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Building a Performer Environment: Transforming Professional Practices for Lasting Success

October 1, 2025 by angishields

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Cherokee Business Radio
Building a Performer Environment: Transforming Professional Practices for Lasting Success
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Brought to you by Diesel David and Main Street Warriors

CherokeeSponsorImageDieselDavidMSW

In this episode of Cherokee Business Radio, host Joshua Kornitsky welcomes guests Robert Lee, founder of The Lesix Agency, Tiana Neal, CEO of Transcenders Consulting Group, and Farrell Middleton, Owner of The Bell Curve of Life. The conversation explores each guest’s unique journey and insights into business growth and professional development. Robert shares how personal loss and business setbacks inspired him to help real estate professionals improve their operations and quality of life, highlighting the industry’s lack of business education, the importance of mindset shifts, and the benefits of AI-powered tools. Tiana Neal discusses her approach to building strong client relationships and fostering resilience in the face of challenges, while Farrell Middleton offers strategies for navigating market changes and sustaining long-term success. 

Lesix-Agency-logo

Robert-Lee-bwRobert (Rob) Lee lives in Dallas, GA with his wife, girls, and pets. He’s an AI Branding Academy Partner, AI Persona Method Certified, REEA Gold Standard Instructor, and member of the Paulding Board of Realtors.

His marketing agency, The Lesix Agency, helps Real People make Real Money in Real Estate with AI Employees.

Follow The Lesix Agency on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Tiana-Neal-bwTiana Neal is the Founder and CEO of Transcenders Consulting Group, a firm specializing in Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions and the host of The Human Roll where she explores key topics in HR and payroll spotlighting emerging businesses in the HCM space all while sharing insights in leadership, trends and best practices.

With over 15 years of experience in the professional services industry, Tiana has a proven track record of optimizing processes, ensuring compliance, and driving seamless implementations to help businesses achieve operational excellence. Transcenders-logo

Her passion lies in empowering organizations to transcend traditional boundaries and unlock the full potential of their workforce through innovative and tailored HCM solutions.

Connect with Tiana on LinkedIn.

Farrell-Middleton-bwFarrell Middleton founded The Bell Curve of Life in 2022 to inspire positive change for individuals and organizations. His mission is to help people become A-level performers and support leaders in creating A-level environments.

Since launching the program, Farrell has connected with hundreds of people through one-on-one sessions, small groups, company presentations, contractor accreditation classes, and public speaking engagements.

After a successful 36-year career in residential land development and homebuilding, Farrell transitioned to his long-anticipated second career as a teacher, speaker, and author. This shift, made at age 57, has allowed him to share his passion for growth and leadership while engaging with people in meaningful ways.

In 2025, Farrell became a published author with the release of his first book, A Performer/A Environment. The book presents a practical framework for personal and professional growth and serves as the cornerstone of The Bell Curve of Life program.

Farrell’s programs draw on his extensive personal and professional experiences. A Georgia Tech honors graduate, he held senior leadership roles with both private and public organizations in the thriving Atlanta housing market. Over his career, he managed hundreds of employees, directed diverse teams, and navigated complex group dynamics. The-Bell-Curve-of-Life-logo

A Savannah native and the youngest of four, Farrell met his wife Kathy in high school. Married since 1986, they’ve raised two daughters, Pfeiffer and Collier, who now reside in the Atlanta area.

Follow The Bell Curve of Life on LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

  • Personal and professional challenges faced by entrepreneurs and professionals across various industries, including navigating significant life events and setbacks.
  • The impact of adversity on business operations and the potential consequences, such as financial strain, burnout, or even bankruptcy.
  • The founding and mission of organizations dedicated to supporting professionals in enhancing their business operations and overall quality of life.
  • Unique challenges within different industries, such as the lack of formal business education and common misconceptions about professional roles and responsibilities.
  • The importance of mindset shifts and clear goal-setting for achieving success, regardless of industry.
  • The role of AI-powered tools in establishing efficient, repeatable processes that boost productivity and reduce stress for professionals.
  • The necessity for individuals to adopt a strategic, proactive approach to their work rather than reacting to daily demands.
  • The significance of building community and support networks within professional environments.
  • The value of engaging with clients or stakeholders through discovery sessions to identify opportunities for growth and improvement.
  • The philosophy of simplifying complex business concepts into actionable principles to drive high performance in any professional setting.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Joshua Kornitsky: Welcome back to Cherokee Business Radio. I’m your host and professional EOS implementer, Joshua Kornitsky. And we’ve got a full studio today. Uh, three wonderful guests that I’m excited to get to. Before we get started, I just want to remind everybody that today’s episode is brought to you in part by our community partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors. Defending Capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Mainstreet Warriors.org and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors, Diesel David Inc. Please go check them out at diesel.david.com. Well, as I said, we’ve got a full studio today and I’m really excited to introduce my first guest, uh, Robert Lee. Robert, before I go any further, I’m going to screw up the name of your company. So please tell me the name of your company.

Robert Lee: Lesix Agency

Joshua Kornitsky: Lesix Agency. It’s a marketing consultancy focused on real estate professionals. Uh, your background is in engineering and Lean Six Sigma principles. You hope your clients streamline operations and adopt AI powered tools to elevate their impact. Would you say that? That’s about right.

Robert Lee: I would say the only thing that’s missing is we use a lot of theory of Constraints as well. So Lean Six Sigma, that’s where the name Lesix Agency comes from. But TOC is a very critical part of that as well.

Joshua Kornitsky: So let’s begin at the beginning. Tell us how we got here.

Robert Lee: Oh my gosh. Okay. So if everybody has a day and a half to hear my sob story, let’s.

Joshua Kornitsky: Reduce the beginning. No, please.

Robert Lee: That’s. That’s fair enough. In short, two years ago, two and a half years ago, I had a very successful direct mail business based out of Marietta and operated my consulting on the side. And in August of 2022, my wife and I lost her third child. She was about seven months pregnant. That sent me down a little bit of a hole. And while I was out, I don’t know if I was grieving or just kind of lost. But while I was out, the business continued to run. But I had a staff member that authorized some expenditures that were not exactly in the business’s best interest. So I got back in and wasn’t fully through that grieving process yet. I know nobody ever is. Uh, but got back in, made some changes, got everything aligned. And in February of 2023, my old man, the guy that raised us, my parents split when I was young. My dad taught me everything I know about how to treat people, how to show respect. I just get a phone call that he had a heart attack and a doctor’s chair. Wow. And so I have these three instances of where life and business were colliding. And so I went through to write the book on how to destroy a $2 million business in four months. Right.

Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s rough.

Robert Lee: I mean, I look at it and I say, I could have self-destructed through drugs and alcohol, like a lot of people do. Or. But but thankfully, I didn’t. I just destroyed a business. And my wife and I have everything separated in terms of business structure. So I had to go through the bankruptcy process. And as I’m fat man crying in my room while my girls are daycare and my wife is at work, I just I get a lot of sleep, which I hadn’t had in years. Right. And I started to get some clarity by asking the question, Why was I not set up to grieve the right way? Why was I not set up to understand how business impacted life and how life impacted business? And and that was the beginning of the process of really launching the Lee6 agency as my core business. And through that process, found that there’s a lot of real estate professionals out there that suffer through those same questions, and there was a great way for us to make money together, make memories together, go out there and just make the world a better place.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s an absolutely incredible story to to go from the lowest point I imagine you’ve been, and then to lose your dad and then to to rebuild on top of it. So thank you for sharing that. Um, if you would share with us a little bit more about who and how you help with Lee6.

Robert Lee: Again, real estate professionals, Brokers, individual agents. There’s realtor associations that are really having a tough time right now with a lot of the industry changes around Nar and real estate schools, like, believe it or not, there’s a huge cottage industry of real estate educators.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Robert Lee: That that have to provide the educational services to this professionally regulated industry here in Georgia, 36 hours of continuous education every four ish years, as you renew your license, you have to go through 75 hours of pre-license. You have to go through 24 or 36, I don’t know, education is miserable.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure. Well, and it’s a necessity of a lot of industries. Right.

Robert Lee: Exactly.

Joshua Kornitsky: But it also keeps them current on things. So so with that being out there, how are you assisting.

Robert Lee: Yeah. And and to, to basically I outline all of that to say that the thing that each of those have in common, they’re very different from one another. They’re sets of experiences are very different. They’re very unique. But what they all have in common is they operate in an industry that doesn’t have a lot of business. Common sense. There are common practices that have been done in the industry for years, and it’s very reactive. It’s very shoot from the hip. I mean, there’s this thing that real estate agents are told you’re always on as a real estate agent 24 over seven. And I hear stories of people taking phone calls during kids recitals. And I mean, that just sucks, man.

Joshua Kornitsky: Just no quality of life.

Robert Lee: That’s not that’s not.

Joshua Kornitsky: And you had even shared with me kind of this perspective that you that you have, uh, that a lot of the real estate professionals don’t see themselves as business owners.

Robert Lee: And that’s it, right? They’re taught to be reactive to everything, because in many cases, these people are making a transition into the industry from another one. A lot of veterans choose real estate. But think about it. You go from being a very in a very structured environment.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Robert Lee: Where you’re told what to do. You respect a chain of command into an industry where you’re not an employee of anybody. Most agents come into the industry not understanding that they are a business of one.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Robert Lee: They don’t work for their brokerage. They’re not employees. They have to pay all of their taxes. They have to handle all of their HR issues, hire their vendors, all of that. Now, a brokerage will help out with that, but they don’t get that experience of business education while they’re getting their license. They’re taught in these real estate schools from the start how to pass a test. And so what happens is you have this vicious cycle where brokers who should be providing that business education never got it themselves. So it’s just this continuous years long re-investment in the idea that you have to go out and just do it as opposed to, again, common sense and common practice are not the same thing in this industry. And that’s not anybody’s fault. It just means that the industry has to be approached differently. You have to start asking the questions of why is it so miserable to take calls at 10 a.m. or not 10 a.m. it’s not miserable to take a call at 10 a.m. 10 p.m..

Joshua Kornitsky: Less so.

Robert Lee: Because you have a client that’s freaking out as opposed to approaching it from the perspective of how can I set up my business to prevent 10 p.m. calls? How can I set up my business to prevent these problems that we know are going to exist from ever happening?

Joshua Kornitsky: So at a high level, explain to us, how do you do that? How do you help them shift their mindset and their understanding? So what types of tools are you able to introduce? What type of approaches do you share in order to make that quality of life difference.

Robert Lee: Pretty simple. First thing we do, we start introducing clarity and clear thinking into their business. Start asking by questions. What’s the goal? What are the necessary requirements? What assumptions are you making about how to meet that goal? And then start teaching them from that foundational question. What’s the goal on how to align everything they’re doing with their particular business and personal goal, and teaching them that it is okay to not do things that do not help you meet the goal, that do not fall within the parameters of that necessary, those sets of necessary requirements. Because honestly, like 6,070% of the crap that people do in real estate don’t align with a well-defined goal. And imagine just being able to just kind of let it go like a that the rock and curling, right? You watch curling and you see these guys just slide across the ice and they just let go of the rock and it just goes. You just want them to let go of those things that are doing that don’t align with the goals. So once you introduce that clarity of thinking, that clear thinking process, get them used to saying, I’m not doing that and I am doing this and educate them on that, then we can start to use AI and the strengths of AI to actually create AI employees repeatable, predictable, consistent processes that the real estate professional, in whatever context they’re in, can pull off the shelf and use when they need it and put it back when they don’t.

Joshua Kornitsky: So thank you. Now I think we’re in is that I think the the term is agentic AI is that the.

Robert Lee: And this is part of the conversation that we have with folks is that Agentic AI there’s a lot there’s a lot of confusion about what that term really means. Most people begin with the question how can we use AI as opposed to how do we understand our business? Now, when you get to the question of understanding your business, then you can start to view AI in a variety of different ways. And we kind of look at it in three different levels. Okay, AI employees are documented processes that don’t run on their own unless you tell it to start. And you can do that in ChatGPT. We use a lot of cloud, but basically these processes don’t execute themselves. You have to start it. And it has a very well defined set of training and parameters.

Joshua Kornitsky: Do a do be do c stop.

Robert Lee: Correct. Right. Underneath that is automation which is not artificial intelligence. But it’s kind of the basis. Right. I mean it’s if A happens then B follows. If B follows then c, D and e follows. So on and so forth. Your automations can be defined by your AI employees. Okay. Right. And then you have agentic AI which is more autonomous. And these are things like Manus and these automated phone call systems that answer phone calls. You can actually use your AI employees to train your agentic AI to answer the phone in a certain way, collect certain information. Because if that agentic AI, that autonomous semi-autonomous AI isn’t trained well, it’s not going to do its job well. Just like a person.

Joshua Kornitsky: Just like real people.

Robert Lee: Just like real people. And so we always begin with the clear thinking about your business, because if you don’t have that right, you’re never going to use AI, right? And then it doesn’t. Then the definition of what agentic AI is and what an AI employee is, it doesn’t really matter.

