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BRX Pro Tip: Revenue is the Metric that Matters

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: Revenue is the Metric that Matters
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BRX Pro Tip: Revenue is the Metric that Matters

Stone Payton : [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I admonish my clients, even prospective clients, to focus on the metrics that matter. Does one metric or a couple kind of bubble to the top for you and supersede all the rest?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:19] Yeah. I think that revenue or growing revenue is the ball that you should be keeping your eye on. That’s where you should be investing most of your time in figuring out ways to grow revenue, especially if you’re just getting started. It’s so easy to get distracted by other things that are maybe easier to do, social media posts or even recording podcasts. But if you can’t draw a line to the efforts to revenue reliably, predictably leading to revenue, you should really rethink the amount of resources you’re investing in them. You should be able to track all of your efforts back to revenue in some form or fashion.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] If your efforts aren’t helping you grow your revenue, you might want to stop doing them. It might be time to start pruning back on some of these things that you just got in the habit of doing that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you know, they just might have kind of run their course. It might not be something that really is paying dividends anymore, and you might want to rethink some of those activities.

Monique Russell with Clear Communications Solutions

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GWBC Radio
Monique Russell with Clear Communications Solutions
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Monique-RussellMonique Russell is the Global Communication Skills Advisor you want on your team. She teaches leaders and teams how to upskill and keep top talent engaged through strategic leadership development.

Organizations like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, the Centers for Disease Control, Verizon, Intel, Equifax, and the world’s busiest airport, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International, trust Monique to guide them in implementing communication strategies that foster connection, community, creativity, and courage. You can too.

Monique has 20 years of experience in the science of Communications and leads Clear Communication Solutions – an international training, coaching, and consulting firm that focuses on confidently communicating from the inside out.

She is the author of the Ultimate Speaker’s Guide and the book Intentional Motherhood: Who Said it Would Be Easy, and host of the Bridge to U podcast.

Connect with Monique on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Why corporate companies are having a hard time attracting and retaining employees
  • What leaders can do to ensure women in leadership feel supported and nurtured
  • The key to improving communication in intercultural teams
  • Skills to focus on when developing Gen Z employees in their first or second job

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here, another episode of GWBC open for business, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Monique Russell with Clear Communication Solutions. Welcome.

Monique Russell: [00:00:31] Hi, Lee. How’s it going? It is.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] Going well. I am so excited to get caught up and learn what is going on at Clear Communication Solutions. Can you tell us how you’re serving folks?

Monique Russell: [00:00:42] Yes. So we are a global training, coaching and consulting firm. Basically, we’re helping leaders to get better at keeping their employees engaged so they don’t feel bored and they don’t walk out the door and take their customers and audiences with them.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:56] So how has business been? Is this a time where you’re pretty busy? I would imagine there’s a lot of kind of chaos in that. In that world today.

Monique Russell: [00:01:07] There is always a lot of chaos. But as you know, sometimes the training is one of the first things to go. So we’ve been pretty busy on coaching. We offer our services in training and leadership development. We provide workshops. We do also professional speaking and executive coaching. And the coaching portion is the area that we’ve seen a lot of increase in. And I believe it’s because people really want to find better ways to get their team leaders connected to leader leadership development solutions to help their teams become more productive. I just think that the way that management has been done over the years, it’s not working anymore. We are finding that people are saying they need new ways to keep their Gen Z’s engaged. Other millennials engage. People are looking for more purpose and fulfillment in their jobs and leadership development coaching helps them to do just that.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:00] Now, is it one of those things where coaching has evolved over the years, where at one point, coaching was only for either the top of the the kind of org chart or the person that needed to be fixed? You know, that’s having a problem that we have to triage something where now especially young people are expecting some level of coaching or some leader level of training in terms of leadership and kind of broadening their skill base as kind of table stakes when they are choosing which especially enterprise level company to, to work at.

Monique Russell: [00:02:35] You hit it right on the head. I mean, back in the day, it was all about the person who couldn’t get along, who was having a nasty attitude, who maybe couldn’t control their temper, aka emotional intelligence. But it has certainly evolved. It’s one of the fastest ways that you can help a person to maximize their human potential. And I think like coaching has become sort of this standard, this gold standard where individuals are like, what, you don’t have a coach, you know, like like I’m looking for a coach so that I can learn more about myself and I can have a better output at my job. And so you hit it right on the head for sure. It is. It has evolved. And you know what I also find? Interestingly, there’s a recent study that came out, the American Upskilling Survey that came out, and close to 60% of people say that if they had the opportunity to learn new skills and advance, they would change their jobs. So I think that’s pretty compelling for us to take a look and see that, you know, one of the ways that people want to stay engaged at their job is to learn new things, and they want to have more fulfillment at their work.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:40] So having worked with a lot of organizations and and have coached a lot of people, is there kind of some best practices you can share about how a company can develop a leadership program in order to help their employees feel supported and nurtured?

Monique Russell: [00:03:58] Yeah. One of the things I would say is where people tend to struggle is not really understanding what current skills are present in their team, or what current skills are present within the people that are working within their team. People are busy, leaders are busy. You know, a lot of times you might find someone who’s being promoted and they were working alongside their peers and now they have to manage them. But the onboarding piece of now that I’m a supervisor, now that I’m a manager or I’m a leader, I don’t have those development opportunities or training skills to to go from being a peer to being their manager. So I think looking at the shifts within the organization, like lateral moves and also, you know, other moves within the organization is one way to begin, which, you know, to be honest, those are things that have already been done. But then also looking at what are the trends like, what trends are happening where we see, for example, World Economic Forum put out their Future of Jobs report on that list. There are ten skills. A lot of those skills, I’d say seven out of ten of those skills fall into social skills.

Monique Russell: [00:05:06] There’s even a skill on there that talks about dependability and attention to detail. I never thought in my life I would see something like dependability and attention to detail. So soft skills are there in an area where leaders can also focus on putting more emphasis to help individuals work better together, to have more cross-cultural communication effectiveness? Because our world is global. And the pandemic pandemic showed us that, you know, we’re working across borders. So if you want to find a way to start, where to start, look at the skills that are listed in some of your global reports. Look at the skills within your organization. Look at the patterns of your customers. Your customers and your buyers are changing to see how you can either personalize their experience, how you can get better at using technology to be more efficient and effective. But most importantly, and I’ll stand by this all day long, is the social skills and those soft skills that make our workplaces more effective and productive.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:10] Now, as coaching gets more and more accepted in these kind of environments, a lot of times I’m sure you’re coaching someone who’s never been coached before in this way. Is there some tips you can share for that person who is maybe working with their first coach in order to get the most out of that relationship? What are some kind of do’s and don’ts from that coaching perspective?

Monique Russell: [00:06:33] Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things, and I’m glad you asked this question, because I do have people who it’s their very first time, and I have people who, you know, have experienced coaching before and maybe it wasn’t effective for them, or maybe they didn’t know what to expect or they didn’t have clear goals. So according to some studies from better, up 80% of your success in your coaching relationship is based on rapport. So the first thing you want to do is, you know, have an introductory meeting with your prospective or potential coach. That rapport is what’s going to drive you to take that action. If you don’t feel like you have this connection, or you don’t feel like you’re being understood in that first meeting, I would say just interview another one, find someone else, because that’s a significant portion of how effective your coaching process will be. And then think about it differently. A lot of times when it’s your first time, you’re coming in and you’re expecting sort of a training perspective, whereas you’re looking for someone to tell you what to do. Coaching, on the other hand, is a discipline where your coach acts more as a guide, using cognitive strategies to help you generate self-awareness and then to help you take accountability, really providing accountability and support during that journey of you achieving your goals.

Monique Russell: [00:07:49] So don’t really think of it as being in a training situation where you’re being told what to do. You’re actually going to have to do a lot of internal work to explore the true things or true goals of what you want to achieve. And finally, as a new person entering this space, know that it’s going to take time. A lot of what happens in coaching will not happen within your actual session window. It happens afterwards. It happens when you’re walking your dog, when you’re in the shower, when you’re talking to someone. So that integration piece is going to take time for you to implement, but you must implement the work. You must actually continue to be consistent with the things that you’re learning in your conversations. Otherwise, you won’t have that transformation that you’re seeking. So definitely have a realistic expectation of what to expect and how long things will take in order for you to see sustainable results.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:47] Now, when you’re talking to an enterprise level leader about implementing some sort of coaching program, how do you manage their expectations? Like what is a reasonable kind of return on their investment from coaching, and are there some things that they’re going to actually see that’s like, oh, this is definitely working, or oh, maybe we ought to tweak something or are there some kind of milestones or markers or some behaviors that you can kind of tangibly see, or is this something that you have to do for a long period of time? And just trust that over time this is going to be beneficial?

Monique Russell: [00:09:20] No, because so coaching is unique. It depends on what it is that you’re coaching on. So for example, a few of the disciplines that we focus on is presentation skills, public slash public speaking, which is very straightforward and tangible. So you’d be able to actually depend on how that individual is improving in their ability to tell their stories, to articulate their message, to lead an effective meeting. Most meetings that are run are not effective. They don’t have an agenda. They either go over time, they go under time. People are not clear on what their next steps are. Maybe there might be some dominating voices within the meeting. So it’s all a dance, really, if you will, on what it is that you want to work on on a specific topic. You might be coaching someone on time management and helping them to become more effective. So whatever your topic is, you will have specific guidelines and milestones and markers from which you’ll be able to see how they are actually improving and actually how it impacts your bottom line. I’ll give you two specific examples recently. Recently we worked with a client on negotiation skills and techniques. Client had a lot of individuals who were responsible for meeting with global leaders, meeting with other partners within their organization from different departments.

Monique Russell: [00:10:44] They had to find ways to work together, to come together to to present externally to their clients and gain buy in. So once we’re done with these types of exercises, we can actually see when we’re starting. What are some of the behaviors that we’re doing where we’re struggling, where we’re doing well. And then as we’re learning new techniques and new tools of preparing for your negotiation, gaining win win, understanding the other side, maybe taking, taking breaks when things are getting difficult or hot. Understanding language and cultural contexts. One word could mean something completely different and totally throw your negotiations off. So we’re walking away with specific, tangible outcomes. Not everything actually is tangible, but we do have tangible and intangible outcomes where you’ll be able to see the return on the investment. The second example I’ll give you is another client that we’re working with focusing specifically on executive presence. So I would tell you that, you know, from from the time that we’ve been working with this client, several of those individuals, they raised their hand, they self select and say, hey, this is what I want to do. This is who I want to work with.

Monique Russell: [00:11:58] That’s actually better than someone being forced to sign up for a coaching experience because, I mean, as you know, trying to get someone to do something that they don’t want to do is is not easy. But the outcome of this was very clear, because more than half of those individuals that have gone through coaching have actually been promoted. So they were identified as high potential individuals. They’ve been promoted. 1 or 2 have actually left the company, which is also a great thing, because you want to make sure that you are equipping people to make the informed decision if they want to stay or if they want to leave, it’ll be a win win organization for everyone involved. So you have some tangibles. You have some intangibles where people within the team begin to see their leader differently. They begin to share more ideas, they begin to contribute, and they feel like they’re having more support. So there’s definitely milestone markers. But every every scenario is different. Every engagement or solution is different. How it’s delivered is different, but it will all start with a very robust conversation, an assessment of where we are and where we’re trying to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:05] Now, can you share a little bit about your experience with PBC, like what was kind of the impetus to join and any of the benefits you’ve gotten so far?

Monique Russell: [00:13:17] Well, I am a newbie, Lee. I am a baby. I am just recent, not even a full month with my certification. So I’m excited to be a part of this community. The impetus for this was because in my connections and conversations with corporate suppliers, this came up repeatedly as a recommended a recommended certification to pursue and explore. It’s something that allows the organization to also say that they’re meeting their supplier diversity goals. They know that this is a company that has gone through the rigor of the process, and that has crossed the I’s and dotted the T’s, and we’re really, really proud to be a part of the Greater Women Business Council and looking forward to all the collaborations and partnerships and support that we can provide and also receive.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:09] And then so one of the main reasons was your your customer was saying, hey, this is a good idea. And that’s that’s always a good clue to keep a customer, right? When they’re saying, hey, maybe you should do this or gain, right?

