the only one out there? That’s where I’m most active. And I also you can always go to my website alignmentally.com. I’ve got a blog active there and you can learn more about the speaking and, and how to reach me for coaching too, because I do complementary calls for anyone that might be interested in coaching this to, to get a little bit of traction. But yeah, I think that what I speak about and you’re right it all because of who I am, because I am happiest when there’s no roof above me is all very much navigation and outdoor lingo in it. So, you know, I’ve done quite a few talks on hacking your G.P.S., which is really about a lot of what we’ve been talking about now, how to involve your values, how to get beyond just the flat map of what are my skills and how do I move forward, but how do I activate that so that I can create the path that fits where I want to go like a GPS does? There’s do a bit of talking about the landscape itself and understanding the different areas and how to move through there. And then another talk that that I really enjoy giving is how not to die in the wilderness. It’s recently retitled, but it’s all about, you know, we die, quote unquote, in the wilderness, in our careers, in our in our lives by not living true to who we are, by not by going alone when we shouldn’t be going alone, by holding too tightly to the goal and getting there at all costs. And we lose ourselves along the way. There’s a lot of ways that we can counteract kind of our tendency to to let ourselves die in our careers.

Betty: Yeah, well, I certainly appreciate getting to know you and to getting to have you on the podcast today. I would tell you to check out Ari Bly. That’s cool that you’re the only Ari Bly on LinkedIn, how many people they have, but that’s awesome. But we appreciate you coming on today. We look forward to to getting to know you more and to the audience. Enjoy digging in a little bit and being inspired, that’s for sure. So I’m Betty Collins. This is inspiring women and we are so glad that you were with us today. Thank you.

Aree: Thank you.

 

Plain and Simple. It’s Hard to Be in Business or a Business Owner

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Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins
Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins
Plain and Simple. It's Hard to Be in Business or a Business Owner
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Plain and Simple. It’s Hard to Be in Business or a Business Owner (Inspiring Women, Episode 40)

On this episode of Inspiring Women, Betty Collins discusses issues which are making business ownership particularly challenging today, and some of her recommendations for avoiding fear and paralysis. Inspiring Women is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Betty’s Show Notes

We’re in a new year again, and we just need it to be easier, right?

Many business owners have felt that they can’t move forward because they’re paralyzed. When you’re paralyzed, it means you can’t move. But if you’re a business owner or in business, you aren’t meant to be still, you aren’t meant to be not able to move. So you live in that fear.

But we can’t do that. We have to get to what’s driving the fear.

I’ve put it into a few categories in this episode. I’m sure that there are other things that you could add to it, but you really need to address these things.

This is THE podcast that advances women toward economic, social and political achievement. Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.

For more information, go to the Resources page at Brady Ware and Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.  And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

TRANSCRIPT

Betty Collins: [00:00:01] Has anyone ever inspired you to change your life that made you more fulfilled? Well, as a leader in your business and in your community, what are those questions that you ask yourself on a daily basis? It’s these questions that we explore on inspiring women. I am your host, Betty Collins, and I’m a certified public accountant, a business owner and a community leader who partners with others who want to achieve remarkable results for themselves and their organizations. I am here to help inspire you to a positive step forward for a better life. You know, plain and simple, it’s just hard to be in business or be a business owner in today’s environment. I mean, you know, 20, 20, let’s look back. That was a whole new world we had to totally deal with. And then twenty one was all about, we’re going to recover and we’re going to have normal. And now we’re in a new year again, and we just need it to be easier, right? Not easy, easier. And part of the reason I think that people get wrapped up in. How can this be easier, but they can’t move forward because they’re paralyzed? I mean, when you’re paralyzed, it means you can’t move. But if you’re a business owner or in business, you you are meant to be still you aren’t meant to be not able to move. So we live in that fear in general, but certainly has been as business owners in the marketplace.

Betty Collins: [00:01:33] We can’t do that. So we have to get to what’s driving the fear. I mean, what’s driving the fear? And I’ve kind of put it into a few categories, but I’m sure that there’s other things that you could add to it, but you really need to address those things. So as as you’re listening, I would be writing down what is driving the fear that’s paralyzing me. Well, I think overall leadership at our local, state and federal level, you know, in the country, I think in our companies, the politics of it all, there’s a lot of fear with that. The workforce is definitely something that is going to take some time after what we’ve been through to get back to the levels that we would like, so that’s a huge issue for people. And if you don’t have workforce, you can’t have the supply chain back. So that’s another thing that we’re a lot of fear about now. If you’re like me, I’m a professional services person. I don’t have a big problem with the supply chain. It doesn’t affect me much. But for a lot of people, it’s very real. I mean, we haven’t seen inflation like this in a long time. It makes people a little nervous, makes them a little afraid. And then I think, you know, for many people, the effects of that 20 20 year in that year, a lot of money in cash were thrown at business owners.

Betty Collins: [00:02:56] And that’s not the norm. We don’t get cash thrown at us because we had to kind of change our mindset in twenty one and now that we’re we’re heading into new years and a new time period. It’s now about us earning money again. It’s about our bottom lines. And because we don’t have a bunch of cash being thrown at us or that we can apply for or get for free. We’re back to that. Hey, we got to get a fair how to sell services and we got to figure out how to provide products so that we can actually earn money again. And I think one of the fears is people, you know, they’re tired. You hear that a lot. Well, OK, so how do we respond to fear? First, we got to do what I just did. You’ve got to identify them. I’m identifying the things that I see all the time with business owners. They just these are the things they talk about over and over, sometimes with fear that we retreat. We kind of suppress. We ignore it. We live in denial. I’m guilty of all those things. We get very sidetracked. Today is nothing. But all of a sudden you’re sidetracked over here and you’re consumed in this and a tweet came across and another notification and you can’t. And then subject matters at all gets you sidetracked. We focus on the negative when we when we’re in fear and remember again, when I said, we’re in fear, we’re paralyzed, we can’t move.

Betty Collins: [00:04:10] The other thing that we think about when we’re in these frame of minds is, Oh, no one else is experiencing what I’m experiencing, not true. And we’ll talk about that. And then we’re kind of holding our assets close. I mean, you’re holding them to you close. And what do you do when you hold something close? It’s not going to grow, it’s not going to go out there. It’s not going to make into something because you’re hovering, you’re holding it. So those are things that we do when we when we have fear. I always ask this question. So now what? Ok, you’ve talked about the fears you know of. I’ve written down some fears. We’ve talked about how we respond to them. So now what? What do I do? Well, if you’re this is a business session, this is about being a business owner. The marketplace is your answer. The marketplace working is your answer and you have a role to play in that as a business owner and a leader. That’s the key. So go back and start with your why and get it figured out. I mean, for me, I keep that focus. I keep that in my forefront. I had someone help me go through Simon Smith’s University of Why. And it came up with when, when the U.S. works, the world works, and I took it a step further and instead when employers, which means they have employees, are taken care of.

Betty Collins: [00:05:26] Those are people that are getting provisions and those are households that form our communities. So in times where I have to look and go, OK, I got to focus on what’s important. I pull out that why I have it in front of me, I go back to that. The other thing when I say now what? Well, control what you can and influence what you’re not controlling to get it to where you need it to be. And of course, you have to look at, you know what? Change is not an option. We all changed in twenty twenty. I hate the word pivot, but we used it a lot. But we had no choice and we really didn’t have those choices in twenty one. And as we go into new times, we’re still not having that choice. And then you have to deal with what keeps you up at night. That’s the hardest thing. If you want more sleep and not wake up at two o’clock, everyone has that conversation. You already know what it is, right? You wake up and you start thinking about it. I used to wake up and instead of just like being grateful that I’m up and going and had a good night’s sleep, I thought, Well, I’ve got to do this. I got to do that and I got to do this.

Betty Collins: [00:06:24] And what about this and what? What keeps you up at night? And I kind of, you know, the overall. So I’m going to go back to these, the overall leadership and politics, the environment that workforce, the supply chains, financial concerns, people are like, well, the stock market’s rocking, Oh, it went down five hundred. No stop. Stop that. We’re going to talk about what you do with that. And then, you know, we still are kind of talking about twenty twenty and twenty one, right? We’re still. But are we looking back or are we looking forward? What keeps you up at night? And I think exhaustion sometimes can keep you up at night because you just can’t wind down and you’re just beyond. Let’s talk about these things that keep you up at night. Things about business owners that are crazy the workforce. Eighty three percent of businesses are struggling with real workforce access. They just don’t have people coming back to work. They don’t have new, new folks. It’s just that way. Eighty three percent, this is not a problem for just hey, retail or restaurants. It’s bigger than than that. It was really tight prior to COVID. I don’t think most people knew that. So when we went through this time period of tremendous change, I think it’s going to take a time period to have it change. Back when I was coming across information about the workforce, this was one of the statistics I was very, very surprised in.

Betty Collins: [00:07:45] 50 percent of teenagers work today. That’s mind boggling to me. We all worked when I was growing up. My kids all work, so it’s not just my generation and now we’ve taken that workforce out of our system. So I don’t know if it’s parents. Put your kids back to work because we’re all focused on act scores and college prep and et cetera, sports and being in two or three sports. But that has contributed to our workforce. So we’ve got to figure out how to get some of that back. You know, people think the shortages, they come up with these things, it’s like, do you have any research or data on it? And there’s some myths about it. You know, people stay home, they get paid more. That was only for three percent of the country during 2020 and 21. Well, if you pay more, they’ll come to work. No. They’re making outrageous offers right now to folks. In fact, if you ask people who are unemployed or employed, what is the number one thing they really want to they want to have in their job? It’s flexibility because they’ve been used to it over this last couple of years. Another myth is that we just are showing a lack of interest or people, and they just that’s not true. There’s a shortage of people. There was pre COVID.

