Midtown Business Radio Archives - Page 3 of 6

Reinventing Yourself

September 3, 2015 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Reinventing Yourself

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Reinventing Yourself

On this week’s episode we continued our monthly series with IRC Wealth. CEO, Dave Ragland, and VP Business Development, Joe Schum, joined me in studio along with Debi Buckland, a certified therapist and professional coach. Our topic was reinventing yourself.

Many of us adults know the feeling of, “I need to make a change,” when it comes to thinking about one’s job. It’s hard to truly know what your true self is/wants when you’re graduating from high school and selecting an academic and professional path. That means that for a lot of us, we find ourselves wanting to transition to something else that will be more in line with our spirit and personal values.

With his background as a financial planner and wealth adviser, David talked about how important it is for individuals to consider their personal values and wants relating to their quality of life and standard of living when thinking about making changes that will affect their income. Clearly, leaving one’s job to pursue a dream, whether that’s a new career move or retirement will involve a measure of financial risk.

By sitting down with experts such as David when in the planning phase, risk can be mitigated by understanding obligations, getting a plan for debt elimination, potentially making changes in standard of living expenses, and developing a time line that will facilitate addressing these issues as well as allowing the individual to enjoy their new pursuits.

As a therapist who spends much time speaking with individuals who are wanting to make a change in their lives, she talked about how important it is to be moving toward something more than running away from something. We also discussed how important it is to talk to one’s partner about the changes they’re contemplating since they will also affect their life as well.

As we talked through the show, it was clear that all our experts agree–it can be a great thing for us to find The Thing that allows us to be more authentic, more who we really are. And it was also obvious that sitting down with an expert to craft a plan isn’t simply going to end in being told, “No, you shouldn’t do that.” With some diligence and some planning with qualified pros, you might find you can make that transition to the new you sooner (and more safely) than you think.

David Ragland, CEO/Founder, IRC Wealth

Joe Schum, VP Business Development, IRC Wealth

Debi Buckland, LMFT, LPC, CPCS

Yacht Rock Revue and Ignited Entertainment Group

August 19, 2015 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Yacht Rock Revue and Ignited Entertainment Group

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Peter Stroud & Dave Sutton talk Emerging Artist Network

Yacht Rock Revue and Ignited Entertainment Group

I sat down with co-founders of Emerging Artist Network, Dave Sutton and Peter Stroud to learn about the cool technology platform they created to pair bands with brands that are looking to integrate music into their marketing efforts.

They brought along Nick Niespodziani, lead singer and co-founder of the popular Atlanta-based, Yacht Rock Revue, and Sonny Del Grosso, founder of Ignited Entertainment Group, and former manager for the Zac Brown Band in their early days. Nick and Sonny shared their stories and how their respective businesses evolved to where they are now.

check back soon for more information!

Special Guests:

Dave Sutton, CEO/Co-Founder of Emerging Artist Network

MBA, Marketing, George Washington University
Published Author
President/CEO, TopRight Partners

Peter Stroud, Co-Founder/ Artist Relations of Emerging Artist Network

Guitarist, Musical Director for Sheryl Crow
Co-Founder/Partner, 65amps
Founder of the band, Big Hat

Nick Niespodziani of Yacht Rock Revue

BA, English, Indiana University Bloomington
Previous Director of Business Development, Camp Jam
Former President, Jamling

Sonny Del Grosso of Ignited Entertainment Group

BA, Communication, Florida State University
Former Manager, Zac Brown Band
Previous Senior Marketing Manager, Turner Broadcasting System/Turner South

Self-funded Health Plans

August 15, 2015 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Self-funded Health Plans

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Self-funded Health Plans

On this episode of Midtown Business Radio I featured two Atlanta area companies that help business from a couple of directions. John Mamon, CEO of mPoweredIT, came by to talk about their outsourced IT solution. He introduced us to Brian Keen, President/CEO of Health Cooperative Strategies.

mPowered IT is an IT support services provider focused on delivering the entire IT value chain to small and medium medical practices and businesses. Offerings include fixed fee IT support, cloud services, backup and disaster recovery, and managed network security.