Monique Russell: [00:14:22] Keep or gain. Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:24] And so that’s for the listeners out there who aren’t members. That’s a good thing to ask is your customers what organizations are important to you. So maybe I should consider being part of those.

Monique Russell: [00:14:38] Definitely.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:39] So now what is usually kind of your first entree into an organization? Is it, you know, they bring you in for a project or one type of thing and then it expands, like how do you like what’s kind of the the pain your customers having where they say, you know what I got to get with Monique and her team.

Monique Russell: [00:14:58] So there are a couple of things that is a pain for them. And perhaps one would be for the women leaders. So sometimes I’ll be brought in to start as doing a presentation or a speaking engagement and speaking engagement on leadership development or confidence building in women, or emotional intelligence for the practical leader or something like effective delegation. Those are a lot of the common topics that we tend to see. So they might have a desire or a need to bring in a speaker like me and start that conversation. From there, they’re actually exposed to more of what we can do and how we can help them to increase their development of their women in leadership. So that’s one area or pain I would say they’re having. Another could be that they’re they’re having trouble keeping some of their clients. They want to build deeper relationships with their clients. And a third one would be just really the the culture. A lot of companies right now are focusing on employee well-being and employee growth. And we we know that people want to grow. People are looking for shifts. They’re looking for what’s next. And so when that rumble starts and they’re looking for ways to increase their engagement, they’ll reach out for us for effective communication skills. Sometimes it’s when things are not going well, but I am happy to say of recent like a more times, it’s when things are going well and they want to get better. They want to remain best in class and remain competitive.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:35] So now in your career, can you share maybe a story that epitomizes kind of the most rewarding part of your job, the thing that the reason you got into this business.

Monique Russell: [00:16:50] Yeah, there are many reasons I got into it when I was working in corporate America. I remember starting my side hustle. So I’ll just say this. Communication skills and leadership development is my absolute life, like it is my 100% life. I started speaking when I was eight years old. I went off to college. I studied the science of communications. All my three degrees are in communications and I studied it for 12 years, and then I taught it at the university level for over a decade, and I’ve used it in my day to day corporate experience. And I and I use it pretty much every day in my job. And even with all of this experience, I still have so much to learn and grow in these areas. But I know firsthand that when someone is able to use effective communication skills and when they’re able to get better in leadership development, they transform their entire lives. They become better parents. They become better siblings. They become better leaders. They become better community citizens. So for me, it’s really, really deep. And it’s it’s a passion for me because I know when someone can transform their communication style or the way that they’re relating to others, it just creates a better environment for all of us.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:12] Yeah, I think that communication, especially clear communication, is is not as simple as maybe people think it is. And there’s so much if you’re not mindful about it that can create a miscommunication. It can create friction in places that you don’t even think that it’s possible. So clear communication is definitely something to aspire towards. And it’s great that there’s somebody like you and your team out there trying to make that happen for folks.

Monique Russell: [00:18:41] Yeah, you just made me remember a post I recently put up on LinkedIn and it opened saying that the most common outcome of communication is misunderstanding. I think sometimes people feel like, oh, you should know better. That’s exactly what I meant. I don’t have to, you know, repeat myself. But the truth is communication. The most common thing is misunderstanding. So if we go into these types of conversations or interactions knowing that, guess what? At the end of the day, the misunderstanding level is high. Our job is to bring that level of misunderstanding down and see if we can relate to each other and understand what we’re trying to get across. Then I think it would be easier and more effective for people to try instead of giving up and saying, you know, what’s the point? What’s the use? I’m not feeling understood. Or, you know, I’m not feeling valued or appreciated, but to know or go into it, walking, understanding that, hey, you know. The chances of a misunderstanding or a miscommunication is really, really high because you see things differently. I see things differently. Our experiences are different, so let’s just go in knowing that it’s high and our job is to reduce that level of misunderstanding.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:01] Yeah, especially as we use more and more different platforms to communicate. Right. Like if I’m talking to you face to face and you see my body language, my expressions, it’s a different type of communication than if I’m, you know, tweeting something or I’m texting something. You’re not getting any of the nuance. And especially if you have kind of if these are more acquaintances rather than, you know, people that you know and have had a relationship with. People tend to not give the benefit of the doubt to that kind of a acquaintance, where a friend, you’re going to give the benefit of the doubt because you can. They have a history. So communication is fraught with landmines. So if you’re not being mindful and not being strategic about it, you are going to run into a problem.

Monique Russell: [00:20:53] You say that again, strategic and.

Speaker4: [00:20:56] Intention. That is the key.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:58] Well, if somebody wants to learn more about your work and get a hold of you, what is the website? What are the best ways to connect?

Monique Russell: [00:21:06] Yeah. So I’m all over the internet. You can reach me at Clear Communication solutions.com or Monique russell.com. Linkedin is my favorite platform of choice. So clear communication coach there. If you drop in Google Clear communication Coach you can also find me on YouTube. Listen to my podcast Bridge to You or anywhere you follow social media content. Once you drop it in, it should be able to pop up.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:35] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Monique Russell: [00:21:41] Thank you for having me, Lee. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:45] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on BBQ. Open for business.

 

Elizabeth Lener and Karen Poyser with Springmont School

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ChamberSpotlightFeature113023
Chamber Spotlight
Elizabeth Lener and Karen Poyser with Springmont School
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In this episode of Chamber Spotlight, host Lola Okunola discusses Montessori education with Elizabeth Lener and Karen Poyser from Springmont School in Sandy Springs, Georgia. The school offers a unique learning environment, including outdoor education activities and a diverse community.

Elizabeth and Karen explain the Montessori philosophy, emphasizing the importance of a prepared environment that fosters children’s natural development. They also discuss enrollment processes, ways to support the school, and their excitement about being part of the local community.

Springmont-School-logo

Elizabeth-LenerElizabeth Lener, Springmont’s Head of School, appreciates that Montessori children are at the center of their own educational journey.

As their lives unfold, they are given the materials and guidance to promote this journey.

There is trust in the child and the knowledge that they will become their best selves in the right environment, which their teachers and caregivers provide.

Lener is an educator with more than 25 years of experience and private school leadership.

Karen-PoyserKaren Poyser joined the Springmont administration in 2023. She loves how Montessori encourages and fosters independence, develops community, and offers the gift of time.

For more than 20 years she has been involved in nonprofit management and resource development for social justice and youth serving organizations.

Follow Springmont School on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • What Springmont School is and what makes it standout from so many other schools in the area
  • What Montessori is
  • Springmont’s 60th anniversary
  • How listeners can support Springmont School, it’s students and educational choice overall
  • APOGEE – redirect your state tax liability to support student scholarships
  • Sponsorships and/or donations for the 60th Anniversary Auction

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Sandy Springs, Georgia. It’s time for Chamber Spotlight, brought to you by Southern Live Oak Wellness, providing quality mental health treatment to a population in dire need of being treated as equal. For more information, go to Southern Live Oak wellness.com. Now here’s your host.

Lola Okunola: [00:00:42] Welcome everyone to the Chamber Spotlight Podcast, brought to you by Southern Live Oak Wellness. I’m your host, Lola Okunola, and today’s episode is a special one. As we dive into the world of education. We have fantastic guests lined up for you today. But before we get started, a big thank you to our sponsor, Southern Live Oak Wellness for supporting this podcast. They are dedicated to promoting mental health and wellness in our community. Now let’s jump right in. Our guests today are from the esteemed Springmont School, the first Montessori school in the southeast. Joining us is Elizabeth Lener, the head of school, and Karen Poyser, the director of business development and alumni relations. Welcome to the show, Elizabeth and Karen.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:01:38] Thanks, Lola.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:01:39] We’re excited to be here.

Karen Poyser: [00:01:40] Yes. Thank you for having us.

Lola Okunola: [00:01:44] Awesome. Now, Elizabeth, what is Springmont school and what makes it stand out from so many other schools in our community?

Elizabeth Lener: [00:01:54] Alright, well thank you for asking. Springmont school is a toddler through eighth grade Montessori school in Sandy Springs. We have an enrollment of about 260 students. Our school not only provides a world class Montessori education, but it also provides meaningful opportunities for students to engage in outdoor ed activities ranging from the care of our farm animals. We have goats, chickens, turkeys, bunnies until recently on our farm, on our seven acre main campus, right on Long Island Drive, drive, drive. Yeah, to extended overnight excursions at our 83 acre land school campus in Summerville, Georgia. Additionally, students learn how to access resources in their local environment, including museums, libraries, grocery and hardware stores, parks, and more. We are always out and about. Springmont is a diverse community that honors the background, culture, and perspective of its members.

Lola Okunola: [00:02:50] That is wonderful. Wow. So for our listeners that don’t know what a montessori school really does, tell us. Give us some background. Tell me, tell us, what is a montessori school exactly? Sure.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:03:05] Well, Montessori has been around for over 100 years. It’s an educational method developed initially by Maria montessori in the late 1920s. And as its success grew and was documented and shared, the Montessori method soon spread all over the world and continues to thrive internationally. Maria montessori was a doctor and a scientist who understood that children contain within them the necessary tools for developing and learning, and that what was needed for this development was an environment designed to foster this growth. So this idea is really different from many schools where you feel like where the teacher is giving the knowledge. This philosophy has to do with the children having that knowledge and those abilities and skills within them, and the teacher helping them come out. So it’s really quite different. The environment that we have, it’s in classes is called the prepared environment, and it contains child centered and sized materials presented in an organized and esthetically pleasing and accessible manner. So now when you go into most preschool programs or elementary programs, the furniture is appropriately sized for children. This was not the case in the early 1900s, so even the idea of having chairs and tables that fit the kids and materials that they could work with, with their own hands that were designed for them, was a new idea. Our teachers received specific training on how to guide students in the use of these materials, and the materials are presented in a sequential way in order to build their skills, interest, and understanding.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:04:37] Once a student gets trained on a material, they’re able to choose it during our work period time, which can be from 2 to 3 hours. So when you think about that, thinking about children as young as three, four, five, having several hours where they can choose materials, sometimes the kids will focus on something for ten minutes. Sometimes they’ll focus on it for an hour. So not only are we building the skills, we’re also building the focus. And many of these materials draw from several disciplines at once. As they get older, they’re able to, you know, work for increasingly long periods of time. Another really interesting aspect of Montessori is that the students learn in Multi-age classrooms. So you have students that are age four, five and six in the same classroom, for example, so that the older ones can teach the younger ones. And it turns out that children really enjoy learning from peers, sometimes even more than they enjoy learning from adults. So it works out both ways. So our school actually goes all the way up through eighth grade. And so. Um, the children. Many of the children stay for the whole time. Some children come, you know, midway through the program.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:05:47] But when they stay in a class for three years, not only are they having strong bonds with their classmates, but they’re also getting that strong relationship with their teachers. And in addition to the work in the class, they’re doing PE classes and art and music. So they’re out and about. Our seventh and eighth grade program is really a transition from Montessori into their next school post. Post Springmont. A lot of our students will go to other independent schools, maybe more traditional schools, Catholic schools and public schools. So the seventh and eighth grade program is really a bridge for them, where students can study algebra, geometry, biology, physical science, and even Latin. One thing that we always hear about our graduates is how well equipped they are to handle all the different kinds of school environments they go to, and the extent to which, and this is true of Montessori students, that they’re regarded as students who really know themselves. They can self advocate, problem solve, and they engage in learning for learning sake, not for the grade. And beyond high school, our graduates are artists, doctors, engineers, scientists, authors, many of whom come back to springmont when it’s time for their own children to go to school. So that’s really a special time for us when we have alumni come back and their parents and grandparents. It’s exciting. Yes.