Betty Collins: [00:08:55] So what are the solutions? You know, what do we do to get that workforce back? Well, part of it is I think you’re going to see it happening. First of all, the state and federal unemployment has ended. And so and that’s probably not going to go back to those those levels again, where they’re giving additional money for people to so that they could make it through this time. Another thing is in this may sound harsh, but you can you can now evict people. There’s not a lot of those things going on where for a while you couldn’t evict people if they weren’t paying rent. Another factor is student loan deferment is now over. So that’s another factor, right? But on the other side of that’s the income side. The other is that households, a family of four, it’s about one hundred and seventy five to two hundred dollars more a month to live in cost between food and gas and basic needs. So at some point, you’re going to start seeing people come back to work. For that reason, though, the incomes are gone and the expenses are higher. So I think you’re going to start seeing that, but I still think it’s going to take some time. So you’re going to be up at night. When it comes to your workforce, you’re going to be thinking about that. It’s just harder to do business. So any option and any idea and anything thing take that you can have with your team is crucial during this moment.

Betty Collins: [00:10:13] So you can hire and get on track solutions, pay more sure increase hours. Make sure certainly that you are competitive giving people more hours, especially if they were a 30 hour week. Can you can you do thirty two to thirty five? That would help anything to make productivity better. So you’ve got to evaluate your products and your services and how you’re delivering them and how you’re doing it. Because when you do that kind of stuff. Bingo, you don’t need as many people. So those are that’s another solution. And then you’ve got to focus on five very basic things when it comes to your workforce training, training, training and training. Now that’s not all my five, but training must exist for your employees. They want that. And when they have that and training isn’t just here’s how you do your job. Here’s why we do this. Here’s why we do our salad this way because we want it to be a certain product for the client. That’s why we do this. It’s why we order this kind of food to make it, et cetera, et cetera. So training is not just about here’s how you do it. Here’s why we do it. The other thing you have to focus on is adaptability. Flexibility is the number one thing people are looking for in their jobs right now.

Betty Collins: [00:11:25] Are you hybrid? Can I be home? Can I come in sometimes? Am I going to be hoteling my office? I mean, what can I do? Can I work any time from Monday through Sunday just so I get my job done, et cetera? When you look at those things, the next thing is then how are you going to recruit if you’re going to give those options? Because that’s what people are looking for and you’re looking for people. So you’ve got to be looking at what they are looking at and partnering with educational facilities around you. You know, it was funny. I have a client who is a cleaning company, and the Baby Boomers, of course, are starting to really, really retire. Kind of they still are working part time, but they’re doing things like, I just want two days a week where I can get out and do something. And so this cleaning company all of a sudden has had some retirees. So I said, Well, great. Go to your local senior center, go to your local community areas where older people hang out because they might see a job posting. They don’t want to go online, they don’t want to try to register that way. Instead, they might see something that looks more personal and just call you. It’s a great way to get that. Workforce, because they’re out there and they’re this is a very driven generation. And then you’ve got to consider.

Betty Collins: [00:12:32] Should I get some contingent workers in place contracts and temporary things which take attorneys and insight? But so those are some of the things you can do when you’re focusing on the five basics to get that workforce back. But eighty three percent of are going through it and focus on not what we used to do, focus on what do we need to do and the five things that I just talked about. What else keeps you up at night? Why is it hard to do business and be a business owner, the supply chain? I will tell you that when we get the people back to work, we will have our stuff right. I have a person who is in promotional products and instead of selling what they normally sell, and if client calls and wants this, they direct them to something that they can get. Ok. She’s had. And she says taking the order now is just not taking the order. It’s really giving them all kinds of different options of what’s available. And so she’s had to really work at that. But the five supply chain drivers are production, inventory, location and transportation and information. So those are the things that you need to have some influence on. Maybe you become the supplier. I have somebody doing that in right now in construction because he can’t get wood to build decks. So he’s like, everyone can’t get wood to build decks.

Betty Collins: [00:13:42] So he started buying wood and building it up and guess who has the wood he does because he’s now the supplier? He fixed his own supply problem by continually ordering bulk and finding it where he could find it. It took some time to build up. It was not instant, but now he is the supplier selling things that are really, really good profit. You know, the thing that needs to happen in our supply chain is that complexity needs to be removed and regulation has to be worked on. Do not ever underestimate that if you are big and need supplies and you can’t get it and you know it’s bogged down in regulation, call your representatives and your senators and people that are influential. These are everyday people. Most of them don’t look at the news, look at who’s in your in your districts and start calling them and say, I really need help. My association, this or my lobbying group that or I’m a business owner and I need this. How can you help me? Do not underestimate the power of that phone call because you have to try to to get that complexity removed. Companies with being intentional will win, and it will have the advantage. So when this guy goes out and buys his own lumber and just keeps stockpiling it, he now has something that somebody needs. It’s the same thing in the services industry as well. So you have to look at the supply chain as what can I control about it or it’s just going to take longer or I’m going to not sell as much.

Betty Collins: [00:15:05] So I’m going to have to sell it for more. You have to look at how can you control it and it will come back, especially as the workforce comes back. People have made a ton of stuff that’s sitting on ships. Believe me, they want to sell it, believe me. The other things that keep people up at night really are financial concerns. And it’s funny. This was a funny one because people are like, I’m holding onto my cash. I’m not going to borrow any money. And oh my goodness, and look at this. And then I have people who are like, Look at the stock market, we are rocking it. I mean, so both people are living in worlds of sort of you’re only focused or your your tunnel vision. You have to look at more than one thing when it comes to the financial concerns because this is what holds businesses back from reinvestment. They’re like, I better not do it now because who knows what’s going to happen to my four one kay or my savings or my line of credit, et cetera. These are the things you pay attention to. The stock market’s the easiest one. First, I have a very good financial planner. Do not try to play that. If you you can really lose very badly in that.

Betty Collins: [00:16:02] But the stock market is is very holding. It is thirty six thousand. It is all those things. It could go to thirty four. It could go up five hundred one day and eight hundred. It’s not the only indicator out there that you should be making financial decisions on interest rates. Right now they’re holding and the feds are doing that intentionally. So you really have to look at that interest rate thing and go, are they going up? Which interest rates going up the kind where I earn money in the bank? No. Or the kind I’m paying on my credit card or my loans. And right now, they’re holding those things. So that’s a strong indicator. How long will they hold it? So that’s why you look at it, what’s going to happen in twenty three and watch those interest rates? So now you’re watching the stock market, you’re watching the interest rates, look at unemployment rates. And yes, we are coming back and people are going to go to work. And we saw that even the numbers continue to get better with people who are not filing unemployment claims across the country. That number is a really important number. We’re very used to that being low, but you need to to continue to watch that, obviously during COVID when it went to 18 and 20 percent. Of course, that’s crazy, but that’s not where we normally live and it came back very quickly.

Betty Collins: [00:17:08] Inflation rate, everyone is not used to this. I remember it in the seventies. I remember my brother buying a house and 15 percent interest was what it was. And the day he got that to be, six percent was like a huge deal. But interest rates play. So not only just interest, I’m sorry in. Violation rates, interest, inflation, unemployment stock market, you need to watch all those, and if it’s something that overwhelms you, then get somebody to help you with that, whether it is your account or your financial planner. Economists are out there. They can be hard to understand sometimes, but those are things to pay attention to when you’re making financial decisions. But living in fear or making quick judgments on one factor is going to paralyze you and we all know what paralyzed does. You can’t move the other two things in financial concern. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on today, but they’re not easy. Is the GDP, which is really just the market value of your final goods and services? Is that growing? If it’s not and it’s stagnant, then you have to look and go, Oh, it’s stagnant. But all the costs to do business is continuing to go up. Those are things you watch the last one, which everyone kind of understands, but you know, maybe you don’t talk about it all the time is the consumer price index.

Betty Collins: [00:18:25] You know, what do you pay for things now? Well, I just said earlier in this podcast, groceries, basic needs and gas on a family of four is up one hundred and seventy five dollars a month. So we are paying more. But our are the goods that we’re selling are there’s something you can sell it for more right? Or is it going to be stagnant? So when you’re talking financial concerns, don’t just look at one thing. So then what other keeps us up at night? Well, the uncertainty, just the uncertainty from day to day in your operations. So what? What does that mean? Well, I’m going to tell you to stay with the basics of business. There are three things you stick with. I don’t care if it’s good times, bad times, I don’t care if it’s 19 and we’re roaring and 20 we stop and twenty one we climb out of a hole and twenty two. We’re optimistic and twenty three, et cetera. It doesn’t really matter. These are basics of business that you must practice if you’re going to have success and life is going to be not as hard. When I when I talk about plain and simple, it’s just hard to be in business. Stay with the basics. Number one, align your leadership. If you do not have aligned leadership, everybody going in the same direction, everybody in agreement. At the after they’ve all disagreed, we’re going to agree to disagree, but I mean, they must be aligned.