Joshua Kornitsky: No. And I think you’re I know and you know, you’re 100% right on that. I do know that people don’t care what it’s called, if it does what they would like it to do. Exactly. But the fact that you’re introducing clarity on the front end, um, Probably has. Well, let me ask rather than than assume. Does that lessen that fear of adoption? Because you’ve you’ve taken the big scary unknown of AI, which, I mean, at this point, I think my refrigerator and my toaster have AI. Not for any reason I can think of, but I guess it’s just a great way to harvest more data from me. That’s, of course, how I like my toast is relevant to somebody. Um, what does that do for for your, um, clients from from an adoption approach? Once that that fear is diminished.

Robert Lee: Well, one, it gets them to slow down, which is the nice thing. It actually forces them to sit there and think through what it is they’re using AI for. And then second of all, it makes it less scary because it shows people that AI is not really intelligent. It’s a logical prediction engine, which is just a fancy way of saying it takes a bunch of data about how you like your toast, and about how you two here that are also guests might like whatever it is you like, and then creates the logical prediction of what the right output is. So when we talk about real estate, many people don’t know how to write a listing description. That doesn’t suck. And what I mean by that is this beautiful four bedroom, three bathroom house with 3500ft² in an idyllic neighborhood is a house of your dreams. Well, every damn house is the house of my dreams if it’s described that way, sure. But by understanding how to connect with their clients and understanding how you build profiles for marketing, they then can create AI employees to help them create those profiles, help help them create their marketing strategies that help them write those listing descriptions that are completely aligned to the goal inside of their business. And if that goal is to sell single mothers with children homes, right. You can still do that without running afoul of the regulations and the legal requirements of of how you you practice real estate.

Joshua Kornitsky: So please.

Robert Lee: Know. And at the end of the day, this is just a lot of different ways of saying no your business then use AI. And if you know your business, your AI use will be simple and easy to implement.

Joshua Kornitsky: That makes sense. So so do you. It sounds like there’s certainly uh customizable tools. Mhm. Um, but it also sounds like there’s a level of guidance or coaching involved here because it starts with mindset. And if you’re starting with mindset, what does the engagement look like? If someone wants to work with you and understand and benefit both from the mindset approach, from the quality of life approach, but also from the technical, uh, facilitation to make their life easier. Mhm. What does that look like?

Robert Lee: Yeah. Pretty simple. So our business we’ll just call it our business development process. We essentially walk up to people all the time and say, hey, how’s life going? What’s going on in real estate from your perspective? And then they start to find, I hear, a little hint of a complaint. They may try to to paint it over as being something amazing and wonderful and perfect in every way. But there will be a little hint of complaint in there, like, this really isn’t working. And then I just simply say, well, hey, I have this great process. It’s a TOC. It’s it’s basically the TOC tool thinking tools, right. The current reality tree and the future reality tree and the evaporating cloud and all of these things. I’m throwing those terms out there. If you’re listening, go read the goal. Go read. It’s not luck. Go look up everything by Eli Goldratt and you’ll know what those terms mean okay. But at the end of the day they’re they’re processes. They’re thinking processes. And so I just tell folks, hey, you have an hour a time I can actually help you change your business strategy. It’s not even I don’t offer it free of charge. We don’t even talk about money at that point. It’s just like, do you have an hour of time? And you’ll get a business strategy out of it. It’s up to you on how you implement that. Sure. But you give an hour of time. I’ll give you an hour of time. We will have a conversation. And then I introduce the AI employee that we use. Explain to them that our conversation will be used as basically data to help us use this process more effectively. By the end of it, we get into the discussion of how we might be able to help.

Joshua Kornitsky: So then let me ask the the most important question of all in this context, who are you best suited to help if someone’s listening right now? Uh, what are what are the right size organizations, the right type of people, the right type of roles within real estate profession that that are a good fit for what you offer and for being able to make the biggest impact for them.

Robert Lee: From a brokerage perspective, mid-size brokers that are looking to recruit producing agents that can produce more. So in other words, you might have 150 200 agents on your brokerage roster, and maybe ten of them are actually producing on a consistent basis. You know, at least 20 of them have the potential to produce better. And you know that there are thousands of agents out there that are unhappy paying their brokerage whatever they’re paying their brokerage. But you don’t have a way to necessarily recruit and retain and mobilize those agents. From a brokerage perspective, that’s who we’d like to work with. Individual agents. You’re doing 4 or 5 transactions a year. You want to get to 10 or 15. That’s a difference of six figures at least.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right?

Robert Lee: Those are the types of agents that we want to talk to from a business perspective. Sure. Real estate schools. I mean, really any size real estate school who is mentally ready to turn it into a business? And then any realtor association of any size, you want to build a business model that actually helps you grow in very difficult times. Those are the types of folks we want to to speak with from a business perspective. Now, from a personal perspective, my personal goal is that I have to be a happy, present father in the lives of my wife and children. I have two necessary requirements for that. I have to be home, pick up my girl off the bus, get dragged to Disney World four times a year because my wife and girls love it.

Joshua Kornitsky: I was there last week.

Robert Lee: Oh, I was there last week too. You know how it was like walking in to the sun with humidity of 100%? It was miserable.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yep.

Robert Lee: But that means being a happy. That means being a present father, which I didn’t have the opportunity to do beforehand. The other necessary requirement to be happy. I’m an extrovert. I love to talk. I love to problem solve, which means I have to be around people. So from a personal goal perspective that aligns with business, I’ll talk to anybody involved in any size organization that really meets some standard of they want to grow their business, they want to improve processes, and they want to make more money in less time. I will have a conversation with any of those businesses. For some reason, I got hooked up with non-profits lately that are wondering how to write better grant proposals. I can’t tell you how to do it, other than the fact that I had a. I had breakfast with a long time friend who was involved in a nonprofit. Uh, I’ve been dealing with roofing companies the past couple of years. Right. I mean.

Joshua Kornitsky: So across the spectrum.

Robert Lee: It is. Right. Because good business, common sense and common practice are not often the same thing in small businesses.

Joshua Kornitsky: Fair enough. So what’s the best way for people to reach you?

Robert Lee: Rob. Dot. Dot com will give you access to my personal socials, which you’ll see all kinds of sage advice and wisdom on. Uh, it will give you access to the six agency socials and website, which has all kinds of sage advice about real estate. Specifically has a way to download our Ultimate Guide to AI employees, which is basically a Google Doc and an eBook that is designed to give you access to the core of our knowledge about how we build processes from an AI perspective, and a way to just schedule some time with me.

Joshua Kornitsky: Perfect. And we will also share that link or links. Uh, when we publish and go live. Uh, I hope you have time to hang out. Robert. I’ve got a few more folks here to talk to. I can’t wait to introduce you to 100%. Uh, thank you again. Robert Lee, founder of Lee six agency. Uh, we’ll come back to you real fast when we close out, but I appreciate your time. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and your wisdom.

Robert Lee: Look, it is a privilege because it is part of my goal to spend time around people that love to talk and love to listen. So, really, I owe you the thanks here because you’re making my day awesome.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s our pleasure.

Robert Lee: I appreciate it.

Joshua Kornitsky: So my next guest is someone that I met recently, but we have just hit it off in a great professional sense. I’d like to introduce Tiana Neal. She’s the founder of Transcenders Consulting Group, a consulting firm specializing in human capital management with an expertise across payroll tax, HR benefits, o HR, comp benefits, project management, and system implementation. Tiana is an HR leader, also a podcast host who probably doesn’t get company names wrong like I do. Uh, and a connector with really a strong passion for rehumanizing the workplace conversations. She bridges the strategy and empathy, helping organizations see people beyond the policies. Welcome to the show, Tiana.

Tiana Neal: Thank you. Thank you. Josh, really excited to be here.

Joshua Kornitsky: I’m really happy to have you here. You and I had some great conversations when we first met, sort of about the HR universe. And I really thought you had a refreshing perspective on it. So let’s let’s let me start by asking what kind of brought you into the world of HR.

Tiana Neal: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I initially got started in the payroll space. Payroll and taxation was my thing. And then I got into the role of air operations, where I handled more benefits and heavy implementations. And from there, that got me really close to the people side of the business, which is where I really found my niche. I would say, I think just, you know, listening to people, um, bringing that human back to HR. It was really important for a lot of populations that I worked for. Um, sometimes when you get into the day to day, companies can miss that. They can miss that, like your people are the most important. And so once I became more personable and built proper relationships with, you know, my employees around the office, that was really where I realized I was a great fit and could add, um, really good value. And then not to mention, I had really good system experience on the HR tech side, and I loved to untangle the web of a lot of things. So there I was, just found my match.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and I’m going to ask you about your spaghetti, your spaghetti bowl concept here in just a minute. But one of the things that I remember, uh, from our initial discussion was around sort of how HR has changed over time. And, and as you just mentioned, you know, through your own evolution, your perception of it changed over time. Just looking at the last few years, how are things different? And to Robert’s point about AI, I imagine AI in the workplace has changed a great number of things.

Tiana Neal: Yes, as Robert was talking about, AI in my head was spinning because there is a very unknown. It’s very unknown in our industry, and I’m involved in a lot of webinars that I, you know, tuned into every week. The HR tech side is changing and will continue to change drastically from, you know, within our world. And so it is very critical that most people in our industry start to learn AI and not push it away. I can admit that some years ago when AI was coming, you know, to becoming a big topic, I was just like, this is not taking my job. It’s not taking payroll. This is ridiculous. Until I started going to my annual conferences, you know, adp’s, the workday’s HR techs. And as soon as you walk into the room, AI is on the screen. And so I was like, oh, okay. So this is really happening. Um, and so from there, I started playing around with it and realizing that it was here. Right? And I just you can’t ignore it. And so being a systems person, I started jumping right in. Um, and that has, you know, really helped because a lot of times if I’m interviewing with clients, they will have a question now involved where it entails AI, because a lot of if you’re a true, true HR person, I would say most HR people don’t necessarily like to get involved with the system aspect.

Tiana Neal: You know that there’s a different you know, obviously the HR role that typically heavily handles systems. But true HR people from R and usually like to deal with employee relations and, you know, hiring, firing, recruiting. But getting in that back end system is not a lot of people’s things. And now it’s almost going to become a must. I think for the most part, you’ve got to start understanding what AI is doing, um, and not get too far behind just because the younger generation that is now in the workforce. They are heavy, demanding. And so, um, you know, they’re used to using these phones and these platforms and they do not care about pizza like that. To have a pizza day, you really have to show them the growth and show them that, you know, you’re in the know of tech because that is truly going to be, you know, a long term thing on the tech side.

Joshua Kornitsky: That makes sense to me and kind of opens the door for me to ask, you know, how when. So when you are engaging with the organizations you work with, I presume oftentimes these are relatively new avenues for them that you’ve got experience with. Are you able to help shepherd them through the the embrace and transition into these types of systems?

Tiana Neal: Yeah. So surprisingly, though, a lot of times I’m having to just go back to start with the basics. Um, and even though that seems kind of odd, a lot of companies, just from the basics, need to get the right people, not only on the bus, but also in the right role. Right. So it could be a perfect person for your company, but if they’re in the wrong role, it’s not going to be good for your population. And a lot of times executives will typically overlook HR, especially payroll. Starting off in payroll, I always say payroll is like the red headed stepchild, which is very odd because, you know, we process the bacon for everybody, right? And so from an HR stance, you have to have the right people in the seat that care about the company that are loyal. And you know the CEOs need to also treat HR properly. Right. And then from there the rest of your population will typically go smoothly. So we need to have like right training for our people. Make sure there’s the right, you know, vision and mission and that everyone is abiding by it.

Tiana Neal: So from the top of the chain of HR down to your supervisors, directors, managers, everyone has to, you know, show well with that stance and be a good example for your employee population, and a lot of times that gets lost in transition naturally, I think. And so I think even before jumping to the high AI system part, people really just have to get to the basics, understand foundationally where the company is going, start getting your employee population to begin to trust HR. We are a partner, but here, if I had a dollar for every time I heard HR is just for the company, not the employee, it’s like, okay, we’ve got to change that narrative. A lot of times people don’t see what’s happening behind the scenes. And then from there, once the foundation is set, then we can start adding in new systems and start implementing AI and be transparent with it so that people don’t think that they’re going to lose their job and then, you know, run away from there.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and so you touched on this briefly, but it really was the foundation of what you were sharing, that there’s a lot of misconceptions, particularly at not just employees thinking that that HR is just protecting the company, but backing it up to the higher level at the leadership team level. There are often um, we’ll just go with misconceptions. And, you know, I guess it comes down to and I’ve, I’ve got sort of a linear mind. Is it that do they view HR as an expense or do they view it as an investment, or do they view it as a necessity?

Tiana Neal: Probably one of the first two initially until there is no HR and then they start to see how needed it is. I will say I have worked for and have seen companies just not pay attention to HR or go without having an HR.

Joshua Kornitsky: I’ve seen that too, but that’s scary.

