professional services Archives - Page 14 of 14

Branden Lisi, Object 9

September 8, 2020 by John Ray

North Fulton Business Radio

Branden Lisi, Object 9

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Branden Lisi, Object 9 (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 280)

Branden Lisi, Object 9, joins host John Ray to discuss how digital marketing channels work in a pandemic for generating leads and revenue, success stories, and more. “North Fulton Business Radio” is produced virtually by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.

Branden Lisi, Partner and Brand Strategist, Object 9

Object 9 develops marketing programs that build awareness and growth through sales, public relations and advertising activities. Our brand strategists use research and experience to uncover new and unexpected customer insights. These insights, in turn, drive “campaigns” and “promotions” that are executed in traditional and digital channels by our creative team.

Company Website

Questions/Topics Discussed in this Show

Competing for business on the internet
Tradeshows and other traditional channels through which salespeople generate relationships are closed right now. Their clients are growing because they have a plan.
Generating leads for all types of B2B; manufacturing, franchise development, professional services all need digital
Paid digital gets you to the front of the mind; versus SEO and content marketing which are a long, slower game.
Martech stack 5 layers:
1. inbound;
2. website,
3. CRM/marketing automation;
4. Email
5. Analytics
Understand your customers channels; where are they reading, listening and watching right now. Don’t assume; research, then plan accordingly.

North Fulton Business Radio” is hosted by John Ray and produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Franchise Marketing Radio: Rick Porter with Cinch I.T.

January 30, 2020 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Franchise Marketing Radio: Rick Porter with Cinch I.T.

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

Richard (Rick) Porter is the Owner and President of Cinch IT, Inc. Rick has an unwavering commitment to helping entrepreneurs make their dreams come true. As President, he leads Cinch IT’s Franchise in delivering best-in-class customer service and driving innovation.

Rick was a member of the US Army’s Special Operation Community, Recipient of the Worcester Business Journals 40 under 40, named one of the Top 10 Best CEO’s of 2018, Chairman of the Better Business Bureau of Central and Western Massachusetts and the Founder of Cinch Scholarship Foundation.

Follow Cinch I.T. on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

What Cinch I.T. does
Franchise Differentiation
What is an ideal franchise owner

Decision Vision Episode 48: Should I Hire a Business Development Professional? – An Interview with Susan O’Dwyer, Aprio, and Ann McDonald, Morris Manning & Martin, LLP

January 23, 2020 by John Ray

Decision Vision

Decision Vision Episode 48: Should I Hire a Business Development Professional? - An Interview with Susan O'Dwyer, Aprio, and Ann McDonald, Morris Manning & Martin, LLP

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Decision Vision Episode 48: Should I Hire a Business Development Professional? – An Interview with Susan O’Dwyer, Aprio, and Ann McDonald, Morris Manning & Martin, LLP

What qualities should I look for in a business development professional? What makes a business development professional successful? The answers to these questions and much more come in this discussion with two accomplished business development professionals: Susan O’Dwyer, Aprio, and Ann McDonald, Morris Manning & Martin, LLP. “Decision Vision” is hosted by Mike Blake and presented by Brady Ware & Company.

Susan O’Dwyer, Aprio

Susan O’Dwyer is Director of Corporate Citizenship and Community Relations at Aprio. Susan’s specialty lies in the technology and venture capital industries, two industries that go together hand-in-hand. She is known throughout the Atlanta business community for her passion for connections, which resulted in Susan being recognized as one of the Top 50 women you need to know in Atlanta by the Atlanta Business Chronicle, as one of the 100 most influential people in the tech community and as a finalist for the 2012 Turknett Leadership Character Awards.

Some of her affiliations include the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, Board Member of the Ron Clark Academy, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce’s Technology Marketing Committee’s Venture Capital Program Chairperson. In addition, Susan and her son led efforts for relief for Tuscaloosa, Alabama, after their devastating tornadoes in 2011.

Since their founding in 1952, Aprio has grown to be the largest independent, full-service CPA-led professional services firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. Their over 450 partners and associates provide their best thinking and personal commitment to every client, demonstrating a passion for their work that fuels client success.

Aprio provides advisory, assurance, tax, cloud accounting and private client services across a variety of sectors, including insurance, manufacturing and distribution, non-profit, education, professional services, real estate, construction, retail, franchise, hospitality, technology, and biosciences.

You can find Susan on LinkedIn, and for more information on Aprio, go to their website.

Ann McDonald, Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP

Ann McDonald is a Director of Business Development of Corporate Technology and Healthcare IT at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP. Prior to Morris Manning, Ann was been a regional sales director at INVeSHARE, a managing consultant for Gallup Organization, and vice president of marketing, e-commerce and various roles at Walsh Healthcare Solutions for over 10 years. Some of Ann’s affiliations’ activities include Chair of the Board of Directors of the Technology Executives Roundtable, member of the Board of Directors of the FinTech Society, the Technology Association of Georgia, member of the Board of Directors at the Southeastern Software Association of the Technology Association of Georgia, and past chair of the Southeast Medical Device Association Annual Conference.

Morris, Manning & Martin is an American law 200 law firm with national and international reach. They dedicate themselves to the constant pursuit of their clients’ success. To provide their clients with optimal value, they combined market-leading legal services with a total understanding of their needs to maximize effectiveness, efficiency, and opportunity. Morris Manning enjoys national prominence for its real estate, corporate litigation, technology, health care, intellectual property, energy and infrastructure capital markets, environmental, international trade, and insurance practices. Morris Manning has offices in Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, Savannah, Columbus, GA, Washington, DC, and Beijing.

You can find Ann on LinkedIn, and for more information on Morris Manning, go to their website.

Michael Blake, Brady Ware & Company

**Mike Blake, Host of “Decision Vision”**

Michael Blake is 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.

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 here. “Decision Vision” is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Visit Brady Ware & Company on social media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brady-ware/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bradywareCPAs/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BradyWare

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradywarecompany/

Show Transcript

Intro: [00:00:01] 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: [00:00:20] And 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: [00:00:39] My name is Mike Blake and I’m your host for today’s program. I’m a director at Brady Ware & Company, a full-service accounting firm based in Dayton, Ohio, with offices in Dayton, Columbus, Ohio, Richmond, Indiana, and Alpharetta, Georgia, which is where we are recording today. Brady Ware is sponsoring this podcast. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast aggregator and please consider leaving a review of the podcast as well.

Mike Blake: [00:01:02] So, today, we’re going to talk about hiring a dedicated business development professional. And I started to become interested in this topic a couple of years ago when I read a book called Built to Sell. And I forget who wrote it but if you Google it, you’ll find it. And if you’re interested in kind of the process of building a business that has value that can be sold and monetized, I highly recommend it as it is not a technical book.

Mike Blake: [00:01:29] In fact, it’s basically a book that sets up a hypothetical marketing services firm and walks through the conversations that take place to understand where value comes from and what it takes to build a business to sell it. And one of the things that struck me about one of the pieces of advice they give in that book is, does your company have the ability to sell when the owner themselves is not doing the selling?

Mike Blake: [00:01:57] And I think that’s a really smart point, because if the revenue is primarily dependent upon the owner, then when the owner sells and drops her keys off and they move to a condo in Costa Rica, then, you know, what value remains in the business? Perhaps some, but not a whole lot. And so, what I found myself doing as I appraise businesses myself and as I advise people on building their businesses and preparing to sell them is to think about very early, you know, how can you create systems and resources and processes and assets that generate revenue when you’re away, right?

Mike Blake: [00:02:38] And the litmus test, I often ask people and I’ll ask this in a management interview, you know, if you go away and you’re abroad and your cellphone breaks for six weeks, what happens to your business? And sometimes, yeah, the business is great. In other times as well, I probably don’t have a business when I come back. And that’s very telling. And typically, the reason that you don’t have a business when you come back is because you don’t have somebody that is a full-time salesperson.

Mike Blake: [00:03:06] So, to me, that’s a very important inflection point. Now, here’s the challenge and the other reason I think this is a very interesting topic, as I approach my 50th trip around the sun here, I’ve seen a lot of salespeople come and go in a number of roles, a number of places where I’ve been, where there’s been services, venture capital, technology, and so forth. And one conclusion I’ve drawn over the years is I think that the hardest role to hire for in any company is sales.

Mike Blake: [00:03:41] And the reason I think that is, you know, not only because I’ve seen a pretty high failure rate over the years, but because quite candidly, salespeople may not necessarily be successful selling what they’re supposed to sell, but they’re often very good at selling themselves. And so, as a business owner, how do you kind of cut through the veneer and the facade and find out not only can that person sell, are they willing to sell? It’s amazing.

Mike Blake: [00:04:13] If you read sales books, you’ll read about how salespeople themselves are reluctant to sell, right? It’s something called call reluctance and so forth. And that’s what they signed up for. But it’s still hard to get salespeople to do that. So, you know, step one is the side that you want to have a dedicated business development person. Second then is, how do you make an assessment as to whether or not that person can and is actually willing to do what is asked of them in that role?

Mike Blake: [00:04:40] And then, third and finally and I see this in professional services, how do you hire somebody and structure that role? So that if you’re not a practitioner, you can still have success in that role. And I being in the accounting industry, we’re certainly guilty of this. It’s tempting to fall into the trap of saying, well, you know, unless you can give technical advice on the spot, you can’t possibly sell. It has to be someone that’s a really good account lawyer, business appraiser, foundation repair specialist, whatever it is, but that’s not necessarily the case.

Mike Blake: [00:05:22] I’m not saying that’s easy. It’s hard, but there’s a big difference between hard and impossible. So, I hope with that preamble, I’ve convinced you that this is a rich topic. And if you’re a business owner and executive decision maker, I think you’re going to learn a lot today from the two guests that we have. So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce our guests. And these are two people that have been good friends of mine in the community for a very long time.

Mike Blake: [00:05:51] I consider them not only friends, but I consider them the mentors. And often, even if I don’t necessarily speak with them as often as I would like, I think of them a lot, especially when I have a decision that I have to make, I think. And I ask myself, you know, what would they do? If I were talking to them, what would they say? And I know them well enough that I know what they’re going to say. If I have to ask the question, I’ve already failed.

Mike Blake: [00:06:12] So, first up, in no particular order, then I just simply decide to write these bios in that order is my dear friend Susan O’Dwyer, who is a Director at Aprio, which of whom I’m an alumnus and they’re are friendly competitor of ours and is a Director of Corporate Citizenship and Community Relations. Aprio is a premier CPA-led professional services firm, where thriving associates serve thriving clients. And on a side note, I’ve always thought that re-branding is fantastic and very effective.

Mike Blake: [00:06:43] Their purpose is clear. They advise clients that they can achieve what’s next, whatever that may be. Since its founding in 1952, Aprio has grown to be the largest independent full-service CPA-led professional services firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. They have over 450 partners and associates that provide their best thinking and personal commitment to every client demonstrating a passion for their work that fuels their client’s success. Susan’s specialty lies in the technology and venture capital industries.

Mike Blake: [00:07:09] And she’s one of the founders of something called Shaking the Money Tree from PWC. And if you’ve ever read or relied upon that publication, that is at least, in part, her brainchild. So, thank her. She’s known throughout the Atlanta business community for her passion for connections, which resulted in Susan being recognized one of the top 50 women you need to know in Atlanta by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of the 100 most influential people in the tech community and as a finalist for the 2012 Turknett Leadership Character Awards.

Mike Blake: [00:07:41] As a director of corporate citizenship and community relations, Susan access the main point of coordination regarding civic and community activities throughout the firm. Her role is to maintain open communication with civic leaders and community partners, creating goodwill on behalf of Aprio. So, having read that, why is she here? Well, before she took that role, she was a director of business development I’m guessing for about seven or eight years or so-

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:08:03] Eleven….

Mike Blake: [00:08:04] … where frankly, she kicked butt. And then, she was later promoted into this particular role. But don’t let the kind face fool you, she understands her stuff. Some of her affiliations are the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Ron Clark Academy, where she’s a board member and a big cheerleader for that organization, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce’s Technology Marketing Committee’s Venture Capital Program chairperson. And she and her son also led efforts for relief for Tuscaloosa, Alabama, after their devastating tornadoes in 2011. And I wish we had time because I would love to get her to talk about her Lady Gaga story, which I tell all the time and it just bust a gut. But maybe, we’ll have to have her back for a second podcast. So, Susan, thanks for coming on the program.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:08:52] Thank you for having me, Mike. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Mike Blake: [00:08:55] And sitting to her left is my other dear friend, Ann McDonald, who is Director of Business Development of Corporate Technology and HealthcareIT at Morris, Manning & Martin, a role she has held for 13 years. Like Susan, Ann is one of the most respected people in the Atlanta technology community. Morris, Manning & Martin is an American law 200 law firm with national and international reach. They dedicate themselves to the constant pursuit of their clients’ success.

Mike Blake: [00:09:20] To provide their clients with optimal value, they combined market-leading legal services with a total understanding of their needs to maximize effectiveness, efficiency, and opportunity. Morris Manning enjoys national prominence for its real estate, corporate litigation, technology, health care, intellectual property, energy and infrastructure capital markets, environmental, international trade, and insurance practices. Basically, everything. Morris Manning has offices in and around Atlanta, Raleigh, Durham, Savannah and Washington, D.C. Man, I would love a chance to tour the Savannah office, I love that city.

Mike Blake: [00:09:51] Prior to the role at Morris Manning, Ann has been a regional sales director at INVeSHARE, a managing consultant for Gallup Organization and vice president of marketing, e-commerce and various roles at Walsh Healthcare Solutions for over 10 years. Some of Ann’s affiliations’ activities include chair of the Board of Directors of Technology Executives Roundtable, member of the Board of Directors of the FinTech Society, the Technology Association of Georgia, member of the Board of Directors at the Southeastern Software Association of the Technology Association of Georgia, and past chair of the Southeast Medical Device Association Annual Conference. Ann, thanks for coming on.

Ann McDonald: [00:10:26] Thank you.

Mike Blake: [00:10:27] So, you guys are pretty busy, so thank you for finding time to come on the program and come out here to be on it. Asking people to travel in Atlanta is in itself a big ask. So, Ann, let me start with you. I mean, we’ve done sort of the formal introductions, but how would you describe your role at Morris Manning? When you do your own elevator pitch, what do you say?

Ann McDonald: [00:10:49] Well, let’s look at, what do I get paid to do?

Mike Blake: [00:10:54] Okay.

Ann McDonald: [00:10:54] So, I can tell you my title, but really, I get paid to help bring in new clients. And that’s through lead generation. It’s meeting with referral sources, strategic partners, it’s being part of technology, the technology ecosystem and community to meet companies and refer those companies into our firm for legal services.

Mike Blake: [00:11:18] And Susan, how about you? And let’s talk more. I’d like to start with your current role and then, kind of go back to your prior role in terms of business development. How do you describe your current role at Aprio?

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:11:29] So, my current role is to identify nonprofits where we can make a difference through my colleagues’ financial background by serving on those boards. And as a result, further our reach, our footprint across the community and identify new opportunities where we might not have met those executives in their role as a CEO or CFO of whatever company it is, but instead, through a mutual-shared passion for whatever the cause of the nonprofit is, people have the opportunity to connect.

Mike Blake: [00:12:05] And before that, you were director of business development and you were the grand poobah of sales for-

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:12:13] Hardly.

Mike Blake: [00:12:13] … Aprio, formerly known as Habif, Arogeti & Wynne, talk about that role.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:12:18] So, that role started because the firm realized that if they were going to grow the way they wanted to at the time that I joined the firm 12 years ago, I don’t think there were even 100 people there. And if the firm wanted to grow the way they wanted to, they’re going to need to cast a much wider net. So, I was recommended to the firm and joined to open doors that they had not even thought to knock on before. My Rolodex is very different than the Rolodex of the people that were already there. My job is not to supplant the partners, my job still is to supplement what they are working, who they were working with by identifying just like an additional client, prospects referral sources that can bring new business to the firm.

Mike Blake: [00:13:13] And to be clear, Susan, you’re not an accountant and you’re not a lawyer, correct?

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:13:18] That’s correct. CPA is just three letters in the alphabet to me. No, I’m not an accountant.

Mike Blake: [00:13:22] Yeah. And same here, right? I tell people, if I answer an accounting question, it’s instantly a malpractice. I don’t even do my own taxes. So, as non-practitioners, how do you think that impacted or impacts your ability to communicate the value of what you’re selling to the marketplace? Do you think that gives you a different perspective that is helpful? Do you think it holds you back in some way? What do you guys think? Ann, why don’t you start?

Ann McDonald: [00:13:53] Okay. Well, I have a background in business and I’ve, as you said, never worked for a law firm before. But when I talk to companies, I talk about their business with them, ask them questions about it, and find out what their needs are and then, refer them to the subject matter expert within our firm who can help their businesses grow through legal practices. Also, one of the things that I do is to help prevent the value-added services that we’re known for.