Betty Collins: [00:19:37] There must be a an absolute strong unity. Stick to strategy. That’s the second one. You do not want to have shoot from the hip. Let’s pivot. Now, let’s make a rash decision. No stick to strategy. Strategy means you’re thinking about it. You have a plan. It means you have purpose. You’re pulling all together. Your strategy needs to be relevant as well in the market time that you’re in. So don’t look at the what we call Sally in accounting, which is same as last year. But you have to stick to strategy and then you have to strengthen your sales and your operations together. You can have all kinds of sales goals if you don’t have supply chain and supplies and product to sell or you don’t have people to service, it doesn’t matter that you put all your focus and strategy on. We’re going to grow 30 percent or, hey, we’re going to just not hire anybody because we can’t hire anyone. And so we’re just going to be flat. And but the sales department is still going to grow. No, when you’re dealing in bigger contracts are bigger things you have to get with the operations, day to day folks and the people who are selling the product. So before you take a contract or before you decide to sell something or whatever it is, do you have the supplies and do you have the people? So those have to go hand in hand? It doesn’t matter that you want to grow 20 percent if you don’t have the people in the service to do, it doesn’t matter.

Betty Collins: [00:21:02] I mean, we have Bob Evans in our area right now who a lot of times can’t open for dinner because they have a host and a cook so they can talk all they want. That restaurant sales needs to be this today. Well, if you’re only open eight hours and their model and plan is to be open 15, you’re not going to meet those sales goals because you don’t have this. What some restaurants have just done has become very good at carryout because you can do that with a skeleton crew, so you still have to come with those options because everything in that store, strategy wise and and when you’re pulling your sales and operations together are counting on that. So you have to do those basics of business when you feel uncertain, stick to basics, align your leadership, stick to strategy and strengthen sales and operations together. You know, you’re up at night, and I made the comment that you probably have a night because you’re so exhausted. Have you ever had those nights where you can’t sleep because you’re just exhausted? I’ve had that right. So how do we quit being as exhausted as we continue to go forward? Well, here are things that I have personally done, and quite frankly, they work.

Betty Collins: [00:22:02] It’s been great for me. I have very little social media. You know why? Because it just takes from me more than it gives. Shut it down. Shut it down. Stop. I’ve actually gotten into crossword puzzles and reading a lot more. I still, though, must be informed you can’t just hide from the world what you’re living in. So research your outlets and make sure that their outlets that are making decisions on truth or giving you truthful information so you can make the decisions. You will not be as exhausted when you can be very cut and dry. Now, one of the things I like is the Epic Times. It’s a conservative newspaper, but I can go in there and it gives me my headlines of the day. It’s not sexy, it’s not jazzy. Because you know what? It’s just news. It’s not opinions. It’s not. Here’s an editorial. It’s just this happened today, OK? At least I know kind of what happened. If I want to click on it, I can. Part of not being exhausted, part of getting some good sleep at night is you have to plan restoration. I know for myself when I know my week is going to be a certain way, I do this now. I look at Sunday or I look at Saturday or Thursday afternoon. I find a time where since I knew Tuesday and Wednesday, we’re going to be absolutely mind boggling.

Betty Collins: [00:23:15] I’m going to be home at Thursday working or I’m going to come. I’m going to take off a little earlier. I’m going to make sure Thursday night isn’t filled with an activity because I need to have a little bit of quiet, maybe with a nice firepit night. It doesn’t matter that it’s Thursday night. I need that restoration to get through Friday and the weekend or whatever it is. When I know that I’m going to hit some certain deadlines right after that, I always make sure there’s a day spa. Something right doesn’t have to be a whole day. It doesn’t have to be crazy. But I have planned restoration when I know my children are coming and they’re bringing their beautiful babies. I know in 30 hours of that, I’m going to be exhausted so nothing can be planned for the next 24 hours because I’ve got I’m going to need to totally overhaul my house because I wanted a certain way, and I know that I’m going to have to plan to rest so that I can enjoy them. But then I’m OK. Planned restoration elimination of negative people just continued to get those purge those people out of your life. You won’t be nearly as exhausted and then you have to look at that balance of health, their spiritual, physical and emotional. They all work together. This was one who changed a lot for me in 2021, the year of twenty twenty one when I came in after a year pandemic, of course, I said I got to do something different and I found a book about rhythm and balance.

Betty Collins: [00:24:33] And in this book, it talks about, here’s the stuff that takes from you, and here’s the stuff that that gives to you. And here’s how much you need. In each balanced quarter, there were four areas, but one of the things that I really learned from that book was the first, and the last hour of the day is really crucial. How I spend my first hour of the day, I how do I want to spend that? I want to get up a little slower and I want to enjoy my house a little bit more and have coffee. I want to pack a healthy lunch. There’s just this vision I had for that first hour of the day. At the end of the day, I don’t want to wind down with TV because it distracts me. I don’t want to wind down with social media because it would distract me. Instead, I wanted to read something positive. I wanted to have some time of gratitude. I chose how I ended my day, which means when I ended that way, I sleep better. And when I start my day, I have a better day. So control the first and last hour of your day. You’ll be amazed in that. You’ve got to figure out what you want that to be.

Betty Collins: [00:25:34] So that’s that’s just as much, you know, you’re created on purpose for a purpose. I’ve never been a big fan of a of a life statement, but I am a big fan of my why and when I’m talking to you, the business owner and people who are in business, when you get discouraged with it, I make sure I focus on my why and what is that? Well, my why is when the U.S. works, the world works. But I took it a step further and I like the when employers have employees, those folks get their provision from that, from that business owner. Those are those are households, right? And those households form our communities. And what I can focus on that is my purpose. That is why I was created to help in this segment called accounting. I can clear the air a little bit. I can go, OK. You can do this. And what I would tell you is what I continue to do, so I’m not so exhausted is I’m bringing back the things that I miss in my life, especially from pre pre-COVID. Those are important things. You know, socialization is huge for me, things that I just really wanted to get together with more. I just started doing that. I have a friend who said, I just want to go to dinner and not talk about COVID 19 in politics and stuff.

Betty Collins: [00:26:48] I just wonder, know how your kids are. I just want to have some fun. I just want some light enjoyment. That was that’s what she’s missing. So she’s making sure she’s doing that and those things will energize you. They will give back to you, and the exhaustion will continue to to be less. So those are the things I want to talk about in the plain and simple, it’s just hard to be in business. It’s just hard to be a business owner. So get hold of those things that are keeping you up at night. Deal with the things. Call this thing called fear, so you’re not paralyzed. Get some help to get through these things. Maybe if they’re too much for you, economic wise, or you feel like you’ve got to be an economist to understand those things that I talked about. You’ll see a difference. I have seen that difference. So I’m just grateful that you joined me today, and I hope this podcast was inspiring for you. Inspired women has been presented by Brady Ware & Company as your career advancements continue, your financial opportunities will continue to grow. Be prepared. Visit Brady Ware to find out more about the accounting services. They can assist you to that next level. All this, plus more about the podcast, can be found in the show notes for this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. Feel free to share the show or give us a review. Remember, inspiration is powerful. Whose life will you be changing?

Angel Investors – An Interview with Brianna McDonald, Keiretsu Forum

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Brianna-McDonald-Keiretsu-Forum
Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins
Angel Investors – An Interview with Brianna McDonald, Keiretsu Forum
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Brianna-McDonald-Keiretsu-Forum

Angel Investors – An Interview with Brianna McDonald, Keiretsu Forum (Inspiring Women, Episode 38)

It’s time for more women to become angel investors. That’s the message from Brianna McDonald of the Keiretsu Forum, one she offers in this interview with Betty Collins. Brianna discusses why the time is right for women to make angel investments, how to find angel investment groups, the importance of doing your research, diversification, and much more. Inspiring Women is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Betty’s Show Notes

I have an amazing guest who is a top female investor. She offers a way to get started in angel investing and diversify your portfolio.

This is a smart way you can also help women.

Startups and entrepreneurs struggle. Because they lack capital a lot of the times.

They may have a lack of sense of how to run a business. But they have this passionate idea that they really want to get out there. And so capital is a huge issue.

An angel investor is someone who provides funding for small startups or entrepreneurs. The funding can be any amount, really, and sometimes the angels will get an ownership stake in the company for their investment, while other times there will be an agreement drawn up for getting your money back — plus profits — once the company gets off the ground.

You may sometimes hear angel investors referred to as “private investors,” “seed investors,” or “angel funders,” but one thing is clear — no matter what you call them, angels can make a huge difference in the life of an entrepreneur, and they can also make some serious money in the process.

With me on this episode is Brianna McDonald. She is the President of the Northwest Region of the Keiretsu Forum angel investment community, the largest and most active venture investor globally, comprising over 50 chapters with over 3,000 active members investing over $450 million annually into over 600 companies.

She’s an active leader and angel investor with Keiretsu Forum and has been a part of the organization since it launched in Seattle in 2005 and supporting its growth to become the largest and most active group globally.

She’s proven over time to be adept at screening companies for angel investment, coaching companies on presentation and investor relations, sales strategy execution, relationship management, and leading due diligence teams.

Listen in as Brianna McDonald gives us all a crash course in what angel investing really is, and breaks down how angel investing differs from crowdfunding and venture capital.

Brianna talks about how angel investors can find successful rates of return, and why now is a great time for women to consider becoming angel investors. Brianna also walks us through how she got started investing, how to find angel investing groups around the country and the importance of doing your research.

She offers up 7 tips.

  1. Is this something you want to do?
  2. Find female support
  3. Sit in on meetings (a great question to ask – rather than “how are things going?”, ask “what challenges are they going through?”)
  4. Pick the brains of the experts
  5. Find something that is interesting to you
  6. Stay active with the investment
  7. Reach your financial goals

This is THE podcast that advances women toward economic, social and political achievement. Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.