Tiana Neal: Yes, it’s very scary and that’s when you get into heavy compliance issues. I mean, the legal side of things, I mean, the lawsuits that come through are just sometimes insane. Lots of times. Obviously, companies are settling behind the scenes, but there’s a lot of companies that I’ve just had to step away from because of just when you’re on the side of the house of HR, obviously you see a lot of unfortunate things that happen and you hear a lot of things. And so the leadership from the higher up, not every CEO or CEO or C-suite executive of a company is this way. But I ran into more than a few born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and are just so used to having certain things that they don’t necessarily pay attention to the bottom end of the population that is actually doing the work. And so having a very strong HR team that gets to know the population has those conversations and understands what people are going through in life is very helpful because sometimes employees may act out, but it might just they might be dealing with a breakup, going through a divorce, you know, they may have had a miscarriage, you know, just something of that nature may have happened and they just need to step away. And so, you know, giving them some time off or some leave. I’ve seen that work wonders for people. But if people don’t trust HR or don’t know HR or don’t feel like they can come to HR, then you essentially lose out on a really great asset in an employee if you’re not paying attention. So a lot of times, um, it sometimes it’s unfortunate a little too late for a CEO to, to realize the necessity of HR, but it is very critical. And the companies that recognize that early on, um, I see do very well when they, you know, when they put, um, money towards HR to ensure there’s proper training, they have the proper people that helps the population accordingly.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and you you bring up an interesting point, right. Because if you’ve got legal compliance issues, and I know Farrell will speak a little bit to this, and I know Robert sort of implied that in real estate as an example. Right. There’s there’s legal compliance stuff that’s a mandatory but that’s, uh, often more a function of just training than actual understanding, you know, to check in a box that we did this training, we did this training. But understanding how to how to not only protect the organization, but to protect the individuals within the organization. That takes a lot more planning and that takes a lot more work, I imagine.

Tiana Neal: Yes. Um, planning for your employees. I think one thing that I did want to touch on is there are a lot of back in executive conversations that obviously the employee population isn’t privy to. And there are a lot of HR teams that have fought for heavily, right, for, for for the executive C-suite executives to understand certain things. Sometimes you win those battles, sometimes you don’t. Um, but yes, I would say just ensuring that your focus on your employees and knowing that having them know that they are supported is top key priority and brings in a lot of loyalty, right? Makes employees stay there. So your tenure is top heavy. There’s reports, you know, EEOC reports that are filed every year to show different races and genders and tenures. Now, um, you know, pay transparency is a really big thing, right? So years ago, when I started in the industry, it was very disheartening doing payroll and seeing the difference in pay. And so the fact that, you know, many people fought to kind of get that transparency out there is really critical and definitely helps ensure that companies are having to be mindful of that. Right. You can no longer get away from having, you know, someone in the same seat doing the same role. One making 100,000, one making 50,000. Right. Like you got to stay within range. So all of that is very critical.

Joshua Kornitsky: And and I think that the the fact that you’re helping clients understand that and again it’s not and I choose my words carefully. It’s ultimately about protecting the organization from harm Because ethically, morally, I’m not even touching those arguments. You are legally at risk if I am playing employee A this amount, and employee B regardless of the difference, less than this amount, though, they have the same education and experience. I put the company at risk, and ultimately the c-suites role is to keep the company safe and profitable.

Tiana Neal: Correct. Um, and I would also say this, I mean, there’s many companies still skating by. I mean, there are some, um, even a recent, you know, client of mine that is in some heavy taxation issues. Their VP stepped in to hold the project. Sometimes they just don’t see the risk too much, you know? Sure. I mean, the entire HR team was fighting to get things pushed through myself. And, you know, my consultants were ready to get things pushed through. And, um, sometimes when you’re dealing with those executives, you can only explain to them what the compliance is. They, you know, call us when you’re when you’re ready, but this is what you’re about to get into. You know, we can help. So there’s some times where you just aren’t going to win that battle where they’re, you know, they just don’t understand a lot of times when they’ve had so much large money for so long, they would prefer to go with the risk.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, sure. Versus sue us and we’ll.

Tiana Neal: Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’ll cost me less for the lawsuit than it would to pay for HR.

Tiana Neal: Exactly. What are my chances of someone actually reporting until someone does report and then you have a class action? So, um, unfortunately, at this level and stage in my career, I’m brought in when things. It’s a little too late. You know, they should have brought me in six months or a year before. And so I’m doing a lot of cleanup, and I see a lot of things and things are always fixable. But there is a cost to that. And right now states are struggling. I mean, when I first started over 15 years ago in this industry, it would take states and the IRS years before they sent you a notice. You’d get a you know, you’d get a notice from something that happened 3 or 4 years ago. Right. But over the last few years, you were getting.

Joshua Kornitsky: Notices that automation in AI right there.

Tiana Neal: You were getting notices within like 1 or 2 quarters, 3 to 6 months. And it was like, oh, they are not playing around here. And a lot of times, even when employees were catching on, they may file an employment even though they left a company. If you don’t respond in enough time, they would win that claim. I mean, it was just it’s especially since Covid, it’s just been a battlefield. Osha has been, I think one company I was working for, OSHA, had showed up so many times. Right, because they were just looking for ways to find companies. And so you do have to be mindful of it now. But yeah, unfortunately some some executives still try to um, they might be gamblers, they might like to roll the dice.

Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s their privilege, right? It seems to me like they’re taking unnecessary risks, but that’s up to them. Very true. So I do want to touch on your the last superpower that we discussed of yours, which we touched on. You touched on briefly and gave me the term, and I’m coming back to it. Let’s talk about that bowl of spaghetti.

Tiana Neal: Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: Uh, because I thought coming from a technical background myself, I knew exactly what you were referring to once you spelled it out. But. But share with me, if you would, and share with those listening. What is this superpower you have as it relates to spaghetti?

Tiana Neal: Yeah. So I just like to untangle, um, untangle every single noodle, every single web spider web there is. Um, I have a really good sense of discernment now where I can identify when I’m having an HR conversation with someone if they’re, you know, feeding me nonsense. I’ll say, sure. I won’t say the other bad word, but if they’re feeding me nonsense.

Joshua Kornitsky: I.

Tiana Neal: Will. Okay. Um. And I can also tell when someone hasn’t been supportive. I mean, or if someone just is very green in their seat and just needs a little bit more training or coaching or if it’s like, no, um, got to get them on the bus because they’re not just the company or team player in general and ripping that band aid off, you know, earlier instead of later, because a lot of times keeping the wrong person in the seat, naturally your good employees will step away. So from there, getting back to the people aspect, setting the foundation. But then when you’re digging into the system aspect, once you have the right people in place, cleaning up, going through automation, I mean, we’re about to approach 2026, right? So it’s literally unfathomable to me how many companies are still doing things manual on manual paperwork and just getting that to be automated to make the hiring process more seamless for employees, and making sure that everyone is trained, but also accommodating your employees who aren’t used to using technology. I mean, that’s still a big thing in the workforce now, and just making sure that outside of sending one pagers or, you know, a PowerPoint or having one, you know, basic quick training call. Really make sure you are hand-holding those employees that need that support so that they feel comfortable and allowing them to reach out to you whenever they need something, and then from there, just sticking to the process.

Tiana Neal: Um, there’s very rarely naturally where you might have to accommodate a higher end C-suite executive. Sometimes that happens, but, um, you know, you got to at least have 95% of the process on board and have everybody participate in it just to make sure things are flowing smoothly. And then your HR payroll process can go really smooth. You know, of course, there’s those day to day fires that come up that are unexpected. Um, but sometimes it just doesn’t have to be that hard. And a lot of times with AI coming in place, too, there’s so many laws, especially if you’re a multi-state, there’s so many different laws that are changing from not only the federal state, but then also the locals of certain states, um, minimum wage requirements. And you just constantly have to keep up with those day to day. So a lot of times, instead of having to deal with just basic cleanup, once your system is running smoothly, then you can really focus on the legal aspects of things and just making sure the company is staying on top of compliance. And then from there, um, yeah, you can look at a look like a scholar in your job.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and all of that to say, uh, as you started with, right, that there’s these disparate systems, there’s these disparate processes. And I think the fact that that you’re willing to unwind that bowl of spaghetti and have the skills and the experience to do so, really speaks to the fact that I know from the other side and the types of clients that I work with often they don’t know a resource like you exists, right? They they think that, well, you know, we created this mess. We’ll we’ll just have to spend a bunch of time and money to, to sort it out. But now knowing that there’s someone that they can reach to, that not only will help keep them current, but also help them untangle and make sense of the mess. Seems like that’s a pretty valuable thing to put out there.

Tiana Neal: Yes. Very good. And I will say unpopular opinion. I like my spaghetti with a little bit of sugar on it. So. So I think from my end, even in my work, um, work function to from consulting, I’m strong and majestic as well. So I think, you know, at this point I’m knowledgeable, but I think just bringing the true authentic and realness and not, you know, not coming across, um, condescending in a way, when you’re coaching people goes a long way. So I like to, you know, follow suit with that as well. And just continuing to get myself out there so people know that I do exist. I think, you know, how Joss and I met was at a networking event, and I’m typically a behind the scenes systems person. But since I’ve started my business, I’ve been doing podcasting. It’s been very helpful that people know that I am there and that I can provide support, and sometimes I just take a call and do some advisory one off without charging. Naturally. Um, you know, and sometimes that leads into business. But I think just even if it doesn’t, just helping people in general, um, what Rob was kind of alluding to earlier is just being an added asset to people so that, you know, they can always remember your name. I think in general, outside of whether or not that turns into business. People still remember you and know you and will continue to follow you and look to you as an inspiration. And that’s what I’m mostly getting out of my experience now, which has been very helpful. And um, yeah, very welcoming for me to kind of just keep going.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s fantastic. Well, if people want to get their spaghetti untangled or get help with some process or get a better understanding of why HR really is the difference maker and really in in not just the organization, but in the culture of the organization. Sure. What’s the best way for folks to get Ahold of you?

Tiana Neal: Yeah. So, um, so my LinkedIn page is, um, I’d say first off, I’m Tiana. Tiana, and last name is Neal N as in Nancy E. Um, but then my direct email is first name Tiana t I a n a and then it’s at transcend. Com t r a n s e n d e r s.com. Um, yeah. And if you send me an email or send me a LinkedIn connection with message, I’m happy to, um, to reach out and set up, you know, a call or if anyone out there is into HR and payroll or just leadership in general and or starting a business and wanting to get, you know, your name out there, I’m more than happy to schedule a podcast taping also.

Joshua Kornitsky: Fantastic. Well, Tiana Neal, founder of Transcendence Consulting Group, it’s been a pleasure. I really appreciate it. I hope you can stay with me while we talk with my certainly not least, but my last guest, Carol Middleton. Uh, and thank you for sharing the information that you shared with us and to know that there are solutions for problems that most people probably give up on.

Tiana Neal: Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Josh, so much for having me.

Joshua Kornitsky: My pleasure. Well, my my last guest of today is someone that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing now for about three years. Uh, we kind of went into our own perspective lanes about the same time and met around the same time. I guess that’s about right. Yes. I’d like to introduce Farrell Middleton. He’s the founder of The Bell Curve of Life. It’s it’s really a unique teaching program. He’s also written a book, a performer, a environment. It’s a roadmap to enhance your performance and upgrade your environment. After 30, after a successful 36 year career in residential land development and home building, Farrell transitioned into his second career as a teacher, a speaker, and an author in 2022. His mission and focus are to cultivate a level performers and a level environments to drive personal growth and business health. If both can be achieved, success will follow and failure will be rare. Now, Farrell, I know you’re a Georgia Tech graduate with honors, and I know that you have decades of leadership experience, um, in really every session of your life. Tell us how you got here.

Speaker5: All right, well, first of all, thank you very much for having me. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my other guests here today. I’ve learned a lot so far. So thank you very much. So, uh, with me, I’m a lifelong Georgian. I grew up in Savannah, moved to Atlanta in 1982, went to Georgia Tech. Uh, as you mentioned, I graduated from honors degree in building construction. Married my high school sweetheart. Her name is Kathy. We married in 1986 and we have two adult daughters. They live here in the Atlanta area and we are a first time grandparents.

Joshua Kornitsky: Congratulations.

Speaker5: Wonderful stage of life. It’s everything everybody said it would be. So, uh, very glad for that. My professional career started in 1986, and I got into land development and homebuilding immediately. Got a degree in building construction from Georgia Tech, so I’m one of those that use my degree. Day one of my career. Wow. And I spent 36 years I was a manager of other people at the age of 22, and I held high level positions for most of my career. And I have touched about 10,000 houses in some form or fashion in my professional career. I was a high volume guy. That’s lots of numbers. Yeah, a lot of numbers.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow. So? So 36 years? Yes. 30 in the industry? Yes. What on earth made you want? When? When you were done. When? When you said that’s it. That’s house number 10,000, I am done. What on earth made you want to continue on in this capacity? And I want to. I want to give you particular props because I’m a teacher and facilitator of iOS. I didn’t create iOS. I just know it and have lived it. You created your own coaching program that is exponentially harder.