Ann McDonald: [00:14:30] So, I leverage my network of relationships to help that company grow as one of our clients. So, it could be introductions to sources of capital, it could be introductions to organizations where they will meet prospects, strategic partners of their own and then, also introduce them to potential clients who are also clients of ours. So, those are things that don’t have to do with providing legal services, but it’s a value add for our clients.

Mike Blake: [00:15:08] And Susan, how about yourself? Was not being a CPA, that gives you any kind of advantage in the market? And were there times where you felt like maybe it held you back in some way?

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:15:21] So, I was a journalism major. I never took a class in business in my life. But what I was taught was how to get the story out of a person so that we could tell it to our readers. Okay. So, I ask a lot of questions. I don’t talk a lot other than to ask questions. And as Ann suggested, that’s really just to identify what colleague would be the best source of answer for whatever it is their question is. In some ways, I think it’s been a benefit not being an accountant, because I don’t have a clue what the answer is. So, I can really focus on figuring out what their question is.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:16:01] Sometimes, the client doesn’t exactly know, but by me rephrasing back to them what I hear them saying, sometimes, we’ve redirected what it was they thought they needed to something else. The other thing I would say is that I obviously can’t speak for lawyers, but for the accountants that I work with, sometimes, I think they can be very focused on what it is they know, but they’re not so comfortable with maybe what our other colleagues do. So, it’s being able to recognize opportunity for anybody in the firm as just opposed to what it is they specifically are able to do, which means we have a lot better shot of bringing them in as a client.

Mike Blake: [00:16:49] And that’s something. So, I want to follow-up on that. When you’re a practitioner and I am a practitioner, it is easy to fall into the trap that no matter what you see, it looks like something you do, right? There’s a saying that when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? So, if I was an auditor and I’m talking to a potential client, then I’m thinking in terms of, how would an audit help this client, right?

Mike Blake: [00:17:15] Because that’s how I’m wired. Not that you’re a bad person, but that’s just sort of what your world view is, whereas the proper treatment of that conversation is to probe and maybe audit falls out of that, maybe tax falls out of that, maybe something entirely different falls out of that. And as more of a generalist, if I can use that for lack of a better term, that positions you and empowers you to, I guess, becoming more broadly curious.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:17:42] The other thing I would say is that, well, it’s my job to help identify what the issue is and who the right subject matter expert is. I don’t have to know how to do what it is the subject matter experts do, I just have to listen for what are the trigger words for opportunity for every single line of service or business skill set that we have and then, be able to direct them to that. So, I can give you an example if you would like.

Mike Blake: [00:18:14] Yeah. Great. We love war stories.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:18:15] Okay. So, I am sitting at a table for a dinner that has assigned seats at a nonprofit that I’ve been on the board of for 20-something years. And I sit next to a person who I have no idea how I miss this man, but in 20-something years, I’ve never, ever laid eyes on him. And I asked him about what he did and how long he’d been involved in the organization, so and so forth. And he tells me about his company. It’s a software company.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:18:39] And almost as a throwaway line, the very last thing that he says to me after he’s described his company is, “We just invested $5 million in a new software that we’re going to be rolling out to our clients, which are national in the next couple of months.” And I said, “Oh, did you get the R&D tax credit?” He said, “I don’t know what that is.” And I said, “Well, the State will give you money back if your developers are in Georgia.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:19:06] So, if you send the work to be done in another country or another state, they’re not going to pay, but if it’s here in Georgia-” He says, “Well, yeah. It’s here in Georgia”, and he named the town. And he said, “Tell me more.” And I said, “I have just told you everything I know about it. But tomorrow morning, I can have one of my colleagues, we have 25 people who specialize in this area help you. Here’s my number, call me at 8 o’clock.” Okay. I don’t ever have a problem finding a colleague who’s available for an opportunity-

Mike Blake: [00:19:37] Yeah. Sure.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:19:37] Okay. That’s not a problem.

Mike Blake: [00:19:37] Yeah.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:19:39] So, I didn’t have to know how to do the tax credit study, I just had to recognize the opportunity when he said we just invested $5 million.

Mike Blake: [00:19:49] Yeah.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:19:49] So-

Mike Blake: [00:19:51] Okay. So, Ann, I want to ask you this question, Susan touched upon this about five minutes ago, but I’m curious and I’ve never asked kind of your origin story, how did you come to land at Morris Manning?

Ann McDonald: [00:20:04] Well, it’s interesting. I came to Atlanta in 2004. I worked for the Gallup Organization as a consultant and executive coach. And then, I was here for about a year working for Gallup, then was attracted to another startup in the FinTech area and worked there for about a year. And I work for John Yates and a friend of John’s who I also knew had heard that John was looking for someone who had sales background and was not an attorney, but understood the sales process. And so, he put us together and I interviewed with John and he was looking for someone. So, that’s how it happened.

Mike Blake: [00:20:56] And why did you feel, at that time, that that was a good role for you, that that was a platform where you could be successful?

Ann McDonald: [00:21:04] That’s interesting, because I don’t know that I could ever do that for another law firm. It was John. John Yates’ personality, is how dynamic he ran his sales processes. It was operated more like a real corporation rather than sort of a slow process. I was used to very fast, very successful operations. And it was the way he viewed the market. Also, the way they view their clients. This group is much more than a transactional law firm, they believe in relationships. And look at new clients or look at all the clients as, “How can I make your business grow? What can I do to help you in areas other than, ‘Well, just call us when you need a transaction of some means.'” So, that was a big difference and the reason I was attracted to working for an industry that was foreign to me.

Mike Blake: [00:22:20] So, an interesting thing that’s already emerging is you two likes to ask a lot of questions.

Ann McDonald: [00:22:27] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:22:27] Right? And I think that’s an important point. It gets back to, how do you interview somebody for a role like this? We both know there are people out in the marketplace that sell by telling basically.

Ann McDonald: [00:22:40] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:22:40] Right? And, you know, maybe the 1960s and ’70s, there’s some effectiveness to that, but I’m not sure that’s very successful-

Ann McDonald: [00:22:48] No.

Mike Blake: [00:22:50] … today. And I think that most people I observe who try to sell by telling, I think you get some people that bite on that, but I think that the success rate is a lot less. So, is it fair to say that if I’m looking to hire somebody like you, probing for somebody that likes to ask a lot of questions might be a good thing to look for? Is that fair?

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:23:11] Not only is it fair, but I think maybe another way to say it, Mike, is it’s far better to be someone who is interested and interesting. I don’t ever want to make it about me. I was going to make it about the other person. And so, I’m not the story. My colleagues are the story. But in order to get the story, I have to find out what it is that person really needs. And like I said before, sometimes, the prospect doesn’t even know exactly what it is they need or they think they know what they need. But by asking of questions, you find out that that’s maybe not exactly what the issue is.

Mike Blake: [00:23:50] And, you know, talk about that journalism background being helpful, right? I mean, journalism is the practice of asking questions often from people who don’t want to answer questions.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:24:00] Well, I try not to be Mike Wallace.

Mike Blake: [00:24:01] Right.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:24:04] But-

Mike Blake: [00:24:04] So, let me go back, too, because Ann said something that segues nicely into this. You know, you’re successful. I know how successful you were and have been at Aprio. And I’m curious, what about that platform, when you’re in that role, puts you in a position to be successful? And I ask that because if I’m a listener, I’m thinking, gee, I’d love somebody like Susan or Ann to come to my company, but it’s just not to hire, I think I’ve got to create an environment for them to be successful.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:24:35] So, the way a public accounting firm works is that there are X number of partners that are all co-owners of the firm. And at Aprio, the way it works is there is a place for partners who, obviously, they’re all very good technically, but some of them are just more outgoing than others. So, it kind of became accepted practice that some of them were very, very good at rainmaking and others would probably rather eat a box of rocks than have to go out and talk to, you know, prospects.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:25:11] So, because I just have never really been afraid of talking to people I don’t know, it doesn’t scare me, my role was to open doors where they hadn’t been before. We had a technology practice. They didn’t know before I came very many venture capitalists. Interestingly enough, venture capital was kind of maybe is not as strong today as private equity was, but 20-something years ago, that was the flip. And so, because of my prior role, I knew a lot of those people.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:25:56] And it was just a question of trading on your name, honestly, to open doors for the new firm. And if you do what you say you’re going to do. Even if people know she’s a salesperson, but they don’t view me that way because they view me as, when I call them, I’m calling them with something for them, usually not asking for something. In this case, I was asking for a meeting to make an introduction and all that could come from it would be more business for both sides, right? So, it’s a win-win.

Mike Blake: [00:26:33] Yeah.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:26:34] So, that’s what I did was I just opened doors. And I had had a 20-plus-year career at one big four firm before I came to Aprio and before that, a 10-year career at another big four firm. So, I’ve always been a words person in the number’s world.

Mike Blake: [00:26:52] So, in those firms that you worked in, was there anything they did or maybe could have done better to put you in a position to be more successful? And I’ve asked that question because I’d like to try to drill down to if one of our listeners decides that they want to go the route of hiring somebody like you or maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe I’m asking a question that I think I know the answer to and I actually don’t, does it matter? Or, is hiring the right person with the right approach, with the right Rolodex so important that maybe it’s just, get out of their way and let them do their thing?

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:27:31] So, to answer a couple questions or comments that you’ve made, the first is I made sure it was never about me. It’s always about helping others. And you alluded to the fact that there’s been a very high turnover rate among salespeople, typically. I think there are some people that want it to be about them. I didn’t know that there was an expression. I mean, this was 30-something years ago, which I don’t know that had been exactly coined yet or I hadn’t heard it called servant leadership.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:28:03] It’s never about me, it’s always about taking care of other people, hopefully. And that’s where I get my satisfaction from. I don’t need to be the star. As a matter of fact, I don’t even want to be on stage. I’m way more happy to be behind the curtain pulling the levers and strings. So, that’s number one. Number two, I would say, is I think you have to be willing to let others be the star and too many salespeople, my observation why they’re not successful is that they want to be the star.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:28:37] And that just isn’t helpful for either our colleagues who really are the stars, because as Ann referred to them as subject matter experts, they’re the ones who have the answers, not me. And then, the other thing is, really, it needs to be all about the client or prospect, not about the salesperson. So, just turn the I pronoun out of your vocabulary and just pretend it doesn’t exist. And that’s the way to think about it.

Mike Blake: [00:29:10] So, Ann, you’ve been in your role for a long time and I suspect but don’t know, you’ve probably seen others in that role, whether it’s in your firm where others sort of come and go. Why are you different? Why do you think you’re different? I’m not going to use the word special, because you’ll never let me get away with that.

Ann McDonald: [00:29:29] No.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:29:29] But she’s wonderful.

Mike Blake: [00:29:29] But I think you’ll get away with different.

Ann McDonald: [00:29:30] No.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:29:30] She is wonderful.

Ann McDonald: [00:29:32] Thank you.

Mike Blake: [00:29:32] But there is something different, right? You know, it’s, if you’re around, say, a year longer than everybody else, that’s a statistical anomaly. When it’s a lot longer than anybody else, clearly, there’s something structural there. And if you want to talk about yourself, that’s fine. Maybe just contrast with what others have done, where they have not been successful, what mistakes do you see other salespeople make?

Ann McDonald: [00:29:56] Well, I think Susan touched on it. I think it’s important as a business developer salesperson that you have the maturity to understand the sales process with a service organization. And the important person or people in the equation will be the company and the attorney who they had the relationship with or attorneys, multiple relationships. And for a sales person, you have to understand, as Susan said, you are not the key person. You are not the key personality. You are the go-between and the facilitator for the relationship.

Ann McDonald: [00:30:47] The company has to have the primary relationship with the attorney in our case. And because that’s who they will trust, who they are relying on to help them make very important decisions about the future of their company and their employees. And so, the business developer or salesperson has to understand that. It’s also a different role than I have had as a salesperson in the past. And I don’t close the relationship. I don’t close the win. I make the introduction to our attorney. And then, it’s a hand-off. And I can’t close the win.

Mike Blake: [00:31:40] Right.

Ann McDonald: [00:31:41] So, that takes another level, I think, of understanding and-

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:31:52] Acceptance.

Ann McDonald: [00:31:52] … actions. In that, I help coach the attorney. You know, it’s such a hard position to be the one who’s making the widget, the one who’s providing the service and then, also the salesperson. And you have those two distinct roles in companies, but you don’t as attorneys. So, I help coach the attorney. I mean, they’re working on deals. They’re creating the legal product. But then, they also need to nurture the relationships of prospects. And as I tell them, “Don’t dig the well when you’re thirsty. You need to be part of the sales process all along, even though you’re very busy with providing the services.” But I will coach attorneys and help them with closing the deal, getting the client in. But that primary relationship is with them.

Mike Blake: [00:32:54] So, one thing that falls out of both of what you said and another kind of talking point is I think a common thread is humility. And I’m sure it sounds intuitive to the two of you, but if you think about how we portray somebody who’s in sales in the media, right? Good thing about Glengarry Glen Ross, right? Always be closing hard-charging high-ego, right? And you sort of have to own everything.

Mike Blake: [00:33:27] But in my experience, I’m curious about if you agree, you know, in a lot of way, in a lot of respects, business development can kind of be like trying to swing a baseball bat to tighter your grip at the less while it works, right? The harder you try, in some respects, the less it works, right? So, is it fair to say that if I’m interviewing somebody for that role, another thing I would look for, besides curiosity and the ability and desire to ask questions, I guess is also, frankly, some humility to it.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:33:59] It’s a funny line that you walk because you have to be confident enough that you can call on a CEO or a CFO and expect that that person is going to take your call because you have some prior relationship and respect with each other. But then, you also have to be willing to take a step back once that person has agreed to meet with you, that someone else is really the reason why they’re there. So, it is a little bit odd.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:34:29] I think you’re also looking, for your listeners, for some ideas about what are things that are helpful when you are looking to hire a business development person. I would say the other thing is don’t look for someone who expects this to be a regular job, a 9:00 to 5:00 job, I mean. There are countless breakfasts and dinners that Ann and I have been at that require very, very long days. It’s almost like a school bus driver. You’re really busy in the morning, you’re really busy in the evening.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:35:01] And then, your kind of in the middle of the day is when you’re doing all of your prep work for the next couple of meetings. But when you are going to these meetings, you’re not just walking in cold, you’re doing your homework ahead of time. What is the group about? Who can I expect to be there? Are there people that I am particularly looking for? How do I connect people who I meet there with resources that will be helpful for them? All of that is happening before or after meetings. But it is a lot of very long days and you have to find people who are willing to make those kinds of time commitments, I think.

Ann McDonald: [00:35:38] I also think there typically are two different kinds of salespeople, hunters and farmers. And I think this is a combination of those roles. You have to really be hungry and be a hunter, but you also have to be a farmer. In that, you’re nurturing relationships, you’re doing coaching. There are some additional characteristics besides just being the Glengarry Glen Ross. You know, dialing for dollars kind of-

Mike Blake: [00:36:13] Right. Coffees for closers.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:36:15] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:36:16] Yeah. And that balance is going to depend a lot, I think, on the nature of the industry that you’re-

Ann McDonald: [00:36:23] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:36:23] Right? And professional services, a lot of farming because that person may or may not need that service to a particular point in time, right? For me, it can be a two-year sales cycle. Maybe accounting-less, because everybody needs to file a tax return or some someplace in the middle. On the other hand, if it’s somebody that does flood remediation, then that’s a very short-sale cycle, right?

Ann McDonald: [00:36:45] Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:36:46] So, you sort of have to understand kind of where you fall on the continuum. I put one loaded question into the list, but you guys had a chance to see it, you didn’t tell me I couldn’t ask it, so I’m going to ask it, because I do think it’s relevant. The two of you happen to be women.

Ann McDonald: [00:37:03] I knew it wasn’t going to be question number eight.

Mike Blake: [00:37:04] The two of you happen to be women. Do you think that has impacted your ability to be successful in your respective roles, either in a positive or a negative way? I don’t want to go on me, too, but-

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:37:20] Since I’ve never been a man, I don’t know that I can answer that.

Mike Blake: [00:37:23] Okay.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:37:24] But I can tell you that it became very clear when I was in my prior firm, working strictly with venture capitalists that when I would go to the National Venture Capital Association’s annual meeting, I was one of a handful of women in a room of a thousand people. And so, how are you going to stand out? And I chose to use bright colors. So, people who know me know that I never wear black or navy unless I’m going to a funeral.

Mike Blake: [00:38:00] That’s true. I’ve never seen you in either of those colors as long as I’ve known you. That’s right.

Ann McDonald: [00:38:03] Yeah.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:38:04] And so, you have to do something to stand out in a crowd and be different, especially when there are competitors who do not have a business development person, but send their practitioners to the same events I’m at. How am I going to relate to people in a way that will be memorable when I personally can’t answer their questions, technical questions? And so, I’ve chosen to do it with being personal, asking about family, remembering things personally about that person.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:38:40] Do I think a man would do that? I don’t think so. I’ve yet to meet one who ever remembers anything personal about other people. I mean, at a networking event, they just don’t or they don’t ask about it. And I think being a woman, it’s safer to ask those kinds of questions without feeling like maybe the person thinking, why is this person getting so personal? That it’s more accepted, I guess.