Lola Okunola: [00:07:06] Wow, that’s really wonderful. So Springmont was founded in 1963. Right? Yeah. Tell tell us a little bit more about that. Sure.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:07:14] So in 1963, a small group of parents were looking for a school and looking for a developmental approach that really, you know, honored where children were at at young ages. And someone in the group had heard about Montessori. There was no other Montessori school in the southeast part of the United States to go look at. So they went overseas and went looking there and liked what they saw and decided to have that be. The philosophy that guided Springmont and Springmont was first known as the first Montessori school of Atlanta, very appropriately. And they sent an educator. There weren’t any educators here who knew Montessori, right? So we had to send someone over. And the training is not a two month process. It’s a several year long process. So they really dedicate it was a long term, you know, look into that and send someone over to get trained. And so we started in the basement of Pace Academy and only had, I think, eight students as we started. But then, you know, shortly thereafter, I think we were up to 30 or 40, right? In that first year. We came to the Long Island Drive campus in 1973. And as I said, it’s a seven acre campus where we have several buildings and space for outdoor activities as well as our farm animals.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:08:35] So it’s a really special place, sort of nestled in Sandy Springs. We changed our name to Springmont in 2012 to honor Sandy Springs as well as the Montessori. Right. So that’s become our new name, and we’re accredited by the Association of Montessori International, which holds schools to the highest standards of instruction, including a requirement that all of our lead teachers must be Army trained and certified. So lots of schools can call themselves Montessori, and they might use some of the approaches or some of the materials. But a school like Springmont follows all of that. All of the rigor and all of the procedures and processes that have been studied and borne out by research. That’s one of the things that’s excited about being in Montessori education is over the years, there’s more brain research has happened and child development research has happened. The things that she knew to be true by studying children in their environment have been backed up by research. So it’s really kind of exciting to know, like what we knew to be true. Science is also showing. Data is also showing, you know, with all the advanced techniques that are out there now, why it works.

Lola Okunola: [00:09:47] That’s great. Well, congratulations to you guys to Springmont for taking that initiative 60 years ago. Yeah. You know, to to do something like this and you’re reaping the rewards. It’s it’s really remarkable.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:10:01] Yeah. It is really exciting when you have alumni come back and especially like I said, when they bring their own kids, we have alumni that serve on our board. Yeah. And they talk about what it meant for them to be at Springmont and why they come back and why they continue to serve. And it really is. I mean, Springmont is the kind of school that’s a community that you join, right? Right. It’s not just I dropped my kid off and pick them up. At the end of the day, it’s not like that kind of transaction. It’s you join with another group of parents who are all trying to figure out things together at the same time. We have we have counselor coffee talks. We have lots of parent education. And what we’re really seeking to do is the Montessori method works best when parents are fully engaged and things at home mirror what’s happening at school. So we do spend a lot of time inviting. Parents are invited to come in. They spend hours coming to observe their children. We do also zoom observations so they can sort of see the classroom without the impact of them actually being there, because sometimes your child will act different if you’re in the room, right? Right. So we do observations by zoom so that parents can see they can come in and volunteer in all sorts of ways to do the parent education. We have all sorts of events. So it’s really like a community that you join. And the longer you stay, the more you reap the benefits from it.

Lola Okunola: [00:11:17] So that’s awesome. So for our listeners today that are interested in enrolling their children at Springmont or their grandchildren or just to learn more, sure. Tell us, how do they do that?

Elizabeth Lener: [00:11:30] Sure. Well, we invite anyone to come check out our website at springmont.com and all the information is there. But the basic process is we want you to come in and see the school. So we offer tours for our mission. Person offers tours so you can come in and see it, because I think you really have to see it to understand it, unless you’re very familiar with Montessori. But even so, like spring wants its own place, so you want to come and see it because it’s hard to put into words. You really need to see it in action. So I think it starts with the tours and coming and asking. Questions. We sometimes will have parents and teachers available for the tours too. So you can really get your questions answered. And sometimes even our kids join in and answer questions. I think they’re the best spokespeople for Springmont. But so that’s kind of where it starts is checking us out on the website, coming for a tour. We have an application process. Those are available now. Applications are due February 1st. And as I said, we serve children starting at 18 months through eighth grade. But you are welcome to come on the early side. If you’re someone that likes to look ahead and your child isn’t at 18 months yet and you just sort of want to see. That’s a really good idea to start shopping around early because you want to you want to know what’s out there, and you want to have that in place that always makes you feel a lot better where you know where your child’s going. So we often will have children that are on the wait list that as they age into the program, they’re going to start, right?

Lola Okunola: [00:12:57] Yeah. Wow. Well, now, as we know, it takes a lot to keep a school running. Yeah. So how other than enrolling your children, how can our listeners support Springmont school? Karen. Yeah, that’s my my Lane. We are always looking to partner with businesses and anybody who wants to lend their support to Springmont. And there are several ways to do that. Of course, you can always make a donation to our Springmont fund. That’s our annual giving fund. You know, we just passed Giving Tuesday and there was an opportunity for everybody to give to every charity. Springmont is a 501 C, three certified charitable organization in the state of Georgia. And so people can give and look for those tax deductions later. And we take gifts of cash check credit card, one time gifts, reoccurring gifts. We take matching corporate gifts. And we’re really open to conversations about matching corporate gifts. If there’s an organization, a business that would like to match our donors, we also take gifts of grants. Of course, grant funding. We love that. Or gifts of stock. Any of those things are accepted and all are encouraged. The other opportunity, and that’s just one way to give to our Springmont fund two other really big opportunities. One is apogee. A lot of people are not familiar with Apigee, but they may have heard of it called the Georgia State Scholarship Program. Basically, you can redirect your tax dollars so that you’re not paying for the potholes on the highway. Instead, you are paying for a young person to go to school. This is a scholarship where you can afford a family and a child educational choice. Montessori does not have to be out of reach for anybody and it’s all on us. And when I say redirect your tax dollars, individuals can do up to $1,200 or I’m sorry, up to $2,500. Couples 5000 and businesses can do 75% of their tax liability. Wow. Right. This is incredible. Wow. We need our we need our business owners to to understand that they can this listen. Yes.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:15:12] And this is money you’re giving anyway, right? Right. You’re just changing.

Lola Okunola: [00:15:16] You are just changing. Instead of your instead of paying for the pothole, you are truly paying for young people to get a quality education. Now tell us a little bit more. When do these do businesses need to to do this? Do they go to their accountant? Do they do this at tax when they’re filing their taxes. Like give us a little bit more? Yeah. Thank you so much for asking. So there are a couple of things that you need to know about this program. Applications are being accepted right now and the deadline is December 15th. The state has allocated $1.5 million towards educational choice. And in order for your tax dollars basically to be in that bucket, you apply today or before December 15th, okay. And in January the state will respond to you. Yes, you have been approved. And you can you can allocate whatever percentage of your tax liability for educational choice and enjoy that tax credit in 2025. This is the law. And once you’re in you’re in. It’s it’s good and you reap the benefit over and over and over again. This is a win win situation for everybody, for the business owner, for the young person and for society in general. Right, right. Right. There is there is no loss here. And like you said, this is money you would have spent already, right? Right. Our governor is coming to collect.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:16:43] Wow. I mean, and that money makes a huge difference at a small school like Springmont. I mean, that’s that’s somebody else who can go to school, right? Every time somebody donates. Yes, you can put that money for financial aid. It’s awesome.

Lola Okunola: [00:16:54] So I’m always singing this song. You hear me say this all the time. Apogee, apogee, apogee. Redirect your tax dollars so that a young person can go to school. One last. It’s the opportunity to support Springmont. And this is a huge one because sometimes people just don’t have the funds, but there are other things they want to do or can do, but they just need to be a little creative. As you heard Elizabeth say, we are celebrating 60 years. Yes, yes, that’s a huge deal. Yes. So for our 60th anniversary, Golden Jubilee, it is our Diamond Jubilee. Your time. Oh my goodness. Diamonds. Yes, yes. So for our Diamond Jubilee, we are having our anniversary auction in April. You can’t have an auction without goods. So if there are businesses out there that want to provide us something to two for the auction, you know, a hotel that wants to give us a weekend stay, a restaurant that wants to give us a gift card for dinner for two, you know, another restaurant that wants to provide meals for a week, a chef who wants to do a private dinner, a nail salon. You want to give me a gift certificate? Whatever it is, I’m open to it.

Lola Okunola: [00:18:08] We can put together packages. I’m trying to procure auction items today. So. Okay, hit us up springmont.com. Or you can email me directly at development@springmont.com. And of course there are sponsorship opportunities. Sponsorship opportunities as little as $1,000 with marketing benefits okay. Up to 15,000 if your pockets can stand it and you feel like this is a cause you really want to get behind, there are plenty of rewards on the on the flip side of that, but I have sponsorship opportunities from beginning to end. Wow wow, this sounds so exciting! Thank you so much for sharing all this information. Thank you for having us. This has been incredible and I am I’m really excited to be a part of the Sandy Springs community and really reach out to the business owners here, because I do feel like there are there are so many opportunities for us to work together for the good of our young people. Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you, thank you. This wraps up another episode of the Chamber Spotlight podcast, sponsored by Southern Live Oak Wellness. A big thank you to our guest, Elizabeth Leonard.

Elizabeth Lener: [00:19:20] Thanks for having us.

Lola Okunola: [00:19:21] And Karen Poyser.

Karen Poyser: [00:19:22] Yes, it’s been a pleasure.

Lola Okunola: [00:19:23] And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. Don’t forget to subscribe for more insightful conversations about our communities, movers and shakers. Until next time, stay well.

 

GWBC LACE Awards 2023: Keya Grant with Constellation Brands and Rachael Humphrey with Metro Records Management

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Keya-Grant-Rachael-Humphrey
GWBC Radio
GWBC LACE Awards 2023: Keya Grant with Constellation Brands and Rachael Humphrey with Metro Records Management
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Keya-Grant-Rachael-HumphreyKeya Grant, Constellation Brands and

Rachael Humphrey, Metro Records Management

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here. Broadcasting live from the Georgia Aquarium Oceans Ballroom for the 2023 GWBC Lace Awards Gala, Ladies Achieving Continuous Excellence. Keya Grant and Rachael Humphrey here, the co-chairs of this great event. Welcome, ladies.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:00:36] Hello, hello, hello.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] So for the folks out there who aren’t familiar with the event, tell us what you got planned.

Keya Grant: [00:00:42] So this is a night to celebrate corporations and clubs who have done exemplary work in their respective companies and fields. So we are looking forward to celebrating those phenomenal people.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] And then there’s also a silent auction.

Keya Grant: [00:00:59] There’s a silent auction.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:02] Go ahead.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:01:02] Yes. No.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:03] Jump in there, Rachael.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:01:04] No, no, that’s exactly right. Us. But Keya and I are the co-chairs of the awards committee. So we’re a subcommittee of the subcommittee?

Lee Kantor: [00:01:15] Yes, but you’re co chairs.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:01:16] Yes.

Keya Grant: [00:01:16] Correct.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:01:17] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:17] And then so for people who aren’t familiar with an event like this, so they can expect awards for great work throughout the year, but there’s also a silent auction to raise money, correct.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:01:27] Yes. This is a non for profit. Right. So there are wonderful items up for auction and trips and trips. Trips. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:36] And those power lunch power lunches right. Awesome. That’s awesome. Whose idea was that? The committee. Yes, I know, but you got great roster of folks to have power lunch with, correct?

Rachael Humphrey: [00:01:48] Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:49] And how do you pull something like that off?

Keya Grant: [00:01:52] People are just really excited to support WBS and making sure that they are empowered and mentored. And what better way to do that than to have a power lunch now?

Lee Kantor: [00:02:02] How long have you been working with GWBC?