Speaker5: It was a bit of a challenge. Yes, yes. So to answer your question, I’m 61 years old. I’ve got a lot of years left. Professionally, I just decided I wanted to provide a different type of service to society from a way to say it, and I’ve always wanted to be a teacher of sorts in my second career. It’s been a lifelong desire. I assumed it would be at the university level or college level teaching construction management, which I’m highly qualified to do. But I took a different path about ten years ago, and I started working on this program, and it’s called The Bell Curve of Life. And what this relates to is the old 20 over 20 principle that we all remember from middle school. 20% are in the upper category, 60% in the middle, and 20% are in the lower category. And for my program and material that relates to behavior, skills, performance and results, okay. And my program is I’m in the people business is about professional growth and development. That’s what my main focus is. And I want to help people get into and stay in that top 20% in areas of life that matter to them. They have to decide what it is they want to do. I want to help them get in that top 20%, and I can especially move the needle with those folks that are in that middle 60 and that lower 20%. But they have to be willing participants in this. They they have to want to grow and learn. I can help them with all kinds of material, but they have to come to me with a good attitude.

Joshua Kornitsky: We have a saying in my world, if you drag them in, you got to drag them around.

Speaker5: Absolutely.

Joshua Kornitsky: If they don’t want to be there, there’s there’s no helping someone who doesn’t want to learn. That’s right. But let me back up and ask, are you only focused on on the home building industry? Who who are the folks that that bell curve of life helps?

Speaker5: Uh, no. Uh, the majority of my clients are in the homebuilding industry. Uh, and that includes builders, um, trade partners, suppliers, subcontractors, those types of companies. But I’ve also done work with, uh, other companies outside the industry. I’ve done some work with some financial services companies. I did a little work with the Georgia State Golf Association. Uh, I’ve got a new client starting this week. It’s a regional furniture distribution company. Okay, that I’m starting. So my principles in both a performer and a environment get above what I will call hard skills, or specific products or services being delivered to the marketplace. Mine are in that softer, higher level stuff and my principals can relate to, you know, all individuals and all types of businesses. So I guess the the word for it is agnostic. That just sounds like such a negative word, but that’s the word to use for it.

Joshua Kornitsky: But well, it means you’re well here. You’re a vertical independent. I like that.

Speaker5: Yeah. There we go. There we go.

Joshua Kornitsky: So, uh, so can you and I. I freely, freely admit I haven’t received your book, but have not yet finished it.

Speaker5: Fair enough.

Joshua Kornitsky: Um. Share some if you would share 1 or 2 of the the main guiding principles so that people understand what exactly it is you’re trying to help folks move the needle on.

Speaker5: Okay. Excellent. We’ll start with a performer. I’ve got 11 chapters on a performer, and the first chapter in the book is on attitude. And attitude is the aspect or facet in life that has the most influence over your success and happiness. Other people and circumstances can influence it. They can never control it. That’s up to the individual. And positive attitudes are contagious, as are negative attitudes. So which one do you want to be? So attitude is a huge part of my program. In my A environment material, I’ve got seven main components of an A environment. I’ve got 12 chapters overall. I get into some secondary type things, but my number one component of an A environment is vision. And this can be vision, mission, purpose, slogan, that type of thing. And I like to start with this without vision, leadership and direction, you will end up somewhere, but you don’t know where it will be and you won’t know when you get there. And so what I advise my clients to do is when we do talk about this is the number one topic when I engage with them is I like them to develop a 12 to 15 word vision or mission statement that can just roll off their tongue. For example, mine is to cultivate a level performers and a level environments to drive personal growth and organizational health.

Joshua Kornitsky: We’re in clear and concise.

Speaker5: Clear, concise. And what you want that to do is you want that to whoever your audience is, you know, of one person or a few or whatever, maybe a network group or whatever. You want that initial statement to get their curiosity going for them to say, hey, that sounds kind of interesting. How do you do that? And I’ve seen a lot of vision mission statements that are very, very good. But there are multiple sentences, a couple of paragraphs, people lose them. And what you want to do is you want to make sure that you share this very clear, crisp and short vision with your internal associates and your external partners. They will help you attain it. They will. But it’s got to be clear, crisp and concise that rolls off people’s tongues. They’ll help you get it if you share it with them and if you’re committed to it.

Joshua Kornitsky: So clarifying question I work for you at company X, and company X has its own vision. Are you saying that I need my own vision as well.

Speaker5: Oh, inside the company from.

Joshua Kornitsky: No. Just for me. From my own success. To become an A player. The a environment I may not be able to control how they run their company. But if I want to be an A player.

Speaker5: Mhm.

Joshua Kornitsky: How is that one of the steps to understand my own needs.

Speaker5: It is. You know what. I have not looked at it that way before. So you’ve given me something good to think about today. But the answer is yes. Uh basically.

Joshua Kornitsky: But it’s already there.

Speaker5: It’s already there. Yeah. You just rephrased it for me. Uh, but, uh, no, uh, the whole thing is, is that what you want to do? Is frame yourself, set yourself up, uh, you know, back to a little bit of what the other guests have talked about today is how do you fit into your professional role? Right. And that is what I help people do. And actually, a little tangent off of your question a minute ago, what I like to do as well inside a larger company, let’s say a company that’s a home building company, which of course is my background, but you’ve got several internal departments, you’ve got production and you’ve got sales and marketing, finance and accounting and, you know, a land development, that kind of thing. Each of those departments can have their own internal vision with what they want to do, to provide internal customer service to their coworkers, into the organization. They all need to roll up and support the overall mission and vision of the overall company. But departments can have their own vision as well, and that helps them produce what they need to do again, to get that product or service to the marketplace as effectively as possible. That’s what that’s what internal customer service is all about.

Joshua Kornitsky: It makes sense. So let’s talk a little bit about the book a performer, a environment. And it’s really it from its own title. It’s it’s a roadmap to enhance your performance and to upgrade your environment. I’m looking at the title. There you go.

Speaker5: That’s right there.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah. So did you. Which came first, the training or the book?

Speaker5: Uh, actually, this was just one of the topics in my program that I started about three years ago, and I’ve got about 25 main topics that I talk about. And this relates to personal circumstances and other types of business things. I’ve got some management and leadership material as well, but over the course of the last two years, this material just kept kind of surfacing to the top right. It just became very important, very valuable. I was getting great feedback on it from my clients, and I just started to really gel around this. And I am a professional speaker as well. Now I’m an author, and in that world there is what is called signature material.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay?

Speaker5: And this has become my signature material. And basically the whole premise here again is I want to help individuals become a level performers. And again, this all relates to our historical educational grading scale of A, B, C, D, and F and create a level environments. And my main lead in with this is if you put a C performer in an A environment, they can become an A performer. If you put an A performer in a C environment. They will drift towards C performance and they will probably leave the key to success in our economic society because we choose who we do business with. You know, we have guardrails in place, of course, with laws and, you know, finance, you know, constraint, all that stuff that has to happen. We’ve talked a little bit about that with, you know, regulations, but we can do business with whom we choose. And so if a business owner or leader wants to attain a performance from their internal associates and external partners, those companies that support them on a routine basis every day, then they need to create an environment. And I’ve got the blueprint for the A environment, and I’ve identified the main traits of a performers. And if you can get that combination going, then that is a clear direction for success. Without a doubt.

Joshua Kornitsky: It sounds like it’s a pretty clear plan. And as we’ve talked about twice already today, if you’ve got a clear plan, you stand a much better chance of of getting where you’re going. Yeah.

Speaker5: Um, so one thing real quick, uh, basically my concepts. I haven’t created anything new, okay? I’ve just assembled it in a really good format, and the book reads well, I present well, uh, yeah, that type of stuff. It’s easy for people to understand. There’s simple concepts, but I read something years ago. I wish I could take credit for this, but simple rules guide complex behavior.

Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s great.

Speaker5: I lived a complicated life. Uh, with my career, I’m in the simple world now. My concepts are simple and easy for people to grasp and understand and improve their lives.

Joshua Kornitsky: There are natural, complex fires in the world, and there are natural simplifiers. And some days we sit in one chair, some days we sit in the other. But. But the simplifying chair is a much easier chair to deal with.

Speaker5: It is it just you can communicate well with people, they understand the concepts and yeah, that kind of thing. It’s a it’s a comfortable place to be. Let me be very clear.

Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely. And like I said earlier, you never want to come across as condescending just because you’re trying to explain a concept that’s that’s complicated. And I think it was Albert Einstein that said, if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. Right.

Speaker5: I like that.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, he’s a lot smarter than I am.

Speaker5: Me, too.

Joshua Kornitsky: Um, but I want to ask you. How so? I know you’re a speaker. Obviously you’re you’re an author. We were just talking about the book, and and you offer your services directly. But how else do you get your message out? How else do you help, folks?

Speaker5: Uh, what? I’ve got, uh, again, keynote speaking engagements, which I do. I love doing those. Uh, but I will do small group sessions with private companies, like about ten people in a room. And mainly I like to start with a leadership team to, uh, review a environment. And it takes 90 minutes to go through my seven components. And it’s a discovery session. I’ve moved beyond training and coaching with this particular material. We discover what’s working well and why and what’s not working well and why. And gee whiz, let’s focus on the stuff that’s not working well and why once we discover it. So that would be the next stage of this. And so that’s how I like to engage, uh, to start with and then with my A performer. This material can relate to any level of authority or management or activity, whatever the case may be. These principles relate to everybody. And so a key here is engaging with the clients and customers to expose them to these concepts. Again in a discovery method. And the great the beauty of this is every company and every individual will have different takeaways from the material because they are their own, uh, you know, their own people at that point in time. This is a snapshot of where you are at this point in time. And my goal and desire is to help people discover areas that can move the needle for them. And engaging with me in these sessions is everybody will walk away with something they can do better that day.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s awesome. That day. And that’s that’s a surprisingly short window, because most of the things that that we teach just in general, take time and application. So just if, if you’d be willing to share without names. Uh, can you share a success, someone or an organization that you’ve worked with that you. You saw the light. Go on.

Speaker5: Oh, absolutely. Uh, there’s one, uh, young man that I work for. He is a, uh, building material supply salesman. Okay. Uh, a good friend of mine, and he just, uh, got into managing other people. So we went through my management material, and he’s in his mid 30s. He’s never managed other people before, and he’s, uh, he’s done that. So we sent him my management material, and then we did a performer a environment with his six person team. And the light bulbs were just going off around the table. That’s awesome. With what we did. So started with him individually, uh, to get him ready and prepared to manage these folks. And then we brought the other folks in as well and had a great group session. And they have made tremendous strides in their, uh, their work as a group. So very, very, very satisfying.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s and the best part is, is that they get to feel and see that it’s not just you being able to appreciate it, but they get to see it. Absolutely, yes.

Speaker5: So they saw them, saw the results.

Joshua Kornitsky: So a couple of questions. Yes. Number one, if I want to get Ahold of the book, how do I get the book?

Speaker5: Uh, the book is in all the places it should be. Okay.

Joshua Kornitsky: So we’ll have the Amazon link.

Speaker5: Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Uh, it’s on Kindle, of course, and the audio version is on audible. And, yes, I narrated the book. Uh, so it’s out there as well. So it’s in all the right places.

Joshua Kornitsky: You’ve got pleasing dulcet tones.

Speaker5: I’ve been told that.

Joshua Kornitsky: There you go.

Speaker5: And I’ve got a career in radio. Somebody told me that. But I’m 61. I better hurry up.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so. So that’s actually my next question is, is, which has been more fun all those years in home building or or sharing the knowledge?

Speaker5: Well, uh, let’s say I had a very good career. Let me let me put it that way. Very 36 years.

Joshua Kornitsky: I didn’t say which was good. I said, which is more fun?

Speaker5: Yeah. Oh, this is a whole lot more fun. Are you kidding? This is a lot more fun. But I did have fun building houses every once in a while. But, uh, it’s, uh, you know, it’s got its challenges. But no, this has been, uh, been a lot of fun for me, but I actually the the really good joy is that I know that I’m helping people live a better life. It’s really that simple.

Joshua Kornitsky: And and again, having known you for a few years, it comes through, right when when people talk to you, when you talk about a performer, a environment, when you talk about bell curve, you just radiate that light of somebody who knows that they’re helping people and it really comes through. So how do people get Ahold of you?

Speaker5: Uh, very simple. Um, my website is The Bell Curve of Life.com. Very easy. I’m on LinkedIn as well under Farrell Middleton and the bell curve of life got a good LinkedIn presence. And, uh, my cell phone number, I gave it to my homeowners. (678) 618-2024 is my cell phone number. And yeah, so that’s how people can get in touch with me. I’m here in the Atlanta area. Uh, but again, my stuff, I can do virtual sessions and things of that nature. So, uh, doesn’t have to be here locally in Atlanta, but I do. I like in-person, but virtual. The world works in different ways these days.

Joshua Kornitsky: It does, it does. And the fact that you’re willing to embrace that in and of itself is is knowledge and acceptance of the fact that that the universe keeps rolling, whether whether we’re in it or not.