Mike Blake: [00:39:07] Yeah.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:39:07] Ann, how about you?

Ann McDonald: [00:39:08] Oh, I really don’t think gender has much to do with it. I do think as far as salespeople go, I think women may have an edge for some of the reasons that Susan like said.

Mike Blake: [00:39:23] Well, especially in tech, right? I mean, there aren’t that many women in tech, period, yet.

Ann McDonald: [00:39:27] Oh, well, that’s true. But it’s interesting. And of course, we go to a lot of events and there are not a lot of women typically in the room. And I don’t notice it anymore.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:39:39] I don’t either.

Ann McDonald: [00:39:40] It’s not even something that is a factor. But, you know, we are good about making connections and probing without seeming to be too direct and-

Mike Blake: [00:39:58] And maybe more natural empathy, too.

Ann McDonald: [00:39:59] And more natural empathy. I think that may be a factor.

Mike Blake: [00:40:03] So, another question I want to make sure we get through, we don’t have a ton of time left, but this is one I’ve got to make sure I ask, you know, Ann, you and I are talking a little bit about this before we came on, imagine that you’re going to hire your successor, what is an interview question you would make sure you want to ask your successor? What would they have to answer for you in a great way to say—you’ll tell John Yates, you know, “John, well, now, I’m ready to hang it up and I’m right to be on a beach in Tahiti. This is the person you got to hire because answered this question great.”

Ann McDonald: [00:40:42] Oh, Mike, that is a tough one. One question. How good are you at putting the client first, representing the client to the firm and then, representing the firm to the client? Instead of making this a personal quest, I mean, it has to be all about helping that company, that client grow and the depth of relationship. And I’d like to know about the experience that the interviewer or interviewee would have with those kinds of relationships. And then, the whole coaching factor of helping attorneys to be successful, because that’s a good part of what this job entails. And it’s providing tools for them, it’s providing answers, it’s providing coaching in a way that they can tolerate that’s nudges and not, “Here comes the wisdom.”

Mike Blake: [00:42:19] Yeah. And that’s really interesting because I’ve long thought of both of you as much as anything being air-traffic controllers, right?

Ann McDonald: [00:42:30] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:42:32] Controlling connections and coordinations and stuff. And the way you described that role, I think, may be different than one of a lot of our listeners’ thought going in, because, you know, the notion of sales for many people when you think of it is a unidirectional process, right? I’ve got something, I’m going communicate to you, and you want to buy it. But the way you describe it is once you initiate that relationship, now, you’re representing the client back to the firm as well-

Ann McDonald: [00:43:04] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:43:05] … and to make sure they’re treated well-

Ann McDonald: [00:43:06] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:43:06] … and they’re treated appropriately and they get the right service. And even if I’m wrong, and I’m going to step out here, but I suspect this is true, even if sometimes, that may mean that you’re not the right firm to serve them-

Ann McDonald: [00:43:19] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:43:19] … necessarily, right? You know, not all things to all people can’t be if you’re successful.

Ann McDonald: [00:43:23] That’s right.

Mike Blake: [00:43:23] And so, it’s very interesting. I think there’s a big learning point in there for that piece of advice and the way to ask that question. Susan, you have a bit of extra time to noodle on that. You’re interviewing the next director of business development for Aprio, what do you ask him?

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:43:42] Describe how when you were given a prospect’s name, a company or a nonprofit, not necessarily a person, and you don’t know a single person at that company, but you have to get in the door of the CEO, how would you do it? What are the steps you would take to open that door? And how long would it take you to get there?

Ann McDonald: [00:44:10] Oh, that’s good.

Mike Blake: [00:44:11] Now, that last part is loaded, I think, because the knee-jerk reaction may be, “Well, I could get in there in two weeks.”.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:44:24] How would you do it?

Mike Blake: [00:44:25] Because you want to show that you’re quick and effective, right? And then, I can see on your face that SO face of skepticism like, “Uh-uh. In two weeks, man”, right? We’re talking months. You’re probably looking at months-

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:44:39] Well, what’s the right way?

Mike Blake: [00:44:39] … if you’re going to sound the way that you think that is appropriate and realistic, right?

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:44:43] Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:44:44] Two weeks is boiler room territory.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:44:46] Yeah. That’s just nonsense. And it’s not going to work. So, you’ve already identified yourself as a phony in my book.

Mike Blake: [00:44:54] So, two more questions and we’ve got to go and let you guys get back to your day jobs. How much has social media played a role in what you guys do? Are you guys social media people at all? I know the answer to this question to some extent, but our listeners don’t.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:45:11] I’ll defer to Ann because for me, it’s irrelevant. So, I would just be in the office-

Mike Blake: [00:45:16] Well, but-

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:45:16] I mean, we have a marketing department that uses social media.

Mike Blake: [00:45:19] Right.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:45:20] But I live on LinkedIn. And if that is considered social media-

Mike Blake: [00:45:26] Yeah, I think so.

Ann McDonald: [00:45:26] It is.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:45:28] So, I live on that. But tweeting and posting stuff and all of that, I completely defer to the queen of it, which is Ann, because I don’t do any of that stuff. I use it to learn, but I don’t use it to push the company. Probably, I should, but I just don’t.

Mike Blake: [00:45:46] If I ever see a selfie of you on Instagram, I’m calling the police, because I know you’ve-

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:45:51] I’ve been kidnapped.

Mike Blake: [00:45:52] … clearly been kidnapped. And that is a cry for help. And somebody is going to be dropping $100,000 in a parking lot somewhere to get you back.

Ann McDonald: [00:46:01] There’s a newspaper next to her head just to show proof of life.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:46:02] Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:46:06] Exactly. Ann, how about you?

Ann McDonald: [00:46:07] Well, I use LinkedIn quite a bit.

Mike Blake: [00:46:09] Yeah.

Ann McDonald: [00:46:10] And for a lot of different things, do a lot of research on LinkedIn, I post articles that I find very interesting that I think will be of interest to the people I know. They’re usually business articles, really engaging ideas that I think will help companies grow based on my background. I post events for organizations that I belong to. I think that’s important in getting support for the things that I support. Of course, I’ll re-post all of the MMM items that I think people should know about. But I think it’s very valuable. I think that’s a great sort of lifeline that it helps bring life to what I’m trying to accomplish.

Mike Blake: [00:47:13] Yeah.

Ann McDonald: [00:47:13] It is a branding tool.

Mike Blake: [00:47:15] Yeah.

Ann McDonald: [00:47:17] And that lets people know me a little bit better, personally, because of the things that I say or post, especially the articles. I’ve had people approach me at events and say, “Oh, yeah, I recognize you. I’ve seen you on LinkedIn and I follow the articles that you post.” So, it’s been of some value that way.

Mike Blake: [00:47:38] Right. You get recognized.

Ann McDonald: [00:47:39] Yeah. Yes. And so, that’s a point of conversation then to get to know somebody, to get to know a company. So, you know, I give kudos to people and it’s a nice outlet. Now, when I post things on LinkedIn, I will then, sometimes, check the box for it to be posted on Twitter.

Mike Blake: [00:48:07] Yeah.

Ann McDonald: [00:48:08] And then, Facebook is purely social, really.

Mike Blake: [00:48:11] Yeah. Yeah. So, we are unfortunately out of time. I could easily lock the door and trap these ladies here for a couple more hours, but that would be unfair to them and also illegal, so we’re going to have to wrap up. There’s so much more we could talk about. But if somebody listening would like to contact you, they have questions about this process, can they do that?

Ann McDonald: [00:48:31] Absolutely.

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:48:31] Please.

Mike Blake: [00:48:32] And if so, Ann, how best to contact you?

Ann McDonald: [00:48:36] Email, amcdonald@mmmlaw.com.

Mike Blake: [00:48:43] Susan?

Susan O’Dwyer: [00:48:43] And I’m susan.o’dwyer, and yes, I do have an apostrophe in my email, it’s O-apostrophe-D-W-Y-E-R, @aprio, A-P-R-I-O, .com. And I would welcome your questions or any way I can help you.

Mike Blake: [00:48:59] That’s going to wrap it up for today’s program. I’d like to thank Ann McDonald and Susan O’Dwyer so much for joining us and sharing their expertise with us today. We’ll be exploring a new topic each week, so please tune in so that when you’re faced with your next executive decision, you have clear vision when making it. If you enjoy these podcasts, please consider leaving a review with your favorite podcast aggregator. It helps people find us so that we can help them. Once again, this is Mike Blake. Our sponsor is Brady Ware & Company. And this has been the Decision Vision podcast.

Decision Vision Episode 45: Should I Increase My Prices? – An Interview with John Ray, Ray Business Advisors, LLC

January 2, 2020 by John Ray

Decision Vision

Decision Vision Episode 45: Should I Increase My Prices? - An Interview with John Ray, Ray Business Advisors, LLC

00:00 /

Decision Vision Episode 45: Should I Increase My Prices? – An Interview with John Ray, Ray Business Advisors, LLC

“Should I increase my prices?” If this question makes you pause, then this “Decision Vision” episode is for you. Price and value authority John Ray speaks with host Mike Blake on the importance of pricing in a business, how to negotiate prices, why hourly billing is the wrong way to price, and dealing with the “it’s too expensive” objection. “Decision Vision” is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

John Ray, Ray Business Advisors, LLC

Because pricing is the fastest way to change the profitability of a business, John Ray advises business owners on the “should I increase my prices” question, how to change their pricing, and moving to a value pricing model. His clients include attorneys, CPAs, consultants, other professional services firms, and technology companies. His blog, “Pricing for Profit,” regularly features examples and stories which help business owners in their own pricing journey. John is also a speaker on pricing and value at numerous chambers, business events and seminars. John also helps small to mid-sized companies achieve their profit and growth goals as an outside CFO.

John also owns and operates the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®. John is the host of “North Fulton Business Radio” and “Alpharetta Tech Talk.” He also plans, produces, and promotes radio show/podcasts for businesses and entrepreneurs.

John is extremely active in the North Fulton community. He is on the board of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce (GNFCC), and serves in a variety of capacities there, including Chairman’s Circle, member of the Finance Committee, and Chair of the Awards Committee. John was named the 2018 Harry Rucker Jr. Volunteer of the Year by GNFCC.

For more information on John and his firm, find John’s LinkedIn profile here, go to raybusinessadvisors.com, or call John directly at (404) 287-2627.

Michael Blake, Brady Ware & Company

Brady Ware & Company

Decision Vision Podcast Series

Visit Brady Ware & Company on social media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brady-ware/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bradywareCPAs/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BradyWare

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradywarecompany/

Show Transcript

Intro: [00:00:01] 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: [00:00:19] And 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: [00:01:03] So, today, we’re going to talk about adjusting your prices. And this show is going to be published shortly after the secular New Year. So, for those of you who celebrate Christmas, I wish you a merry Christmas after the fact. And those of you who celebrate the Catholic Protestant New Year, Happy New Year to you. If you are a Kwanzaa celebrant, I will wish you a happy Kwanzaa and readers as well. And happy Hanukkah. This will probably come out, I guess, a few days after the last evening of Hanukkah. And if you’re an atheist and don’t believe in any of this, I’ll just wish that you have a nice day.

Mike Blake: [00:01:49] But anyway, we wanted to make sure that this particular program started off the new year because it’s a topic that I think most business people are thinking about revisiting. And if you’re not, you probably should. And that is the topic of pricing. Pricing, I think, is one of the hardest things to get right, particularly, but not limited to professional services. Figuring out the price that you need to charge your clients, your customers is a challenge.

Mike Blake: [00:02:26] And it’s a challenge as much as anything because the market is not very transparent. Our competitors, at least in professional services, we don’t know exactly what they are charging except on rare occasions. And even if you do, you’re not exactly sure necessarily how to equate the value propositions. You may or may not be sure how your client equates those value propositions. And because pricing is so difficult, it is important, I think, to revisit that on a regular basis at least every year. Because that way, if you’re getting it wrong, you only have to live with the mistake for about a year or so.

Mike Blake: [00:03:07] And on the other hand, if you’re getting it right, great, you revisit it, you think about it for five minutes, “I’m good”, and you move on. And pricing has some interesting psychology to it as well, because we are making a statement to the market that we believe our product and service is worth X. And when somebody decides not to buy, whether it is a product or service, they are telling us that they don’t agree that it’s worth X. And that requires some mental toughness in order to kind of sustain yourself through that.

Mike Blake: [00:03:44] So, it’s an important topic and we’re going to get into it today. I was thinking about relaying an anecdote, actually, of a pricing challenge, an event that I just have. Now, I’m going to wait until we do the interview, because I think it will flow better. So, let’s jump into it. Joining us today is John Ray, who is the owner of Ray Business Advisors. John helps small to mid-sized companies, including law firms and CPA firms achieve their profit and growth goals, and God knows we need help.

Mike Blake: [00:04:16] John’s clients come to him to reduce the stress and anxiety, which often comes with day-to-day management of a business. John works with businesses to enhance their pricing strategies and make more money. John also relieves the burden of accounting and bookkeeping and improves business processes. John holds a Bachelor of Arts from Vanderbilt University, a school with a terrific baseball program, an okay basketball program, and a football program that’s lousy and that’s to see what probably is good in almost any other conference.

John Ray: [00:04:46] The longest bear market in history.

Mike Blake: [00:04:47] The longest bear market in history. Although Tennessee maybe giving them a run for their money now, interestingly enough. With honors in English and economics, John is also a studio partner for Business RadioX, voice of the Fortune 500,000 and produces this Decision Vision podcast. He helps business owners plan, produce, and promote their own radio shows and podcasts. And I can tell you that we’ve been very happy with John’s service and the impact that we’ve had and have the opportunity to make in the marketplace and sharing our knowledge.

Mike Blake: [00:05:18] So, you know, as an aside, maybe we’ll probably do a show on this. Should I do a podcast? I can tell you that for us, it’s been a successful activity and one that’s been well worth doing, we’re going to continue doing it for a while. So, if you’re hoping we would go away, sorry. John is very active in the North Fulton community. He sits on the board of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce and serves in a variety of capacities, including the chairman circle, member of the finance committee, and co-chair of the awards committee. John was named the 2018 Harry Rucker Junior Volunteer of the Year by the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. John, welcome to the program.

John Ray: [00:05:55] Great to be here. Great to be on the other side of the mic.

Mike Blake: [00:05:58] Yeah. So, I know you’ve been chomping at the bit to sort of jump in here, but I have to ask you, do you know who Harry Rucker Junior is and why the award is named for him?

John Ray: [00:06:08] I have no clue.

Mike Blake: [00:06:09] Okay.

John Ray: [00:06:10] I Googled him, but I couldn’t find him.

Mike Blake: [00:06:12] That’s an honest man right there. So, I guess he was so generous, he wanted all of his volunteer activities to go anonymously. So, there you have it.

John Ray: [00:06:22] Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:06:22] So, let’s jump into this. I mean, why are we talking about this? You make a living off of helping companies figure out their pricing and correct their pricing, why is it so hard?

John Ray: [00:06:33] Well, first of all, it’s hard, I think, a couple of things. Well, first of all, I don’t know that folks get much training, if any, in pricing. And that’s really odd because of what an impact pricing has on the bottom line. So, studies from folks like McKinsey show that pricing has the biggest variable impact on the bottom line of the business. This is an accounting fact. So, it’s more than cutting expenses, it’s more than let’s do a better job with marketing or converting leads or what have you. So, pricing’s got the biggest impact whatsoever.

John Ray: [00:07:12] Yet, business schools, the last that I saw shows that only less than 10 percent of business schools out there actually have a course, just one course on pricing. So, we put entrepreneurs out there into the marketplace, get them going, and they’re good at customer discovery and they’re good at a lot of things that have to do with the business and if they’re not, they can go easily get those skills outsourced to receive those skills, but pricing is always a problem, because of this lack of training and education that they have once they start a company.

Mike Blake: [00:07:55] Yeah. It’s interesting. You know, going back to my own MBA experience, which was a very long time ago, my diploma is on a cave painting in France someplace. But we learned almost nothing about price. And the only time I remember it ever really coming up in a rigorous way was we did a marketing simulation and we had to do pricing and that was fine as far as it went, right?

John Ray: [00:08:17] Sure.

Mike Blake: [00:08:18] But there’s a limit to that. And I mean, I think you’re so right. In one respect, price is the easiest thing to change about your business, right? You can just decide to do it.

John Ray: [00:08:29] Sure.

Mike Blake: [00:08:30] Now, you may not do it correctly, but you can’t do it almost instantaneously, right? Whether it’s just changing the number you put on your engagement letters or going off the price gun-

John Ray: [00:08:39] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:08:39] … it’s fairly easy to change. In your experience, when people or businesses mispriced their offerings, do they tend to overprice or underprice them?

John Ray: [00:08:50] Underprice. And I’m an example of this, I have to say. I mean, I got passionate about this because-

Mike Blake: [00:08:56] You’re gonna testify, aren’t you?