Rachael Humphrey: [00:02:06] Oh my goodness, I have been I have been a WBE, so I am a small business where Keya is a corporation right. So I’m a small business and I’ve been around for I’m just going to say many many many years.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:19] But what inspired you to get part of this great organization?

Rachael Humphrey: [00:02:22] I became a part because I wanted to network, I guess is a word which I don’t like the word network, but I wanted to be around women who are like minded, those who were looking for business just like I was, and the corporations that were looking for people like me. Right. So that is a partnership that you need, not just meeting people, but a partnership. You want to meet people who are looking for you and you’re looking for them. And that’s what this organization allows.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:50] And it’s it’s almost like a cheat code for a small business to get in front and build relationships with folks that would be very difficult to meet if they weren’t part of this organization.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:03:00] Exactly. And like you said, that there’s an opportunity for you to have lunches and to also partners. That’s one of the things that in the auction, people love that part of this, of this, this event, the event. Yeah. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:13] Well it’s relationships now. Absolutely. Keya talk about from your lens about the importance of WBC. Yeah of course.

Keya Grant: [00:03:20] So I have been involved with GWBC for probably 18 years, and it has been through the capacity of working for a major corporations that support WBEs and this amazing organization. So I help to help my company, the companies I work for, find qualified WBEs to fulfill our goals and needs. Right. Yeah. And so and diversify our supply chain.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:49] And then how are you seeing, you know, being involved for so many years. Are you seeing an evolution of that women business owner. Sure.

Keya Grant: [00:03:56] Absolutely. I’ve mentored I can’t tell you how many women business owners in my career. And I can tell you what my my current company now, our largest spend is WBE spend.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:07] Wow. Yeah. So that’s inspiring to hear from a lot of the folks in this room, I’m sure. Yes.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:04:13] And he is being modest because I’ve been around a long time. And even if you’ve been around a long time, if you have someone like Keya in your corner, she’s going to introduce you to somebody and that’s what you want, right? And if it’s not something that I’m doing, then I know somebody who is doing something that she might need. Right? So continuous apart, like you said, not only mentoring but partnering, but also just referring each other. And that’s what it’s all about. You know, just people doing business. I tell people all the time, I may not know somebody, but I know somebody who knows somebody.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:45] And that’s that’s just as good.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:04:47] That’s important.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:48] Yeah. And a lot of folks get impatient. I think they think that, oh, I’m here for. Here’s my business card. Where’s the money? And it’s not like that. This is about relationships. And it takes time.

Keya Grant: [00:04:58] Exactly. And I try to I try. To mitigate expectations. And it is about timing and it’s divine timing. Right. And it is about just and I always tell people just because you’re certified does not guarantee you business. Yes, you have to be involved with the organization, right. You have to come to events, show.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:18] Up and volunteer here. Absolutely. Yeah.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:05:20] Exactly. Exactly. Because it’s not like Keya, you know, people like to pass out the card and think, oh, I’m gonna get new business. It doesn’t happen like that, right? I was with Coca-Cola and some other big names that that I had, but it took years right before it was my time. Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:37] Years to be an overnight success, right?

Rachael Humphrey: [00:05:39] Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So. And you have to be patient.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:43] So let’s talk about your businesses for a minute. You want to talk about your firm.

Keya Grant: [00:05:48] Sure. So I work for Constellation Brands. We are the number one beer company now in the world. We are based in Rochester, New York. In Chicago, our portfolio includes modelo, Corona, Pacifico, Svedka vodka, we’re Bridge Wine, Robert Mondavi, Meiomi. We have a huge portfolio of brands.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:08] And then so folks can talk to you at GWBC you’re involved in hiring, like, what are the typical hires?

Keya Grant: [00:06:16] No, do not call me.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:17] Don’t call you.

Keya Grant: [00:06:18] I’m not hiring. But of course we’re looking for a WBE right.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:22] Like to partner with correct. There are certain niches that you look for.

Keya Grant: [00:06:25] So logistics marketing and it good stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:30] Yeah. And then Rachel yes.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:06:32] Well I’ve been in business since 1998. It’s woman owned minority owned and I do mail copy print I do it managed services. I have a partner. And having a partner allows you to expand what you do. So I have a managed service partner that I’ve been with for over 14 years. And we do equipment. We do like we we are the ones who do the excuse me, your office, if you need an equipment to do your copiers and your right.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:04] So yeah, any type of equipment.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:07:06] Any type of equipment, we can do that. And we do phone services as well. We do what you get when your phone. So it’s been a good partner. But I learned in this and not only just as a person in a business, it’s good to partner with people. That’s right. And it’s not only in as a corporate but also a WB. I partner with WB because I may not be able to fulfill with the right partner.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:30] You can do anything correct.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:07:31] You can expand what your needs and it helps to build capacity and scale. Right. Exactly, exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:37] All right. So before we wrap up website for Constellation Brands.

Keya Grant: [00:07:40] W-w-w dot C brands.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:42] All right. And Rachel?

Rachael Humphrey: [00:07:43] WW dot w metro records management.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:48] All right. Well thank you both for participating. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you know thank.

Rachael Humphrey: [00:07:53] You for having us.

Keya Grant: [00:07:54] Thanks for having us.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:55] All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few at 2023 GW BC Lace Awards Gala.

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-Logo

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.

The Wrap Podcast | Episode 066 | Managing Unpredictability in the Real Estate Industry | Warren Averett

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The Wrap
The Wrap
The Wrap Podcast | Episode 066 | Managing Unpredictability in the Real Estate Industry | Warren Averett
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Real estate managers and developers have many concerns heading in to 2024, from rising interest rates and banking liquidity issues to uncertainties in federal legislation regarding tax cuts and allowances.

In this episode of The Wrap, Cristy Andrews, CPA, CGMA, leader of the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group, and David Borsos, Vice President of Capital Markets with the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), join hosts Paul Perry, FHFMA, CISM, CITP, CPA, CDPSE and Derek Johnson to discuss the current state of the real estate industry and opportunities for property owners, managers and developers.

In this Episode, you’ll hear:

  • About the challenges in real estate capital markets due to rising interest rates, housing shortages and decreased banking liquidity
  • Information about the shifts coming in 2024 to the Tax Cut and Jobs Act regarding bonus depreciation allowances
  • How remote and hybrid work are leading to shifts in property management
  • Ways technology can provide solutions for the real estate industry to centralize data, combat labor shortages and avoid fraudulent resident screenings
  • Strategies to control real estate management budgets while property tax assessments and insurance costs rise at historic rates

Resources for additional information:

TRANSCRIPT

Commentators (0:02): You’re listening to The Wrap, a Warren Averett podcast for businesses designed to help you access vital business information and trends when you need it. So, you can listen, learn and then get on with your day. Now, let’s get down to business.

Paul Perry (0:20): Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Wrap podcast. I look forward to having this discussion with you today. This is episode 66. We are talking to some of our experts, both internal and external, as it relates to the real estate industry. We’re happy to have them with us today, but also with me is one of my co-hosts: Derek Johnson. Derek, a pleasure to have you back, sir. Thanks for being with us.

Derek Johnson (0:41): Paul, the pleasure is all mine. I appreciate you having me back again. It’s immediate gratification when I get the invite to come back because it means I didn’t mess it up too bad the last time.

Paul Perry (0:52): You did a great job there. We’re glad to have you. So, who do we have with us today? We’re talking about real estate.

Derek Johnson (0:57): As excited as I am to be here, it’s because we have our own personal firm expert and fan favorite Cristy Andrews with us. We also have a very special guest in Dave Borsos. He is with the National Multifamily Housing Council. I’ll let them share a little bit more with you about their proficiencies and expertise.

Cristy Andrews (1:19): Well, thank you, Derek and Paul for having us. I’m Cristy Andrews. I lead Warren Averett’s Real Estate Industry Group. I have been hearing lots of concerns from clients, and I’ve had multiple conversations with Dave Borsos. So, we thought we would have him come on and talk to you a little bit more about the capital markets.

Dave Borsos (1:44): I appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with all of you. As Cristy has mentioned, she and I have spoken quite a bit over the last couple of months about what’s going on in the multifamily industry. So, I look forward to sharing a little bit of what’s going on at NMHC, or National Multifamily Housing Council. We are a federal-facing advocacy firm for the apartment industry. We typically represent more of the larger owners, operators, developers and managers, as well as people who finance the properties throughout the country, and any of the issues both from a legislative perspective or a regulatory perspective that may be impacting the industry.

My own specific responsibilities at NMHC are that I cover anything related to capital markets. So, whether it’s debt access or equity, and putting those together to finance a property. If there’s any regulatory or legislative issues that are impacting those issues, then I get involved. One other vertical I’m also responsible for—and those who have kids either going to college or in college—is purpose-built student housing. I get to spend some time advocating for that sector—as well with somebody who currently as a kid at Clemson University—understand what the ins and outs are of that with personal experience. So, look forward to the conversation with all of you.

Paul Perry (3:09): We’re happy to have both of you with us today. For our listeners, you’re going to get a little bit of both outside the industry and the accounting industry and the accounting aspect of the real estate industry. So, this is going to be a good discussion day, but let’s start it off with what Cristy mentioned. Give us that overall status, if you will, of the capital markets and everything that’s related to that as of today. We do need to say that we are recording this as of November 7, should anything be different once this gets released. I just want everybody to have a timeframe of when we’re talking about this.

Dave Borsos (3:41): The specific date is actually very interesting, given the challenges in the capital markets right now. Liquidity is certainly a challenge, right? Every one of us has seen the continued rising interest rates, which has had a dramatic impact on overall liquidity and has also actually ground to a halt some of the other typical activities you see in the capital markets. Be it transactional, right? If you look at a lot of the large brokerage firms are reporting—not just a little double-digit decrease—but dramatic double-digit decrease in their total sales volume for this year. A lot of that is dependent on where interest rates have gone.

You know, I went back and looked at the 10-year, and the reason I look at the 10-year is because oftentimes, the frequency of pricing debt for multifamily is from the 10-year treasury. There’s a lot of others, but that’s probably the most common one. Rolling back to sometime in August, we were at about 3.98 percent. So, we were under 4 percent. Then over the last 60 days, it went as high as 5 percent. It’s now back down to in the 4.60s, and it will be something different tomorrow as you talk about wanting to pick a particular date. That volatility is really a big hinderance for people looking to access debt, and it’s causing a lot of confusion in the marketplace. It’s causing a lot of people to step to the side and say, “I’m just going to wait this out. When is the Fed going to be done? What’s the impact on long term interest rates? How can I actually finance a property if I need to do that?”

It’s really causing a lot of concern. One of the other things is, you know, we need more housing. You look at increase in housing costs. It’s not just because of inflation, it’s from overall demand. One of the problems is when people stop building—which is what’s happening right now because of interest rate levels, volatility in the markets, etc.— it takes about two years, right? Getting something ready to go takes about two years. Well, two years from now, if construction is way down because of all the things we just talked about, a housing problem is just going to get exacerbated. So, we may have a lot of deliveries coming in 2024.

But we can have this conversation two years from now, and I think we’re going to be seeing a significant decrease in the number of apartments being developed, which certainly is going to be a negative impact to the housing costs and market.

Derek Johnson (6:04): Cristy, maybe you can help us out here. But how are these challenges and these opportunities going to be impacting things for our clients and for whom you know in the industry?

Cristy Andrews (6:16): Well, I know a lot of my clients are just really concerned with some of the banking issues, liquidity, and the fact that they are having a hard time with getting financing. Then, once they can, just with the interest rates being so high, they don’t want to get locked in on a high interest rate and not being able to really fund the deals and make them work from a financial standpoint. So, I think there’s just a lot of uncertainty and concern approaching this in 2024, and what’s going to happen from a tax standpoint, which is some of the expiring aspects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act along with the interest rates and liquidity. All of it is causing a lot of concern and nervousness, honestly.