For more information, go to the Resources page at Brady Ware and Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.  And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Betty Collins
So, today, I want to talk about angel investing, and hopefully, you can learn how to be an angel investor or even use one. Hopefully, this will intrigue your attention. I have an amazing guest who is a top female investor, and offers a way to get started in angel investing, and diversify that portfolio. What a great thing to do. You should always be doing that, but this is a way you can also help women. So, startups and entrepreneurs struggle, not because of they have an idea or a passion, but it’s because they lack capital a lot of the times.

[00:00:38] Betty Collins
And there is that they have, maybe, a lack of sense of how to run a business, but they have this passionate idea that they really want to get out there. And so, capital is a huge issue, and you’ve got to get the right capital, though. I’ve heard plenty of people start businesses with credit cards, do not do that. You will never win, you will never get ahead. Or they get too much capital, or they don’t have enough, and they run out quickly. It’s all over the place. So, that’s why I like the angel investing, because they can help and guide you in a different way that maybe a bank can’t, or a private equity.

[00:01:14] Betty Collins
But you can get that right capital, and then diversify your portfolio by being an angel investor. So, startups and entrepreneurs, they struggle, but not because of a great idea or passion, but really it’s the lack of capital most of the time, and maybe some entrepreneurship skills. So, you got to get the right capital, and then you’ve got to get partners with you who can help you know how to navigate through your times. So, you could also be the capital, and get the capital, be the capital. And if you if you get to do that, you could diversify your portfolio.

[00:01:49] Betty Collins
So, what is it? Well, the dictionary says, an angel investor; it’s a private investor, maybe a seed investor, maybe that high-net worth person who’s providing financial backing. Sometimes we think of them as family and friends that come in, you always want to do that, for sure. But the funds that those angel investors provide is probably a one-time investment to help that business get off the ground, depends on how it goes. Or maybe it’s an injection to support and carry the company through it’s difficult, early stages. Or maybe you’re five, and you’re going to go to the next level, and it’s going to be some tough doing.

[00:02:30] Betty Collins
So, you know me if you’ve listen to my podcast, I’m passionate about the marketplace and its success, especially for women. Women are dominating the marketplace, but they don’t go as far faster. They have a longer uphill battle, sometimes. And I see women in business all the time struggle. It holds them back, and it slows down their progress when they don’t have that capital, or their frustration, and they can’t give any more, mentally and everything. I hate seeing that. And angel investing can be a way to solve that, whether starting up or investing, you can play a role in it. My guest today is Brianna McDonald.

[00:03:09] Betty Collins
She’s coming with this amazing experience, with an amazing company, and she has an amazing role in it. Their mission is very simple, I’m going to let her talk about what some of that is, but it’s to fund companies, and provide excellent investment opportunities for their members. And she’s going to talk a little bit about overview of investing, what it means to be an angel investor, or her experience as a woman investor in a very male-dominated industry. And then she’s going to drill down the seven tips. That’s something the accountants love, the steps, the numbers, seven tips.

[00:03:45] Betty Collins
So, I’m going to let her talk a little bit about her company, and introduce herself in that way. And then I want her just to really talk a little bit about her, not necessarily what we do. So, welcome, Brianna, to my podcast. Tell us about what you do, and your company.

[00:04:02] Brianna McDonald
Well, thank you so much, Betty, for having me on today to talk a little bit more about this topic. I’m super passionate about it. I’m currently the president for Keiretsu Forum, Northwestern Rockies region. I have been in this role now, four years, but I’ve been a part of the organization for 15 years. So, I participated a lot as an investor, as a member, learning, doing that for many years prior to stepping into the role that I’m in today. But where I really come from is a long line of entrepreneurs. My father had his own business, his father had his own business.

[00:04:41] Brianna McDonald
And I didn’t really realize that at the time, because in the ’90s you just didn’t talk a lot about entrepreneurship. It just wasn’t a word you heard very often. And I went into business for myself, I began selling real estate after I finished college, and worked with executive relocation, with Microsoft and all their Aqua hires that they were bringing on, and had a very successful business doing that, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I love to work hard and play hard. And my husband started Keiretsu Forum in Seattle in 2005.

[00:05:18] Brianna McDonald
And, essentially, when he started it here, we were the eighth chapter, we are, so we have the Northwest and the Rockies region. There’s over, now, 55 chapters globally, on four continents, and over 3000 investors in our network, which is really amazing, the work that everybody does. But when he started it here, we were number eight, and he said, “Come, come to a meeting.” And I was like, “Why would I go to this meeting? I’m busy. I’m busy doing other stuff.” And he’s like, “No, no, no, you’d be great. Come come to the meeting, come sit down.” And I was like, “Alright, fine.”

[00:05:52] Brianna McDonald
So, I wanted to be a supportive partner, and so, I went to the meeting, and I was 26 years old, and I sat at the table with a bunch of gray-haired men. And I listened to the company’s speech, and I thought, “What on earth am I doing here?” And I was trying to figure it out, and so, I am nice and friendly, I’m n the real estate business, I can just start- I’m personable, and can talk to people. And the first company goes, and I’m like, “What is this product, and what is this market, and what is your price point, and how do you make money? And I’m like, “Gosh, I don’t belong here.”

[00:06:34] Brianna McDonald
This is my internal thought process going on. All of us women, we have this internal critic that goes, “You don’t belong here. Why are you here?” So, I’m writing these questions down, but then these men started going, “Well, how do you make money, and what is your product, and what do you do?” And I’m like, “Oh, well, maybe I might be on to something.” And then the next company went, the next company went, and I sat and I listened, and it was really fascinating being part of it. And so, when the next meeting came up, I was like, “Hey, can I come to that meeting again? Can I come? That was interesting. I learned some things, and there were some cool people there, and I liked it.”

[00:07:15] Brianna McDonald
And Ethan was like, “Sure come along.” And it took me about a year. So, I sat and actually observed for a year, and I didn’t ask a single question in the room. Just being so young, and being the only woman at the table, I didn’t really feel like I fit. And one day, I finally mustered up the courage to ask a question. And the adrenaline was rushing, I was nervous, and it was just this tiny, little question, I don’t even know what it was. But what I do remember is, one of our investor members, who is still a member today, after I asked the question, leaned over to me and said, “That was a good question.”

[00:07:54] Brianna McDonald
And that was all the reinforcement that I needed to know, I was in the right place. I actually deserved to sit at this table, and I had something of value to bring. And over the course of my many years of being in this industry, and really being one of few women who participate, and really working to bring more women in, is that women are highly beneficial here. They understand markets, they understand pricing, we do most of the shopping. There is a lot of things that come into play with women, and how businesses get up and off the ground, how you pick your target market, how you pick your customers.

[00:08:34] Brianna McDonald
All of this is really important. We just think differently about it than men do. And it’s that togetherness that makes it really work. So, it took me over a year, and I wrote my first check in a company. I did receive a return, I can talk about that later, but I had some lessons I learned along the way of engagement and things. And so, even though I’ve been in this industry 15 years, the thing I love about it is, I’m still learning. You don’t know everything. And being able to be in an organization like Keiretsu Forum, we lean on each other. We don’t have to be experts in everything. We work together, the men and the women. But we need more women coming in.

[00:09:15] Betty Collins
And I think if there were more women coming in, there would be- it’s just a different perspective at the table. I know in Brady Ware, when I came there, there was about between 22 and 25 partners. And I came in, there were two of us there. And the discussion is different in the room, now that we have seven there. And it’s not because we’re maybe smarter, maybe we are, or it’s not because we’re better, maybe we are, we just think differently. And as women dominate starting businesses and getting them up, I know you see this every day, they get to a point, and men are going right past them because they have different skill sets, maybe, I don’t know.

[00:09:58] Betty Collins
Some of it is the type of businesses women go in, it’s hard to get lending. It’s hard to get that capital from a traditional bank, even private equity. So, I love your passion behind it because that’s what’s got to be there. And the marketplace is crucial in this country. If we don’t have the marketplace, it means employers don’t pay employees, and employees are families, and households, and communities. And when the US doesn’t work, the world doesn’t work. So, entrepreneurship has to work.

[00:10:31] Betty Collins
And this is just a way I wish more women who have had their success, they don’t have to have multimillion-dollar success, but when they have their success, they become that angel investor, and say, “I’m going to give someone a chance, because I’ve been there, I’ve done that.” So, obviously, you talked about your ‘why’, behind the passion behind that. Do you find yourself more attracted to the women-owned businesses that you’re hearing, or does it matter? It’s entrepreneurship, and business is business. Is there a difference for you?

[00:11:05] Brianna McDonald
So, every investor has their own investment thesis, and it’s really developed over time. It’s what moves you. And so, if any woman is thinking about getting into this space, I really encourage them to listen, to learn and to figure out what that is for them. For me, it’s team. And I need a good team. Now, team does not necessarily mean, for me, in my investment thesis, that it needs to be a female CEO, but the team better be diverse. I want to see diversity, and not just between men and women.

[00:11:38] Brianna McDonald
I want to see diversity across the board, across ethnicity, because that is going to be where the differences are made in terms of thoughts and opinions, and how they come together, and how that team culture works. Because at the end of the day, you can have the greatest product in the world with the best market, and if you have a team that fails to execute, the investment still goes to zero. That said, I’ve invested in some amazing women that lead teams, but I didn’t invest in them because they were a woman, I invested in them because they were awesome.

[00:12:12] Betty Collins
And as much as I am pro-business, pro-entrepreneurship, pro-woman for sure, it’s got to be the right mix. Everything, from the product to the execution. It can’t just be this passion idea, it has to all work together. Let me just follow up with one last question with what we’re discussing, and that is, would you commit as an angel investor, and you come in at 10 percent, or you come in at 50 percent depends on how much money you give, it depends on once you’re there. What generally happens? Is it more, you write the check and you wait and see, or is it, “No, we’re really hearing, we’re there, we’re on the ground, and we get to play a role.”? Because I think people think, “I’m writing a check and I’m done.”