John Ray: [00:08:57] Yes, I am. I’m going to confess right here. If anybody’s listening, I’m confessing. So, no, I mean, it’s, you underprice what you do, particularly, as you said in the intro, in professional services. Because in professional services, we price our sales and there’s these voices that speak to us that sit on our shoulder and whisper in our ear that says, “Oh, that person’s not going to pay that much. You know, that company is talking to other people”, or what have you. And, you know, you need to knock a little bit off of that. That’s not going to work. And we talk ourselves out of the way we should price.

John Ray: [00:09:42] I think there’s a misconception also that if you lower your price, you’ll get more business. And actually, the opposite is sometimes true because price is an indication of quality. And I could relay a lot of anecdotes about how increasing prices actually increase sales, because suddenly, that the customer base, that product or service was aimed at, saw a lot more quality in what they were being presented than they had previously. So, price is a signal, and it’s actually a marketing signal.

Mike Blake: [00:10:23] There’s a great episode on Frasier, where Frasier and Niles were talking about, I think it was some sort of massage therapist or something. And they’re bragging, basically bragged in terms of the hourly rate, right?

John Ray: [00:10:42] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:10:43] So Niles was saying, you know, “My massage therapist is $500.” Frasier comes in and says, “Mine is a $1,000-an-hour.” And Niles goes, “She sounds fantastic.”

John Ray: [00:10:52] That’s right. Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:10:54] And, you know, I remember, earlier in my career, you know, one of the services we provide is something called a fairness opinion, which is an appraisal of a business where we have some fiduciary responsibility attached to it. So, there’s liability, so we tend to charge more. First one I ever did or maybe the second one I ever did but for a very friendly client. And I want to make sure I got the business, I underpriced it.

Mike Blake: [00:11:20] I got the business, but my client told me after the fact, he said, “Look, I appreciate the price, but I got to tell you, you almost didn’t get the work because your bid was so much lower than everybody else’s. We were concerned or the board was concerned that you actually knew what you were doing and you could put the requisite time and effort into this exercise. And I had to go to bat for you and say, ‘No. He knows what he’s doing in valuation, he just don’t know anything about pricing.'” I said, “Thanks.”

John Ray: [00:11:49] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:11:49] Right?

John Ray: [00:11:49] Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:11:50] But, you know, we rarely get insight into that process. But I can tell you that, you know, A, I left about $35,000 on the table, no doubt, a minimum. And B, I nearly got nothing because I was so good at negotiating with myself-

John Ray: [00:12:05] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:12:05] … that I almost negotiated myself right out of that business.

John Ray: [00:12:09] And we’ve all looked at something and said, “That’s too good to be true”, in terms of the price. There’s something wrong. But we rarely take that sentiment and turn it around on our own product or service, right?

Mike Blake: [00:12:23] Right.

John Ray: [00:12:23] So, I think that’s what you’re getting at and it makes tons of sense. And I have never seen anybody. And if you’re out there, please write in and let us know and we’ll stand corrected. But I’ve never seen a business start out by overpricing.

Mike Blake: [00:12:44] We have no e-mail free to write in, by the way. We’re trying to fix that, but write in sort of metaphorically.

John Ray: [00:12:50] That’s right.

Mike Blake: [00:12:52] Or John will give you his e-mail at the end of this podcast, so you can write into there, I guess.

John Ray: [00:12:55] Yeah, there you go.

Mike Blake: [00:12:57] So, we’re over-thinking it, should pricing just be simple as, “Here’s what it costs me to deliver this product or service, here’s the amount of profit I want to make off of it”?

John Ray: [00:13:11] Well, certainly, your revenues have to exceed your costs. So, let’s just start with that. So let’s make the accountants happy and we’re going to agree to that. What I find, particularly in professional services, is that when a professional services provider focuses on pricing relative to the value that they deliver and just getting a piece of the value they deliver and that’s their equation, then they make a lot more money and they really don’t have to worry about their cost because they deliver so much value, generally.

John Ray: [00:13:54] So, sure, it’s important to have a profitable business, but that’s not really what we’re talking about here in getting our pricing right for professional services providers, it’s really about getting a piece of the value that you provide such that you can have a more focused business working with the best clients and not be so stressed, really running a business where you’ve got a bunch of clients where you really don’t want to service a bunch of them, right?

Mike Blake: [00:14:25] Yeah.

John Ray: [00:14:26] 20% or 30% of them, you really don’t want, but you’ve got them simply because you’re getting the revenue out of them. But they’re very low margin clients.

Mike Blake: [00:14:34] And that’s where you get back in the podcast number two, how should I fire my client?

John Ray: [00:14:38] That’s right. My favorite of the series, so far.

Mike Blake: [00:14:42] So, can different clients have different prices for roughly the same product or deliverable? And is that okay?

John Ray: [00:14:50] Absolutely. So, different clients have different values. And it’s okay to price based on those values. And it’s okay to offer options that clients can select, the options based on service levels, speed of delivery of the service, et cetera. In fact, I highly, highly recommend, in fact, demand of my clients that they offer options because that really helps ferret out what you’re getting at. So, I think the biggest mistake a lot of folks make is here’s my price, it’s kind of a fill or kill adversarial situation, right? Either you accept or you don’t. That’s the way the client looks at it, right? I think, Mike, what folks need to understand is that clients love options. They like to select. They like to see what your panoply of services are and come out with what they want.

Mike Blake: [00:15:59] And, you know, I think, perhaps, the best example, and I do this more and more, I offer choices as well, because I find that it enables clients to then choose what they want to do, right?

John Ray: [00:16:12] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:16:12] And when you’re with our clients, you make the relationship less adversarial. But, you know, that rule of three has been embraced for a long time by who I think is the king of price in the airline industry.

John Ray: [00:16:23] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:16:24] Right? I don’t think there’s an industry anywhere that is more sophisticated about pricing than the airline industry.

John Ray: [00:16:30] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:16:31] And what do they offer on most of their flights? Business class, first class-

John Ray: [00:16:36] Coach.

Mike Blake: [00:16:36] … economy/surf class-

John Ray: [00:16:40] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:16:40] … or steerage. And, you know, they let you choose, right? If you want to have the first class experience and the glass of champagne before the flight even leaves a gate, you pay that. And, you know, if you don’t mind taking an elbow to the back of your head every once in a while on a five-hour flight to the West Coast, you can do that, too, right? And so, you know, the funny thing is, in my experience—and I’m just going to say this sort of on the down low, because nobody’s listening except for the two of us, right?

John Ray: [00:17:11] That’s right.

Mike Blake: [00:17:12] Most often, the most profitable service I offer is the lowest priced one.

John Ray: [00:17:18] And that means you’ve got it correctly priced, right? It’s important to understand that different clients have different values and will value things differently across the spectrum. So, here’s an example outside of professional services, coffee. So, I’m a cheapskate on coffee. I mean, I may buy the dollar cup at racetrack, I’d prefer to wait until I get wherever I am and hope they’ll give me a cup of coffee for free, right?

John Ray: [00:17:46] Then, there’s my daughter at college who’s racking up $5 charges at Starbucks seemingly every half-hour on the half-hour, right? And then, the most expensive cup of coffee sold in the United States the last time I looked was $75 a cup. And it comes from some “exclusive farm in Panama, where they get one crop a year and they have a big party and a tasting at this coffee place in California that serves this coffee and they sell out”. So, I think that’s crazy. But there’s some people that look at coffee as fine wine. So-

Mike Blake: [00:18:28] Yeah.

John Ray: [00:18:28] Right? And that’s cool. That’s their value system. They may have other things that they look at and they’re cheapskates about, but we all have a panoply of values that we ascribe to a lot of different products and services. And so, as professional services providers offering our services, we have to recognize that and price accordingly.

Mike Blake: [00:18:51] So, everyone saw an article pops up, it’s probably click bait, but I’ll probably take that click bait, which is on why hourly pricing is the wrong price for professional services. Do you agree with that and why?

John Ray: [00:19:08] Absolutely. So, hourly pricing, well, it’s wrong on a number of levels. One is that it’s not really the end price. It’s not what a client pays. Clients are interested in what they’re getting in to pay. So, when you deliver an engagement letter and it says, “We’re gonna charge you, the partner time is to $250 or $300-an-hour and the associate time is $125”, or whatever, fill in the blanks, that’s not a price, that’s just half the equation.

John Ray: [00:19:44] It doesn’t tell me how many hours each of them were gonna put into that. It doesn’t tell me what happens when the project blows up and it takes longer than what we thought it was gonna take, which is almost inevitable because things never go the way they are supposed to go, right? So, it’s wrong from that point of view. It is a relic of the industrial age when industrial companies were trying to price get their professional services providers to deliver pricing that they could equate with their inputs, basically.

John Ray: [00:20:20] I mean, I could go in the whole history of it, but the point of it all is that it’s from another age and another time. And what clients are really paying for is not how much time you spend on a project, they’re paying for the grey matter between your ears and your experience and all the things that you’ve seen with other clients. That’s what they’re paying for. I mean, I had this experience with one of your colleagues where I brought a client in. And this was just an exploratory meeting on whether this client ought to sign up to be a Brady Ware client, right?

John Ray: [00:20:56] And in 15 minutes, they gave tremendous help and advice that I think pushed that engagement over in terms of getting that client to sign up. But the point is, is if that were a paying client at that time and that client had been paying by the hour, then the value-to-price ratio would be ridiculous. That client would have gotten much, much, much more value relative to the price they paid than they should have if you’re billing in 15-minute increments.

Mike Blake: [00:21:30] Yeah. And, you know, one of the fallacies then also is that you’re punished for being more efficient-

John Ray: [00:21:36] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:21:36] … which is not the way economics are supposed to work. And, you know, use the accounting example, you know, I don’t think any of our clients are paying for our time or they should not be.

John Ray: [00:21:48] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:21:49] Right? On our tax side, they’re paying for one of two things. One, I’m bulletproof against an IRS audit, right? Or two, I’m exercising my civil obligation to minimize what I pay to Uncle Sam as much as I possibly can.

John Ray: [00:22:12] Sure.

Mike Blake: [00:22:12] Right?

John Ray: [00:22:13] Sure.

Mike Blake: [00:22:13] When you’re a tax client, the client’s are one of those two things, right? They either are terrified of Uncle Sam, they want nothing to do with them or they want to go into combat with Uncle Sam.

John Ray: [00:22:23] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:22:24] Right? And man, if your client would like to go into combat with Uncle Sam, please call us, because, boy, we make a lot of money there.

John Ray: [00:22:31] Sure.

Mike Blake: [00:22:33] And, you know, whether that takes one hour or fifteen hours, it’s the outcome you’re buying.

John Ray: [00:22:37] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:22:37] Right. Not the inputs.

John Ray: [00:22:41] Not the inputs.

Mike Blake: [00:22:41] Who cares? And also, it has to sort of go both ways, right?

John Ray: [00:22:49] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:22:51] The client’s not going to let you suddenly charge more if something that was supposed to take you 10 hours, you know, takes you 100.

John Ray: [00:22:58] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:22:58] First of all, well, that’s not my problem if you couldn’t get your act together, right?

John Ray: [00:23:01] Right. Exactly.

Mike Blake: [00:23:02] So, by definition, you know, for the most part, some industries are not like this, but many industries, that hourly notion is a one-way street.

John Ray: [00:23:14] Yeah. And, you know, I think technology is such, artificial intelligence is such that I saw one study that this study said was, “In five years, 99% of all bookkeeper jobs would be eliminated.” Then, I think it was the same percentage for tax-prepared jobs. Well, I don’t know that that’s true, but directionally, it’s probably correct because of technology.

Mike Blake: [00:23:39] Absolutely.

John Ray: [00:23:40] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:23:40] I mean, we don’t have people cranking out tax returns by hand and-

John Ray: [00:23:44] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:23:44] … with slide rules and so forth.

John Ray: [00:23:47] Yeah. And so, as technology and particularly, artificial intelligence, links between institutions get more robust, I could foresee a time when tax returns are real time. You can see your tax return in real time as the year goes on, right?

Mike Blake: [00:24:02] Yeah.

John Ray: [00:24:02] And so, the value of a tax preparer, let’s say, comes from the advice they give around that return, not for the preparation of the return. And so, as you say, if you’re pricing by the hour and based solely on preparation of return, your business is headed straight down over the next few years.

Mike Blake: [00:24:25] Yeah.

John Ray: [00:24:25] Period. The pig is in the python, shall we say.

Mike Blake: [00:24:30] Yeah. So, how do you help your clients respond when they have their own customer, client or prospect that pushes back on price? You know, you’re charging me too much, I don’t want to pay that. What are some of the approaches that you advocate to engage in that conversation?

John Ray: [00:24:50] What I tell folks is that if you get that response to a proposal, typically, you’ve not had a great value conversation, because the client’s comparing that price or those prices relative to something other than the value that you’re providing. So, you’ve not done a really good job at marketing your value to that client or getting that client to understand that value. And you don’t have a good sense of where their values are.

John Ray: [00:25:23] And again, you know, it’s kind of interesting. I’ll give you an example of this. I had a client who I was having an exploratory meeting with and, you know, it was going well and he was almost downplaying what he really needed until his wife came in the room. And she was talking about how screwed up he was and how they needed to get their financial act together and their books were a mess and she was sick of it.

John Ray: [00:25:52] And it occurred to me at that point that this man’s value was getting his wife off his back. That had nothing to do with the services that I may have been providing, really, in terms of the way he looked at value. So, the point is, if I had never had an in-depth discovery session with him, I wouldn’t have understood that value and I might have priced my services a lot differently and he might have given me the “it’s too expensive” response, right?

John Ray: [00:26:27] So, you know, I think it’s really important to understand client value. And then, the other thing I tell folks is when a client says it’s too expensive, I say, you know, “Too expensive relative to what? Relative to doing nothing?” Meaning is, what’s the cost of doing nothing for this problem that you were sitting here talking about? Is it too expensive relative to you doing it yourself? See, when you ask those kind of questions back, then you get to the root of where the value really is in that client’s head.

Mike Blake: [00:27:03] So, you know, a lot of it, it sounds like is doing your homework upfront and then, if you get that push back, it means you have more homework that you have to do.

John Ray: [00:27:10] Absolutely.

Mike Blake: [00:27:12] And, you know, that makes sense to me. And, you know, in every case, this goes back to the right client provider match, right? And in some cases, you know, it’s also about letting clients sort of select themselves out, right?

John Ray: [00:27:29] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:27:32] You know, I know you and I have a slightly different viewpoint on this, so I’m going to raise it because I think it will provoke an interesting sidebar here, you know, when a client calls me and they say, “Hey, you know, I’ve got this valuation project, you know, here are the basic parameters, what do you think it will cost?” I will tell them because I want them to then self-select, right?

John Ray: [00:27:57] Sure.

Mike Blake: [00:27:57] In my view, if they have a heart attack over that price, right? Then, there’s no amount of value exploring I can do that’s likely going to bridge that gap, right? And it just saves both of our time. I know you take a different view on that. So, why don’t you explain your view, how you respond to that discussion or what?

John Ray: [00:28:19] I do take a different view on that. And here’s the issue, I’ll look at it and I say to a client, “Look, I’m not sure we’re a great fit, because what I’m sensing here is that you’re looking for a transaction because that’s your first question is what the price is. And I’m interested in relationships, I mean, you know, the way my practice is based. So, we’re probably not a good fit. Let me recommend some folks that might be better fits for you that you ought to have a conversation with.”.

John Ray: [00:28:55] And usually, what happens is, first of all, people are taken aback. Sometimes, they’re insulted. And I tell them I don’t mean to insult them. It’s just, you know, we have different ways of looking at a potential engagement. And I’m not offended when they start with that question. As a matter of fact, I’m happy because they’ve told me that they’re very price-sensitive and it’s probably a client I don’t want.

Mike Blake: [00:29:21] Yeah, absolutely.

John Ray: [00:29:21] Right? So, they’ve done me a favor. So, that’s the way I typically respond. Now, what I would say to you is if you’re going to respond to a price, I think the first price you should name is the absolute highest price you can come up with. So, I don’t know what your engagements cost, but let’s just make this up, okay? So, let’s say the biggest engagement you could ever imagine having is, you know, $150,000. What the way I would respond is, you know, “Hey, our engagements could range from $300,000 to $500,000.” Do you see what I just did?

Mike Blake: [00:30:04] Right.

John Ray: [00:30:04] Right? “On down. So, tell me what what we’re talking about and then, I can quote you a more accurate figure.” And so, then it adjust that conversation back around to where it needs to be.

Mike Blake: [00:30:19] So, let’s talk a little bit then about negotiating price. How do you do that, right? You can’t do business without some sort of negotiation. And, you know, people will haggle over. We’ll haggle over prices for, you know, where they can for things like cars and professional services. What are some tips you can offer to people that maybe aren’t all that comfortable haggling over price?