Dave Borsos (7:11): Yeah. So, along the lines of bank liquidity, I think it’s a great question, Derek. Roll back to the beginning of this year where we had a couple of bank failures. You know, some of those were caused by nothing other than the rise in the interest rate, what the banks had on their balance sheet and how they managed that risk profile. The second part of that is: we all might be sitting in an office right now, but a lot of people are not. If you look at the vacancy rates in office buildings where banks have been a big provider of finance for that sector, there’s a lot of disruption going on. A lot of offices that are really struggling to try and maintain any level of occupancy in their buildings, and a lot of people are taking a hybrid approach back to work where they may be downsizing in the number of seats that they want to do, you know, take on an expiring lease.

So, there’s going to be a lot of disruption in that office sector, which is going to have a negative impact on banks as they pull back overall and say, “How much capital do I need? What are the losses that I may experience?” They’re looking at that aspect of it. Then secondly, as again I talked about, I focus on the regulatory side. I spend a lot of time with bank regulators, as well, and there’s been a couple of things that they’ve been working on that are going to put pressure on the total amount of capital that banks must hold—partially because of some of these bank failures that we saw in the beginning of the year. By the way, interest rates are high.

Where those banks got into trouble earlier this year, besides their commercial real estate portfolios, they weren’t paying us anything to put our money in a bank, right? And suddenly, interest rates started going up, and people said, “I can go make a return on going to buy treasury.” So, suddenly, banks have gotten more expensive in terms of how they fund their loans. This has also caused a pullback for them as well. So, there’s a whole bunch of things that are unfortunately coming to a head at the same time from the banking sector that are really constraining the availability.

You know, we have some nationally based very, very large owners who go to access debt when they’re going to go construct or finance something. And historically, because they’re great owners, they have a great portfolio and had historically performed very well—they used to say, “Oh, I’ve got 20 banks lined up or 25 banks lined up.” Now even those guys are saying, “Yeah, there’s maybe only four or five banks.” While it’s great that they’ve got a couple, it still is a very constrained market. Overall, that liquidity is a challenge.

The one group that’s providing liquidity happens to be Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. I also cover their regulator. However, just talking about the overall size of the market. Each year, their regulator puts in place a cap. How many loans can they buy? Each one of them has $75 billion dollars’ worth of total capacity that they can purchase loans in the open marketplace. Given the decreasing amount of REFIS that are going and the decrease in the number of transactions that are going on—I will give you Fannie Mae’s end of third quarter was only at $42 billion out of $75 billion. Fourth quarter is not going to be all that big.

What you’re going to see is even Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are providers of liquidity. They are going to see dramatic decreases and not even getting close to meeting their cap. So, just to give you a sense that it’s overall. The market is super nervous and very much constrained in terms of what their outlooks are right now.

Cristy Andrews (10:53): Dave, I guess the real estate industry—they’re not taking the opportunity from Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac. Just from the standpoint of interest rates, they don’t want to lock themselves in. So, they’re just waiting and they’re not at capacity, just from the standpoint that nobody’s willing to take the risk right now.

Dave Borsos (11:15): Yeah, so there’s a couple of different things that are going on. In terms of if I’m an owner and I have a long-term loan, and it’s not maturing anytime soon, I don’t really have a lot of incentive to do anything with that. I don’t want to REFI it, and I probably don’t want to sell it because interest rates are super high. It’s going to depress the price in which I could probably sell that out. You have a lot of people who are just operating their properties.

On the other hand, there are some people that have loans maturing. There are some floating rate loans that either have their caps or their floating rate loan is expiring. So, what are they doing if they’re forced to go to the debt markets? So, what’s happening? If you look at it, a lot of people are doing short-term loans.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been doing a lot of five-year loans. Even though I talked about earlier that we were going to oftentimes do 10-year loans, a lot of people are doing five-year loans. The reason they’re doing those is because it’s almost like getting a floating rate loan without having to buy a cap, which is exceedingly expensive right now.

So, when you take a floating rate and look at where the 10-year treasury or where SOFR is, and you add a spread. Then, you must add a cap. If you’re going to borrow on a floating rate basis with a cap on it, you’re probably paying somewhere at 9%, maybe even up as much as 10%. Whereas if you did that with a five-year, and you can refinance earlier out of that? You’re going to save some money. You’re seeing some people take advantage of the ability to do shorter term loans, because they are worried about what you said: I don’t want to lock up 10-year money at 8%. I don’t want to do that. What can I do to make it less costly to reposition myself, when I think interest rates may come down on the future?

Paul Perry (13:04): That’s a really good question, Cristy, and a great answer there. Dave, thank you very much for that. Dave, when you start talking about liquidity issues… Cristy, I want to go to you, because when he says liquidity issues, business owner clients are sitting there going: “Well, there’s going to be some more expense on my books this year, right?” That always fits, right? So, if we’re looking at the financial statements of a real estate industry client, what are some of those other expenses that they’re probably going to have this year that maybe they didn’t have last year or are higher this year? Can you speak to that a little bit?

Cristy Andrews (13:41): Yeah, so right now, our clients are dealing with increased property tax assessments. You know, with the increase in values, those assessments are just through the roof. Also, insurance costs—those have gone up exponentially. I don’t think I’ve talked to a client in the last several months who hasn’t complained about insurance and really are just trying to figure out a way that they can minimize that cost. They’re looking at reevaluating their coverage and really trying to price that out. They’re trying to do anything they can do to control those fixed costs that really have just gone through the roof. Dave, I know that you all have seen that as well. A couple of months ago with the annual meeting, I know a lot of your customers were complaining about that. That was one of the hot topics at the conference: insurance cost and property tax assessments.

Dave Borsos (14:47): Yeah, so with insurance, the heat has not turned down. It continues to be a major problem. In fact, there was a hearing here in Congress last week that we submitted a comment letter raising those concerns that you’d mentioned. Clearly, if you’re in areas such as Florida, Louisiana and California, that have experienced climate issues, your property insurance has gone through the roof. That has clearly been a big concern. Sometimes you can’t even get access to it. So, we did a study earlier this year, and we also made recommendations. I think that historically, you just called your broker up and said, “Hey, you know, I’d like to renew my insurance.” If people are owners out there that are seeing these big increases, take a look at your properties and take a look at if the insurer understands what you may have done to your own property to make it more resilient. That may be a way to drive down some of those increases that people are seeing. But it still is a concern. If you look at last year, Florida experienced some pretty bad weather events. There were several insurers that either withdrew from the state or they went bankrupt, so it continues to be a major issue and a big focus for us. We even are hearing from some of the regulatory agencies that they’re trying to figure out what they should be doing as well.

Commentators (16:25): Want to receive a monthly newsletter with Wrap topics, then head on over to https://warrenaverett.com/thewrap and subscribe to our email list to have it delivered right to your inbox. Now, back to the show.

Derek Johnson (16:38): So, if we’re talking about finances, let’s go to one of the favorite topics people want to talk about beyond that: taxes. It’s exciting. It’s fun. But we’ve got all of these things coming up, right? We have the Tax Act expiring in 2025. We’ve got the deal with the bonus depreciation happening. By no means am I a pundit, but you guys are. So, share with us your thoughts around some of these taxes that you’re seeing out there now. What’s going to be happening?

Cristy Andrews (17:10): Well, you know, one of the great things about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is that it really allowed for 100% bonus depreciation on a lot of lesser-live assets. In the real estate industry, there was a lot of assets that could take advantage of this. You know, for instance: land improvements, personal property, for multi-family appliances and those type things. Real estate owners and developers really have been able to benefit from that. Well, starting in 2024, that is going to start reducing 20% per year until it expires. Dave, back in September at the annual meeting, there were many members of the Ways and Means Committee from Congress there. They spoke about some upcoming extensions of this, one of which was the bonus depreciation which really made everybody excited. Everybody loves an extension of a tax break. But as time goes on and fighting continues in Congress, I’m not so sure that we can predict whether that will get extended in 2023 as we hoped. I don’t know if y’all have heard any different.

Dave Borsos (18:33): I think it’d be hard to ignore the fact that the House took a while to get a new speaker. The current extension for the budget expires in 10 days. So, there’s a lot on their plate to get through the appropriations process to say, “We’re going to fund the government.” It’s got to be the major focus, right? Then, you hit if they can get that done, they’ll do another continuing resolution to kick it down the road. Then, you start to run into Thanksgiving.

You’ve got other things where Congress gets diverted in terms of where they’re going. The question is: can they pass anything from a tax perspective before the end of the year? It’s probably going to be more of a challenge this year than in other years because of this disruption that’s going on. The question would be: are people willing to sign on to something that’s an extension? I’d love to give better news, but this one’s a little bit up in the air on whether it’s going to get done or not. Even though 2025 seems like a long way off, I sometimes think of Congress as a bad student who doesn’t study for the final until two days before the final. Then, they really kick in and that’s a little bit like that.

This major Tax Act is expiring at the end of 2025. They’re probably going to wait a long time. But the other thing that interferes with that is we have a presidential election next year. The Senate has a good chance of flipping in the Republican direction, and the House has a good chance of flipping Democratic. Then what happens, right? And who knows who is going to be in the White House?

There’s a lot of unknowns that cloud the forward direction of what’s going to happen, but it’s something that is going to be meaningful. There are a lot of things that happen in that Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that were beneficial, that we fought to get included in there or to get excluded that were beneficial to the real estate industry. So, it’s something we’re monitoring very closely. It’s something that if I were to tell you to look at and to have your clients watching, you need to be prepared. You know, if things don’t go our way, what are we going to do to anticipate the impact?

Cristy Andrews (20:58): That’s a good point. Back in September, both sides of the aisle were promising to work together and compromise. We’re very hopeful. I think we can continue to hold on for hope. But I think that our clients and real estate developers out there need to be prepared for the anticipation that they may lose a portion of that deduction this year.

Paul Perry (21:26): Interesting information, and helpful for the folks listening in. You know, one of the things all industries mention is technology and its impact on that industry. It’s different for everybody, right? Manufacturing, governmental… Some are lagging in adoption, and some are trying to be trailblazers. Where does the real estate industry fall as it relates to using technology to drive solutions to some of these problems we’ve talked about? Is there something to speak on there?

Dave Borsos (21:59): Well, I would actually hope that some of your clients took the opportunity to visit with us at our OPTECH conference last week in Las Vegas. We had over 3,000 people there, so by far our largest attendance ever. Exactly, Paul, what you just mentioned. There’s a lot of technology-driven solutions that are out there. Some of them resident-focused, some of them are owner-focused and management-focused. There’s a lot of activity going on.

One of the things that I would walk away from are centralizations. They’re a big deal for those who own multiple properties and bigger property owners. They’re looking at: how do I centralize all of my operations and not have overlaps? The ability to address labor shortages: it’s anything from do you have an onsite manager or is everything a virtual tour to how do I find maintenance people for my properties?

There are people that are providing solutions for those types of things. Then, the screening process for inbound residents is also something where—on one side—there’s a lot of issues that are getting created with fraud. I’m sure some of your clients are experiencing fraudulent applications. People can buy paychecks and W-2s off the internet. They all look very good, but they don’t have an intent of paying for any of their time in a unit that they then may be difficult to evict from.

I have two things where people commented there that 65% of their applications were fraudulent. There are people looking to provide those solutions as well. So, on the resident-centric side, there are people providing positive rent payment reporting. They are looking at splitting payments across a month if their clients are looking at that. There’s a lot that is going on.

There are technology-driven solutions for a lot of things that we do from A to Z, as it relates to everything that has to do with operating and managing a property.

Derek Johnson (24:18): There’s a lot of good information there, and definitely things to consider. As we look forward, what are some challenges or opportunities on the overall business strategy?