Speaker5: That’s right. Like I said, I’m 61 years old and I’ve got a I’ve got to conform to the world as well. So.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay, I just got an error that popped up on my screen there, but I’m not going to worry about that. I want to say thank you, Carole Middleton, for sharing your journey. Uh, from successful home builder into speaker, author, teacher, coach, I want to say thank you to Tiana Neil, who’s bowl of spaghetti will stay with me forever. But reality being is knowing that there are people that can help, um, organizations untangle the messes that they kind of grew into is a huge, huge thing. And then, uh, first but not last. Robert Lee, I think that you’ve shed a very different perspective on why people don’t need to be necessarily fearful of AI, that it’s a tool to serve. But it starts with getting your yourself organized and understood to what your goals are. So, uh, thank you all for being here today on Cherokee Business Radio. Uh, I just want to quickly remind everybody that today’s episode was brought to you in part by our community partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors Defending capitalism, promoting small business, and supplying, excuse me and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Main Street Warriors and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors. Diesel. David. Ink. Please go check them out at diesel. David comm. My name is Joshua Kornitsky. I’m a professional implementer of the entrepreneurial Operating system and your host here on Cherokee Business Radio.

 

BRX Pro Tip: Should Your Goalposts Shift Over Time?

October 1, 2025 by angishields

From B2C to B2B: Cory Lyons Shares Koala Insulation’s Journey and Growth Strategies

September 30, 2025 by angishields

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Franchise Marketing Radio
From B2C to B2B: Cory Lyons Shares Koala Insulation's Journey and Growth Strategies
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In this episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Cory Lyons, Brand President of Koala Insulation. Cory discusses the company’s rapid growth since its 2020 launch, its dual B2C and B2B business model, and the importance of a franchisee-first culture. He shares insights on supporting franchisees, adapting to market changes, and the qualities they seek in new owners. Cory also highlights Koala’s shift toward multi-unit franchisees and outlines future plans for expanding services and maturing the brand, emphasizing collaboration and communication as keys to their ongoing success.

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Cory-LyonsCory Lyons, Brand President of Koala Insulation, has been in franchising for over 20 years, focusing on supporting franchisees and leading both teams and brands.

Having a franchisee first mentality, this lines up with championing the success of our franchisees.

Holding leadership positions in fitness, wellness, restaurants and home services, Cory is a very well rounded leader in franchising.

Follow Koala Insulation on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Episode Highlights

  • Overview of Koala Insulation’s business model and services.
  • Growth trajectory of Koala Insulation since its launch in 2020.
  • Transition from a B2C focus to incorporating B2B services.
  • Challenges and lessons learned in franchising, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Importance of a franchisee-first culture and its impact on business success.
  • Strategies for effective communication and collaboration with franchisees.
  • Ideal traits and skills sought in potential Koala Insulation franchisees.
  • Changes in the profile of franchisees over time, including a shift towards more owner-operators.
  • Multi-unit franchise ownership strategy and its implications for growth.
  • Future growth plans and service expansion for Koala Insulation.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Cory Lyons, who is the brand president with Koala Insulation. Welcome, Cory.

Cory Lyons: Hey, thanks for having me, Lee. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Koala Insulation. How you serving folks?

Cory Lyons: Yeah. Koala Insulation. You know, we are a full service insulation and ventilation company that focuses focuses on B2C as well as B2B, uh, insulation and ventilation services.

Lee Kantor: So what was kind of the genesis of the idea? How did this thing get launched?

Cory Lyons: Yeah. So, you know, Koala Insulation was launched, you know, out of a really a need, The installation space was a highly fragmented space. Really? No name to. You know, when you think about an installation company. And that’s where our founder said, hey, there’s an opportunity here. We began franchising in 2020 and the rest is history.

Lee Kantor: So what was it like kind of being the first in in a space like this? And how was kind of that initial growth? Was there some challenges or some lessons learned?

Cory Lyons: Well, yeah. In all stages of growth there are challenges and lessons learned, right? You know, when, uh, an emerging franchise or is just getting started, you know, there’s a lot of factors that come into play. You know, one one aspect that really, you know, uh, call installation benefited from was the Covid 19 pandemic with, you know, a lot of people staying at their homes. Right. And that’s right. When we started franchising and our business took off as a lot of, uh, you know, individuals were looking to get out of the corporate world and take their own destiny in their own hands. And we began franchising and and just having some had some rapid, rapid growth, you know, as, as we take a look at the business now, uh, compared to, you know, you know, four years ago, right. Our business has changed and evolved. All businesses need to do that, right? All all businesses need to evolve. And we’ve added the B2B component, uh, into our business. You know, when we when we first started, we were strictly a B2C or business to consumer business. And we’ve added the, you know, the commercial and and new residential build component to our business. And it’s just a whole new growth trajectory now for our for our franchisees.

Lee Kantor: Now, was that a difficult kind of shift in the selling to B2B versus B2C, or was that something that you were able to give the franchisee the tools they need to be able to have those two different types of conversations.

Cory Lyons: Yeah. So we’ve been able to provide the tools and the resources to be able to have our franchisees, you know, diversify into the B2B segment. You know, we’ll never turn our back on B2C. That’ll be our meat and potatoes of the brand. You know, as we continue to move forward. But adding that additional element of B2B is just it’s opened up so many different channels for our franchisees.

Lee Kantor: And it hasn’t been a distraction because a lot of times, getting these larger accounts, they spend a lot of time trying to make those kind of get over the threshold where the B2C is pretty, you know, do you want to buy this? Yes, I want to buy this. It’s pretty transactional.

Cory Lyons: Well, yes. Exactly right. You hit the nail on the head. Right. And having that B2C, the transactional component of it of our business is so critically important. That’s why I said we will never turn our backs on that. Uh, you know, you do a job, the customer pays, you do a job, the customer pays, right? Um, B2B, uh, you know, yes, there are larger jobs. Um, oftentimes the, you know, your the franchisees will get paid, uh, 30, 60, even potentially 90 days after the job is completed. So that’s why B2C is so critical for, for cash flow, right. But, um, the our franchisees who have diversified into B2B so. Well, they’ve got different crews, right? They’ve, they’ve they’ve stayed with their B2C crew and they’ve added a B2B crew as well. So now they’re really running two, you know, essentially two separate businesses underneath, you know, their koala insulation umbrella, you know, the B2C and the B2B. So B2C is still focusing on the customers and the individual homes, and the B2B is developing those relationships with the contractors and home home home builders and such as well.

Lee Kantor: Now I know as part of the koala brand, um, your franchisees are critical. The culture is critical. Can you talk about why that is and what other franchisors might be able to learn by leaning into a franchisee first philosophy?

Cory Lyons: Yeah, so you know, the franchisee first mentality. It’s something that I’ve had uh, throughout my, you know, 20 plus careers in franchising. And really what that is, it’s simply, hey, we’re either helping a franchisee or helping someone who is helping a franchisee. Uh, you know, as the franchisor, you know, we we work, uh, to support our franchisees. Now, uh, you know, ultimately, you know, I feel very strongly that the strength of our franchisees defines who we are as a system. And, you know, our franchisees are phenomenal business owners, great entrepreneurs. You know, they’ve taken the risks in the business and such, and they deserve to be supported. So every single team member that, uh, we have at koala HQ is that franchisee first mentality, individual, um, focusing on the culture, working together. We’re one team, we fly one flag and we’re all all in it together. By having that culture, um, really opens up all the doors to work together, to collaborate, to overcome challenges together and know that the, the that the franchisees understand that when we make decisions, we have the brand’s best interest in mind.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk about some tactics or strategies that an action plan that another franchisee or another business owner can learn how to kind of get that clear. When your customer is at the forefront like that and you you have to have clear communication. You have to manage expectations. Can you talk about tactically how some of this comes about? You mentioned collaboration. How do you make sure that the franchisees are heard and then they can speak freely and confidently and, uh, and know that they’re going to be listened to?

Cory Lyons: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, first and foremost, to me, feedback is a gift. Good, bad or otherwise, feedback is a gift. I want any and all feedback from our franchisees. Uh, no questions. And and being able to, to, uh, state that to our franchisees and follow through with that to having my door open. You know, the vast majority of our franchisees have my personal cell phone number and direct access to me because I want that that feedback, that feedback is so critical. So really open up all channels of communication like that. Uh, we utilize our franchise advisory council. I communicate with the Franchise Advisory Council, uh, all the time. Um, and really bounce ideas off of each other, uh, ensure that, you know, with, with new initiatives. You know, first and foremost, we have the, uh, uh, franchise advisory councils, uh, you know, figurative buy in, uh, to the program as well. Um, knowing that, uh, you know, they’re, they’re they’re oftentimes the tip of the spear on communication to, uh, now, you know, as far as, you know, the just the overall communication, you know, on top of the Franchise Advisory Council. You know, our our operations team, our franchise business consultants, you know, made up of our, you know, director of operations and three franchise business consultants for the franchisees. You know, they’re the they’re the one stop shop for, for all aspects of koala insulation. And, uh, you know, at the end of the day, we consider them, you know, the ultimate concierge, uh, for the franchise and be able to handle all, all aspects and really have all communications be able to be channeled through them to when it comes to marketing or field support and such as well. And so what that allows is collaboration amongst teams and franchisees. So uh, overall, you know, you you cannot over communicate with your franchisees, uh, as a responsible franchisor. And we do our best to, uh, to push that envelope on that over communication. But, uh, because communication equals support as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share? Uh, maybe that nugget that you’ve gleaned from some of this collaboration or something that maybe started out as what a franchisee thought he was doing that you were able to kind of, um, scale and bring to the bring the knowledge and share with the rest of the organization. And it doesn’t have to be with koala. You’ve been doing this for a minute, but I think it’s so important that the lesson you learned about Franchisee First is not that isn’t it sounds like it’s, uh, common sense, but I don’t know if it’s a common practice.

Cory Lyons: Yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, um, I don’t know if it’s common practice either. You know, mentor of mine really taught me the, uh, the franchisee first mentality, and it stuck with me. Lee. Now, uh, you know, as far as you know, what we’ve learned through collaboration and such and, and, you know, I, I, I’m not going to sit here and say, hey, Cory Lyons is going to take the credit for for bringing koala insulation into the B2B world. I’m going to give that credit to some franchisees. And reason being is because of the collaboration and working close with each other. You know, I was being I was being tasked and I was being challenged and pushed by our franchisees to develop a formalized process when it comes to B2B, because it hadn’t been there. You know, when we when we first started, we were strictly that residential retrofit business. And, you know, so once, once I collaborated with many, many different franchisees and really soured their heads read as well to forward thinking this of our franchisees, that was an easy decision for me to say, hey, we need to devote time and resources to developing our B2B, uh, strategy overall. So that was 100% based off of collaboration with our franchisees. Uh, you know, getting into the B2B segment.

Lee Kantor: So what does that ideal Koala Insulation franchisee look like? What are some of the traits and some of the, uh, the things you’re looking for for the right partner fit?

Cory Lyons: Yeah. So first and foremost, drive and grit, right. You know, being being an entrepreneur, it’s hard. Right? It’s it’s extremely rewarding, but it’s hard. Um, you know, I, I often say that, uh, our business is very simple because it is, but I use the term simple. I don’t use the word easy because, uh, there’s really nothing easy about owning a business by any means. So we look for, for that drive, that grit, um, organization skills, uh, as, as well as, uh, management skills. Right. Those are all really important, but but one that really sticks out the most for, for me in franchising, it’s the ability to follow systems and processes. That is key. So during my conversations with potential franchisees, I speak specifically to systems and processes, right? Taking the successful business model and replicating it and replicating it and not deviating away from, uh, that proven process. Um, I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen a lot of franchisees who’ve, you know, deviated one way or another from that proven process, and all of a sudden that, you know, that franchisee is running a business that’s no longer part of that brand because they’ve deviated away from it so much, or they made so many changes. Right. Well, that that goes away from the power of a franchise. So that’s something that I speak about from my initial conversation with a potential franchisee, is the importance of systems and processes and franchising. They can understand that have the drive and the grit and the management wherewithal. You know, we can teach them the installation space. We’ve done that with every one of our franchisees is teach, teach our franchisees the installation space. But you can’t teach like that work ethic aspect of it, obviously.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, has your profile of the franchisee changed? Are they getting younger? Are they different than when you first started?

Cory Lyons: Um, you know, we we are seeing a lot more owner operators today. Um, you know, it doesn’t really matter about the age, uh, you know, the most common franchisee out there is that corporate refugee, right? Somebody who’s, uh, cut their teeth in the corporate world, and now they want to take control of their own destiny. Destiny, uh, in business ownership. Um, but we’re seeing more and more owner operators than we did when we first started franchising, and I believe wholeheartedly that that’s a good thing. Lee. Uh, being active in the business versus just working on the business. Eventually, we want every single one of our franchisees to grow and scale their business and focus on working on it. But it’s so critical to be in the business and know the business, um, that allows you to grow and scale it. So, uh, we’re seeing a lot more owner operators, which I feel is a very, very good thing. Um, you know, versus, you know, when we first started franchising, we had a lot of, uh, uh, franchisees who were strictly that, uh, executive model or that semi absentee model.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, as part of your growth, are you looking for people? Are they coming in buying one? Are they buying three? Are they, you know, wanting to take over markets.