John shared how he came to starting his service company that enables medical practices and small to mid-sized businesses focus on their core functions rather than spending unproductive time trying to maintain and manage their IT hardware, software, and infrastructure.

We talked about the fact that for most small- to mid-sized businesses it makes sense to outsource the IT management function in order to maximize reliability of vital IT elements, their security, and compliance, while at the same time, spending less than would be required if they were to hire a skilled expert themselves.

Brian talked about how Health Cooperative Strategies collaborates with associations, chambers of commerce, and other large groups such as GPO’s to create self-funded health plans. In this way, these organizations are able to offer large-group-type health plans that in some cases, equals the benefits and member expense as a 10,000+ employee company.

We talked about how, before the ACA, health plans were able to offer discounted rates to organizations such as these for insuring large, mostly-healthy groups for inclusion in the plan. The recent level of implementation of the ACA changed that, making it impossible for companies participating in exchanges to offer such a discounted, minimal-risk group plan.

Health Cooperative Strategies fills that void. They are able to work with these organizations who seek to provide such benefits to help them create a self-funded plan and/or to combine with other similar groups to forge an even-larger group that helps them offer outstanding benefits for a comparatively low rate.

Special Guests

John Mamon, CEO/Founder, mPoweredIT

Associates Degree, Information Technology, Bryant and Stratton College
Previous VP, Professional Services, BMC Solutions
Former Executive VP, CDI Managed Services

Brian Keen, President/CEO, Health Cooperative Strategies

Romanoff Renovations and Solution Road

July 24, 2015 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Romanoff Renovations and Solution Road

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Romanoff Renovations and Solution Road

This week I was joined in studio by guest co-host, Bo Wilkins, of Sound River Advisors. Sound River Advisors is a collection of experts who help privately-held businesses create compensation packages designed to retain key high-value executives. Their compensation plans help preserve the owners’ equity in their business while rewarding the leaders who have helped build the business.

We sat down with Doug Romanoff, founder of Romanoff Renovations, a flooring installation company he started in 1974. Doug described how, as a young man recently out of college, he decided he wanted to start his own company after working for another company for a while. He shared how at the time, he had only $300 in his bank account. So, he would buy some discontinued carpeting nearby, go into the city and market it to apartment complexes that were renovating, selling them the product he’d bought and installing it for them.

Over the ensuing 40 years he became one of Home Depot’s largest contractors, installing their flooring at over 400 of their locations around the country. His business has grown from that one man start-up to a business with over 2000 installers, billing over $100 million per year.

We also talked about how he established a charitable foundation through the company called The Romanoff Foundation, focused on helping individuals and families in the community who are struggling.

Solution Road is a not-for-profit whose mission is to help organizations in need of fundraising. Sarah Smith and her colleague, Charlie Craig, came by to talk about how they put their skills at relationship-building to work for the organizations they serve to help them achieve their goals.

This new company’s first client is GeoVax, an Atlanta-based organization that is in the later stages of testing the vaccine they have developed to prevent HIV. GeoVax is also now actively working to develop a vaccine that will successfully prevent Ebola as well.

Sarah and Charlie explained how rewarding it is for them to be helping an organization with such far-reaching impact if they are successful in their efforts. We were pleased to help them tell their story!

Special Guests:

Bo Wilkins, Partner, SoundRiver Advisors

Former Executive Managing Director, Wealth Management, Reliance Trust Company
Former Partner, Nease, Lagana, Eden, & Culley
BA, History & German, Hampden-Sydney College
CLU – Chartered Life Underwriter; ChFC – Chartered Financial Consultant; CAP – Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy

Doug Romanoff, CEO/Founder, of Romanoff Renovations

Sarah K. Smith, CEO/Founder, of Solution Road

Masters Degree, English, University of Essex
Previous Director, Corporate Marketing, Emory University
Former Vice President, The Emmy Awards Foundation
Previous Director, Special Projects, TEDx Peachtree

Charlie Craig, COO of Solution Road

Master of Arts, Bioethics, Emory University
Master’s Degree, Journalism, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
Previous Author and Editor, Global Technology Report, Ernst & Young
Former President, Georgia Bio

Bruce Kasanoff

July 15, 2015 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Bruce Kasanoff

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Bruce Kasanoff

This week I sat down with author and social media ghostwriter, Bruce Kasanoff. I became familiar with Bruce through his frequent featured posts on LinkedIn Pulse. It was through one of those posts I learned about his book, “How To Self-Promote Without Being a Jerk“. We talked about how he got into ghostwriting for businesses looking to improve and expand their social media content, as well his two of his books.