John Ray: [00:30:49] So, a couple things, I really think it’s important, this is where options come in. If you offer folks options, the good, better, best model, then it really gets into negotiating around service levels, or it should, not price. So, that’s what I highly recommend, is take your services and break them down into a good, better, best, and price around that. And then, the negotiation is about how we’re going to engage. It’s not, first of all, yes or no. And it should not be around price. The levels of negotiation should be what services we’re going to include or take out, depending on which option, either good, better, or best you’re interested in.

Mike Blake: [00:31:48] Well, actually, let me touch on one thing here, because one implicit assumption we’ve had about this entire discussion is that you, as a provider or as a producer, don’t want to compete on price.

John Ray: [00:32:05] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:32:05] But there are some businesses in which the thesis of competing on price is exactly your value proposition, right? And there’s nothing wrong with that as long as that’s sort of the strategy that you’re embarking on and you drive your business in that direction, right?

John Ray: [00:32:21] Sure.

Mike Blake: [00:32:22] You know, just as you mentioned, you’ll tell a prospect that leads off with price that, you know, here, maybe providers that are a better fit because price is sort of the start of their value proposition. I have those in my world as well.

John Ray: [00:32:34] Sure.

Mike Blake: [00:32:37] So, there’s nothing wrong with that, where you can run askew from that as if you don’t want price to be the lead of your value proposition. And then, you get sucked into the trap of the next thing you know, you’re negotiating on price and not on value.

John Ray: [00:32:51] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:32:53] So, I just had this happen. I posted this on my LinkedIn profile last week and actually gets a post that got me the most engaged in the whole year. So, people felt my pain. And I basically said, “I’m never going to do this again”, which means I’ll probably screw it up in a couple of months. But-

John Ray: [00:33:11] You’re going to tell the story, right?

Mike Blake: [00:33:12] And I’m going to tell the story.

John Ray: [00:33:13] Okay. Good. Good.

Mike Blake: [00:33:13] And the story is that I was asked to bid on a project where I had a relationship with the company, but not the executives, they had some turnover. But we’ve done some work with them before. So, what we were going to do was effectively an update, not a de novo valuation exercise. And they submit a competitive bid, which is fine again, because I didn’t have a relationship with the people, just the company. So, it’s weird. There is institutional relationship, but not personal relationships.

John Ray: [00:33:43] And, you know, they came back to me and they said, “Look, you know, love to work with you, but, you know, this other provider came in a little bit lower, will you match that? You know, if you’ll match that, we’ll work with you.” And I wrestled with that. I slept on it overnight. I’d tell myself, “Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it.” I’m like, “Oh, but the work is going to be fairly easy to do and I hate to lose a client”, right?

John Ray: [00:34:10] Sure.

Mike Blake: [00:34:10] Different from a new client because to me, losing a client is more painful than not getting when you could have.

John Ray: [00:34:16] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:34:17] I think for me, psychologically, that was part of it.

John Ray: [00:34:20] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:34:22] The word is ego. And against my better judgment, I said, “You know what, yeah, I’ll do that.” But I did one thing right, which is I made them give me back something for the price. I didn’t just match it because I think when somebody says, “Can you do better?” and you just match and don’t give up anything, you’re telegraphing to the world that you’re trying to rip them off, basically, right?

John Ray: [00:34:42] Yeah. Yeah. I couldn’t agree more.

Mike Blake: [00:34:43] Right?

John Ray: [00:34:43] Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:34:45] But if I can get something back from them, right? Then, it’s a more empowered discussion. I said, you know, “As long as we can do something where I get paid more if the work gets more complicated and you’ll agree to a multi-year contract with us, then I’ll go ahead and do it.” And two days later, they came back to me by email and said, you know, “Another provider came in, they matched your price and they’re not going to charge more even if the work gets more complex.” And for a second, I was a little upset because I did what they said and they didn’t. But after I took a deep breath, I wrote them an email message, “You know what, I think you found the right match for you. All the best.”

John Ray: [00:35:29] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:35:30] And, you know, as I thought about that, it occurred to me that they did me an enormous favor.

John Ray: [00:35:37] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:35:37] Because that was not going to be the last time that happened between me and them.

John Ray: [00:35:42] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:35:43] And they were going to find some small thing, a spelling error inside of a footnote some place that to them was going to constitute a material error and find a way to break the contract anyway.

John Ray: [00:35:56] Right. Right.

Mike Blake: [00:35:57] And, you know, what they also told me is that their time was not viable. Because of the fact we’ve done work with them before, they’ve been working out to tell us about how their business worked and we had models built, they’re going to have to do that with a new provider. And it is frightening to work with a client whose time is not viable to them.

John Ray: [00:36:18] Oh, yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:36:18] Because they’re going to think my time is not viable.

John Ray: [00:36:21] Oh, exactly.

Mike Blake: [00:36:21] So, I posted it on my LinkedIn that I didn’t get burnt, I got singed because I dropped a few more hours into the proposal process than I should have. But it was actually a good ending, in that, I didn’t get the work and one of my competitors did.

John Ray: [00:36:37] And that time you put into it was tuition.

Mike Blake: [00:36:41] That’s right.

John Ray: [00:36:42] Right?

Mike Blake: [00:36:42] That’s exactly right.

John Ray: [00:36:42] That will help you next time.

Mike Blake: [00:36:44] That’s exactly right.

John Ray: [00:36:45] But what happened there is if you hadn’t had that conversation, right? If you hadn’t had that back and forth, then that client would not have revealed themselves. And it’s really important to get clients to reveal themselves to you.

Mike Blake: [00:36:59] Right.

John Ray: [00:36:59] Right? So that you understand what you’re dealing with. And if you’re okay having, you know, a business where, you know, you’re dealing with misers, because that’s what I call those folks—and by the way, just as an aside, statistically, for goods and services, studies show there’s about 25% to 30% of buyers are misers that they don’t want to pay. And so, it’s really important to understand them. So, because you had that interaction with them, because you had that back and forth, you got a real good picture on a client you really didn’t want at the end of the day. And all you really had to do was deal with, with your own psychology of saying, “Hey, it’s okay to let that one go. I’m better off.”

Mike Blake: [00:37:46] Yeah, that’s exactly right.

John Ray: [00:37:47] Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:37:48] And I made it public for two reasons, number one, because I thought it was instructive. And number two, I was inviting mockery and the trolls of the internet so that I would be emotionally battered and bruised so much that I’d never, ever, ever do it again.

John Ray: [00:38:05] So, the bad memory of that would keep you from doing that ever again.

Mike Blake: [00:38:09] It was-

John Ray: [00:38:11] Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:38:11] … intentional PTSD.

John Ray: [00:38:13] I love it.

Mike Blake: [00:38:13] Because I think in that case, it serves a process. So-

John Ray: [00:38:16] And you got all this love from people that have this problem, right? See, that’s what’s so revealing.

Mike Blake: [00:38:21] That’s right.

John Ray: [00:38:22] Yeah. I mean, that’s what’s so revealing to me about that story. One of the things about that story is people come back and say, “Hey, I’ve got that same problem.”

Mike Blake: [00:38:30] Yeah. That’s right. And you and I are both business advisors and, you know, one of the things, I think, a good business adviser does is understand that they make mistakes, too.

John Ray: [00:38:41] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:38:41] And that they don’t know everything.

John Ray: [00:38:43] Right.

Mike Blake: [00:38:44] Because really, who wants to be around a know-it-all all the time, right?

John Ray: [00:38:49] Right. Particularly, when you know they don’t know it all, right?

Mike Blake: [00:38:51] Yeah, that’s right. It’s one thing if you can back it up.

John Ray: [00:38:54] Yeah.

Mike Blake: [00:38:55] John, we’re running out of time here, but thanks so much for coming on, especially, we’re recording this Christmas Eve here. John, how can people reach out to you if they want to learn more about pricing and get some advice on pricing in the new year?

John Ray: [00:39:08] yourpriceistoolow.com. How about that?

Mike Blake: [00:39:12] I love that.

John Ray: [00:39:13] I’d just put it out there.

Mike Blake: [00:39:15] Okay.

John Ray: [00:39:15] And if you want to go the old-fashioned way, raybusinessadvisors.com will get you to the same place and/or you can call me, 404-287-2627, or I put that challenge out there about folks that feel like they’ve priced adequately from the very beginning, so if you want to email me, let me know about you, we’ll do a podcast with you, maybe.

Mike Blake: [00:39:39] Absolutely. We’ll read your story online as you gloat to the rest of the internet.

John Ray: [00:39:43] That’s right. But jray@raybusinessadvisors.com.

Mike Blake: [00:39:47] So, that’s going to wrap it up for today’s program. I’d like to thank John Ray so much for joining us and sharing his expertise with us. We’ll be exploring a new topic each week. So, please tune in so that when you’re faced with your next executive decision, you have clear vision when making it. If you enjoy these podcasts, please consider leaving a review with your favorite podcasts aggregator. It helps people find us so that we can help them. Once again, this is Mike Blake. Our sponsor is Brady Ware & Company. And this has been the Decision Vision podcast.

John Peak with Candid Partners, Aleks Cardwell with Smarp and Marshall Mosher with Vestigo

August 16, 2019 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

John Peak with Candid Partners, Aleks Cardwell with Smarp and Marshall Mosher with Vestigo

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John Peak is a die-hard technologist, who at 26 decided to start his own company – so he learned how to raise capital, manage people, and many more things that the software developer in him never thought he would have to deal with. Come hear about his journey and the work that goes on at Candid Partners – a company that has a 4.7 (out of 5) rating on Glassdoor.

John is the co-founder and a Managing Partner of Candid Partners, Atlanta’s premier cloud consulting firm and AWS Partner. A self-proclaimed “cloud geek” he brings more than 25 years of expertise in application architecture plus 6 years in cloud architecture to lead and advise the transformation of Fortune 500 companies.

Prior to Candid Partners, John founded three other start-ups beginning at age 26. John started the Atlanta Java Users Group (AJUG), attained AWS certifications for both Solutions Architect and DevOps Engineer, and has a Bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University in Computer Science and Mathematics.

Follow Candid Partners on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Aleksander Cardwell is the Product Marketing Manager at Smarp, an employee communication platform that services major enterprise organizations across the world. At Smarp, Aleks is responsible for everything from strategic narrative and content creation all the way to sales enablement, demo strategy and storytelling.

After spending time living, studying and working in 3 continents, Aleks eventually made the jump from Finland to Atlanta when Smarp chose the city as the location for their North American headquarters. The city has welcomed Smarp and Aleks with open arms and served as the perfect springboard into the US market.

Aleks is a graduate from Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. If he’s not in the office working on how to tell the next great story, he’s probably out in the park showing the locals how they play basketball back home.

Follow Smarp on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Marshall Mosher, from Atlanta, Georgia, is a 2015 graduate of the University of Georgia where he completed a triple major in Biology, Psychology, and Economics along with a Masters in Public Health Administration.

After graduation, Marshall participated in a summer at NASA and Google at the Silicon Valley technology incubator Singularity University’s annual Global Startup Program (GSP) where he was dedicated to positively impacting America’s obesity problem in encouraging a more active and healthy lifestyle through the power of exponential technology.

In an effort to encourage physical activity as a tool for both physical and mental enhancement, Marshall combined his passions for Public Health and action/adventure sports with the founding of Vestigo. With clients like CNN, Home Depot, and Chick-fil-A, Vestigo utilizes the mental performance enhancing power of adventure sports, both real and virtual, to create experiences that train teams to embrace innovation, tap into the Flow State, and successfully navigate change, using adventure as a catalyst for both positive health impact and fostering a mindset of limitless possibilities.

To live by this mindset in his personal life, Marshall is a semi-pro multisport adventure athlete constantly seeking to challenge his own limits as a Class V Whitewater paddler, paraglider pilot, Jet Suit pilot, Ultralight pilot, mountain biker, snowboarder, kite boarder, scuba diver, caver, and climber. Currently, Marshall is training to set a world record with the tallest Summit to Sea expedition ever completed, a completely human-powered journey from the top of Mt Everest to the Indian Ocean via mountaineering, paragliding, whitewater kayaking, and mountain biking.

Follow Vestigo on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

About Your Host

Joey Kline is a Vice President at JLL, specializing in office brokerage and tenant representation. As an Atlanta native, he has a deep passion for promoting the economic growth and continued competitiveness of communities in and around Atlanta, as well as the Southeast as a whole. He has completed transactions in every major submarket of metro Atlanta, and works primarily with start-ups, advertising/marketing agencies, and publicly-traded companies. With a healthy mix of tenacious drive and analytical insights, Joey is a skilled negotiator who advises clients on a myriad of complex real estate matters.

With a strategy and business development background, Joey is first and foremost a pragmatic advisor to his clients. Most recently, he was the Director of Business Development for American Fueling Systems, an Atlanta-based alternative energy company. While at JLL, he has become a member of the Million Dollar Club, and has built a reputation as an expert on the intersection of transit-accessibility and urban real estate. With intimate involvement in site selection and planning/zoning concerns, Joey approaches real estate from the perspective of the end user, and thus possesses a unique lens through which to serve his clients.

Joey holds a Master of Business Administration from Emory University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Washington University in St. Louis. He is a founder, board member, and the treasurer of Advance Atlanta, and also sits on the Selection Committee for the Association for Corporate Growth’s Fast 40 event. In addition, he is a member of CoreNet and the Urban Land Institute. Finally, he is part of LEAD Atlanta’s Class of 2019.

Connect with Joey on LinkedIn.

Susan Knox, Corporate Connections

August 16, 2019 by John Ray

North Fulton Business Radio

Susan Knox, Corporate Connections

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“North Fulton Business Radio,” Episode 155: Susan Knox, Corporate Connections

Need to build professional relationships? Want your pipeline to be bursting? Then you should check out this edition of “North Fulton Business Radio,” as Susan Knox, President of Corporate Connections, joins host John Ray.

Susan Knox, Corporate Connections

Corporate Connections opens the right doors to the right relationships. Corporate Connections, founded by Susan Knox, is the premier business development firm in the Southeast, and has been for over 20 years. Based in Atlanta, Susan believes the key to successful and scalable business growth is cultivating strong, long-lasting, strategic relationships. Corporate Connections generates revenue for professionals by providing strategic corporate introductions. Her mission is to provide professionals with increased business opportunities by providing stronger contacts, broader network exposure, more qualified business opportunities, ultimately growing your company.

For more information, call Susan directly at 770-757-8300, email her, or go to the Corporate Connections website.

“North Fulton Business Radio” is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®, located inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with approximately $12.9 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

GWBC Radio: Andy Fried with UGA SBDC and Anita Davis with Business2Banker Connection

August 15, 2019 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

GWBC Radio: Andy Fried with UGA SBDC and Anita Davis with Business2Banker Connection

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Andy Fried, a Business Consultant with the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center (UGA SBDC), has over twenty-five years’ experience in the financial, retail and real estate sectors. He began his career as a CPA with Laventhol and Horwath in New York. In 1984, Mr. Fried became owner and President of a retail business with locations throughout the New York tri-state area.

Andy sold his retail interests and moved to Atlanta where he became an owner, manager and agent of commercial real estate properties.

Connect with Andy on LinkedIn.

Anita Davis is the President and Chief Funding Matchmaker of Business2Banker Connection, Inc., a business funding solutions and strategies consulting firm. Her firm helps women owned businesses secure access to capital to execute on their growth strategies.

The number of women owned businesses continues to sky rocket. However, these companies typically maintain revenues under $100,000 annually. My goal is to remove the mental and real barriers around funding and help more women achieve their first or next million-dollar revenue target.

Connect with Anita on LinkedIn.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, spotlighting the city’s best businesses and the people who lead them.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] Lee Kantor here with Roz Lewis. And we’re very excited to have another episode of the GWBC Radio where we have conversations to grow your business. Welcome, Roz!

Roz Lewis: [00:00:26] Thank you, Lee. It’s great to be here today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:29] I know. You got a full house, got an entourage, got paparazzi, got all kinds of folks.

Roz Lewis: [00:00:34] Oh, exactly, you know. It’s always good to have that fan base.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] You bring with you. So, the theme of today’s show is cash flow is queen or king, depending who we’re talking to today, and some trends in business financing. What was your thinking about putting this kind of show together?

Roz Lewis: [00:00:51] Well, one of the things is the fact that one of the biggest challenges for women businesses is, believe it or not, access to capital. And more importantly, understanding your financials. We deal with this every day at the Greater Women’s Business Council when we’re reviewing files, applications for certification. And that is so key and important in a business. It’s actually the heartbeat of the business is to have that cash available. So, we thought that it would be great to share some valuable information with our fantastic guests that are here today to share with the listening audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:30] And that’s aligned with the mission of GWBC, right, is to help prepare that woman on business to be successful?

Roz Lewis: [00:01:38] Yes. Our mission is actually the CEOs – to certify, educate, and then provide opportunities to grow your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:46] So, you want to kick it out. Who do you want to start with?

Roz Lewis: [00:01:48] Yeah, let’s kick it off by talking about who we have today. It’s going to be Andy Fried with the UGA, University of Georgia Small Business Development Center. He’s in an accounting and finance consultant. And we have Anita Davis, President and Chief Funding Matchmaker. You like that name, matchmaker?