Cory Lyons: Yeah. So Lee, the vast majority of our franchisees are multi-unit franchisees. We only have one handful of, uh, single territory. Franchisees. All the rest, um, are multi-unit franchisees, so they own more than one territory, averages about four territories, and that four territories you can you know, you can get, you know, all or most of a, um, you know, metropolitan area.

Lee Kantor: And so that was that by design or is that just happened organically?

Cory Lyons: Uh, a little bit of both. Lee. Um, you know, uh, over the, uh, over the last couple of years, we’ve, um, you know, really been, uh, kind of limiting the number of territories for our franchisees without just a, you know, an absolute strong business plan and such as well. And that average has gone down to that. Four previously it was about five. And reason being is because we want to be able to have our franchisees grow in their market scale and then expand. And we find that it’s, it’s, uh, um, more beneficial for our franchisees to, to do that inside one market and then eventually take over the whole metropolitan area versus trying to, um, take on the entire metropolitan area at once. Right? So, you know, you, you know, the old saying you eat an elephant one bite at a time and we, we take the bites and then we grow the business.

Lee Kantor: So what’s on your roadmap? What are you most looking forward to in the future?

Cory Lyons: You know, I’m really looking forward to what what maturity looks like in our brand. Lee. Uh, you know, we’ve we’ve have grown rapidly. Our franchisees are thriving year over year. Revenue is just taking off, uh, you know, consistent growth. You know, business is a lot of fun when you got a great tailwind and we have a great tailwind at koala insulation. But the thing that I get so excited about and literally keeps me up at night thinking about, is, what does maturity for our brand look like? Now we’ve got one location who just hit five years with. The vast majority of our locations are under two and a half years old. So we don’t even know what that maturity looks like in our brand, which is so exciting for us as we continue to have the growth we add on, you know, additional services. And, you know, the business is the business looks completely different, uh, from a top line standpoint. Uh, you know, next year, the year after and the year after and so on and so forth, because we are still that young franchisor, right? You know, we’re the number one new and emerging franchisor, uh, this year, um, in the rankings. Right? So we’re still that young franchisor and emerging. So the sky’s the limit for this amazing brand.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Cory Lyons: Uh, koala insulation. Com and the franchise opportunities? I’m very active on LinkedIn. You can look me up at Cory Lyons, um, you know, and then, uh, empower Franchising.com as well, uh, as our parent company, Empower Brands, you know, holds a, uh, umbrella of ten, uh, service companies.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Cory, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Cory Lyons: Awesome. Lee, I appreciate you and I appreciate the time and the opportunity being on your show today.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

 

Tagged With: Koala Insulation

BRX Pro Tip: What I Learned from Going Viral

September 30, 2025 by angishields

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: What I Learned from Going Viral
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BRX Pro Tip: What I Learned from Going Viral

Stone Payton: And we’re back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you.  Lee, you had an interesting experience recently. You created something and it legitimately went, by all accounts, what I would characterize as viral. Tell us about it.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I recently had a LinkedIn post blow up with 78,000 impressions and over 50 reactions in just a week. And which is, you know, unusual for us and not bad for a platform where there’s so much noise, right? But here’s the lesson that I learned behind that viral moment. Nothing life changing actually occurred. The next post I made did a little better than the average before that, but it was nothing dramatic.

Lee Kantor: Every post I’ve made since then has been a little bit better than kind of the average before this viral post, but to date, no one has reached out to me to actually buy anything that we’re selling, and I couldn’t tell you why this particular post went viral. So if I could, I’d definitely try to replicate it. So to me, the bottom line is something resonated with this particular message and it got traction.

Lee Kantor: I’m not sure what it was, but my lesson is to just stay consistent, post regularly and you’re going to catch lightning in a bottle some of the time. But don’t be disappointed when you do catch it and realize it isn’t that life changing event that you might have been led to believe.

Why Visibility Matters: Making Your Mark at the WBEC-West 22nd Annual Procurement and Awards Conference

September 29, 2025 by angishields

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Women in Motion
Why Visibility Matters: Making Your Mark at the WBEC-West 22nd Annual Procurement and Awards Conference
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In this episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor and Renita Manley welcome Angela Garmon of ARG Coaching and Consulting to discuss the upcoming WBEC-West 22 Annual Procurement Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, December 16–18, 2025. Angela shares her experiences and tips for maximizing conference value, emphasizing the importance of in-person networking, preparation, and follow-up. She highlights a pre-conference virtual boot camp on November 10th and encourages both new and seasoned attendees to be intentional and engaged.

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Angela-GarmonAngela R. Garmon is a leading voice for effective change management. She is the Founder and CEO of ARG Coaching & Consulting Group a strategic change management consulting firm that supports diverse leaders nationwide as they conquer change and cultivate results.

Angela is an award-winning business owner and philanthropist, who has been recognized as:

– A Top 100 Women to Know across America in the Spring 2022 issue of Know Magazine

– Amongst the 19 Top Leaders Who Are Making a Real Difference in the Valley in the December 2022 issue of In Business magazine

– NAWBO National Member of the Year 2022

– WBE of the Year (Class 1) 2022 – WBEC-West ​

Angela has a true passion to see others succeed. Her time spent in management and leading teams as they rolled out Six Sigma projects made her realize how much people feared change. Couple this with her board work and the presidency of NAWBO Phoenix (creating an award-winning chapter) drives her passion to see other women and minority-owned businesses succeed.

Angela understands that poorly managed change negatively impacts the bottom line. Her mission is to close the disparity gaps that exist for women and minorities, stabilizing firms, and generating wealth in diverse communities that are often underrepresented or underutilized in the business ecosystem.

Angela is an Advocate, Educator, and Strategist through seasons of change. She serves as an advocate for positive change management, ensuring that her clients maximize the time to their advantage. Since most leaders do not have the right tools to lead change, she becomes an educator, ensuring that her clients have all of the tools and resources to create sustainable growth now and for the future.

She serves as a strategist, ensuring that her clients have the best plan in place to move forward as you Align, Redefine, and Grow through change.

Angela R. Garmon Highlights:

  • 20-year business acumen
  • Master’s in Human Dynamics
  • Bachelor’s in Business Management
  • Certified Personal & Executive Coach
  • University adjunct professor
  • Six Sigma Green Belt Certification created a project that saved the resort millions and later became a nationally recognized project
  • President of NAWBO Phoenix (2019-2020) Chapter was awarded Chapter of the Year, 5 Star Chapter status, other notable recognitions from the national association, and a SilverStevie Award at the end of her term

Follow ARG Coaching & Consulting Group on LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

  • About the WBEC-West conference scheduled for December 16th-18th, 2025, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
  • Importance of in-person networking and relationship building for business growth.
  • Advice for first-time attendees on maximizing conference benefits.
  • Pre-conference preparation strategies, including defining personal goals.
  • Highlighting a pre-conference virtual boot camp on November 10th.
  • The significance of visibility for business owners at the conference.
  • Success stories illustrating the impact of relationships formed at the conference.
  • Strategies for attendees to identify and pursue their specific goals (education, networking, revenue).
  • The unique atmosphere and engaging activities designed to foster connections at the conference.
  • Encouragement for attendees to follow up after the conference to deepen relationships and convert opportunities.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios. It’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here with Renita Manley. Another episode of Women in Motion. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And today, Renita, we’re talking about a big event that’s happening at the end of the year. You want to share a little bit about that?

Renita Manley: I do. We are talking about our upcoming conference, the WBEC West Conference that is happening December 16th through December 18th right here. But I’m recording here in Arizona, right here in Arizona for everybody. And we have Angela Garmon of ARG Coaching and Consulting here with us to pretty much try to convince you all about why you should be coming to this conference. So, thank you for joining us, Angela. We want to keep this one very quick and to the point, because I know you got a lot to say, but we are on condensed time. So, I want to start off by asking, as someone who is extremely popular here in Arizona and within the WBENC and WBEC West community, why are you still coming to the WBEC West Conference? What do you get out of it? And because of that, why should everybody else come too?

Angela Garmon: Well, hello there Renita and Lee. So good to be back onto the show. So, I love the opening where it says, “Join forces and succeed together.” So, when I think about the WBEC-West conference, I think about how I can leverage this conference to really scale out and grow my business. So, the reason why I continue to show up to these conferences is to nurture relationships, build my pipeline and to be in community with fellow WBEs and our corporate resource partners.

Renita Manley: The conference is happening right here in Arizona where me and you both reside. Can you tell me why specifically for Arizona WBEs, why should they come to this conference right here in their home state?

Angela Garmon: Well, first and foremost, Renita, if you don’t show up, how will people know who you are? And so, whether you are in Arizona or in one of the other parts of the region, come out, be part of the community, so that people know who you are. This is an opportunity for you to invest in your business, and it’s also an opportunity for you to be in relationship and community with decision maker resource partners and, again, your fellow WBEs.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there something that happens at the event that’s different than, you know, going to a live event as opposed to all these online things that people are doing?

Angela Garmon: Yes. Lee, the energy in the room is contagious. First and foremost, you are surrounded by an intimate group. Dr. Pamela keeps it right around 300 to 500 people. So, it’s a very intimate group. But it’s an opportunity for you to really dive in deeper and to build out those relationships or nurture those relationships with each conference that you attend. So, I definitely recommend just showing up, being present because it’s a totally different vibe and a totally different way that you can connect when you’re in person and present.

Renita Manley: It’s like one of the best success stories that maybe you’ve experienced personally, I just saw somebody get to experience that, you know, attended the conference, came back and got a great success story. Can you tell us about one of those that you might have heard about?

Angela Garmon: You know, I feel like those stories are prevalent all over the place. So, I think one of my favorite stories, or even just like one of my favorite moments, is when I left the last conference, actually, a corporate supplier diversity professional, she invited me to an RFP. I went through that RFP, and I asked some poignant questions because as I read through it, man, it was something that really fit what I did, but it was actually a little bit too large for me. And so, I asked some very pointed questions, and she was able to say, “Hey, this is what we’re actually looking for.” And I knew even though I didn’t get the opportunity, or I didn’t even respond to the opportunity, it was the mere fact that she knew exactly what it is that I did, and she was able to get me plugged in. And so, since then, I’ve been able to nurture that relationship and build out and get additional business based off of that initial conversation that we had from the last conference.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice you would share maybe for a first-time attendee of the event? How would you go about kind of wringing out the most value from an event like this? Is it just doing the education? Is it just making more friends? Is it just finding opportunities to network. Like, what do you think are some tips and tricks to get the most out of the experience?

Angela Garmon: Yes. So, Lee, you and I always talk about defining value. So, the first thing that I would tell a WBE that is coming to the conference for the first time is to really understand, how will they define value when they walk into the conference? So, if they define it based off of the education, if they define it based off of relationships, or if they define it based off of revenue, create a strategy specifically around where or how they see value when they are signing up for the conference.

Angela Garmon: And then, I would just say be strategic about it. If education is your primary focus, then figure out what it is that your business needs and then get into those rooms where they are specifically talking about or educating you in the specific areas that you need. If it’s about relationship building, then when you sign up for the conference, make sure you circle back around to find out who’s going to be in the conference, who your ideal clients are, and see how you can schedule time ahead of the conference to actually connect with them for coffee, or ask and request when you get on site to see if you can sit down with them for a brief minute to talk and discuss their particular needs. So, I would just say make a strategy behind it and be specific as it relates to what you deem as value when you’re walking into that conference.

Lee Kantor: And it’s-

Renita Manley: I have just one — oh, sorry about that.

Lee Kantor: It’s important to work to do some pre-work, is what I’m hearing you say. And then, do some follow up, too, right? It’s not just an event that happens just on those days. There’s some work to be done beforehand, and there’s some work to be done after.

Angela Garmon: Oh, yeah. You gotta definitely follow up, and you got to be extremely specific. The deeper you can dive in a conversation to understand their being your respective client’s needs, the clearer you can follow up, and ask, and actually remind them of the conversation that the two of you had while you were at the conference.

Renita Manley: And this is the perfect moment – thank you, Lee – to bring up the fact that we do have a pre-conference boot camp coming up on November 10th, I believe. It’s on our calendar, and I’ll be blasting that out all over social media. And this is where you can go attend this virtual event and get all that pre-work done before you actually come to the conference in person.

Renita Manley: And here’s my final question. All right. So, I’m acting like a WBE, I’m certified, I’m a WBE, and I’m inundated with conferences, virtual conferences, in-person conferences all the time. Can you tell me why I, already as a certified WBE, need to be at this conference in Scottsdale, Arizona on December 16th through the 18th? What am I missing? Why this conference? Why do I need to come?

Angela Garmon: This conference is — first and foremost, we need it. It is a way to create exposure for your organization. Again, Dr. Pamela keep it such an intimate environment. She also keeps it fun and uplifting. And there are so many different activities to engage that I don’t see at other conferences, you know. And so, I would definitely say show up, but most importantly, be extremely present when you show up and be extremely intentional because that is the space that she is curating, she and the team is curating for WBEs. She’s curating an intentional space for you to make those immediate connections, so that you can get immediate results and build out those relationships that you need to succeed.