[00:13:04] Brianna McDonald
So, I think that is something that is a big misconception about- if you want to be a passive investor, and you want to invest in early- stage companies, I would really recommend a fund vehicle, if that’s the direction you want to go. Because you’ll be able to diversify, and you’ll be able to take that passive role in what you’re doing. For me, what I love is, I love being engaged. I’m advisors to the businesses I invest in. I call them up, I text them, I ask them how things are going. And I usually ask them what challenges they’re having, because if I ask them how things are going, they’ll always tell me it’s great.

[00:13:40] Brianna McDonald
So, I’m like, “Hey, what challenges have you had the last month, and what can I do to support you in those challenges?” If you stop hearing from companies, that’s typically when things have gone south, and when the communication stops, and that’s when you need to reach out. And so, that was one of the big lessons I learned early on, was that the more you communicate, the more you understand, with what’s going on with your private investments, the better and safer you’re going to be. Lines of communication are super important, and I feel like, especially over the last five years, culturally, through the busyness, through all of the things that have gone on in our world, we just don’t communicate like we used to.

[00:14:18] Brianna McDonald
And we really should, we’re here to help and support one another. And when you get a private investor’s money, you also get their expertise. We’re here to help you figure out those problems. We’re alongside of you, we’re bought into you, we believe in you, let’s do this together. Let’s push forward innovation, and make the world a better place.

[00:14:43] Betty Collins
And I like how you talk about the advisory role. Because when I talk about small businesses having that hard time or they need capital, and they think everything’s about capital and lack of it, sometimes it’s just really, you’ve had bad advisors or lack of advising. So, when you, maybe, tap into an angel investor, or you become the angel investor, you have a role to play in that; of advising, and not controlling, but advising. Those are two different things.

[00:15:19] Brianna McDonald
Yeah, definitely not- it’s up to the CEO to make decisions. But knowing that you care, and that you’re engaged is good. It’s, definitely, also- through the due diligence process, we can get into that too, here, but through the due diligence process, prior to writing a check, you really get to know who that person is, how they operate, how they respond. And through that process, you’ll begin to understand what the rules of engagement are for you, as you go forward with that investment, if you choose to make that investment choice.

[00:15:54] Betty Collins
And I definitely want to get into the- let’s get to the seven tips, because now I have my steps, I have my tips, I love all that. I just went on a sales call with a company who just went through a purchase. And, boy, I wish they would have had advisors helping them get through the whole thing. And so, I took one of my senior people with me, and they said, “What are we going to do today?” I said, “We’re going to listen, we’re going to ask them who they are, and how many kids you have, and where do you like to travel, and we’re going to learn why they wanted to buy the business.” That’s a huge factor, I don’t think you can underestimate, especially when you’ve been in the marketplace and entrepreneurs for 20, 30 years, you have a lot to give to someone. But let’s get to the seven tips, let’s talk about that.

[00:16:43] Brianna McDonald
Well, so the first tip I have, tip number one, is getting started. So, the first thing you need to do is really think like, “Hey, is this something I really want to do?” And you have to start. If you don’t ever start, and take that first step, and that first leap, you’re not going to do anything with it. So, it is just something you’re interested in exploring, there’s lots of different investment groups. I would really encourage any woman who was thinking about doing this, to get involved in a group, so you don’t have to go into alone.

[00:17:15] Brianna McDonald
You can really lean on other people in the group, and the groups in your region all have different investment theses. So, it gives you some time to do some research, and as you sit in, and usually, if you just want to come sit in on a meeting or two, they’ll let you do that. They’ll let you come in, and try it on, and see. One thing, I just got off of a call today with a woman who was interested in becoming a member of my organization, and she’s like, “Well, I need to go fill out the accreditation form for the SEC.”

[00:17:46] Brianna McDonald
There is no accreditation application for the SEC. It is just, these are guidelines that are put in place by the Securities Exchange to make sure that you are qualified to lose money, because this is risky business and and that could happen. So, typically, you make more than $250,000 per year salary if you’re single, $300,000 if you’re married, or you have more than a million in assets. Last year, they expanded that out a bit to be able to include different areas of study. So, if you got your degree in biology, and you want to go invest in a biology company, you should know enough, that if you make a decision there, if you’re gonna lose your money or not.

[00:18:34] Brianna McDonald
So, they did expand that out a bit, so if you’re interested in looking into that, there is some information there. But go online, look at your regional groups, your local groups, they tend to invest locally. My organization’s a little bit different, we invested a little bit later- stage companies, not super-early. There’s more due diligence, and we are global. And so, wework together. So, we have our regional deal flow in our regions we work in, but we also work collectively with the other chapters, especially in North America, but across the world as well.

[00:19:07] Brianna McDonald
So, do your research, is the first step. The next one is tip number two, is find female support. Super, super important. Even reach out on LinkedIn, I have women reach out to me on LinkedIn, and they’re like, “Hey, I see we have similar backgrounds. Can we just have a call?” I love that. I will take those calls. I don’t usually take a lot of cool things off of LinkedIn, but if there’s women out there looking to get into angel investing, they want to chat with me, I’m always more than happy to do so. So, for any of the women who are listening in right now, and please don’t all bombard me at once, but reach out, I’m happy to.

[00:19:50] Brianna McDonald
Or find someone in your area, and they’ll share their experiences with you, and the things that they’ve learned, and how they got into it. But having a seat at this table is important, because we are driving forward innovation, and when things are cloudy and uncertain, that is the time when you actually have the greatest ability to make a lot of money, because you’re betting on the uncertainty. So, not everything- certainly, it’s a little uncomfortable for us ladies, sometimes. We like to be very pragmatic in our approach, and be very thoughtful about how we do things, which is also why I like investing in women entrepreneurs.

[00:20:31] Brianna McDonald
So, once you target those groups, reach out to them, talk to them, do some diligence on those groups, talk to some of the members, sit in on the meetings to see how they ask the questions. Are they nice? Are they kind? Are they mean? Is this a group that you want to be a part of? Do you find them engaging? And even online, it’s really opened up a whole new world of us being able to sit in on lots of different types of meetings. So, that’s been one silver lining of COVID. We had to pivot our entire business from in-person to to virtual, which was difficult last year, but I feel like we did it pretty well, and we’re able to- and we’ve created different programs to allow people to be heard.

[00:21:17] Betty Collins
Talk about- I had more people reach out to me this year to be on my podcast, because we don’t think about, “I got to go somewhere in Columbus. I could have a West Coast interview or an East Coast.” It’s been an amazing thing. And this is a great- I’m glad to hear you say that. It didn’t sound like it was maybe a hard pivot, you just had to pivot. You just had to do it, right?

[00:21:42] Brianna McDonald
Well, and we had to make sure it worked, because we are very professional organization, and the things that we do, and the steps, and the process. So, trying to recreate that was not easy, but anything that is worthwhile in this life shouldn’t be easy. But I feel like we’ve done a really good job keeping the professionalism, keeping it running on time, respecting people’s time, and respecting our processes, and how they all work. So, as you sit in on the meetings, my fourth tip is, to really pick the brains of the experts.

[00:22:18] Brianna McDonald
So, even if you’re on Zoom on a meeting, and you hear someone ask a really thoughtful question, message them say, “Hey, I really like that question, what’s your background? And I’m thinking about getting into angel investing, and I’d love to know a little bit more. Maybe we can have a quick call.” There’s so much we can learn from other people’s backgrounds and experiences. We do not need to be the experts in everything. And I firmly believe that in a collective-working together, and this is why a group is so important, being able to do that. Our members throughout Keiretsu Forum in our meetings message each other all the time, throughout the meetings, and they have private chats going, and things like that.

[00:23:01] Brianna McDonald
It’s our way to connect with one another, and talk about the deals that we’re seeing. My big one is, find something that’s interesting to you. And this comes back to the investment thesis that I mentioned earlier; what really perks your interest? I firmly believe in being able to diversify your portfolio. I do not believe in putting all of your eggs in one basket. So, at Keiretsu Forum, we look at a wide array of opportunities. We look at biotech, we look at technology, we look at medtech and medical devices. We look at consumer goods.

[00:23:35] Brianna McDonald
We even look at real estate, and being able to have a wide range of items in your portfolio is really important, because they offset the others in terms of the risk profile, and when you’re going to be able to see that return. Now, what works for you? And, really, figuring that out. And it’s not something you’re going to have the answers to overnight. It’s going to just take time, and sitting and learning.
Six, we already covered this, Betty, is staying active. So, if you do run through the diligence and choose to invest, staying active with that investment. Communicating with the CEO, even if you reach out every couple of months, just say, “Hey, how’s it going? What challenges do you have today?”

[00:24:19] Brianna McDonald
That should be a tip that we take, that’s a good question to start with; “What challenges do they have this month?” Because they will always tell you everything’s great, and when you approach it that way, it’s a little bit disarming. And then the final one is to be able to reach your financial goals. And there’s a lot of opportunity here. If you do the research right, if you mix up with the right groups that are good fit for you, and are thoughtful about how you go about diversifying, and even taking off, carving off 10 percent of your portfolio to these higher-risk investments, you can really do a lot of well and good, at the same time.