Bruce shared how he had spent several years in marketing, becoming somewhat jaded with the process of the status quo of typical marketing methods. He described how he had been a writer for the paper at Wharton School and how he enjoyed the process of creating well-written content. We talked about how, as LinkedIn began to develop contributors for Pulse, their public published content platform, he decided to reach out and inquire if he could provide posts. His inquiry was accepted and, over 300 posts later, he’s a regular feature on LinkedIn.

Bruce described how he was exposed to the concept of Service First while in business school and how that notion really resonated with him. He enjoyed the opportunity to be able to write about how to incorporate the idea of being a “successful giver” into personal and professional interactions. We talked about his book (which I really enjoyed) “How To Self-Promote Without Being a Jerk”, which explains how self-promotion is a natural (and necessary) activity we all engage in throughout our interpersonal interactions.

The caveat of doing self-promotion without being a jerk involves the concept of contemplating how you can help the individual(s) you are interacting with in a given moment before engaging in attempts to achieve your more self-serving goals such as “The Sale”.

We discussed his more recent publication, “Givers Deliver: Grow Your Career By Helping Others“. Bruce talked about how it’s possible to consider the needs of others while at the same time addressing your own needs, resulting in win-win situations and interactions that ultimately end in greater success in your career.

Bruce’s writing style is very conversational and unpretentious and has elements of humor that keep the reader turning the pages. It’s clear in speaking with him that he embraces the concepts of “How can I help this person?” and being a successful giver in his daily life. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk to him about his writing and I look forward to digging into more of his works. You will too!

Special Guest:

Bruce Kasanoff of kasanoff.com

MBA, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Former Commissioner, Westport Planning and Zoning Commission
Author of multiple published titles
Previous Partner, Pepper & Rogers Group

Transition Planning

June 23, 2015 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Transition Planning

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Transition Planning

I sat down with NOWaccount CFO, Archie Jones and his colleague, NOWaccount Chairman, John Hayes. They stopped by to share some thoughts on how business owners need to start planning for how they intend to transition their business when it comes time, whether that’s selling it to a buyer or passing it to family members.

John and Archie talked about some of the common missteps business owners make that can complicate or delay sale of a business, or even cause the sale to fail. We talked about how important it is to choose capital sources carefully, taking a few minutes to discuss factoring, business loans, and NOWaccount’s innovative merchant services option that gives the business access to their accounts receivable cash and preventing the need to acquire debt.

We discussed how important it is for business owners to insure they are on the same page with all partners with regard to what the plan is for the “end game”—sell or transition the business to family. Archie and John shared the pros and cons of various business structures such as LLC’s versus C Corp, for example. Three topics of conversation that owners need to have: How will the company be operated? Will all members/partners have roles or equal votes in decisions? How much revenue will be taken for salaries for partners? What is the “horizon” for deciding if/when to sell if that’s the goal?

John and Archie shared a number of critical points that make a business very attractive for a seller (or unattractive). Archie talked about how important it is for business owners to educate themselves on the potential market for buyers of their business when they go to sell.

Special Guests:

Archie Jones, VP of Finance/CFO of NOWaccount

MBA General Management, Harvard Business School
Previous Principal and Charter Member, Parthenon Capital
Member, Board of Directors, AIT Worldwide Logistics
Founder, Tubman Ventures

John Hayes, Chairman of NOWaccount

JD, Law, Emory University School of Law
Previous CEO/Chairman, FTRANS Corp.
Founder and Former CEO, OneCoast Network
Founded Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech

IRC Wealth

June 2, 2015 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

IRC Wealth

00:00 / 00:58:07

IRC Wealth

This week I sat down with financial experts, David Ragland and Joe Schum, of IRC Wealth. David shared his story about how he has spent his career helping businesses and individuals navigate their financial decisions and planning. We talked about how he gained valuable experience as a consultant with Ernst & Young then as a CFO of a troubled company that helped him bring a high level of strategic advice to companies as an outsourced CFO.