Dave Borsos (24:31): So, there’s a couple of things. I mentioned before about people having floating rate loans that mature. I think there are potential opportunities to the degree that some of the clients are good operators and they have access to capital. You may have some people who bought at the peak of the market in 2021 when the floating rate interest rates were basically zero and they bought them at a floating rate. They said, “Hey, this is great.” All of a sudden, they realize: I don’t really know how to manage a property and my interest costs are gone through the roof. They may be selling their properties in a stress situation.

Now, having said that, there’s a lot of other people chasing this kind as well, but it may create an opportunity if you know somebody off market or whatever else. I would encourage people to look at that and make sure that they are looking at those types of things. On the same note, from a purely strategy perspective, one of the mantras that came out in September is that there are people talking about surviving until 2025. The idea there is they think interest rates are going to be high. In 2024, you’re still going to see some stress and disruption in the market, but things will get better in 2025.

I can’t tell you whether they’re going to get better or not. They may. Look, we’re all going to be optimistic about it. I think people are still going to hunker down a little bit in 2024. We’ll see what happens. The one other aspect of it, which may help a little bit even though rates may be higher…last summer, when the Fed did their first pause, a lot of my finance members saw a significant increase in interest of people buying and selling properties. Part of the reason was because the 10-year was really flat and didn’t have a lot of volatility. We could take the volatility out of the 10-year. If the Fed finally says, “We’re done,” maybe that long end of the curve stays a little bit more consistent.

You may see some of the market movement with new pricing, new records. They’re going to recognize the fact that we’re not going back to a two percent 10-year loan. It’s going to be higher, and we’re just going to figure out how to make it work. Those are the things that if I were in the market and operating, I’d keep my eye on.

Cristy Andrews (27:02): I just would piggyback what Dave said: I think for many that do have access to equity, there’ll be some good opportunities. I think for others, they will hunker down and they will focus a little bit more on the cost they can control, on budgeting and those types of things. We’ll hang in there until interest rates come back down. You know, the market shifts, as it always does; it’s cyclical.

Paul Perry (27:30): Here on The Wrap, we’d like to wrap it up in 60 seconds or less: What is the one thing you want the listeners to know or to leave with? It may be something you’ve already said or it may be something we haven’t talked about yet. But what is that wrap up? Cristy, we’ll start with you.

Cristy Andrews (27:46): The wrap up would be to watch the market, stay in close contact with your advisors and hold on until 2025.

Dave Borsos (28:00): I’m going to put that plug in to survive until 2025. But the one other thing—again, I don’t know from your listeners who is a member of NMHC to the degree that you are—but we put out tremendous amount of research and information on advocacy. I’d mentioned earlier about insurance. We just put out papers on artificial intelligence, which certainly has the interest of Congress. They’re all scared about what does AI mean. I highly encourage you to stay informed.

You know, we put out a lot of great information to really keep people in touch with what’s going on in the marketplace. In addition, as soon as I hang up from this, you know, from a regulatory perspective, the Federal Home Loan Banks are getting some new guidance from the regulator that may be beneficial for finance. There’s a lot going on here in DC from a regulatory perspective that people should keep their ears and eyes open on.

Derek Johnson (29:04): That’s wonderful. Hey, listen, a heartfelt thank you to both of you, David and Cristy, for joining us. I certainly learned a lot and our listeners have a lot to take away and unpack. We very much appreciate your time. I know you’re both very busy with this. Thanks so much.

Dave Borsos (29:21): Appreciate it. Thank you.

Cristy Andrews (29:22): Thank you.

Commentators (29:24): And that’s a wrap. If you’re enjoying the podcast, please leave a review on your streaming platform. To check out more episodes, subscribe to the podcast series or make a suggestion of other topics you want to hear, visit us at https://warrenaverett.com/thewrap.

BRX Pro Tip: Interruption Marketing is Over

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Sara Branch with Network in Action

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Sara Branch with Network in Action
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Sponsored by Woodstock Neighbors Magazine and Business RadioX ® Main Street Warriors

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Today on Cherokee Business Radio, Stone Payton interviews Sara Branch, a successful entrepreneur and Community Builder with Network in Action. Sara shares her journey from the corporate world to entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of networking and building relationships rather than selling.

She discusses the unique approach of her networking group, which uses a technology platform to speed up referrals and provides training to its members. Sara also shares valuable advice on how to effectively network, including identifying target audiences, booking one-on-one meetings, and being a connector.

Sara-Branch-headshotSara Branch, Community Builder with Network in Action, is an Atlanta native having both sides of her family in Georgia for over 8 generations. She’s a UGA grad and went into sales straight out of college.

Sara soon discovered the value of maintaining relationships and connections. You can solve any problem with a great network.

After 25+ years in corporate America, she discovered Network in Action and has been a franchisee for almost two years.

Follow Network in Action on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • The definition of networking
  • The expected outcome of networking
  • How Network in Action has changed networking

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:24] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Cherokee Business Radio. Stone Payton here with you this morning, and today’s episode is brought to you in part by Woodstock Neighbors magazine, bringing neighbors and business together. For more information, go to Facebook and Instagram at Woodstock Neighbors dot wbvm. And if you have a heart for community and you want to grow your small business, consider joining our movement, The Main Street Warriors. Go check us out at Main Street warriors.org. You guys are in for a real treat this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Network in Action. Ms Sara Branch, how are you?

Sara Branch: [00:01:10] I’m great. Stone, how about you?

Stone Payton: [00:01:12] I am doing so well and really been looking forward to this conversation. I got a thousand questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think maybe a great place to start would be if you could articulate for me and our listeners mission. Purpose. What are you and your team really out there trying to do for folks? Sure.

Sara Branch: [00:01:33] Well, Networking Action is a business lead referral group, and I’m sure people are familiar with business referral groups. They’re all over the place. However, our founder decided he wanted to do something different. And isn’t that what every entrepreneur wants to do is let’s do something different. But of course, I believe this time he came up with something really, really good. And what we’ve done is taken the typical activities that you would do in a business referral network where passing referrals, getting information from people, finding out about people’s elevator pitches that we talk about, we have put that all on a technology platform, so it speeds up the process and makes it very simple for people to get connected to each other and to pass referrals to each other. Now we do have meetings, but the purpose of the meetings are more for training, mentoring, coaching our members to be guess what better connectors so that they go to a meeting that is, let’s say a Chamber of Commerce meeting or any business association meeting. They can be better at connecting with the people that are in that meeting that will benefit them and their business. So we just approach business referral networking a little bit differently. Well, it sure.

Stone Payton: [00:02:54] Sounds like you do. And it sounds like fun, rewarding work. But I got to know the backstory. How in the world did you find yourself in this role?

Sara Branch: [00:03:04] Well that’s great, it’s all my husband’s fault. Isn’t that always the case? Always.

Stone Payton: [00:03:10] It’s always the spouse.

Sara Branch: [00:03:11] Always spouses fault. I was anticipating leaving the corporate world. I was so ready to get out of corporate work. I’ve been in corporate work for 25 plus years, and what I had done most of the time was training and development. My most recent job that I left, I was a director of training and development for a small software company, and my husband has had his own business. He is an action coach franchisee. He’s had that for over 20 years.

Stone Payton: [00:03:39] And they have a great reputation. I’ve heard of them.

Sara Branch: [00:03:43] Oh yeah. Oh, they have wonderful reputation worldwide. They’re the the world’s largest business coaching organization. And the the founder owner of Action Coaches constantly, constantly training people, bringing new information to the organization. It’s a it’s an excellent organization. And my husband is always looking for networking opportunities. And he’s also a vet. So he was approached by a network and action franchisee in the city of Atlanta to join a veterans group, and he’d never heard of Network in Action, didn’t know what it was like. And he said he would go just because it was a veterans group. After he’d been there about six months, he came home and he said, Sarah, I have found exactly what you need to be doing when you leave the corporate world. And so I attended several meetings of that group and I agreed with them. So we bought the franchise, worked it kind of part time for about a year until I was fully prepared to leave my job, leave my work. So in March of this year, March of 2023, walked out the door from my corporate job, woke up the next morning and I was a full time self employed entrepreneur. So it’s been great. I’ve loved it and it was exactly the right thing to pick. So it was it too is a franchise. So Network in Action is headquartered in Houston, started by a man who was very frustrated by lack of networking opportunities, and he took a couple of years, designed our platform and here we are.

Stone Payton: [00:05:17] So now that you’ve been at it a while, what are you enjoying the most? What’s the most rewarding? Part of the role for you?

Sara Branch: [00:05:24] Well, I’ve always been a people person and I’ve always been a connector. I didn’t figure that out until I was, oh, gosh, I guess in my 30s. But my first job, several jobs out of college were sales jobs, and I knew that not everybody was going to want my product or service. But I always paid attention to what my customers were talking about in their business. And I remember one time a customer saying to me or a potential customer saying to me, Sarah, you know, I really don’t have a need for your product right now, but do you know anybody who does X? And I said, sure, I know Joe down the street. He can help you out. And I did that several times, and I started realizing that I was a natural connector, that I just wanted to help people. So my motivation of connecting people and helping people is now manifested in this group where I bring people together and teach them how to be really top notch first class connectors to where they’re not only helping their own businesses, but they’re helping businesses all around them. So.

Stone Payton: [00:06:29] So what should the outcome be from our networking efforts? How do you know if it’s really working? Because it’s not always like just immediate revenue. I went to the thing and I talked to the guy and he wrote a check. And we’re doing that’s that’s not necessarily the outcome that we should be seeking every time. Right.

Sara Branch: [00:06:47] You’re absolutely right. When you go to a networking meeting. You should never have the goal of selling something at a networking meeting. A networking meeting is designed to start and continue and nurture relationships so people get turned off. If you go to a networking meeting and let’s say there’s somebody relatively new and they’re working the room trying to sell stuff, and that’s that’s really not the goal. So you go to a networking meeting and your goal is to get to know as many people as possible. But what I teach is, first of all, you’ve got to identify your target audience. And then within that target audience, define your ideal customer profile. Now after that, it’s to find out where they hang out. So you should pick the networking meetings where your ideal customer is most likely to hang out. Then we work on what questions you ask that potential ideal customer and what kind of conversation you’re going to have. And the folks in our group, we teach them that they should have a very condensed version of their elevator speech about two sentences that may have something a little provocative in it to see if the person they’re talking to goes, oh, that’s interesting, tell me more. That’s the whole point. And then once they get to the point of someone is interested, then we talk about questions. But the absolute goal of going to any networking meeting stone is to leave with a minimum of two 1 to 1 meetings booked. Whether you go to coffee, whether you go to lunch, drink after work, but you leave with a minimum of two 1 to 1 meetings. And that’s where you get to know people better. That’s where they get to understand you and what you’re trying to accomplish in your business. And then you become one step further into that trusted resource. So people like to buy from people they know, like, and trust. Well, it’s it’s relatively easy to do the know and like part. It always takes time for the trust part. So that’s why you need to meet with people regularly and especially 1 to 1. They find out who you really are. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:09:01] And you find out who they are and you find you. You discover how to genuinely serve them, even if it’s not going to be your products and services at this point. Right? I mean, there’s so much power, I’ve discovered, particularly since moving here to to Woodstock and becoming part of the local community. How productive, but also just how fun it is to be the guy that knows the guy, right? And to be able to. You used the word earlier connector, right?

Sara Branch: [00:09:30] Right. The guy that knows the guy we call the referral source and they are the most powerful, powerful person in a referral relationship. Well, think about it, right? You know, Stone, if you came up to me and said, oh, Sarah, I’ve got a problem, I’m trying to find this service that goes with my computer and I can’t find it anywhere. I’m so frustrated. Sarah, do you know anybody who has that? And this great likelihood I might know somebody? And then I would say, well, you know, Stone, I think Joe Jones over at X, Y, Z Software Company has exactly what you need. And then I connect the two of you. But for Joe Jones and for Stone Payton, I have become the referral source, which is really the most valuable part of that relationship, because you should nurture me as Joe Jones should nurture me, because I could probably give you more referrals. Yeah, so that’s the guy that knows the guy. And it’s an amazing thing. It’s an amazing thing when you have. And I like the fact that you get a little joy from being the guy that knows that I really do.