Lee Kantor: Now, Angela, you’ve been recognized as a WBE Star. You go to these events. You are an active participant in this work for WBEC-West, the community, and your community. If somebody wants to learn more about ARG Coaching and Consulting Group and get a hold of you personally outside of the conference, what is the coordinates? What is the best way to connect with you?

Angela Garmon: Yes. So, they can connect with me at argccgroup.com, and they can also find me at AngelaGarmon.com as well.

Lee Kantor: Well, Renita, before we wrap, one more time with the dates of the event and maybe a website for people to register.

Renita Manley: Absolutely. December 16th through December 18th, 2025. Go to our WBEC West website, wbec-west.com. To register, go to our events tab and register. And you know what? Before I get out of here, before me and Lee get up out of here, I do gotta ask one question, because I know a lot of WBEs might be wondering, and Lee did bring it up. Angela, I don’t know how many times you’ve been recognized as a star for WBENC and WBEC-West, but why you? Why are you special? What’s going on? Can you give us the secret sauce to being the star all- the time?

Angela Garmon: Well, so I have been recognized as WBE of the Year twice, and the WBE Star only comes around once in a lifetime from my understanding. And so, I am actively involved in the WBEC-West community. And I tell women all the time, if you’re going to get certification or if you’re going to be part of any type of association, show up, be present, and most importantly, volunteer your skills and efforts to support other people in the community, because that’s where you create visibility not only for yourself but also for your business.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Angela, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Angela Garmon: Thank you so much, Lee. It’s always great to be on your show.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor for Renita Manley. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.

 

Tagged With: WBEC-West 22 Annual Procurement Conference

BRX Pro Tip: Why You Should Reverse Engineer a Successful Sale

September 29, 2025 by angishields

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: Why You Should Reverse Engineer a Successful Sale
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BRX Pro Tip: Why You Should Reverse Engineer a Successful Sale

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor, Stone Payton here with you, Lee, I’m accustomed to, I don’t know, kind of doing an autopsy and trying to think through why a sale didn’t work out. And I don’t know that I’ve ever really gone back and paid that much attention when we actually win the the business. But there’s some wisdom in taking a close look at that and how it unfolded, isn’t there?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think it’s so important to take the time when you have a successful sale, take the time as a team to kind of reverse engineer how that successful sale occurred. I think the best salespeople don’t just celebrate their wins, they dissect them. So reverse engineering a successful sale helps you kind of uncover exactly what clicked, so you can repeat and refine your winning formula next time. So you don’t want to be leaving success to chance. You want to make it as predictable as possible, and a great way to make it predictable is to kind of start, like you were saying, autopsy successful sales, not just failed sales opportunities.

Lee Kantor: So start with the closed deal and trace every step back to the first content. What outreach worked? What objections got handled smoothly? Which messages sparked interest? Write it all down like you’re, you know, a detective solving a case. You want to pinpoint the moments when the deal gained momentum, where the deal stalled a bit. Who were the critical influencers? What content or conversation turned the tide? That information is gold for replicating your success. So reverse engineering successful sales flips the good luck kind of, you know, serendipity into a smart, repeatable strategy that boosts your confidence and consistency and helps you close more deals down the road.

The Power of Composites: Transforming Defense and Space with Atomic-6

September 29, 2025 by angishields

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Cherokee Business Radio
The Power of Composites: Transforming Defense and Space with Atomic-6
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In this episode of Cherokee Business Radio, Joshua Kornitsky talks with Trevor Smith, founder and CEO of Atomic-6. Trevor shares his journey from real estate to pioneering advanced composite materials for defense and aerospace. The discussion covers Atomic-6’s innovative deployable solar arrays and space armor, designed to improve satellite efficiency and protection. Trevor highlights the company’s rapid growth, ambitious projects—including lunar infrastructure—and plans for a solar array gigafactory. The episode offers insights into entrepreneurship, technological innovation, and the future of space systems, showcasing Atomic-6’s role at the forefront of aerospace materials.

Brought to you by Diesel David and Main Street Warriors

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Trevor-SmithTrevor Smith is a life-long entrepreneur and 2X founder with more than a decade of sales and business development experience in the technology and innovation sectors.

His leadership and deep involvement in R&D at Atomic-6 have been instrumental in developing the company’s proprietary composite manufacturing process.

He previously co-founded Sprout Lighting and served as Vice President of CRESA Atlanta.

A skilled strategist and connector, Trevor continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in advanced materials and aerospace composites.

Connect with Trevor on LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

  • Trevor’s background and transition from commercial real estate to aerospace materials.
  • The founding and mission of Atomic Six, focusing on advanced composite materials for defense and aerospace.
  • The entrepreneurial journey, including initial ventures and funding strategies.
  • Challenges in finding product-market fit in various industries, including trucking and rail.
  • Innovations in composite materials, including a unique manufacturing process and performance metrics.
  • Development of deployable solar arrays and protective shielding for satellites.
  • The significance of dual-use technology for commercial and military applications.
  • Upcoming projects, including lunar data centers and autonomous mining operations.
  • The importance of team dynamics and incentive alignment in a startup environment.
  • Future plans for expansion, including the establishment of a gigafactory for solar array production.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

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

Joshua Kornitsky: Welcome back to Cherokee Business Radio. I’m your host and professional EOS implementer. Joshua Kornitsky. I’ve got a fantastic guest here in the studio with me today. But before I begin, let me tell you that today’s episode is brought to you in part by our community partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors. Defending capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, please go to mainstreetwarriors.com. And a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors, Diesel David, Inc. please go check them out at dieseldavid.com. Well, I have to say that of the interviews that I’ve done since I’ve started here at Business RadioX, this one has me the most excited. My guest today is Trevor Smith. He is the founder and CEO of Atomic-6, a company creating advanced composite materials that make defense and aerospace equipment lighter, stronger and more resilient. He’s a two time founder of different companies with more than a decade of experience in technology and innovation. Trevor has led Atomic Six from concept to securing more than a dozen contracts with the Department of Defense, the Air Force, the Space Force, NASA and commercial customers. It’s really incredible the boundaries of what is possible with advanced materials. He has pushed that to its limits and the products that are really going to be in orbit one day, and maybe even on the surface of the moon. Um, with over $3 billion in pipeline, the future must look pretty bright. Welcome, Trevor Smith. It’s just a pleasure to have you here.

Trevor Smith: Nice to be here, Josh. Uh, I have, as I mentioned, I’ve done, you know, one other business, radio x, uh, interview, I think it was 11 years ago or something. Um, very different capacity. Um, yeah. As a commercial real estate broker.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and I’m gonna ask you about that, but but first, I wanted to start with just sort of learning a little bit about your background and your history and tell us how how you got to first commercial real estate and then ultimately making this insane jump into a place that most of us dream of.

Trevor Smith: Uh. So I went to the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss, as they say, and got a degree in commercial real estate and moved to Atlanta in 2010. Okay. And was a commercial real estate broker working on the the tenant or the buy side of the transaction. So offices and warehouses, that kind of thing. Um, had success in it. Uh, just was kind of bored, right? Okay. Didn’t really feel like I was building anything that had lasting, you know, value to it. Uh, no offense to my real estate buddies. No, no. Love you guys.

Joshua Kornitsky: Because they’re in a they’re in a niche. That’s all unto itself. But it wasn’t your niche.

Trevor Smith: Correct. Um, I’ve had a few people ask me. So, Trevor, are you are you competitive? And my response is no, but I just like playing games where I don’t have anybody else competition. Like, I just like to play a game where I’m the only person that can win.

Joshua Kornitsky: I understand sort of a your own version of single player. Yeah, exactly.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. Eliminating the competition from the beginning.

Joshua Kornitsky: So was there something was there an impetus that that led you from commercial real estate to composite materials? Because those are not two fields one would typically find adjacent.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. Uh, as a lot of good stories start, it was over a cigar and an adult beverage. Nice. Um, met my co-founder and needed a warehouse. And so we got connected there, and then, um, he sold his company to, um, actually, the companies here in Georgia, what was, uh, they went out of business, unfortunately, but they were building composite wheels, so single piece carbon fiber wheels for the automotive racing segment.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: Um, and if you look at if you knew my background a little bit, I grew up racing motorcycles. And I love all things that go fast.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: And so I met the met the Wheel company and they’re like, well, you seem like a really good sales guy. Would you like to come sell wheels for us? And I’m going, well, that sounds way more fun than commercial real estate. Sure. Yeah. So wind down the real estate business. Um, and it was the day before my wedding. We’re packing up, and I get a phone call.

Joshua Kornitsky: Surprise, honey.

Trevor Smith: Yeah, I get a phone call. We had been prepping for this opportunity. Um, the CEO had to step down, and he said, hey, I can’t I can’t give you the job. So, you know, sideswiped rug. Rug gets pulled out from underneath you right as you’re packing up for the wedding. And I’m going, oh, sweetie, I’m gonna have to do something different, I think. Um, but that got me exposed to, you know, composites, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. And so, uh, stayed in touch with Blake, my my co-founder, and I said, I think there’s something here. And that something is like, how do we manufacture high performance composites? Not necessarily automotive level manufacturing, but you know, more in that direction, right. So how do we bring that high performance ability and put modular productized. Productionized scale into composites. Because historically it’s almost more of an art than a science.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and as most of the guys in my generation. Right. Space has always been a passion for us. And yeah, everything’s in a clean room and everything is a one off, a single build that was machined out of a single piece of titanium. Yeah, right. It only cost $1 million and took 16 months.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. You’d be surprised how many people use clean rooms and they don’t really need to. Fair enough. Go watch a SpaceX launch and see all the debris that comes out when they release the the booster stage.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s all going to burn up anyway.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. Yeah. You don’t really you don’t need a clean room for everything. Um, sorry. Osha. Um, so I said, you know, I’m kind of bored with this real estate thing. I got all excited about composites, and I kind of want to get into it. And so, um, Blake and the the wheel company parted ways, and I said, I think there’s something here. Um, let me run with it. And so April 1st of 2018. Not a not an April Fool’s joke. I started a startup to fund my other startup.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: What’s this?

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s the most entrepreneurial thing you could do.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. I mean, what’s it like 90 plus percent of all startups fail or something.

Joshua Kornitsky: Within the first five years?

Trevor Smith: Yeah. So let’s stack that. Let’s put two one on top of the other.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s a multiplier.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. And my wife, God bless her, she was like, okay, so not risky at all. This is great, right?

Joshua Kornitsky: Um, your new wife?

Trevor Smith: Yeah. My brand new wife. Right? I love you, sweetie. And so I said, I really want to do this. I can I can turn this into a business. And so I started a commercial LED lighting company. So I didn’t know anything about lights, but my real estate background was all finance and LED lighting at the time of 2018 is really about what’s the ROI, what’s the return on investment?

Joshua Kornitsky: Right. And that was the beginning of the boom of it, wasn’t it?

Trevor Smith: Yeah, that was actually the sweet spot. Um, fortunately timing, as they say, is everything. Now, it’s much harder to kind of make a good living in lighting, but I made more in lights than I did in real estate.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s crazy.

Trevor Smith: So the idea, it was crazy. The idea was, I’m gonna take every dollar that we make on the lighting business, and I will put it into research and development for atomic six to get it to a point where we are fundable. We are backable by venture capital, or somebody will give us some money because we think we know what we’re doing. Right. Um, so three years, uh, did that, uh, fortunately, my first investor, as I call her true co-founder. My wife paid the bills at the house while I was off, spending a lot of money on trying to get atomic six off the ground.

Joshua Kornitsky: And so when you started atomic six, were you already think you were obviously in the space of composite because that you had shared was was your kind of you’d gotten excited about that? Were you looking toward space or were you just looking towards building or fabricating something out of composite.

Trevor Smith: Trying to find customer fit? Okay. Um, and so the initial actually idea, the very first meeting we had was with Mickey truck bodies. They’re the largest truck body manufacturer in North America. They’re out of, uh, North Carolina.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: And we’re like, well, if we can. Do, you know, the I-beams? Uh, it’s a it’s a steel I-beam that runs. So I was like, if we can lightweight those, we could increase payload, uh, and efficiency. Right. They can haul more, get better miles per gallon, all kinds of stuff. Sure. So we pitched Mickey truck bodies, and we said, hey, we have this idea. We’re going to be consultants for you, and we’re going to show you how to build this. So you own the process and you can use these composites in your truck bodies. We were, uh, politely laughed out of the meeting, um, because it was like, hey, go spend $10 million to get this idea off the ground that we have not proven whatsoever. Um, so quickly pivoted.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Trevor Smith: Into, we got to go build this ourselves, right? Sure.

Joshua Kornitsky: And did you?