He, along with his team, including Joe, continues to help people develop an effective, simple plan to achieve their financial goals. That may be getting a business on a track that will allow the owners to eventually sell it or transition it to heirs, depending on their particular plan. Or, it may be helping an individual get their family out of craft an effective budget, eliminate debt, develop cash reserves, and even know what they need to do to actually retire safely one day.

We talked about how Dave had experienced a period where he let his fitness decline, ultimately becoming ~75 pounds overweight. He decided to address that by training for an Ironman triathlon, when he had previously been doing little to no physical training. He set a goal to complete a full Ironman in 18 months. By setting a defined time goal, he was able to develop a training strategy that allowed him to evaluate his progress and keep himself on a schedule that continually moved him closer to his goal.

He realized that there are parallels between the way one must approach training for such an event and developing a plan and timeline for achieving financial freedom. He decided to write a book in which he could talk about those analogies to help readers understand they CAN achieve financial freedom, even though it initially seems impossible—much like it can seem impossible to go from not being physically active to completing a full-length Ironman triathlon.

I had the opportunity to read the book, “Wealth Made Simple (Yes, Really)”. It’s a quick read and the comparisons between a training regimen and the mindset needed to achieve an athletic goal and getting out of debt/becoming financially free are easy to understand. He provides several tools to give the reader the chance to develop an understanding of where they are now along with some measure of what to expect over time, given their goals.

After reading the book and meeting these two experts I can say I would easily recommend speaking to them to see how they can help you or your business develop an effective, simple to implement plan to achieve a strong financial position.

Special Guests:

David Ragland, CEO, IRC Wealth

Joe Schum

Pitch The Crowd

May 19, 2015 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Pitch The Crowd

00:00 / 01:00:05

Pitch The Crowd

I met JR McNair a few months ago when I was just getting started here with the Midtown studio. He is an Atlanta native and hometown sports star that now resides in South Fulton County.

While in College J.R. started a business development company that since its inception has helped over 3,000 small business owners. J.R. is an avid learner and prides himself on mastering a new business skill every 12 months. J.R. has helped incorporate almost 1,000 entities and as such is an expert in the field of corporate formations. J.R. McNair started his first business at the age of 10 years old and has personally started, branded, invested or sold over 30 businesses since that time.

He came by to talk about his newest effort—Pitch The Crowd, a show he recently launched on cable TV here in Atlanta. The show, which currently will air a new episode quarterly, is similar to the popular Shark Tank. With Pitch The Crowd, the goal is to pitch your business or not-for-profit to the crowd funding space.

He brought along several guests who had appeared on the show’s first episode. Emmenette Mason oversees a non-profit organization focused on giving Atlanta young people and adults education on entrepreneurship through a series of weekly workshops in the summer in addition to other educational offerings. IXOYE Global Entrepreneurship Network, or IXGEN for short, has already seen success, with numerous young people who have gone through the program coming back to talk about how they have successfully launched their own small businesses based on what they learned from IXGEN.

IXOYE Global Entrepreneurship Network (IXGEN), is a Georgia nonprofit organization created to provide business support services to assist in creating, strengthening and expanding grassroots micro and small enterprises, and guiding them toward national and international levels of entrepreneurship. IXGEN’s mission is to facilitate access to resources, provide information, technical assistance, training, counseling and other support services, to micro and small entrepreneurs to enable them to promote, strengthen and grow their businesses. IXGEN is committed to ‘promoting a global perspective for micro entrepreneurs in the USA and in Africa.

IXGEN passionately advocates (non-politically), the need for entrepreneurial education as an integral part of the middle and high school curricula throughout the USA and Africa. In this regard, IXGEN has initiated a youth empowerment program (iYEP), for youth in middle and high schools, as well as for young adults. The Youth Empowerment Program (iYEP), is an annual Entrepreneurship, Leadership, & Life Skills Training that provides opportunities for the young people to develop the competencies they need to become successful individuals, and potential business owners.

IXGEN has developed strategic collaborations/partnerships with individual entrepreneurs, philanthropists, development practitioners, governmental and non-governmental agencies, and faith-based organizations that are engaged in economic and community development.