Stone Payton: [00:10:34] Yeah. Well, what you’re describing to me seems like the antithesis 180 degrees. Apart from my my preconceived notion of what I would characterize as traditional networking, which at least my conceived notion of it, I have no taste for at all. I just don’t like that. Hey ho, what do you do? What do I do? Here’s my business card. I just I really retreat from that. And I will share with you here in this local community. I have found that not to be the case, particularly like at young professionals of Woodstock, it’s very much more about building the relationship, getting to to to know people. But talk more about the the work. If someone becomes participates in this networking and action, it sounds like it’s pretty heavily laden with education. It sounds like you’re going to make a lot of immediate, genuine connections if you if you join this thing. But let’s just play it out a little bit. And I mean, we can use me as an example or somebody. But you know what happens from day one when we say, yeah, I want to be part of this thing. Sure.

Sara Branch: [00:11:41] So if you say you want to be part of my group, obviously you come to a meeting, but before you come to the meeting, we’d sit down and talk about all. The benefits of being in my group. There’s all sorts of things that people that you meet, the skills that we teach. But really the bottom line is that makes us completely different from any other group is we have a guaranteed return on investment. So, Stone, if you join my group, you and I sign a contract that says you will come to 11 out of 12 monthly meetings and that you will pass a referral in the group once a month. Pretty simple. Well, then I have a job to do because I am the professional manager of the group. Most business referral groups require everybody to have some volunteer position. There are some business networking groups that are entirely run by volunteers. And our concept in Network in Action, it’s run by paid professionals. Well, I am that paid professional. And the membership fees that you pay to the group go to pay me so that I will always be there, always be working for you and everybody else in the group. So I go out to as many networking meetings as my little mind can stand in a week, and I talk about our concept and talk about the benefits to it.

Sara Branch: [00:13:05] So you stone in my group would be the only person with your profession. So there’s one seat per profession, which makes it great because then it’s really good to pass leads back and forth to each other. At our monthly meetings we would do some training session, like I just mentioned a few minutes ago of what a real referral is. We constantly reinforce that we have people talk about it. Usually once a month we have a member spotlight, so if it was your turn stone, you’d stand up and give a presentation on a little bit about you, your background, but about your business so that we know exactly what it is that you do and understand your ideal referral. And we do all sorts of different exercises on talking to people. We even practice standing up in do public speaking. So those are the kinds of things that we do, but we also expect our members to have their own 1 to 1 meetings in the month in between our meetings, and then introduce the members to other people in their network. So we’re hoping that that ripple effect of my network gets to meet your network gets to meet Susie’s network. Is is that wonderful little relationship expansion that we’re doing within our network.

Stone Payton: [00:14:21] And that’s a very important distinction that’s beginning to come to light for me. Now, this is not do this. Instead of go to the chamber meeting and the Woodstock meeting and the young professionals, this is do this so that when you go to those meetings, you are very well prepared and you’re going to maximize your impact and you’re going to just be that much better at networking, that’s you’re not saying don’t go do that stuff. In fact, you go do that stuff, right? Absolutely. Yeah.

Sara Branch: [00:14:51] And that’s a big difference. There’s some business referral groups that are closed like ours, which means we have one profession per seat. But then there are some that are also exclusive. And what that means is they want every referral that you pass ever in your lifetime to be confined to that group. They don’t want you to be a member of another group. They don’t want you to go out and do anything else other than keep keep all the goodies inside your group. And we disagree with that. We think that my network and your network combine to form something even better than just the network in our in our referral group. And as I said a minute ago, it’s a nice ripple effect. You just keep going to meetings, keep meeting people, expanding people. Heck, I could go to the to the Woodstock Business Club where I met you and say, oh my gosh, Stone, you need to meet somebody that I met last week that was not in the Woodstock Business Club. And how wonderful is that? I get to spread the joy that way.

Stone Payton: [00:15:57] Absolutely. So for you, more so maybe, than anyone I’ve interviewed recently, you really have to eat your own cooking. Like everything you’re telling your clients to do, right? You’re you’re out there practicing these disciplines. You are a living example, are you? Certainly try to live into that, I’m sure of what you’re doing. So I’m curious, how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for you because you’re running this business and so people sign up. There’s a revenue model to it. I mean, do you you pretty much do what? That’s how you run your business. That’s that’s the sales and marketing for your business is what you’re teaching these other people.

Sara Branch: [00:16:39] Yes, exactly. I am out demonstrating those skills every day and every networking group. So if somebody has any question about how we handle. Business referrals. They see me doing it. They hear me talking to people. They understand that that I’m the the live demonstration of how the group ought to behave and the things that we should do outside of our group and connecting with other people. Yes. You’re absolutely right. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:17:08] So when you’re out there doing it and doing it right, I’m sure you’re watching, observing a lot of it and some of it, we won’t call it wrong. We’ll call it less than optimal. I suspect you see some patterns over and over. What are some common mistakes or some things that you know? You know, gang, if you’re listening to this, next time you go to one of these things, you know, start doing this and stop doing that. Are there a couple that you you just see over and over, and maybe you don’t actually let your eyes roll, but your eyes are rolling mentally. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Sara Branch: [00:17:42] So oh my gosh. One of the things that I see that happens all too frequently is the same. People are talking to each other every week over and over again. My challenge to everybody, and especially in my group, is when you go to a networking meeting, go find somebody you’ve not talked to, and even if they’re not new, just go talk to them. And if you find that this is an interesting person, then hey, let’s go ahead and book a 1 to 1 and have some fun outside of the networking meeting. So it’s the biggest thing is go find somebody you don’t know, somebody you haven’t met. And then the next thing is make sure you introduce them to somebody else. So go find somebody you don’t know and then take them to someone that you know and say, hey, I’ve met somebody new. May I introduce you to whomever the new person is? And of course, the larger the group is, the more likely there’s going to be cliques where people who’ve been going to the same group over and over again, yeah, their comfort level is with those same people. And that’s that’s a challenge for a lot of people. But for an extrovert like me, it’s not a problem. I just I will go up to people and say, you know, I overheard a little bit of what you were saying and it sounded really interesting. Can I join the conversation? And I’m always leading the conversation, but that’s my favorite line. Yeah.

Stone Payton: [00:19:12] Well, and you mentioned something earlier too. When you’re initially meeting someone or maybe someone has has had the presence of mind to do something similar to what you’re describing and introduced you to someone and they go, well, tell me more about your work, Stone, which, you know, and then you’re like, oh, cool, I’m going to get to talk about my work. The tendency, I’m sure, in some cases, is to tell them at all, like give them the, you know, the whole thing. But I think you suggested maybe earlier in the conversation, just give them kind of the highlight and then have that deeper conversation later in a on a 1 to 1.

Sara Branch: [00:19:46] Yes, you’re exactly right. When you get introduced to somebody for the first time, you should have your little two, 2 or 3 sentence maximum statement about what you do that has something a little provocative in it, or maybe an idea that the person might not have thought about. Whichever suits you. Yeah, and then you don’t say anything else, especially until the person says, that’s interesting. Tell me more. And you’re right. People have a tendency to just dump everything they know, and.

Stone Payton: [00:20:17] It’s as they’re reaching for their business card. Right. Exactly. Or if I’m talking with them, and maybe part of it is maybe I’m telling them too much. And I’ve had this experience, and I guess it’s part of what, you know, kind of made me say, look, I don’t even want to be involved in that kind of is literally they are looking over my shoulder like for the next person to talk, like they’re not genuinely engaged. It’s like they’re in a business card collection contest. Exactly. You’ve seen that, right?

Sara Branch: [00:20:46] Oh, there are a lot of people who think a networking event is just an opportunity to not only collect business cards, but hand out business cards, right? I was talking to one of my fellow franchisees a couple of weeks ago, and she said, you know, when I first got started in this business, I thought that what I would do is just go to these networking sessions and hand out my cards, and then I’d go back to my office and wait for the phone to ring. And she said, I quickly found out that that’s not how it works. And so if you don’t have a plan when you go to a meeting, as I said earlier, leave with two, one, two, one’s booked on your calendar. I mean, get out your phone, look at the person in the face and say, let’s get together next week and get a calendar booking right there. And thankfully enough, the calendar on my phone is linked up with the calendar that’s on my computer. So if I make a date on my phone calendar, it shows up on my computer, which is great. And so get those booked immediately right there on the spot. I have to tomorrow that I’m going to meet people for coffee tomorrow, day before Thanksgiving. So yeah, I’ve gotten them. Get them booked as much as possible.

Stone Payton: [00:21:59] Well, if you’re up for it, I’d love to get a little insight into how to conduct a productive one. One on one, 1 to 1, whatever you call that. That would be less engaging if you just if you want to learn a lot from people who are very experienced and are experts in their domain, get your radio show. You get them in here, you talk about what they do and then you get all this free consulting. So I’m going to take a swing at this for the on on the on the 1 to 1 thing. Are there also some outcomes you should try to expect from that, or some do’s and don’ts or a couple of disciplines you should exercise? In my case, it’s probably going to be at my field office behind Reformation. So but you know, I got I got to confess, I think maybe I wing it way too much in the 1 to 1. Yeah.

Sara Branch: [00:22:49] As most people do, most people wing it. So it starts with the invitation to the 1 to 1, and the invitation to the 1 to 1 should go like this. Stone, I want to find out what you’re working on, and I want to see how I can help you. I had a 1 to 1 last week with a young man that I met at another networking event, and I said, wow, I’m really interested in what you’re doing. Can we have a 1 to 1 so I can see what you’re working on and see how I can help you? And he said, yes, of course. And he came to the meeting prepared with his company information. As it turns out, the skill that he has was a skill that my husband was looking for, for his, for his customers, for his clients. So I just sat there and listened to him talk and asked him questions about what he was doing so that, as I said, it goes back to the invitation to the 1 to 1 say, I really want to find out what you’re working on and see how I can help you. Then when you get to the 1 to 1, you say, tell me what you’re working on. Let me see if I can help you. So they’re reminded that that’s the real goal of the meeting. And if they’re worth their salt, once they’re through talking, they’ll turn around and ask you the same thing.

Sara Branch: [00:24:04] Right. But the goal is to find out what they’re working on and see how you can help them. So that’s the main thing. And then once you get to the 1 to 1 and they start talking about their business, hopefully questions about their business will pop into their into your head. I generally follow a question model that’s from my old sales training days, where I ask them about what’s going on in their business. Do they have any challenges? Tell me what the challenges are that that you find in your business. What’s the impact on your business? Is there something that is really significant or maybe just annoying? Let’s go to the things that are annoying first. Those are simple. And then the very last question I would ask them is, what’s going to be the benefit to you to fix this? Tell me what the the dollar value is. And the benefit is for getting this particular issue fixed. And it really makes people think. So it’s a it’s an invitation to talk about what’s going on in their world. And then it’s a series of questions to help refine what it is that they’re working on, so that you can see if you can actually help them or refer them to somebody who can help them. Right.

Stone Payton: [00:25:16] What a marvelous structure. And I think I’m discovering through this conversation or rediscovering it hasn’t been the first time I’ve tried to learn this lesson. I need to do less winging. I think for me, and more add more structure to it. Something that’s repeatable and even transferable for other people on my team or in my in my business radio world. Right? Yeah.

Sara Branch: [00:25:35] And these skills that I’m talking about can be used in any situation. It doesn’t just have to be a business networking situation. It go to a party, you know, we got Christmas parties coming up this time of year, right? Right. And you go to a party that maybe a business party, but as part social you can modify your questions ever so slightly, but find out what’s going on in somebody else’s world. Find out if there’s something that they’re really frustrated about that they’re trying to fix or change or make different and see if you can help them out.