[00:25:03] Betty Collins
I like that. [CROSSTALK]. Well and good at the same time, I love that, because there’s nothing wrong with, “Here’s $100,000, and I want it back, and I’d like to get, actually, more than $100,000 back.” At the same time, probably, you’re injecting some energy in someone that needs it. And it’s all good. I was fortunate to be on a Shark Tank type of thing, I was a judge. And it was five young women who- and they had criteria to be there, so they weren’t completely startups. I was never so energized to do it. It was the fun, it was great. Now it’s an annual event, and I love doing it so. But I’d love for you to tell us a success story. End with a success story, and maybe then, we’ll talk about one take-away, because I would love to hear just where [INAUDIBLE] went so well.

[00:25:54] Brianna McDonald
Well, so, I will tell you, we’ve had a lot of success in life sciences. And life sciences is something that has been, it’s not easy to understand, and definitely having some good experts in the room for you to learn from is good. My first due diligence medtech device, I’ll never forget calling up one of my members who runs a medical device, he builds medical devices. And I was like, “Okay, they’re contract manufacturing in China, what are the 10 questions I need to ask, and what are the answers that I need to receive, if this is a good deal or not. So, being able to look at that, and see, and looking at the FDA process, it’s complicated, and it’s high risk, but it’s super rewarding.

[00:26:41] Brianna McDonald
We invested in the company Immunotherapeutics, and they worked on a vaccine for red cedar allergy in Japan. So, I guess the US went there during World War II, and they planted a whole bunch of red cedar trees, and it turns out Japanese are very allergic to red cedar, and it’s debilitating allergy. But they’ve also been able to work as a drug platforms, so they’ve been able to work in the multiple different allergies. And after a couple of years, they received $500 million purchase order. And we received our first return from that. And they didn’t divest us, they just gave us the return from that purchase order.

[00:27:25] Brianna McDonald
And then we kept our stock, and we got a second exit again last year, if we wanted it. There are opportunities, even with my first company, with my first investment, that I was able to get a 2X return out of, which isn’t awesome. It was a food company, and I probably would be more cautious investing in a food company again, lessons learned along the way. Because I do include some of the things that I have learned to be just as much success as the capital I received back. So, looking at food deals is hard; there’s a lot of competition, there’s a lot of things that go into the space.

[00:28:05] Brianna McDonald
I also thought it was going to be the most amazing thing in the world, and I put my my money in, and walked away, like what you talked about the beginning, Betty, and didn’t stay in touch. And they had an opportunity to exit in 2010, and if they would have done that, it would have been great. But they didn’t. And so, Idid receive a return later, that I was able to roll up into another investment that I’m super excited about. But there was lots of really good lessons along the way. And just as long as I’m not losing money, I consider it a win. And then my final company is the company, it’s called Vita Inclinata.

[00:28:43] Brianna McDonald
I’m an advisor, I’ve been an advisor for over three years now to this company. I invested at $8 million, they’re just closing $150 million-dollar round right now. And so, being able to be a part of that effort as they continue to grow, as they deal with their challenges, have a really good relationship with the CEO, it’s been so great to watch their success. You got Forbes 30 under 30 two years ago. It’s been so fun to watch them create this device that it just didn’t follow a formula for me, and that’s what made it exciting. It’s a system for helicopters, it’s a load stabilization system for helicopters.

[00:29:28] Brianna McDonald
I know diddly-squat about that, but I do know a lot about people, and about safety, and about our markets, and selling into that. So, pulling that expertise out, I know go-to market strategy has been really helpful. But they’ve been able to close some big military contracts, and really accelerate growth. So, I have a wide range of things that I invest in, but it’s exciting to be a part of. And then my last, my takeaway would be, if you are interested in learning, one, you can always come, reach out to me on LinkedIn, or you can go to my website, k4northwest.com.

[00:30:07] Brianna McDonald
You’re always welcome to come in, and sit in as a guest at one of my forum meetings. I do six per month, and you can see what goes on there. But if you are interested in learning more about angel investing, just go sit and learn. Just go join a group and learn for a year. We spend lots and lots of money on education, and it’s okay to spend this on your financial education, and be able to do that, and learn from others. And if it’s something that suits you after a year, then maybe think about writing a check. But there’s so much to learn.

[00:30:39] Betty Collins
And as you said from the beginning, tip one is, just get started. Just get going, do something, especially if it intrigued you. So, I would tell my audience today, if you want to get into angel investing, you’ve got your person. Or if you want to be, “Hey, I need an angel investor,” you probably got your person. So, I so appreciate you being here today. You just have been- I could talk to you for another hour, honestly. But I know your time is valuable, and, of course, you’re on the West Coast, and I’m in the Midwest, and I’ve never been, actually, to Oregon or Seattle, or let’s see, you’re in Idaho as well?

[00:31:20] Brianna McDonald
I’m in Seattle, yes, though I’m based in Seattle. Our region is Vancouver, B.C., Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico.

[00:31:33] Betty Collins
I’ve been to Montana, and I’ve done the whole California thing. I just needed to expand a little bit more, but it was great just having you on today. So, audience, if you want to be an angel investor, or you need an angel investor, don’t rule it out. Challenge yourself, and maybe get out there and get started, like we talked about today.

[00:31:53] Betty Collins
So, I’m Betty Collins, and so glad you joined me. Inspiring women, it’s what I do. And I’m going to leave you with this; being strong speaks of strength, but being courageous speaks to having a will to do more and overcome.

Automated transcription by Sonix www.sonix.ai

Betty CollinsIW8-2021square is the Office Lead for Brady Ware’s Columbus office and a Shareholder in the firm. Betty joined Brady Ware & Company in 2012 through a merger with Nipps, Brown, Collins & Associates. She started her career in public accounting in 1988.

Betty is co-leader of the Long Term Care service team, which helps providers of services to Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and nursing centers establish effective operational models that also maximize available funding. She consults with other small businesses, helping them prosper with advice on general operations management, cash flow optimization, and tax minimization strategies.

In addition, Betty serves on the Board of Directors for Brady Ware and Company. She leads Brady Ware’s Women’s Initiative, a program designed to empower female employees, allowing them to tap into unique resources and unleash their full potential.  Betty helps her colleagues create a work/life balance while inspiring them to set and reach personal and professional goals.

The Women’s Initiative promotes women-to-women business relationships for clients and holds an annual conference that supports women business owners, women leaders, and other women who want to succeed. Betty actively participates in women-oriented conferences through speaking engagements and board activity.

Betty is a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and she is the President-elect for the Columbus Chapter. Brady Ware also partners with the Women’s Small Business Accelerator (WSBA), an organization designed to help female business owners develop and implement a strong business strategy through education and mentorship, and Betty participates in their mentor match program.

She is passionate about WSBA because she believes in their acceleration program and matching women with the right advisors to help them achieve their business ownership goals. Betty supports the WSBA and NAWBO because these organizations deliver resources that help other women-owned and managed businesses thrive.

Betty is a graduate of Mount Vernon Nazarene College, a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and a member of the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants. Betty is also the Board Chairwoman for the Gahanna Area Chamber of Commerce, and she serves on the Board of the Community Improvement Corporation of Gahanna as Treasurer.

Inspiring Women Podcast Series

This is THE podcast that advances women toward economic, social and political achievement. The show is hosted by Betty Collins, CPA; Betty is a Director at Brady Ware & Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware & Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home. For more information, go to the Resources page at Brady Ware & Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

The complete Inspiring Women show archive can be found here.

Keeping Emotion Out of Difficult Conversations – An Interview with Jen Grant, Appify

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Inspiring Women PodCast with Betty Collins
Keeping Emotion Out of Difficult Conversations - An Interview with Jen Grant, Appify
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Keeping Emotion Out of Difficult Conversations – An Interview with Jen Grant, Appify (Inspiring Women, Episode 37)

Some emotions can be positive, Appify CEO Jen Grant observes, such as the passion which drives us in our business or career journey. Other emotions, however, particularly those in highly charged conversations, can cause both short- and long-term damage. In this conversation with host Betty Collins, Jen discusses when emotions need to be harnessed, how to diffuse negative emotions which arise in difficult conversations, and much more. Inspiring Women is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Betty’s Show Notes

When I think of emotions, I think of passion and drivers. It’s that ‘why’ of something.

So, in this episode, I want to talk about when we keep emotions out of something, especially a difficult conversation.

Why do we want to do that?

With me is Jen Grant. She is the CEO at Appify.

She has spent the last 15 years building companies from the ground-up and taking multiple companies to over a billion-dollar valuation. Recently, Jen was recognized as one of the Top 100 Princeton Technology leaders in 2021 as well as a Woman of Influence in Silicon Valley from the SVBJ.

When someone says something, you disagree with, ask them to “tell me more” and look for the gold — the thing they say that you CAN agree with. More often than not, you realize that you do actually agree with some of what they are saying and finding that point of connection is all you need to collaborate and move forward together.

Why is this more of a topic for women? Jen goes deep into that.

Bottom line. In a difficult situation, keep asking questions to get to the crux of the matter at hand. Keep being curious, and this will help you stop judging.

Jen highly recommends this for you to read – Leaders Eat Last By Simon Sinek.

This is THE podcast that advances women toward economic, social and political achievement. Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.

For more information, go to the Resources page at Brady Ware and Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.  And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Betty Collins
So, today, we’re going to talk about keeping emotion out of difficult conversations. Not always something that easy, and I hate that when they say, “Well, women are so emotional,” it’s somewhat irritating. But okay, I like emotion, okay? And I want to feel something or be moved, or I look to sometimes, really, that emotions are obviously positive. When I think of emotions, I think of passion and drivers, and it’s that ‘why’ of something. So, today I want to talk about when we keep emotions out of something, especially a difficult conversation.