Lee Kantor: [00:02:10] That’s good.

Roz Lewis: [00:02:13] Funding Matchmaker at her business, Business to Banker Connection. So, Andy, share with us and with the audience a little bit about the UGA Small Business Development Center.

Andy Fried: [00:02:24] Sure. Good morning, Roz. Small Business Development Center is fully-taxpayer funded. We have 17 offices in the State of Georgia. We provide guidance on all areas of business – financial management, marketing, HR, a little bit of everything. And we have a lot of resources, a lot of third-party resource partners. And we’ve got the answer. We can find you the answer. Either we haven’t ourselves, or we can direct the traffic to where we need to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:59] Now, what kind of businesses should kind of take advantage of your services?

Andy Fried: [00:03:04] We help every single business. I mean, I drive down Roswell Road here in Sandy Springs, and I look at just so many clients in the service business, in the retail business, manufacturing, and every sector we-

Lee Kantor: [00:03:19] So, it doesn’t have to be,”I just⁠—I’m beginning.” It could be a veteran business and “I’m plateauing,” or “I’m having some challenges. And these resources are available to me. And I didn’t even know they existed.” And it’s like kind of a free service, right? It’s not [crosstalk].

Andy Fried: [00:03:34] It’s completely free. And if you’re in business, and you’re a taxpayer, our doors are open to you.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:40] And you should take advantage of it. Like there’s no reason not, at least, have a relationship.

Andy Fried: [00:03:44] You’re paying for. You might as well take advantage of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:47] Exactly.

Roz Lewis: [00:03:48] Exactly. So, say that again. You said F-R-E-E.

Andy Fried: [00:03:50] F-R-E-E.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:50] Right.

Roz Lewis: [00:03:50] Okay.

Andy Fried: [00:03:51] Our organization likes to say it’s a no-cost. We don’t like to say that we’re free, but it’s a no-cost service because you are paying-

Lee Kantor: [00:04:01] You are paying through tax dollars.

Andy Fried: [00:04:01] Through your tax dollars, correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:03] But this is⁠—Roz, I’ve had the chance to meet with folks there in the past and currently actually. Some of the stuff on the walls are because we’re talking to somebody from that group. It’s one of these things where business people⁠—business is hard, right?

Roz Lewis: [00:04:16] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:17] So, you have a resource that’s available to just listen and just at no cost because you’re already paying for it. And companies aren’t taking advantage of it. It should just be part of their day to day. I mean, I don’t care what level of business you are in, super success or startup.

Roz Lewis: [00:04:34] Well, just, also, the information you’re going to receive by being there.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:39] There’s no negative.

Roz Lewis: [00:04:40] There is no negative. And it’s a great resource, it’s a great way to network, get counseling, get advice. I’ve always heard there have been enough mistakes made, you don’t have to create new ones. So, this is the go-to place-

Andy Fried: [00:04:56] Thank you.

Roz Lewis: [00:04:56] … in order to get information if you’re starting your business.

Andy Fried: [00:04:59] Right. So, how do you two work together?

Roz Lewis: [00:05:01] Well, with the Small Business Development Center, it’s one of the resources that the Greater Women’s Business Council uses to refer our women businesses to of saying when they’re looking at⁠—especially when they’re looking at to try to do business with the government because that in itself is an arduous venture alone. Those are the areas that we feel they can⁠—when they’re looking at understanding business planning, when they’re looking at any growth, because you also have different components of the Small Business Development Center and of SBA as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:39] So, now, in today’s conversation, we want to hit on the cash flow element of this, right?

Roz Lewis: [00:05:43] Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:44] So, any tips for them, Andy? Like what are some mistakes you see that businesses are making or some opportunities?

Andy Fried: [00:05:50] Well, I didn’t mention part of our services, I’d say half of what I do at the SBDC is access to capital. Helping entrepreneurs get into business, helping entrepreneurs stay in business and grow their business, this is really what we do. And we have experts in the space of marketing, digital marketing, and HR, but my area is really access to capital and financial management. We are proudly funded by the SBA. And so, we are very much connected with the banking community, all the while the SBA bankers in Metro Atlanta and State of Georgia.

Andy Fried: [00:06:26] So, we have relationships. We know what’s a good fit for our clients, who will, who won’t, what they require. And we help them put together their entire package – their financial package, financial projection, the business plan. And Lee, just for clarification, we⁠—30% of our clients are people going into business, 70% of people already in business. So, we are helping the entire spectrum of entrepreneurs. So, the engagement looks like someone calls the office, they schedule appointment, and we unpack what they’re looking for, what they need help with, and we put together the package, whatever it needs to get done.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:10] So, now, when you’re helping this small business person, and maybe they’re not a veteran business person, like, do they even know what they don’t know? You know, they come to you with like sheets of paper and, you know, post-it notes and say, “Here’s my⁠—this is what I think is the business. And I don’t know if it will work.”

Andy Fried: [00:07:28] That’s what we do. If they bring me the back of the envelope, that really is okay.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:35] So, that is-

Andy Fried: [00:07:35] We need to start someplace. And that’s not uncommon. That’s more of a rule that it is than the exception. So, yeah, come as you are. We will figure it out and get you organized.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:47] It’s kind of a judgment-free zone. Right. You’re not judging.

Andy Fried: [00:07:50] No. There is no-

Lee Kantor: [00:07:50] Just trying to help.

Andy Fried: [00:07:50] There is no judging. It is to come as you are. Let’s have a little bit of humility, and move forward, and make some progress.

Roz Lewis: [00:07:59] Well, think about it, was it Home Depot? The owners, they started out on a napkin.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:04] Oh, really?

Roz Lewis: [00:08:05] Right, yeah. They pretty much-

Lee Kantor: [00:08:07] That’s their story?

Roz Lewis: [00:08:07] Yeah, that’s their story.

Andy Fried: [00:08:08] That’s it.

Roz Lewis: [00:08:09] Now, what about a mistake I would think, I’ve seen it happen in here, people tell me about it they started a business, but their finances and their personal, it’s kind of all in one big pile. And they want to write some stuff out, but they don’t want to show revenue. But then, they need a loan, and they haven’t shown anywhere. That kind of-

Andy Fried: [00:08:31] It’s a trap.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:32] … an intermingling of-

Andy Fried: [00:08:34] Yeah, it’s a trap.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:34] … financial resource.

Andy Fried: [00:08:35] That’s a trap. I mean, there needs to be⁠—people need to pay taxes. I mean, people do tactics to minimize income taxes. Legal, but at the same time, you go to the bank, and the bank wants to see profits.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:54] Right.

Andy Fried: [00:08:54] Right? And so, there’s some behavior that needs to be modified to get access to capital, so.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:02] Right. So, you got to be mindful. If I want a loan from the government for X number of dollars, I have to show that I can repay that, so.

Andy Fried: [00:09:10] Exactly. Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:11] Right.

Roz Lewis: [00:09:12] So, you do need to be credit-worthy.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:14] Right.

Roz Lewis: [00:09:14] Right? You got to be credit-worthy. So, you’re going to have to show some history of that. And more importantly, if you’re talking about that, talk about the fact of personal credit versus business credit.

Andy Fried: [00:09:29] So, I’ve been working that the SBDC for 12 years. And this question, Roz, comes up about business credit. And honestly, I really don’t know what that means. The acid test is your personal credit score. This is the number. The playing field is pretty much 700 above. There are banks that Anita is familiar with that will serve people less than 700 credit score. But to work with banks, the primary banks, the secondary banks, 700 credit score, personal credit score, that’s the ticket. That’s the starting point for discussion. I’m not really sure what a business credit score is. So, I know it exists, but I really don’t know when it’s used and how it’s used.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:15] And maybe this a good time to bring Anita Davis in-

Roz Lewis: [00:10:18] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:18] … to explain kind of primary and secondary bank. I don’t know what that is. So, maybe you can educate us about that.

Anita Davis: [00:10:25] That’s a great introduction, Andy, because there are banks that are your larger banks or your standard commercial banks that-

Lee Kantor: [00:10:35] They have billboards and commercials?

Anita Davis: [00:10:36] They typically do have billboards, you are right, but they have credit criteria that’s a little bit more stringent than some of the smaller banks or even some other traditional banks that will take a little bit more risk, primarily with the SBA product that will allow them to get a little bit more comfortable than maybe your local bank down the street will to get you access to that capital that you need.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:04] And then, that’s your—your firm helps a person kind of navigate this and say, “You know what, your score is not going to make it in this—in the TV ad bank. You’re going to have to go to a different bank, and maybe we can do some things to help make that happen.”

Anita Davis: [00:11:18] Absolutely. There are options available to clients that they probably don’t know because they are used to going with what they’re familiar with, what they see advertised, and that might be local. So, my company was formed to help solve that access to capital problem for most business owners. I used to be a banker, a lender for 20 years, and I’ve seen clients get declined because they may not be in a position for that particular bank. And what most business owners don’t know is that every bank has appetite for a certain type of loan or a certain type of industry.

Anita Davis: [00:11:58] So, if you go to a bank that, say, for instance, does not have a desire to add your industry into their loan portfolio, you’re probably going to be declined. However, there could be another bank in another state or another location that does have an appetite for you, and you can be approved. So, what my firm does is we help educate, we rehabilitate, we navigate, and then we match many clients into safe and sound funding solutions. So, for the last two years, what I’ve done is built a network of funding options and alternatives for clients. Most of the loans that I am successful at getting done these days are really bank loans and they’re bank loans with SBA products that you may have gotten turned down by a bank down the street.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:47] And the-

Roz Lewis: [00:12:47] So, you-

Lee Kantor: [00:12:47] Go ahead.

Roz Lewis: [00:12:49] So, you mentioned rehabilitation, therapy. What type of therapy do businesses need?

Anita Davis: [00:12:57] That’s a great question. And Andy spoke on it a little bit earlier. When you go to a bank, and your financials are not in order, then you need to have some conversations with somebody that can help instruct you on what exactly it is going to take to reposition your company. And that’s why I call it rehabilitation because, sometimes, you may need to rehabilitate your personal credit score. And there is some ways to do that effectively. Say, for instance, if you have a big credit lines with your personal credit cards, then if you reduce those credit limits to under 30%, your balance on those credit limits, that will immediately help you improve your business—your personal credit score. The banks will look at some clients that are under that 700 credit score target and help you get into a funding solution if you reposition yourself.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:58] So, some of it is this repositioning by making a call to the credit card company, but are there some things they can do as running their business that can help improve their cash flow? Maybe there’s tactics that they just weren’t aware of.

Anita Davis: [00:14:12] So, you’re right. Oftentimes, clients have a mismatch between their growth strategy and their tax strategy. And that’s really where a UGA SBDC can help a client be able to realign those strategies. If you’re going for bank funding, bank funding is going to need to see a bottomline net profit, so that they can help you acquire the capital. They use their bottomline net profit number to determine how much you qualify and how much you can repay them. If you have nothing, or you’ve minimized that to a level that you can’t qualify, you can’t afford the payment, then they’re not going to be able to help you. So, understanding that if you have a growth strategy, eventually, you’re going to be able—you’re going to grow out of bootstrapping your company. You’re going to need to have some outside funding. Then, you need to align yourself with what they’re going to look for in order to get you qualify.

Anita Davis: [00:15:09] Now, that’s bank funding. But there are also some other solutions that are non-bank funding that you may not need to use your personal credit score. So, there are solutions out here, and I’ll give a plug for Now Account because I like that service. It allows companies to start and grow their business with some capital or expediting funding. And they don’t use your personal credit score. They’ll use a business credit score. And so, Andy, was sharing, “I don’t really know what that looks like,” but certain companies will use different avenues to determine your credit worthiness. So, in this particular case, they’ll use a Dun and Bradstreet, and they’ll use a small business financial exchange score that will determine whether or not you will qualify for some initial funding options with them.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:56] So, now, if that’s the case, I don’t even know what those scores are like. Are you going to help me kind of get what my score is and give me some tools or tactics to improve my scores, so I have a better shot at this? Is that how you operate or-

Anita Davis: [00:16:10] That’s a great question. So, I’m not a reporting agency, but the score, it really is somewhat of a mystery where that score comes from. They pull together-

Roz Lewis: [00:16:20] Out of the air

Anita Davis: [00:16:20] … your payment performance, whether it’s with a credit card company or whether it is with one of your vendors. So, they look and determine how well you’re paying. And then, that gives them a pool of information to determine what your business credit score is. So, those—it is important just to pay, people. Hey, pay your-

Lee Kantor: [00:16:45] Pay on time.

Anita Davis: [00:16:45] … personal obligations.

Roz Lewis: [00:16:46] Pay on time.

Anita Davis: [00:16:48] Pay on time. And then, pay your vendors and pay them on time because all of those factors go into determining whether or not you’re credit-worthy.

Stone Payton: [00:16:58] Lee, don’t you only say first pay makes fast friends?

Anita Davis: [00:17:01] Absolutely. I think that’s a great way to think about it. I just say it’s a character issue. Banks and funding institutions are in business just like you are. And if you—they determine how much they can lend out based on the performance that—expecting a regular payment on time at a certain month every time. You don’t get to sign a contract and say, “I’m going to pay you $500 a month, and I’ll pay you $500 a month on the 15th,” but when the 15th come, “I don’t really want to pay on the 15th, I’m going to pay you on the 30th, or I’ll pay you a couple of months down the road.” That does not allow them to plan and be able to lend money out on a broad basis. So, they have to have standards for that. When you’re paying on time, it does help your ability to access capital.

Roz Lewis: [00:17:58] So, in other words, you’re saying that if I pay on time, more than likely, I’m going to get that line of credit when I need it for that potential-

Anita Davis: [00:18:09] Well, that’s-

Roz Lewis: [00:18:09] … RP that’s coming?

Anita Davis: [00:18:11] That’s a great question because paying on time, that’s the standard. It’s like dating. Don’t cheat on me. That’s the base. That’s the base.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:16] Right, that’s it.

Anita Davis: [00:18:16] That’s just-

Lee Kantor: [00:18:16] That’s table stake.

Anita Davis: [00:18:16] Exactly, exactly. So, paying your obligations on time, that’s expected. Then, they want to know if you’re looking for—again, a bank is different from other kinds of financial funding solutions. But if you’re looking at bank capital, they’re going to look for your profitability. They’re going to look to see how much debt you have. They’re going to look to see if you’re paying on time. And then, if you have some liquidity. Meaning, they look at your current obligations compared to your current liabilities to see if you’re liquid. And that goes back to what Andy does in helping clients with their cash flow and understanding business cash flow. So, it’s more than just paying your bills on time, but that’s just the baseline.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:04] Now, what about when it’s time to get this loan or maybe a loan is the appropriate thing for the business. Now, the bank is going to look at the business’s finances. And what if me, personally, I have a lot of debt, or I have no debt, and I have millions of dollars, does that come into play or is it kind of secluded by itself where it’s only looking at that in a vacuum?

Anita Davis: [00:19:28] That’s a great question as well because most lenders look at you globally. They look at your business financial situation, and they look at your personal, and they want to know that you can afford all of the obligations that you have – your mortgage, your car loans, your college tuition for your children. They want to know what those obligations are and that you can afford to pay those obligations in a timely manner. And then, they look at the business performance and determine that. So, when they look at all of those factors together, that really is how they come up with a determination as to whether you’re credit-worthy or not.

Roz Lewis: [00:20:05] And, Andy, is this what you’re seeing too?

Andy Fried: [00:20:07] Well, Lee, you can have a whole lot of money in the bank, a lot of cash, a lot of assets, fantastic credit score, but if the business is not a profitable business that you are not going to get a loan. These lenders today, a bank lender today wants to know, is the business sustainable? They don’t want to go chase your personal assets. This is work. This is time consuming, expensive. They’re lending to a business that is profitable, that can pay back the loan, regardless. They don’t really care about your—I mean, they certainly want to make sure that you have some personal strength, but is the business a sound business?

Lee Kantor: [00:20:51] So, the business stands alone?

Andy Fried: [00:20:52] It does.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:54] And then-

Andy Fried: [00:20:54] That’s correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:54] So, the bank will say, “Then, write yourself a check and pay—or your loan yourself the money.”

Andy Fried: [00:21:00] Well, they will go—they’ll decline the loan if it’s not a good business. That’s correct.

Roz Lewis: [00:21:06] So, in other words, you’re saying—we used the term widgets, right? It has to be something that’s going to be relevant, and that bell curve is not too short, the lifespan of it, of the business, and that there’s a future in it. I always use eight track tapes. You look great in the day, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:21:25] For a period of time, right.

Roz Lewis: [00:21:26] For a period of time.

Andy Fried: [00:21:26] Well-

Roz Lewis: [00:21:26] But today-

Lee Kantor: [00:21:27] Not so much.

Andy Fried: [00:21:28] Well, an SBA loan is 10 years. So, they’re hoping that this business will last 10 years.

Anita Davis: [00:21:34] Be around in 10 years. At least, 10 years, right?