Stone Payton: [00:26:07] Yeah. So in that 1 to 1, let’s say that they are worth their salt and they do want to reciprocate. And they are genuinely interested in what I’m working on and what I might, might need. What how much should you try to share with them? Do you, do you, do you then kind of lay it all out or do you need some plan around that? The reason I’m asking is in my business, there’s a version of what we do that is very prolific, that people don’t help a lot of people with and make a lot of money with. And that’s the traditional model for podcasting or digital radio. 96% of podcasts fail and they don’t help people make money. And there are some reasons for that. And and we’ve kind of cracked the code on that. But now that let’s say that we have this one and one and it’s my turn to describe what we do and why it’s so different than what most people would say is podcasting or are there some rules, discipline, structure? For now, it’s my turn to tell them.

Sara Branch: [00:27:09] Absolutely. Okay, so we of course never do an information dump, but you just provided a little structure right there for something that you may say to someone who asks you, oh, tell me what’s going on in your world. You may be able to say, well, we do podcasts and radio shows. Did you know that 96% of all podcasts fail? And I bet the other person will say, no, I didn’t know that. And then you can do a brief explanation of why podcasts fail, and then you can give a little information on how they can succeed. Don’t don’t over overload them with information. But those two, those two things that that little provocative question of, did you know that 96% of all podcasts fail? And that opens their mind up to say, oh gosh, no, I didn’t. Then you just give a little bit of piece about how they can succeed. And then that person may ask you another question, but that’s it. Sort of like pose a question. Answer the question, pose a question, answer the question. And that does two things. One, it makes sure that the person who’s listening is actually listening to you because if you ask them a question, they’ll have to stop. And oh yeah, I hadn’t thought about it like that or some answer like that. Right, right. But that’s what I try to do, is try to pose a question and then give a little bit of an answer to see if the person is gets what I’m talking about.

Stone Payton: [00:28:35] So yeah, I’m so glad I asked. Yes.

Speaker4: [00:28:38] Well, good.

Stone Payton: [00:28:38] I’m feeling really good about my upcoming one to ones and and I resemble many of your remarks going back to what you described about having a tendency to just kind of visit with the same people. I could tell you the minute you said that, because Young Professionals of Woodstock is a group that I really enjoy, I walk across, or when it’s not too cold, I hop in the in the Business RadioX golf cart and go over to. And I got to tell you, I do sort of gravitate to the court. I talk to my buddy Austin because we both like to hunt and fish and all that. And so I got to get out of that. I got to I got to go meet new people. And the other thing that I think I’m extroverted enough to do, and should probably make a conscious effort to do, is go find that person and connect them to someone that I do know and get them. That is I mean, it’s a it’s a discipline.

Sara Branch: [00:29:34] It is. It truly is a discipline. So if you if you talk to yourself in your head as you’re in the golf cart, going to the to the young professionals meeting, say to yourself, okay, I’m going to start by going to somebody I don’t know, and I’m going to ask them, hey, what’s going on? What’s happening in your world? Tell me what you’re working on and listen to them talk about their business. And then immediately while they’re talking, of course, don’t lose track of what they’re saying. Think of the other people in the group on the other side of your brain. Who can I connect them to? Who can I connect them to and listen and then plan the connection? And then once you’ve done that, go connect the two and then go back and repeat it. Find somebody you don’t know, find out what they’re working on. Figure out who you can connect them to. That’s in that in the room. Now, if you think there’s somebody really cool you could connect them to is not in the room, then obviously you do that in a different fashion. Maybe you could do a 1 to 1, talk to them about it, see if they’re okay. For example, I’ve got a young man who is interested in my group, but he’s not quite sure the benefit of my group. So I’m going to do a demonstration for him by connecting him to somebody who’s not in my group, and then he’ll see the value of having me as the leader, because everybody else in the room is learning the same skills and practicing those skills along with me. And then he’ll see that, okay, I’m not going to be expected to just give referrals inside the group, that the whole point is to understand what he’s trying to accomplish. And he’s got three businesses, and he just started a new one that is completely different from anything else he’s done before. So it’s going to be fun connecting him to help him get started.

Stone Payton: [00:31:25] All right. So so you have this group and you still have openings from certain professions or certain types of businesses. Is that correct? And then is this thing like what’s next as this continues to grow and you get that group established, will you maybe start another one. Oh yeah.

Sara Branch: [00:31:42] Oh yeah. Okay. So the way that it works with our franchise is when you when you buy a license, a franchise license, you get the rights to build three groups. Oh, wow. So I’m working on one group right now. And that group just happens to be in Roswell. And when I do my second group, it’s going to be north Cobb County, southern Cherokee County. So that’s a big reason why I’m talking to you, because this is where my second group is going to be so fantastic.

Stone Payton: [00:32:11] All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you have a more substantive conversation, maybe have that 1 to 1 or whatever you feel like is appropriate website, LinkedIn, email. But I just want to make sure that folks can begin to tap into your work and get to know you.

Sara Branch: [00:32:26] Sure. Well, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Facebook, Instagram, I’m at I am Sarah Branch on Instagram. My phone number is (470) 707-3598 and my email is my first name last name Sarah without an H branch. So that’s Sarah Branch at Network connection.com. So come find.

Speaker4: [00:32:54] Me.

Stone Payton: [00:32:54] Well Sarah, it has been an absolute delight having you in the studio this morning. Keep up the good work. What you’re doing is so important. And having such a. Genuine impact. And we sure appreciate you.

Sara Branch: [00:33:07] Oh thank you Stone. That’s wonderful.

Stone Payton: [00:33:10] My pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Sarah Branch with Networking in Action and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.

 

 

BRX Pro Tip: How Will You Sieze the Day?

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: How Will You Sieze the Day?
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BRX Pro Tip: How Will You Sieze the Day?

Stone Payton : [00:00:00] Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I’ve always been a big fan of the phrase “carpe diem,” which it’s my understanding means seize the day. What insight, if any, do you have on making sure that you do seize the day?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:19] Yeah. I think it’s so important to really look at today as the most important day of your life. And, you know, maybe it’s because I’m getting older and the days, you know, there’s going to be more – there’s more days behind me than they are in front of me. But today is the only day that is truly real. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is not guaranteed for anybody.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:42] So are you going to do the most important things today, right now, or are you going to wait for someday down the road? And most people sleepwalk through life and then look back and say, “Oh, how did this happen?” So are you going to be that person who you hoped you’d become? You know, if you’re not, why not? And you have control of today. Today is, like I said, the only day that really exists. So do something. Be the change you want to be in the world today. Don’t put that off. You know, you can start living that life of meaning and impact today if you want to. And if not today, then when?

GWBC LACE Awards 2023: Vince “The Voice’ Bailey

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GWBC LACE Awards 2023: Vince "The Voice' Bailey
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Vince-The-Voice-BaileyVince “The Voice’ Bailey

Vince the Voice

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from the Georgia Aquarium Oceans Ballroom for the 2023 GWBC Lace Awards Gala, Ladies Achieving Continuous Excellence. Right now we have Vince the Voice Bailey, the emcee of tonight’s event. Welcome, man.

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:00:35] Hey, thanks a lot, man. Great being here with you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:37] That voice is just it’s instantly recognizable.

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:00:42] Oh, thank you so much. Yes, yes. Great to be here. Great to be here with you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] So when did you know you had the voice?

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:00:48] You know what, man? I’ve been doing this kind of thing for quite a while, and I just love to read it as a kid, to the point where the nuns were like anybody but Vince. Come up and read, and I haven’t stopped talking yet.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:02] So is it just years of smoking? What is your secret?

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:01:06] Well, that, to be honest with you, but I got into this world of media production at a young age and never, never let go.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:15] So what’s your favorite part of production?

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:01:17] You know what? Actually, it’s things like this tonight. I mean, I do commercials and shoot and all that and editing. But like tonight you have the affair and it’s over and the check is good and it’s a wrap as opposed to, you know, having to do some post-production stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:33] Now, any advice for folks out there that are looking to do production? Because so many people I’m sure you’ve seen think they can do this themselves?

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:01:42] Well, I taught and I teach privately. Voiceover and I taught at Clayton State for 12 years. And so I’ll hit that because a lot of people, you know, how do you get into voiceover and what do you do. And so I’m going to drop some nuggets on you first of all, and that is that you begin 99 times out of 99in the world that you live in. So if you’re in education, if you’re in aviation, if you’re in medical, if you’re whatever you’re in, the first opportunities will present themselves in that arena before you go out there. Everyone wants to do the McDonald’s commercials, but who’s going to do Mike’s hamburgers down the street, if you know what I mean? And so I’ve had some success with that, more of a blue collar approach to this whole world of entertainment, and it keeps you working. So I think another thing along those lines, you mentioned productions here in Atlanta is such an entertaining environment, but it’s also a very, as you guys know, corporate environment and corporate entities need just as much production as as the singers and dancers and party people.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:42] So so that might not be as sexy, but there’s a lot of money being made in that space.

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:02:47] Look at me right now. I got on this suit and tie. The ladies is taking pictures with me. I mean, you know, I’d rather do it like this.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:55] So now, what about when it comes to video production? A lot of folks think, you know, I’ve got a camera on my phone, so why do I need to hire somebody?

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:03:03] Yeah, well, I hear that a lot. And people have gone to that. And then they come back to you because you as a professional, you know, I go into a situation. My first question to a client is what do you want people to do after they watch this. And that will dictate the flow? You know, the appeal. It’s got to be for a purpose. You know, I don’t we’re not just taking pretty pictures. We’re trying to get people to either buy this product or investigate this organization or donate or something. There needs to be a purpose. So that’s where the challenge comes in. And that’s why they need to hire somebody like me instead of your cousin with the cell phone.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:45] Now, what is kind of your ideal client? Who is it? Somebody corporate. You know what is what’s the ideal client for your production company? Well, I tell.

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:03:54] You what, this I this is, I want to say, my 10th year, I started in the back of the room as the voice of God. With this, I had met Ross Lewis through the Atlanta Business League back when. And so his voice of God. And then for probably the past seven, eight years, I’ve been on the on the stage and it has been a great relationship and so much so because, you know, the audience is is is a tremendous audience. And as a result, opportunities, some major opportunities have presented from from being in this room. And so events like that, you know, these ties and the bling bling that I have on, I emcee, believe it or not, guys, as a licensed National Dance Council of America ballroom dance competitions professional, I’m talking Russians and all over the country and outside of the country. And it’s amazing that, first of all, I have to pinch myself that I’m even in that environment. But when it comes to that, I think that part of the success has been I. Said, you know that a lot of Russians. I’m a stickler about names. So if her name is Oksana Zolotarev Skya, you need to say Oksana Zolotarev Skya. And a lot of times people, oh, you know, no, that’s their name. And there’s many names like that. That’s just a little thing, a little something different. And it enamors them to you and say, hey, you know, you want to make people feel good. So even though Sally weighs 430 pounds, that purple is popping girl, you know. And that was a great shot shot.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:34] So if somebody wants to learn more about your production company or hire you to emcee their event, what is the website?

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:05:40] Well, I appreciate that. They can look me up at Vince the voice.com. You can Google me. Vince the voice. I’ve been doing a lot of this. Like I say, the nuns are proud of me. I was a good speller and a good reader, and I appreciate the good enunciator and a good dancer.

Speaker5: [00:05:56] But I can break it down now for me too. It depends on what we’re selling.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:01] Well, thank you so much for spending some time with us this evening. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Vince “The Voice” Bailey: [00:06:06] It’s truly an honor. Thank you guys at Business RadioX.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:09] All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few at the 2023 GW Lace Awards Gala.

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-Logo

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.

Our Mission

We help local business leaders get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, their community, and their profession.

We support and celebrate business by sharing positive business stories that traditional media ignores. Some media leans left. Some media leans right. We lean business.

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1000 Abernathy Rd. NE
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Sandy Springs, GA 30328