[00:00:37] Betty Collins
Why do we want to do that? So, that you’ll have some success as you navigate, and it could be easier for you. So, also, I want to do this, so you don’t spend 10 minutes, or so, you can spend 10 minutes instead of 10 hours or 10 weeks, it just works better when you do that. So, sometimes emotions during difficult conversations, oh, can really hold you back. So, I’m interviewing on a really amazing woman today. Her name is Jen Grant. Her resume is so impressive. Obviously, her success is evident. It’s everywhere, when I read her articles and see her interviews, very inspiring.

[00:01:16] Betty Collins
And when I read her journey about how she spent the last 20 years building companies from the ground up, and taking multiple companies to over a billion-dollar valuation, I get excited about that as a CPA. Who’s a passionate- I’m passionate about the marketplace, and having success in it. And I love being around women in business who love just the game of business. So, when I read and listened, and interviewed women who have success like Jen Grant, I’m pretty sure that they understand the importance of keeping emotions out of those difficult conversations.

[00:01:52] Betty Collins
It really is a crucial skill set. I’m also sure that they have applied it more than one time. So, I want to talk to a very successful woman about this skill set, and get her insight. So, today, again, my guess is Jen Grant, and she is the CEO of Appify; by the way, where convenience is at your fingertips. She’s led three successful billion-dollar IPOs, and she is constantly looking at the bigger picture and has a passion for building brands from the ground up. In her past, she spent time working with Google, where she was part of the Google- I’m sorry, the Google Apps, edu, Gmail and Books search marketing teams.

[00:02:34] Betty Collins
And in 2007, she received the Founder’s Award, which is a pretty big award at Google, it’s the most prestigious award for her marketing leadership. So, I want to welcome Jen Grant to my podcast, and I thank you so much for being here today, and talking with my audience. Which a lot of it’s- I have men that listen to this, but a lot of women in business, or women who are business owners.
Now, Jen, I had made a big assumption that when you are building something from the ground up, that there is, sometimes, not a lot of time for emotion. And I’m confident that you have the skill set of keeping those emotions out of difficult conversations. But first, I want to get to know you a little bit. So, tell me a little bit about you, and being the CEO at Appify.

[00:03:22] Jen Grant
I’m excited to be here, excited to talk about it. This is actually one of my favorite conversations, because I think it’s so critical for for women, and how they show up in business. But yes, first, let me tell you a little bit about myself. So, I actually started as CEO at Appify, February of last year. So, it’s been a wild year. It’s my first CEO position after being CMO at many companies before that. And so, we have ridden through the pandemic ups and downs, and crazy times.

[00:04:00] Betty Collins
Good for you.

Certainly, emotions and difficult conversations are all over the place, and it’s actually been wonderful. At Appify, what we are doing is making it easy for anyone to build business applications or business apps. So, we have no-code technology, so similar to way back when if you wanted a website, you had to get a developer, and then all of a sudden Wix and Squarespace came along, and made it easy. And that’s what we’re doing for business apps, so that anyone and their business can avoid manual tasks, get rid of paper, be more efficient, be more agile, be able to pick up and change their business model at the drop of a hat, if they need to. So, we’re really passionate about helping businesses get the kind of agility they need to deal with what just happened to us this last year. To shift quickly and change. And that’s what we’re all about.

[00:05:03] Betty Collins
Well, I was really good until you said, “We help people get rid of their paper.” I still have a lot of that in my life, that I shouldn’t have. I know that, okay? There’s just comfort, sometimes, when I do that. But I’ve learned a little bit about, this year, that I don’t have to have as much paper in my life.

[00:05:21] Jen Grant
For sure.

[00:05:21] Betty Collins
But I was really- when I was drawn to this topic, because women struggle with it, and then I saw your success. I couldn’t help but think you would have amazing insight and experience with it, especially when you’ve built something from the ground up. So, help women who struggle with this, give us your insight. What have you seen?

[00:05:44] Jen Grant
And I’ll start by telling a story of early in my career. So, I was much younger, and when we’re younger, we’re very passionate about, “This is how it should be,” and, “Why are you saying that dumb thing?” And of course, also, I wasn’t the CEO. I wasn’t even a CMO, I was just a member of the team. And this was when I was at Google, I was a part of the Google Books search team, which was incredibly inspiring because we were making books searchable on Google, and also incredibly crisis-focused.

[00:06:28] Jen Grant
So, there were authors and publishers, there was all sorts of, is this fair use of the Copyright Act, or is this illegal? There was a lot of action, and it came down on the team, and certainly on the marketing side, which is what I led. And so, heightened emotion, in crisis, everyone is very driven, solved the problems, there’s a lot going on. And I remember having conversations where my passion and my feelings got out ahead of me, where, effectively, someone would say something that was just not a good idea. And I would say, “Well, that doesn’t make sense. What we need to do is…”

[00:07:17] Betty Collins
Foot in mouth, but okay.

[00:07:20] Jen Grant
That’s exactly right. And I started to realize that I was, I don’t know, leaning too far forward, if there’s a way to talk about it like that. And I had this wonderful- I was very, very lucky at Google, and in much of my career, that I was reporting to a woman. So, in my early career, I had managers who understood me to some extent. And she ended up joining some of our meetings, seeing what was going on. And I watched her take on calmly this- and by the way, these are all men with very emotional about all this crisis that we were going through.

[00:08:04] Jen Grant
“We need to do this. We need to do that. Why are we doing this?” This whole sea of stress. And I watched her very calmly manage the situation in a way that I hadn’t thought of before. And it was one of those moments where I went, “Okay, wait a minute. This worked out way better.” And they all walked out of the meeting thinking, “Wow, that Michelle, she’s really got a hold of the situation, and driving through.” And what I started to think is, “Okay. So, clearly I am not handling this in the best way possible. What can I learn from this situation?” And so, that was the start of my journey in thinking about emotion in business, step one is the impact of remaining calm cannot be overstated.

[00:09:00] Betty Collins
But you know what was great about that is, you probably, maybe, didn’t see that in yourself till you saw another woman mentor you, and she didn’t know she was doing it. And you saw, that’s how you can be impactful with your emotion, or no emotion, or everyone thinks. And she probably went back to her office screaming, who knows? But in that moment, she kept it there. So, you were fortunate to see that, because a lot of people don’t get to see that side.

[00:09:35] Jen Grant
That’s absolutely right. And it was, certainly- and I think it’s fair to say we all struggle. And I don’t know why, if it’s nature, or nurture, or society, or whatever. I do think it’s a lot easier for a man to get emotional and people not to react negatively.

[00:09:58] Betty Collins
No, that’s absolutely a true statement. And I want to take it one step further with you. And I don’t have that in our questions, so I’m going to improvise here. But my question really is, why is this more of a topic for women, and why do we struggle with the skill set? But really, it’s not even just in that moment she was calm, if a man would have gotten emotional afterwards, everyone wouldn’t have thought anything about it.

That’s right.

[00:10:33] Betty Collins
So, it’s also how we clean up the mess or respond. I don’t know if that makes sense when I say it like that. But why is it more of a topic for women, besides men get away with this? Women just don’t have the skill set at times. I see it over and over again in my own company. And so, I just really wanted to talk about it today.

[00:10:56] Jen Grant
And I’m not entirely sure why, but I do agree with you. I think maybe it’s how we were nurtured, that it’s okay to have feelings. And, of course, I’m of a generation where it was okay for girls to cry, but it was not okay for boys to cry. There were definite gender differences that were somewhat ingrained in our culture. And I do think, now I have young people on my team, I do think there is a shift and a change, and there is more openness to men sharing more emotions. And who knows? Maybe as they come up in business, they will start encountering these same moments, where, like, “Maybe I shouldn’t let it out at this moment.”

[00:11:46] Betty Collins
You just said the key thing, “At this moment.” There’s a time to have emotions, like I talked to at the beginning, I think they’re good. I like passion, they’re drivers. They’re things that navigate and change us. but we just have to know when to use them.

[00:12:04] Jen Grant
Yes, exactly.

[00:12:04] Betty Collins
So, it’s hard not to get worked up emotionally when you’re in that difficult conversation, you can’t help it. And defensive just sets in, you’re feeling threatened, or there’s the four-letter F word called fear. You’ve been there more than once. What is the common response to getting worked up, and what should it be? Can you give us some insight on that?

[00:12:30] Jen Grant
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I had a coach say this to me once, where I was in a situation where I had a difficult boss. He was very forceful and always, “Well, this is how it is.” And my instinct would be to say, “No, you’re wrong.” And then he would say, “Well, you get very defensive, Jen.” And I’d be like, “God.”

[00:12:59] Betty Collins
Okay, so what?

[00:13:02] Jen Grant
So, I was like, “Okay, this is not working. How do I get this to work?” And one of the things this coach, who’s actually also a good friend of mine, said to me was, “You need to ask questions. You need to get them to continue to share their point until you can find something you agree with, and then zero in on that.” And it was really a transformational moment for me to get this very simple piece of advice, that instead of saying, “No, you’re wrong,” to say, “Well, tell me more, because I don’t totally understand your point of view, and I really want to make sure I’ve got it, so that I can understand where you’re coming from.”

[00:13:50] Jen Grant
And just keep saying that until you get to this moment where you go, “Yes. That, I do agree with that. I do think we should do that, and you’re absolutely right.” And that was a big turning point for me in being able to manage more aggressive people around me, or emotional men around me, is, at that point, it sucks the emotion, not just out of yourself in your staying calm, but you use this deep curiosity about, “I really want to understand your point of view,” and it disarms the person that you’re talking to. So, the emotion starts to seek out of them as well.