Andy Fried: [00:21:35] Exactly.

Anita Davis: [00:21:36] But to your point, Roz, there are a lot of—there’s lots of disruption in business these days. So, companies that were very profitable years ago may not be in business now. So, a lender is looking for a viable business opportunity, and they want to see some sustainability in your company.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:56] Now, what about a loan? Like, say, I have—I get a contract somewhere, and then maybe I don’t have the money to deal with it right now, but I got this contract. So, now, can I get money from that? Is that possible?

Anita Davis: [00:22:12] There are—that’s a cash flow solution as well. So, if you have invoices, you can use your invoices to help you expedite your cash flow. They will take the invoices as an asset.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:26] Who is they?

Anita Davis: [00:22:26] They, lenders. They are lenders. They are funding solutions that may not be bank lenders. They’re nontraditional solutions that will utilize invoice financing to help you expedite your cash flow. Say, for instance, if you have a product or service, and you’re waiting for your client to pay you, you’ve offered your clients terms, 30 days, 60 days, 90-day terms, then if you need that money and faster, there’s some solutions available in the marketplace, whether it’s a line of credit from the bank, or nontraditional invoice financing solution, or sometimes factoring in depending on your size and scope. Those things will allow you to bring that cash into your business a little faster or a lot faster, and then help you be able to use that as a working capital solution. And then, you pay them, or they’ll receive the money from your client when they pay you according to the terms that you’ve set.

Roz Lewis: [00:23:21] And Andy, wouldn’t you say that this is something that you see quite often? It’s the fact that they’re very excited about getting the business, but yet, then it’s like, “Oh, my gosh. What am I going to do now? How am I going to deliver-”

Lee Kantor: [00:23:37] Deliver on the thing I promised

Roz Lewis: [00:23:37] Right, on what I promised.

Andy Fried: [00:23:39] So, this, I see all the time. And this is something called growing broke, right?

Roz Lewis: [00:23:45] Growing broke.

Andy Fried: [00:23:45] Growing broke. So-

Lee Kantor: [00:23:45] You’re sure right. That’s a good title of a book.

Andy Fried: [00:23:50] Yeah. And sadly, I see this quite often. You’ve heard the expression that companies go out of business because they’re undercapitalized, right? And this is exactly the situation where they go into business, they wake up, they go into business, and they sell widgets to a big box. And the big box, let’s not name names, but let’s say they pay their bills in 60 or 90 days, right. But you’ve got to pay-

Roz Lewis: [00:24:16] 120.

Andy Fried: [00:24:16] 120. And you’ve got to pay your labor, you’ve got to pay your landlord, you’ve got to pay utilities, insurance. They say you got to pay your employees, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:24:26] Yeah.

Andy Fried: [00:24:26] And so, you go to pay them on Friday, but you don’t collect your money from your clients on 60 days, and 90 days, and maybe 120. You had a business before. You even collect the money from your clients. And so, yes, this is something that needs to be understood and addressed at the start and before they get into trouble. So, this would be a big mistake.

Andy Fried: [00:24:50] And so in business, we make mistakes. This is, sort of, the rule. The idea in business is to avoid the big mistake. And this is where I come in and help my clients. So, understanding these tensions between day sales outstanding and the collection period, and then days payable outstanding, how fast you had to pay your bills. So, we need to get those collection periods or those payment periods in alignment very close to each other. But if you collect long and pay short, there’s just a problem. And that requires—and that’s not a problem if you’ve got adequate working capital. But if you don’t have that working capital, then it’s a problem. And then, the question becomes, how much working capital do I need? And this is exactly what I do at my office. We put our finger right on the number, and we go from there.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:40] And the working capital, the definition of that is that’s what you need kind of on the day-to-day basis and, like, kind of every day, not, “Oh, in 120 days, I’m going to get this big pile of money, but I may not make it to 120 days. So, I don’t have enough working capital, even though like on paper, it looks like everything could look okay-

Andy Fried: [00:25:59] That is correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:00] … but it really isn’t because on the day-to-day operations, I don’t have enough money to pay the bills today or next week. And it doesn’t matter if I’m going to get paid in two months, I’ll be out of business by then.

Andy Fried: [00:26:10] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:10] All my employees will leave.

Andy Fried: [00:26:11] Yes. So, Lee, this is truly a challenge that most business owners struggle with. They think that the profit and loss statement is the cash flow statement. The cash flow—and it’s absolutely not the profit and loss statement that informs on profitability, but there are plenty of businesses that are profitable that go out of business because profits and cash are not the same thing. That’s why there is this thing called the cash flow statement, which I would say of your listeners, maybe 95% of them have never seen the cash flow statement. So, yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:26:44] So, let’s walk through what a cash—like what are the elements of that, and how can somebody put one in place?

Andy Fried: [00:26:49] Okay. So, cash flow statement is automatically generated by Quickbooks. I mean, most of our listeners here probably use Quickbooks, but they’ve never seen it. I daresay their CPAs never showed it to them. It’s not intuitive, not user-friendly, but it’s so absolutely critical to understanding it. And it informs on how cash leaves—comes into business and goes out of business. So, cash comes into business, from cash flow from operations, basically, your profit and loss statement on a cash flow basis. And that all happens from the P&L. And then, there’s also things that affect cash flow, that happens on the balance sheet, which is buying equipment, buying a building. That never hits the profit and loss statement. How about if you pay back those bank loans? That’s not something that never hits a profit & loss statement. That’s also on the balance sheet. And then, if the owner decides to take a distribution for the boat they want to buy, that never hits the profit and loss statement.

Andy Fried: [00:27:49] So, what the owner doesn’t really understand is that, not only do they need to manage the profit and loss statement, but they also have to match the balance sheet. And that’s something that’s really not in most business owners’ wheelhouse. They really don’t understand managing the balance sheet. They don’t understand matching accounts receivable collection periods, days payable outstanding, how long they take to pay the bills. They think paying the bills are a good thing. Paying a bill too fast is not a good thing.

Anita Davis: [00:28:16] That’s right.

Andy Fried: [00:28:16] And then, turning inventory over, they don’t really understand inventory turnover and days in inventory. And these are—they’re retailers, and they’re fantastic merchants, but they don’t know that they’re over inventory. And that affects cash flow because inventory is frozen cash flow. And so, they need guidelines, they need boundaries, they need to understand on a month-to-month basis, basically, by the 10th day of every following month, how did I do in the previous month? And so, they don’t have these tools. And so, there’s the cash flow statement, there’s balance sheet, the P&L, and they all work together. And to be—without self-promoting, but I’ve created a financial scorecard that helps people get empowered, so they don’t—they don’t really need me until after they—hopefully, they don’t need me after they use that scorecard, so.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:00] So, the scorecard is kind of a dashboard where I can see on a regular basis like, “Hey, I’m going to have a problem in two months if I don’t address this now”? Like it gives me kind of a snapshot of the future of where danger is?

Andy Fried: [00:29:11] It absolutely does. And the very bottom line, it informs you how much working capital you have and how much working capital is required based on company performance. And so, am I over-capitalized or my undercapitalized? And what am I—how does it look? And, so if you’re undercapitalized, we need to grow the bank quickly, right. The idea is-

Roz Lewis: [00:29:33] And, hopefully, to get a loan-

Lee Kantor: [00:29:33] And then-

Roz Lewis: [00:29:34] … or have a line of credit.

Lee Kantor: [00:29:34] … a lot of businesses think, “Well, I’m going to sell my way out of this problem,” right? And then, if they sell some big thing to a company that pays in three or four months, you didn’t really solve the problem. Like you might be high-fiving that you made this big sale on paper, but you could have exacerbated the situation.

Andy Fried: [00:29:53] So, one of the solutions that I Anita talked about was selling invoices in accounts receivable factor, and that’s a solution to shorten the DSO, shorten the day sales outstanding. And that’s certainly a winning tactic to shorten the collection period. But at the same time, it could be a trap. Because at this company, if it’s a staffing company that works on tight margins, let’s say 20% gross profit margin, and their overhead is 15%, and they work on a net profit margin of 5%, but then they’ve got to pay the factor 2.5% a month to collect it, well, if it takes two months to collect, that’s 5%. It’s 5%, but they’re only working on 5% in their profit, they’re not making the money, right? It’s a trap.

Anita Davis: [00:30:37] It’s very tricky.

Lee Kantor: [00:30:38] Right.

Andy Fried: [00:30:38] It’s very tricky. And 2.5% a month annualized, that’s 30% annualized interest rate. That’s like, “Help!” Who can afford that?

Lee Kantor: [00:30:50] Right.

Anita Davis: [00:30:50] So, it’s very difficult to understand the cost of capital for most companies because they don’t really have to deal with that on a daily basis.

Lee Kantor: [00:30:57] You got to know math.

Anita Davis: [00:30:58] Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:30:59] I think that’s the bottom line here, Roz. Math is important.

Anita Davis: [00:30:59] And math can be intimidating.

Roz Lewis: [00:31:02] You have to do well in school.

Anita Davis: [00:31:03] Yeah.

Roz Lewis: [00:31:04] So, all the kids that are listening out there today, understand how important it is to business.

Anita Davis: [00:31:08] Well, even business owners today, oftentimes, Andy and I will talk to clients that have been in business for years, and they don’t really understand their own financial statements. They’re very intimidated by the information that’s there. They’ll—”I’ll give it to my CPA. My CPA can give you the answers.” You really need to understand the answers about what’s happened in the day-to-day operations of your company. And then, get some help. Ask for guidance from somebody like UGA SBDC or somebody who is in a banker that can give you a—take a view of what your financial performance is to see where there are areas that you can need to get some help in.

Anita Davis: [00:31:52] So, the goal is to always bring your money in as fast as possible and push your payments out as long as possible, but making sure that you managing the terms of the agreements that you have with your vendors. So, if you can—there are solutions. And I think we’re going to talk about something a little bit later, like using P-cards or using credit cards to even bring money in or push money out in a way that helps you increase the performance of your company and improve your cash flow. Cash is king, and cash is queen.

Roz Lewis: [00:32:27] Yes. And talking about that, there’s so many companies today, especially major corporations, that are going to the purchasing card. And there’s a reason for that, because of the total cost of ownership of process and the invoice, especially for low-dollar items. But yet we have our women businesses and our small businesses that are somewhat averse to that. And why? Is it because of the interest rate? I mean, the cost that it is the fees, which I agree, they’re very high. But how can we get them comfortable with understanding that that will also help them with some working capital?

Lee Kantor: [00:33:09] Well, before we get into, I think, it’s super important, but let’s define P-card for some people that aren’t familiar with that terminology.

Roz Lewis: [00:33:14] Yeah, exactly. So, the P-card is a purchasing card. It is a credit card that most buyers or sourcing managers have to be able to pay that low-dollar invoice.

Lee Kantor: [00:33:26] And what’s low defined as you think for a company?

Roz Lewis: [00:33:27] Well, it depends. It depends. It could be $1000. It could actually be $10,000.

Lee Kantor: [00:33:32] Every company has a different kind of-

Roz Lewis: [00:33:33] Every company. Well, and within the company, the-

Lee Kantor: [00:33:37] Different departments, they have-

Roz Lewis: [00:33:38] Right. The different departments or within the departments, they’re going to have different level of managers, who is going to have a different level than the sourcing manager or the VP may have. And you can always ask for an increase to pay a specific invoice. But that, to me, is a very quick way of getting your money, so that you not run into the mailbox, you not run into the bank every day trying to figure out, to deposit money, or have access in order to pay those wonderful employees that you hired.

Andy Fried: [00:34:11] Well, I’m very cash flow sensitive, giving up 2.5% or 3% of my sale to Citibank. I, really, would rather not give up 2.5% to 3%. 2.5% to 3%, I don’t know. Most companies I work with, they work on maybe 5% in their profit margin, 10% in their profit margin. You give up—if you’re work on 10% and you’re giving up three points, that’s 30%, right? That’s, “Help!” I don’t want to give up 30% of my net profit. So, if I’m cash struggling, cash-challenged, I will absolutely take that P card. But as a general rule, that will not be what I want to do. I would encourage my clients to pay me with an ACH transfer, That’s a—that costs typically 50 cents a transaction, a dollar a charge transaction tops, as opposed to giving up 2.5% to 3%. So, ACH transfer has really been a big trend in business financial transactions.

Lee Kantor: [00:35:21] So, practically, how does a business switch? Like, say, they’re taking credit cards, or they’re using these P-cards, and they are paying those fees that are associated with that? Because they’re trying to be easy to work with, and they’re trying to make it easy, can then ACH be easy too? Are there ways to make that simple for the company and their clients?

Andy Fried: [00:35:38] So, Lee, I’m sure—I’m not sure what you do in your personal life, but I’m sure you work with a plumber, or an electrician, or a landscape company, and maybe on a recurring basis. And they’ll email you an invoice into your inbox, and you click on a box, and they ask you for payment. You put in your routing number, you put it in your checking account number. It’s all very secure. And this transaction costs 50 cents or a dollar. And so, instead of the person, the landscaper, mailing you an invoice, and it sits in a pile on your desk and underneath some pile of stuff, and it gets lost, and you get around to when you get around to it. But if you see it in your inbox, and all you had to do is click on a box, put in your routing number, and put in your checking account number, this accelerates collections for companies tremendously.

Lee Kantor: [00:36:37] And with less fees.

Andy Fried: [00:36:38] And with tiny fees, no credit cards. So, it’s a beautiful thing.

Roz Lewis: [00:36:42] So, looking-

Anita Davis: [00:36:43] So, by-

Roz Lewis: [00:36:43] Sorry, but for clarity, I just want to make sure. But there, to your point, we still want our audience to know, there is a charge for ACH.

Andy Fried: [00:36:51] Correct.

Roz Lewis: [00:36:52] There still is some-

Lee Kantor: [00:36:53] Right.

Andy Fried: [00:36:53] But it-

Roz Lewis: [00:36:53] But nothing to the impact of-

Andy Fried: [00:36:56] Correct.

Roz Lewis: [00:36:56] … the credit card.

Andy Fried: [00:36:57] A fraction of a fraction of the cost of credit card merchant fees. Correct.

Anita Davis: [00:37:02] So, most companies do not have a collection strategy for their business. And if—all of your customers may not allow you to ACH them. So, if they don’t, then you go to the next level.

Lee Kantor: [00:37:16] Right.

Anita Davis: [00:37:16] They might be using a P-card. And if you don’t, then you—or you use your line of credit, you’re working capital line of credit. So, there, you go down to different levels to determine, is this the way my client is going to pay me and pay me most expeditiously?

Lee Kantor: [00:37:33] Right.

Anita Davis: [00:37:33] So, you want to get that, have those conversations with your client before you bring them on board and determine how can—how will you accept payment? How will you pay me? And if you can have those conversations early on, then you get to the lowest cost of capital, which is going to be your ACH solution, if that’s the case, or your business line of credit. Then, you get those things done and in place on the front end. And then, you go down to maybe some of the more costly solutions or costly ways to bring in your payments.

Andy Fried: [00:38:07] And the issue may have nothing to do with that all. It could be just company-specific problems like billing is not done on a timely basis. Billing is done accurately. There’s poor communication between the seller and the buyer. They don’t follow up if they’re in the home-approved business, and they do a job, and they don’t call the customer after the job’s done, and they don’t ask how the job go. Just poor communication. There’s a whole host of reasons why there may be slow collections and not expensive solutions. Just a better job of running the business. I see this all the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:38:43] And then, having those systems in place ahead of time. And that’s part of the service GWBC and the SBDC does, right? That’s part of your work is to help the business person just be informed that, look, just because you’re good at plumbing, there’s a lot more to business than just plumbing, right? There’s a lot of moving parts here. And you’ve got to get your act together in these other areas if you want to be able to keep this business going over time.

Andy Fried: [00:39:08] Correct.

Roz Lewis: [00:39:08] Yeah. You’re going to be wearing a lot of hats.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:11] Right.

Roz Lewis: [00:39:11] Right? When you’re first starting your business. You’re chief cook and bottle washer.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:16] Right.

Anita Davis: [00:39:16] Yes.

Roz Lewis: [00:39:16] Right, you’re all of them.

Lee Kantor: [00:39:16] But a person has a dream, and then maybe they’re out, they’re working for somebody else, and they’re good at what they do, and they’re like, “Look, I can do this as good as this person.” And they don’t realize how many other things are happening other than just doing the work. Like doing the work is, like you said, Anita, earlier, that’s table stakes. You have to do a good job that, or you’re never going to make it in business. All these other things, these are saboteurs that are out there waiting to trip you up, right, if you don’t get this stuff right.

Roz Lewis: [00:39:43] Or you look at them as these are opportunities for you to learn and expand your knowledge about what all you need to have a successful business and determine when you need to get outside help, which is my question. At what point does a business owner look to gain assistance from a CPA or an accountant to basically help them with these financial statements?

Lee Kantor: [00:40:11] You just have to call Andy. And then-

Roz Lewis: [00:40:12] You call, and Anita.