Deontae Trundle came by to talk about Indie Film Loop. The Indie Film Loop is a three-day Film Conference and Creative Showcase that starts on Friday, August 7th, 2015 and ends on Sunday, August 9th. It is projected to be the Southeast regionʼs premiere marketplace for Independent talents within the film & media industries. Attendees will have the opportunity to discover new creative talents within the industry by seeing the showcased participants engaged in intense film related competitions and more. Participants will also be able to gain valuable knowledge from industry leading professionals through thought provoking panel discussions and keynotes, interactive workshops and collaborative opportunities making The Indie Film Loop a vibrant avenue for career development. Emerging professionals of today will be able to earn the right to become the industry elites of tomorrow!

Mark Cano was a Pitch The Crowd participant who is looking for crowd funding to support his efforts to launch a state-of-the-art cosmetology school in the Atlanta area. Having been exposed to the industry of cosmetology education with his wife while living in Florida. Mark’s wife, who has many years of experience in cosmetology was invited to help build a new school in their community and they became intrigued by the possibilities.

Mark has leveraged his background in investment banking, his wife’s experience, and their work as owners of the MedSpa in Johns Creek to develop a passion to build a cosmetology school the he hopes will be the go-to option for the region.

Special Guests:

JR McNair, Business Service Pros, Pitch The Crowd

Founder, Business Service Pros
Launched his first business, age 10

Emmenette Mason, IXOYE Global Entrepreneurship Network

MBA, Entrepreneurship Development, University of Akron
Founder, Youth Empowerment Program
Member, National Association of Professional Women
Counselor, SCORE (Business counseling of SBA, Georgia Chapter)

Deontae Trundle, Managing Partner, Indie Film Loop

AA, Applied Business with focus in Graphic Design, Coyehoga Community College
Produced “Mr. Amazing”, 2009 Atlanta Film project Competition in Atlanta, Winning 5 “Best Of” Awards
Previous Creative Director, Upris Corp
Creative Director/Founder, Creative Synergy Design, LLC

Talking IT Strategy with Atlanta’s CIO Samir Saini

May 12, 2015 by angishields

Midtown Business Radio

Talking IT Strategy with Atlanta's CIO Samir Saini

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IT Strategy in Atlanta

This week I had the special treat of sitting down with a long-time acquaintance of mine, Samir Saini, Atlanta’s recently-appointed CIO (2014). He shared the story of his professional journey, beginning as an IT program manager with General Electric and his experience of successful completion of their 2 yr leadership training program.

He spent 10 years with this well-respected organization before accepting the opportunity to step into the role of VP, Corporate Strategy in IT for the MGM International Resorts in Las Vegas. They were in the middle of tackling the IT challenges that come with acquiring several established companies into an existing enterprise, in this case, several well-known hotels.

He was able to successfully lead them through the process of moving the hotels onto a common platform, allowing the company to begin to leverage their company’s size through its expanded buying power and maximize efficiencies in numerous other areas.

Samir returned to Atlanta several years ago, this time bringing his leadership and IT expertise to bear in the public sector, taking a role with Atlanta’s Housing Authority. Four years later he was appointed to be the new CIO for the City of Atlanta by Mayor Kasim Reed.

We talked about the challenges a municipality the size of Atlanta faces, balancing budgetary constraints against a myriad of government agencies, the world’s busiest airport, large population and infrastructure necessary to support them, along with a fast-growing business sector.

Samir discussed several of the tech solutions he and his team are working on and several that are already implemented to the benefit of Atlanta residents. Until we spoke I wasn’t aware that the city provides free Wi-Fi access in Piedmont Park, Grant Park, and numerous other hotspots (with more coming).

He shared the city’s plans to update the fiber optic network to allow for numerous tech upgrades such as synchronized traffic lights to alleviate gridlock, applications that allow drivers to easily locate available parking, and more. I also had the chance to ask him about the priorities he has laid out for the city going forward to address the enormous tech needs of our city to prepare us for the years to come that will make the city a better place to live as a resident and a solid choice for businesses looking for a place to plant their flag.

Special Guest:

Samir Saini, CIO, Commissioner, City of Atlanta