[00:14:34] Jen Grant
And they start to think, “Oh, she’s interested in what I have to say. Oh, she’s listening to what I have to say.” Because in some cases, I found that even though they were saying all these things, they really just wanted me to acknowledge that I’d hurt them, but there wasn’t necessarily an action item that I needed to take. Other than, “I hear you. I hear what you’re saying, and I deeply understand it, because I asked you lots of questions. And now we agree on this one little point over here.” Which may not be anywhere near where they started, but it gets you back into, “Okay, now, let’s talk about this thing that I agree with and how do we make that better in the business?”

[00:15:15] Betty Collins
I did have a situation where I had to take- someone gave me the advice similar to yours. The end result was, “Take the wind out of the sail, but they’re not going to know that you’re doing that.” And it really was defining, very non-emotional, what my boundaries was. But then he was able to, as I did ask more questions and things, he was able to respond, and then it became a conversation.

[00:15:51] Jen Grant
Yes, exactly.

And I had a lot of success, and I was able to let go of that. And my emotions were saved for when I got home to my husband, instead of right there in that moment where it shouldn’t have been there, because it would have been, instead of a 10-minute conversation, 10 hours or 10 weeks of just playing this game. And I’m reading a book that it talks about, ask the question, and it’s by, he used to be a Congressman, Trey Gowdy. I think he’s from the Carolinas, and if you saw him on TV all the time, he’s just angry, he seems to be angry. So, when they had- for some reason, I was flipping channels, and there he is talking about this book about asking questions, change the conversation when you ask questions.

[00:16:39] Betty Collins
And I don’t really- didn’t care for him when I saw him as a congressman on TV angry, but when I saw him in this interview, he’s selling his book on how he’s been successful in changing the conversation and influencing, it was really, really good. So, I like that insight that you’re giving us, ask the questions. Very, very good. So, from a CEO’s perspective, as you take over in a pandemic and do these things, you’re leading a team, and, obviously, you got to leverage. And that’s the best trait a CEO can have, in my opinion, to succeed. When you see the people that you’re just letting go to that senior team, or even below them, and you see them struggling with emotions in difficult conversations. And you know it’s not going to end well, because you can see it, right? You’ve been there.

[00:17:31] Jen Grant
Right.

[00:17:31] Betty Collins
How do you try to help them? What’s the fix?

[00:17:35] Jen Grant
I think the first thing I usually try to do is diffuse. So, if we are clearly in disagreement about something, and people are starting to get heated, to be able to sometimes, “Okay, let’s take this offline, and we’re going to go to the next agenda,” to, a little bit, just diffuse, give everyone time to calm down a little bit. So, that’s definitely one thing I’ve tried. And I think there have been other times where I have stepped in, I leaned in a little bit. Because sometimes things like that will happen, and you can see that there is, maybe, one person that’s a little bit too strong, and a little bit leaning into someone else unfairly.

[00:18:23] Jen Grant
And so, there are, also, those situations where I’ve very subtly said, “Okay. Well, we can think about that, and you make a good point. But we also need to make sure we understand the such-and-so’s point.” So, there’s the the art of deciding whether this is just a diffuse situation, or if this is a situation to make sure that everyone feels that their voice is equally heard. And so, there is a personality that is more aggressive, to make them understand that, “Yes, they’ve made their point, we’ve heard them, and everyone else’s point also needs equal time.” So, I’ve seen both situations where there’s a little bit of a guess, just what feels right in the moment.

[00:19:16] Betty Collins
But it sounds like, probably, your best skill set as the CEO, is really the example of that person you saw in the meeting.

[00:19:25] Jen Grant
Yes.

[00:19:25] Betty Collins
And knowing that, “I got to portray that in work. Because at the end of the day, I want to influence and impact. If I’m going to do that, I have to have that skill set.” And it’s a hard one for women, it really is.

[00:19:39] Jen Grant
It really is, yeah. And then being able to take whatever is happening into a one-on-one conversation. Because that’s, really, where you can get a little bit- you get a little more emotional when you’re one-on-one, if it’s a more of a coaching-mentoring conversation to say, “Hey, I saw you were very passionate about this, let’s talk it through, and tell me more.” And often, then, I will give the person, or if it’s in particular, a woman, advice around, “Okay, so here’s the way to diffuse the situation that you can do, if I’m not around.” And try to help.

[00:20:18] Betty Collins
I just had someone who got- she’s another woman, and she got very emotional in a meeting, and she just made herself look ridiculous. And I said to her a couple of days later, I waited a few days, I said, “You have to understand how you’re being perceived sometimes.” And everybody wants to be at the table, and there’s three types of people at the table; there are people who come there and they eat, there are people who never pick up the menu, never had an intention of being engaged to order food, and then there’s people who throw the food. And they don’t know if you’re going to eat or throw the food.

[00:21:00] Betty Collins
And that’s why they walk around you on eggshells, it’s not because, necessarily, they’re men, okay? It has everything to do with they don’t know if you’re going to throw the food or eat the food. And you have to know that your perception- you still got to be you, and you still got to communicate, but if you want to be heard. I’ve tried to do with that, and I could be pretty levelheaded, or I know where I need to do… I’ve still had those moments of emotion that made it worse, but we all have, so we all have. We just [CROSSTALK].

[00:21:32] Jen Grant
We all have those days.

So, can you give the audience, just to take away, something that you would apply to them, regarding this topic, as we wind down, and then we’ll talk about something, one other thing I want to ask you.

[00:21:48] Jen Grant
I would roll it all up into curiosity, is really working on your ability to be curious, even when people come at you with emotion, or things that are wrong, or you disagree with, is just keeping that curiosity in your head, so that you’re not judging, or assuming they have a bad intention. Just curious, like, “Tell me more.” To me, that, “Tell me more,” my husband even says, “Oh, when you say that word, I know I’m pissing you off.”

[00:21:48] Betty Collins
That’s right.

[00:22:26] Jen Grant
But he’s my husband.

[00:22:27] Betty Collins
I love it. I love it. Well, I cannot thank you enough for being willing to come today. You’re an extremely busy person running a large company, a very, very, just inspiring woman that we need to see out there. So, I’m truly grateful. But one last thing I would ask, is there another podcast or a book that you would recommend for my audience today? I always love to get resources to people.

[00:22:56] Jen Grant
Totally. I’m a huge fan of Simon Sinek, and Leaders Eat Last, for me, was- I, actually, listened to the audio of it, which was, I believe, Simon reading. So, it is even more inspiring. So, I drive the same drive, and I think, “Oh, this is the moment when he explained this in the book.” But to me, that was a very inspiring book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a leader.

[00:23:22] Betty Collins
Yes, he’s wonderful. He changed my world when he- the Start With Why, or Start With Why. That was just- I went from, “I can do your QuickBooks and taxes, and we can do these things,” to, “I care about the marketplace, because when the marketplace works in this country, it works for the world.” And I care about employers paying their employees, because those are households and families that form communities.

[00:23:48] Jen Grant
I love that.

[00:23:49] Betty Collins
That whole mindset just changed. And I still do QuickBooks, I still do taxes, and I still advise people. It’s just, I figured out why I really do it. So, he’s good. He’s good. Thank you for that today. I appreciate it.

[00:24:03] Betty Collins
Well, I’m Betty Collins, and so glad you joined me today. Inspiring women, it’s what I do. I leave you with this being strong speaks of strength, but being courageous speaks to having a will to do more and overcome.

Automated transcription by Sonix 

Betty Collins, CPA, Brady Ware & Company and Host of the Inspiring Women Podcast

Betty CollinsIW8-2021square is the Office Lead for Brady Ware’s Columbus office and a Shareholder in the firm. Betty joined Brady Ware & Company in 2012 through a merger with Nipps, Brown, Collins & Associates. She started her career in public accounting in 1988.

Betty is co-leader of the Long Term Care service team, which helps providers of services to Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and nursing centers establish effective operational models that also maximize available funding. She consults with other small businesses, helping them prosper with advice on general operations management, cash flow optimization, and tax minimization strategies.

In addition, Betty serves on the Board of Directors for Brady Ware and Company. She leads Brady Ware’s Women’s Initiative, a program designed to empower female employees, allowing them to tap into unique resources and unleash their full potential.  Betty helps her colleagues create a work/life balance while inspiring them to set and reach personal and professional goals.

The Women’s Initiative promotes women-to-women business relationships for clients and holds an annual conference that supports women business owners, women leaders, and other women who want to succeed. Betty actively participates in women-oriented conferences through speaking engagements and board activity.

Betty is a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and she is the President-elect for the Columbus Chapter. Brady Ware also partners with the Women’s Small Business Accelerator (WSBA), an organization designed to help female business owners develop and implement a strong business strategy through education and mentorship, and Betty participates in their mentor match program.

She is passionate about WSBA because she believes in their acceleration program and matching women with the right advisors to help them achieve their business ownership goals. Betty supports the WSBA and NAWBO because these organizations deliver resources that help other women-owned and managed businesses thrive.

Betty is a graduate of Mount Vernon Nazarene College, a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and a member of the Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants. Betty is also the Board Chairwoman for the Gahanna Area Chamber of Commerce, and she serves on the Board of the Community Improvement Corporation of Gahanna as Treasurer.

Inspiring Women Podcast Series

This is THE podcast that advances women toward economic, social and political achievement. The show is hosted by Betty Collins, CPA; Betty is a Director at Brady Ware & Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women Initiative. Each episode is presented by Brady Ware & Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home. For more information, go to the Resources page at Brady Ware & Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

The complete Inspiring Women show archive can be found here.

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