Lee Kantor: [00:40:12] Right. Andy is free. Like-

Roz Lewis: [00:40:12] And this too.

Anita Davis: [00:40:12] Call Andy first. And then, call me.

Roz Lewis: [00:40:22] Andy will call Anita. Don’t worry.

Andy Fried: [00:40:22] Exactly.

Anita Davis: [00:40:22] But I think it’s important for you. If you don’t understand your financials, get a system in place. And they’re just—Andy mentioned early, Quickbooks is a great way to have a system. And then, if you are not comfortable with the information in your financial statements, I think that’s a great time to consider adding a CPA or—and you have to pay for services again. So-

Lee Kantor: [00:40:51] Right. Well, just like the person who is paying for their service.

Anita Davis: [00:40:53] Exactly, exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:40:54] If they want an expert, that’s why they called the plumber. If they could do it themselves on YouTube, they would’ve done it themselves.

Anita Davis: [00:40:59] And sometimes, there are levels. So, maybe you started a bookkeeping level where somebody can just help you keep your records in order, put that into a system like Quickbooks. And then, that reporting information goes to a CPA, and you don’t have to have a CPA handling your financial statements on a monthly basis, but they may be reviewing them quarterly just to make sure that everything is in order, so you’ll be prepared when it comes time to submit your financials for your tax returns. That’s important for you to to just think through, am I handling my financials well? You know if you’re not doing any financial statements, or you’re not putting your information into some formalized system that that’s probably not—you’re probably needing some help. What do you say, Andy?

Andy Fried: [00:41:46] Yeah, I’d say that as a general rule that a person should have a full set of financial statements on their desk by the 10th day of every following month. That’s just a rule. And if it’s not the 10th day, then make of the 15th day, right? That’s a starting point. But then, it’s not enough to just print the financial statements. They really need to understand the financial statements.

Lee Kantor: [00:42:07] Right.

Roz Lewis: [00:42:07] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:42:07] Printing it and putting in a file doesn’t help anybody.

Andy Fried: [00:42:10] Printing it. Okay, I printed it, Andy, check. But, what does this mean?

Anita Davis: [00:42:13] What does it mean?

Andy Fried: [00:42:14] And so—and this is really where I come in. And honestly, one meeting in my office would be absolutely empowering and perhaps transformative. If they just need—if they just knew some of the benchmarks for their business, and they could be external benchmarks, industry benchmarks. So, they could be benchmarks that they’ve cooked up themselves. But there needs to be some benchmarks. So, for instance, any kind of business has sales. Most businesses have cost of goods sold or cost of services. So, sales, minus the cost of goods sold or services, equals gross profit. And so, we make sense of numbers by dividing everything into sale.

Andy Fried: [00:42:55] So, gross profit, divided by sales, is gross profit margin. This is absolutely the introduction and the advanced class of business. What is your gross profit margin? What should it be? If they say I buy something for dollar, I sold for $2, that means they’re make a dollar on a $2 sale. It’s a 50% gross profit margin. And then, when they print their financial statements the following—on the 10th day of the following month that it turns out it’s 40%, that means they gave up 10%, 10% of whatever their sales were. The sales for the month $100,000, they gave up 10%, that means $10,000 came out of that bottom line.

Andy Fried: [00:43:31] They need to have these benchmarks in place. If the overheads of their 50% gross profit, and their overhead is 40%, and their net profit is 10%, well, then, they need to make sure that every month that their overhead is within—is 40% tops. If it’s more than that, that’s coming out of the bottom line. And so, what I’m saying in English is that they need to have a budget. Every one of my clients needs to have a monthly, quarterly, annual budget. Set the benchmarks up, have the budget, take the five minutes it takes to put the actual numbers in for each month, five minutes, and compare performance against the benchmarks, and then make timely corrective actions. It’s just not that complicated, but it’s complicated if they don’t know what to do.

Anita Davis: [00:44:21] Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:44:22] And they don’t know the terms. And sometimes, the business owner is overwhelmed by, look, it’s hard enough to just keep the doors open and selling things. And then, you’re worrying about tax ramifications. Then, you’re worrying about, now, cash flow is more important if I’m going to get a loan. Like some of these things sound like they’re opposites. Like at one point, I’m trying to save money on my taxes. And, now I’m being told that, now, I’ve got to not save money on my taxes because I want to get a loan later on that’s going to help me grow faster, so I can save money on my taxes later. Like it sounds confusing and contradictory, some of it.

Andy Fried: [00:44:55] Well, it’s not contradictory. It’s a trap. That’s really what it is. The CPA says to business owner, “I can reduce your income taxes by deferring revenue, accelerating expenses, which will minimize your income, and minimize your income taxes,” but if this person wants to go to the bank and borrow money, or this person wants to sell their business, well, valuation is based on net income on their tax returns, a multiple of net income, three, four times net income. And the CPA has been busy minimizing income taxes, which is minimizing income. Then, the company value is minimized. And then, the chance of getting bank financing is also minimized.

Andy Fried: [00:45:37] So, the CPA can defer revenue, accelerate expenses, and it’s just deferring income taxes down the road. It’s just the business owner needs to be absolutely, economically motivated. I mean, they need to be aware of income taxes, but their primary concern should be absolute economic motivation to maximize profits. That is what we do in business is maximize profits, maximize growth, maximize access to capital, grow the business, grow the profits, and everything will follow suit. So-

Lee Kantor: [00:46:18] But we talked earlier about the importance, at some point, you’re going to hire a CPA or an accountant, someone who’s going to help you in this area. You better pick somebody that’s aligned with that kind of thinking, because if they think they’re serving you by just lowering your taxes, they may not be the right fit from a CPA standpoint, right. You’ve got to choose wisely here.

Roz Lewis: [00:46:35] So, you’ve got to have good communication with your CPA of that-

Lee Kantor: [00:46:39] Yeah, what outcome do you desire.

Roz Lewis: [00:46:40] Exactly. And I need to have a little knowledge of what your goals are-

Andy Fried: [00:46:44] Exactly.

Roz Lewis: [00:46:46] … more importantly-

Anita Davis: [00:46:47] Exactly.

Roz Lewis: [00:46:47] … so they’ll know how to advise you.

Andy Fried: [00:46:49] Right. If you’re running a lemonade stand, and you’re a mom pie, lemonade stand, and all you want to be is a lemonade mom pie, lemonade stand, then you know what? Defer, accelerate, whatever you want to do. But if you want to have 10 lemonade stands, you’re going to need access to capital and grow the business. And at some point, you’re going to want to sell this business for a lot of money, you need to be thinking maximized profits. Period. That has got to be front and center and always part of your mindset.

Lee Kantor: [00:47:20] And then, if that’s your true north, then all your decisions are going to be informed by that, and that’s what you’re going to be acting towards

Andy Fried: [00:47:26] Correct.

Anita Davis: [00:47:27] They have to be in alignment. And to Roz’s point, you do have to convey and communicate to your financial advisor, your CPA, your accountant, whoever is helping you with that, “This is my goal.” And then, they can align how they help you show your performance on your tax return because one of the great benefits of starting a business is that you can write things off. And that seems simple and great when you first start.

Lee Kantor: [00:47:55] Right.

Anita Davis: [00:47:55] But you, eventually, will grow out of that.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:00] Beyond that, right.

Anita Davis: [00:48:00] Yeah, you need to grow beyond that if you want to have 10 lemonade stands.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:03] Exactly.

Anita Davis: [00:48:04] So, you need to think strategically about, “Where I’m going, and can do this self-funded?” Most people can’t. That’s why banks exist. They do want to lend money. People always make the comments and say, “Banks don’t want to lend money.” No, that’s not true. They hire-

Lee Kantor: [00:48:20] That’s their business.

Anita Davis: [00:48:20] … really, really top, talented people to make sure that they can-

Lee Kantor: [00:48:24] Right.

Anita Davis: [00:48:24] … lend you money.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:24] But in the right-

Anita Davis: [00:48:25] So, that is their goal.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:25] With the right—they want to lend the money in the correct manner-

Anita Davis: [00:48:29] Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:48:29] … to people that wanted to use it in the correct manner.

Anita Davis: [00:48:31] Right. So, you need to understand what they’re going to be looking for. There’s a risk profile for every company when they’re going to look for capital. And so, if your risk profile meets their qualifications, then you are going-

Lee Kantor: [00:48:46] Right.

Anita Davis: [00:48:46] … to be able to access that capital. There is a lot of money out here available, and there are many, many resources to do it. You just need to be strategic about that. And then, get advisors when you’re unclear about maybe the cost of capital. Andy, how much is it going to cost me if I want to do this?

Lee Kantor: [00:49:04] Right.

Anita Davis: [00:49:04] So, that somebody can help you have a good direction to move forward with your plans. And then, of course, you can always hire me because I can find the money for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:49:12] Right. And I think, Anita, the important part of your service is that you’re looking beyond my block, right, so that if I think like, “Oh, I know the banker down the street, and he said, no. So, I’m out of luck. So, I’m not going to be able get money,” I can call you. And you have access to banks all over the place. And it’s-

Anita Davis: [00:49:28] All over the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:49:28] And there might be opportunity, like you said, in Wichita, the person might be the exact right banking fit for me that I would never even know.

Anita Davis: [00:49:36] Exactly. I’m helping a client right now that was turned down by a local bank, and we’re just getting him approved by another bank that’s in California.

Lee Kantor: [00:49:45] Right.

Anita Davis: [00:49:45] And so, it does—there ways to have what you’re looking for. You just need to know where to go. And oftentimes, it’s not going to be simple for you to do that. So, you hire somebody who can navigate that for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:49:59] Right. Now, Roz, for the GWBC, are you doing any speaking or any events that help kind of—help your people with this to help them learn about this?

Roz Lewis: [00:50:08] Lee, I’m so glad you asked that question because just in a couple of weeks, we’re going to be hosting our Power of Partnering Marketplace that’s going to held at the Gwinnett Energy Center on August 27. It’s from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. And after that, we’ll be having a nice little reception. But come and join us. Not only that, if you enjoy today’s information, you’re going to have an opportunity to hear more and get more details from Andy Fried of UGA because he is one of our workshop speakers on cash flow. So, that is one of the beauties of hosting events like this is to be able to provide our women businesses, small businesses, minority businesses with an opportunity to learn more about how you can grow your business.

Roz Lewis: [00:51:03] So, keep that in mind. Online registration is still open at gwbc.biz, and click on events, and you will see the power of partnering marketplace and more information, including our keynote speaker who is Shawne Duperon. And she is going to talk about how leaders never received the apology they deserve. And you’re going to think, “My gosh, what is that about?” But too often, that happens. So, hopefully, you all will join us and that you’ll get a chance to meet Andy in person. And Anita will probably be there too, as well as other women businesses and major corporations that you may want to do business with.

Lee Kantor: [00:51:50] And before we wrap, I want to make sure everybody gets coordinates for the guests. Andy, if somebody wants to get a hold of you, what’s the coordinates?

Andy Fried: [00:51:57] If they Google Andy Fried, F-R-I-E-D, at UGA SBDC, they’ll find me.

Lee Kantor: [00:51:59] They’ll find you. And Anita?

Anita Davis: [00:52:08] You can look me up on my website, businesstobankerconnection.com. And then, you can always call 770-365-0858 to have a direct contact with me.

Lee Kantor: [00:52:18] And then, you two are both open to connections on LinkedIn?

Anita Davis: [00:52:22] Absolutely.

Andy Fried: [00:52:22] Sure.

Lee Kantor: [00:52:23] And Roz, more time for GWBC, if they want to learn more about the organization and some of the upcoming events?

Roz Lewis: [00:52:30] Exactly. At www.gwbc.biz. And I’m always going to leave you with a parting thought. And that is revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is queen.

Lee Kantor: [00:52:46] All right. Thank you so much for sharing your story, everybody. And we will see you all next time on GWBC Radio.

About Your Host

Roz Lewis is President & CEO – Greater Women’s Business Council (GWBC®), a regional partner organization of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and a member of the WBENC Board of Directors.

Previous career roles at Delta Air Lines included Flight Attendant, In-Flight Supervisor and Program Manager, Corporate Supplier Diversity.

During her career she has received numerous awards and accolades. Most notable: Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 2018 Diversity & Inclusion award; 2017 inducted into the WBE Hall of Fame by the American Institute of Diversity and Commerce and 2010 – Women Out Front Award from Georgia Tech University.

She has written and been featured in articles on GWBC® and supplier diversity for Forbes Magazine SE, Minority Business Enterprise, The Atlanta Tribune, WE- USA, Minorities and Women in Business magazines. Her quotes are published in The Girls Guide to Building a Million Dollar Business book by Susan Wilson Solovic and Guide Coaching by Ellen M. Dotts, Monique A. Honaman and Stacy L. Sollenberger. Recently, she appeared on Atlanta Business Chronicle’s BIZ on 11Alive, WXIA to talk about the importance of mentoring for women.

In 2010, Lewis was invited to the White House for Council on Women and Girls Entrepreneur Conference for the announcement of the Small Business Administration (SBA) new Women Owned Small Business Rule approved by Congress. In 2014, she was invited to the White House to participate in sessions on small business priorities and the Affordable Care Act.

Roz Lewis received her BS degree from Florida International University, Miami, FL and has the following training/certifications: Certified Purchasing Managers (CPM); Certified Professional in Supplier Diversity (CPSD), Institute for Supply Management (ISM)of Supplier Diversity and Procurement: Diversity Leadership Academy of Atlanta (DLAA), Negotiations, Supply Management Strategies and Analytical Purchasing.

Connect with Roz on LinkedIn.

About GWBC

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

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

Sales Effectiveness Radio – August 14, 2019

August 14, 2019 by angishields

Sales Effectiveness Radio

Sales Effectiveness Radio - August 14, 2019

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Phil Bush, Director of MavRen Sales and Marketing, spent 15 years focusing on Sales Enablement. He developed strategies around Sales Process, including Sales Process Definition, Territory Planning, Account Execution Planning™, Sales Coaching, Sales Team Coordination, and Partner Execution, for Divisions of IBM, Oracle, Infor, and other Large & Small companies.

Phil has worked with a variety of Start-up organizations through Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC). The focus has always been to drive revenue for different parts of the organizations.

Connect with Phil on LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Your Host

Steve Maul is the founder and managing principal at The Semantics Group. He brings nearly 40 years of successful marketing, sales, performance improvement and management experience to the clients with whom he works. Having a career in direct and channel sales, sales management, marketing, finance and as an executive in companies both large and small, Steve grasps quickly the challenges faced by his clients and works to clear the hurdles that prevent revenue growth and predictability.

His passion is not only helping his clients GET customers, but also ensuring that they can deliver the expected value so those customers will establish loyalty and repeat buying. Steve has authored dozens of performance improvement programs for sales, marketing, consulting and customer service professionals and worked extensively with world-class companies such as SAS Institute, CenturyLink, Cisco, FinListics, Fiserv, Mansfield Energy, Oracle, SAP, and others.

Follow The Semantics Group on Twitter and Steve Maul on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Elizabeth Gordon interviews Lorraine Chilvers, CEO of Delaney Consulting LLC on the Chic Perspectives Show

January 4, 2010 by angishields

Chic Perspectives

Elizabeth Gordon interviews Lorraine Chilvers, CEO of Delaney Consulting LLC on the Chic Perspectives Show

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Today on the Chic Perspectives Show I got to chat with Lorraine Chilvers, CEO of Delaney, a professional services company that provides financial expertise to businesses.

Lorraine has held some high-level executive positions with Fortune 100 companies, she talked about why she moved from that to being an entrepreneur.Â She reveals why given the current economic climate, Delanyâ€™s services are uniquely suited to meet the needs of growing businesses.

I always like to ask successful businesspeople about mistakes or failures in their past.Â Failure can be a powerful teaching tool and often businesspeopleâ€™s own past failures helped create the person they are today.Â Lorraine shares what failures sheâ€™s observed in the past that have led her to this point in her career.

The economy is still down and people are beginning their plans for 2010.Â Since Delaney Consulting provides financial advice to companies, Lorraine gave some great advice to small entrepreneurs.

She also talked about what makes a smaller company such as Delaney different from all the other consulting companies out there.Â Delaney is also placing significant efforts towards education, with their â€œDelaney Learningâ€Â program.Â Lorraine talked about why the company is focusing on education.Â Lorraine also talked about a new program Delaney is also starting for CEOâ€™s, called Delaney Think-Tank.

A large part of Ms. Chilvers outside life is focused on supporting women.Â She is on the board of Zonta, which is part of Zonta International.Â She talked more about the work she does to support women.

Lorraine also shared some great advice for women who are in the early stages of their career and deciding whether to start up their own company.Â And lastly donâ€™t miss the personal side of Lorraine.Â We all have our pre-conceived ideas of â€œaccountantsâ€Â – Lorraine tells me, what a CFO really does in her time off…

Thanks Lorraine for being a great guest on the Chic Perspectives Show today. Â For more on Delaney Consulting, LLC go to: http://www.delaneyllc.com