Trevor Smith: Yes. Uh, yes. We we now for sure. Um, so truck bodies, and then we’re like, okay, what else could we get into? Uh, auto haulers. So that was our very first conference we sponsored was a auto hauler like trucking, right? So they they take cars and they haul them down the road. And these cars are getting heavier and heavier because of the electrification of these cars. Yep. So you’ll see a trailer typically you will not see it, uh, what’s called um, cubing out before they weigh out, meaning they’ve got all their capacity filled and they’re still not hitting their road weight limit. So these cars are getting heavier and they can’t fill their capacity because they’re hitting that weight limit on the road.

Joshua Kornitsky: And it’s funny because it used to be the steel in the cars that made them weigh so much. Now the steel is gone and it’s batteries.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. So we looked at um, uh, doing some parts there and ultimately it’s like, okay, same kind of story. How highly regulated industry it was really tough to break into. Sure. So we did that. And the last one before we get into defense, we looked at an even highly highly or that’s not a word more regulated industry which was uh, rail cars. So we got connected with Trinity Rail. Largest rail car manufacturer in North America.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s a trivia question.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. And, um, they make a lot of rail cars. So the truck set, which is the piece that holds the wheels onto the rail, is one of the heaviest pieces, about 7,000 pounds.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.

Trevor Smith: So if you could cut that weight in half.

Joshua Kornitsky: Make a dramatic difference. Dramatic difference, dramatic difference.

Trevor Smith: And so we looked at the ROI is two years on a 50 year product. Like absolute no brainer, right? Well, the problem was our competitors were all established in the early 1800s, right. The truck set?

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah, right. My brain had to catch up. I’m like, yeah, yeah, that makes sense because they’ve been building it literally since the turn of the century and last century.

Trevor Smith: And the rail industry is highly regulated. Right. So like, if, um, you know, if you have a derailment, it can almost be a domestic terrorist kind of situation. So it’s very regulated industry. Sure. Quickly found out that that was going to be a long, tough hill to climb. Um, so moving into some real traction, we got an opportunity with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. You’re familiar with Skunk Works?

Joshua Kornitsky: I am, but just for anyone listening.

Trevor Smith: Uh, they’ve built some very unique aircraft, including the SR 71 Blackbird. Uh, the fastest aircraft known to humans on the unclassified side. Uh, for those.

Joshua Kornitsky: I’m not going to ask follow ups.

Trevor Smith: Well, I don’t have a clearance, so I can’t tell you on the class side. Um, but, yeah, they’ve built some really unique aircraft, and so they’re always trying to push the boundaries of performance for aerospace and defense. Sure. And I said, we have this. I describe it as a unique muffin pan. So your audience should know what a muffin pan is.

Joshua Kornitsky: I certainly hope.

Trevor Smith: So. I hope so. Um, but it’s a mold, right? In essence, it’s a mold. And so we have a unique mold that allows us to manipulate any composite material set towards its theoretical limit. So if you have a certain fiber, carbon fiber, or resin, it doesn’t have to be carbon fiber, but any any fiber, any resin set. There is a theoretical limit for that material set.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: So, uh, we we we were given the opportunity to build a flat panel, just, you know, kind of look like a coaster, right? Just a flat carbon fiber panel. And let’s see how close to theoretical limit we can get. So the high watermark at the time and I presented at Oak Ridge National Lab was 80 or 85% of the theoretical limit. Um, ours was 98%. Wow. So we were almost perfect. Um, and that first panel was built just by me. Um, start to finish, prep the tool, mix the resin. I watched YouTube for three hours to learn how to run an autoclave, which is, uh, an autoclave is the oven that we use. It’s a pressurized vessel. Very dangerous.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s an Easy-Bake oven for scientists.

Trevor Smith: Uh, also a bomb, if you use it. Wrong. Uh, because it actually, they’ve had them blow up and people have died.

Joshua Kornitsky: Uh, and we certainly don’t want to make fun of that, but it’s obviously.

Trevor Smith: No, it’s just it’s a.

Joshua Kornitsky: Dangerous, pressurized device.

Trevor Smith: It’s a dangerous environment. But, uh, the fact that myself, not an engineer or anything like that, I just use the recipe. And my co-founder said, look, here’s how you should make this, uh, because he’s got a full time day job. And I was like, I’ll, I’ll make this thing happen. So we did the panel got some really intriguing results. And they said, can you do this again? So I made another panel, got even better results. Wow. And so that’s when I knew we had something. I didn’t know what it was other than we had this unique manufacturing process. So now we have to go figure out where to put that.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so where do you seek that guidance from?

Trevor Smith: What do you mean?

Joshua Kornitsky: Uh. For what? What? Where do we make sure we’ve got this proof of concept that we can do this? Where did you go?

Trevor Smith: Money. You follow the money trail, man.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: Right. So who or what needs that extra bump in performance? Ten. 15. 20%. It’s the extreme and demanding environments. Sure. Right. So if you look at the early days of where we were going, which was trying to increase payload, increase capacity, increase range, all those things are needed in extreme environments in the aerospace and defense world.

Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. So we submitted our first SBIR, uh, proposal, small business innovation research, which is the way the Department of. Now the Department of War, um DoD uses to invest in new technologies to develop into something that they can use. Um, and ideally it is a what’s called dual use technology, meaning it’s it’s a commercial version and a military version, but you can use the same thing for both.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay. So double the value out of the investment. Well, in.

Trevor Smith: Theory the government. Sure. But the government wants to see products that can stand up on their own on the commercial side. Right. Because if you can stand up a product on the commercial side, you’re buying down the risk and the cost for the government. A great example I don’t know how you feel about guns, but guns are a great example of that, right? So like if there was no commercial market for guns, right. A military gun would cost a lot more, right?

Joshua Kornitsky: Right. Because there is it’s it’s spreading both the risk and the cost. Correct.

Trevor Smith: Right. You’re amortizing the cost of that product. So you look for dual use things. The very first contract was a phase. It’s called a phase one proposal. They have phase one two, three. And there’s some things in between. So that’s $75,000 from the United States Space Force okay. So that very first contract was to develop a deployable mast for space. So I’ve got a little, you know, hardware I can show you here.

Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely.

Trevor Smith: So this, um, is a deployable mast. So it flattens like this.

Joshua Kornitsky: And it looks like it’s made out of very thin paper.

Trevor Smith: Uh, nine thousandths of an inch thick. Oh, about as thick as a human hair. So this mast will roll up flat. Kind of like a tape measure. Um, and I have this here, so. So you can roll it up and you can deploy it out for the audience. The cracking is the carbon fiber that I’m rolling out. But you can deploy it out like this. So this is a support structure for systems in space.

Joshua Kornitsky: And because you’re in space and you’re dealing with with greatly reduced gravity, I imagine that the strength is exponentially more valuable there because you’re not fighting against you are in orbit, but you’re not fighting Earth gravity with it.

Trevor Smith: Correct.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. So that was our very first foray into the defense world.

Joshua Kornitsky: And if it’s not asking a question you can’t discuss, do you know if that has been used in space?

Trevor Smith: Uh, well, it’s our product, so. Not yet. Okay. We have first flight February 1st of 2026. So we’re coming up on first flight. Okay. Very excited about that. We cannot disclose the customer. Of course not. Well, you know, you like to disclose it, but some some missions, you can’t disclose the customer. So Vandenberg Space Force Base is out of California, and we’ll be launching that. I think it’s on a Falcon nine, um, in February of 2026.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s absolutely amazing. Thank you for bringing that in. Because when you walked in with it, I wasn’t really sure what it was. And it’s kind of hard to believe that. What is that about? A about a meter long. About a. Yeah. Three feet.

Trevor Smith: This is my little travel companion here. Uh, we’ve built, uh, hundreds of feet of these deployable masts. And that’s one component of what the Space Force ultimately wanted to see in a system which is a deployable solar array. So you know what? Solar panels are here. Absolutely right. So solar panels in space look a little different. Um, there’s lots of radiation they have to overcome. You have off gassing in the material systems. Off gassing is bad because it can get on cameras and change trajectories and all kinds of nastiness. So you need to build the systems where, uh, they are made for space, right? And you have thermal environments that are really unique. You’re going to plus 80 degrees C to -80 degrees C. I don’t even know the Fahrenheit but it’s hot. It’s really hot and really cold. People think of space is really cold. It actually gets really hot too.

Joshua Kornitsky: Um, if you’re in view of the sun, you’re going to have a bad day without the sun.

Trevor Smith: Exactly.

Joshua Kornitsky: So now is that ultimately I. On your website, I did some reading. Is that the right wing product?

Trevor Smith: Correct. It’s called light Wing.

Joshua Kornitsky: So it’s it’s lighter, stronger. And it’s a smarter solar array. What do you mean by smarter.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. So the the big unlock that really kicked things off. I’m looking at your door here. So you’ve got some metal hinges right. Right. So those metal hinges look very similar to how solar panels are deployed today in space. So I’ll hold up an example of one of our panels here. This is a nine thousandths of an inch back sheet. We call it a back sheet.

Joshua Kornitsky: And there’s no hinges.

Trevor Smith: There’s no hinges on this. Um, but you put your your solar cells on the back sheet. And historically, those metal hinges sit right on the edge of this panel. So those hinges have what’s called biaxial loading, meaning they can bend in two different directions. Okay. Uh, metal doesn’t do well in really cold of space, right? So if you’re if you’ve got metal that can bend in two different directions, it can be problematic for solar arrays. The number one reason for infant mortality on satellites infant mortality, meaning they die right after launch.

Joshua Kornitsky: Gotcha. Sorry. Sorry. Little confused. I was scratching my head on that one.

Trevor Smith: You’ve launched a satellite, and it dies. Day. Day zero. It is not functional. Um, the number one reason is for failed solar array deployment.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow. So it’s actually a gigantic potential problem for a very expensive investment. Satellites.

Trevor Smith: I’ll give you a perfect example. Uh, Viasat, who offers a lot of satellite communications. They had an insurance claim last year for $450 million. Because of a failed solar array deployment. Wow. Yeah. So trying to fix that, right? We’re trying to fix that. Our hinge looks a little different than that metal door hinge you have here. So this is a memory shaped composite hinge. And I’ll demonstrate with you here. So it’s cured in the stowed position. So you can imagine the solar back sheets are on each side. And as the system deploys out and we’ll show a video on our of our website on this. But as it deploys out, this hinge actually bends and pulls tension on these back sheets. So it only wants to go in one direction. It just wants to it can’t lock up, right? So if I let go it just goes back to the original position normal state. So you’ve eliminated hundreds of points of failure. Single failure points in the system because it can’t fail well.

Joshua Kornitsky: And doesn’t it also reduce the overall weight of what you’re sending?

Trevor Smith: Yeah. I mean if you I didn’t bring it with me, but you’ve got one here. You can imagine a metal door hinge with something that is I mean, this is I don’t even know the weight, but it’s very lightweight. You can hear.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah. It basically weighs nothing.

Trevor Smith: Like a paper. A piece of paper.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah.

Trevor Smith: So, um, when you look at solar arrays, the key metric, uh, one of the key metrics you look at is watts per kilo. Watts per kilogram. Right. So how much? How much power to how much mass? So today, competitors offer anywhere from 30W per kilo to maybe 100 to 120W per kilo.

Joshua Kornitsky: And is that traditional metal hinged? Yes. Okay.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. And the deployment mechanisms are also, uh, you know what a scissor lift looks like? Uh, the fancy word for that is a pantograph. Okay. So. Right. They’re deploying out like a scissor lift. It’s all metal. Uh. Same issues. They lock up. They have hundreds of little bolts in them, and.

Joshua Kornitsky: All of them are potential points of failure.

Trevor Smith: Potential points of failure. We’ve eliminated all that with this deployable mast and hinge. So you’ve gotten rid of all these metal connection points that could be a failure, and you get rid of all the weight.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right. So it costs less to send up and to make.

Trevor Smith: And and to keep running and all the other things. Um, so the watts per kilo on our system, if you look at even a small system, uh, 2 kilowatt or 2000 watt system, we’re pushing 200W/kg. Kilogram. So to back up 30 to 100W per kilo competitor, we’re pushing 200W per kilo.

Joshua Kornitsky: And and is the limitation there simply the solar technology? I presume that as that improves because of the the improved weight offering that you ever lessened weight that can even go more.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. So it actually it gets even sweeter so that 200W per kilo, if you use what’s called silicon cells, um, those are sort of lower efficiency. They’re not the highest efficiency cells. Um, if you use high efficiency called triple junction, gallium arsenide is typically the material in it. Uh, multi-junction cells, those are like double the efficiency. Right. And so our, our watts per kilo goes even higher than 200 when you use those higher efficiency cells. So we are agnostic. We can use any type of cell which allows us to be able to service any type of mission.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.

Trevor Smith: Right. So you could have a ten year mission in what’s called geosynchronous orbit or Geo.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Trevor Smith: That that’s going to have a lot of radiation because it’s ten years and it’s a long mission. You would typically go for a triple junction multi junction type cell, high efficiency because it’s good at not degradation in radiation. But if you need a two year mission in low Earth orbit or Leo we can use very cheap cells. So we’re not locked into the solar cell. And we can adapt to the customer’s mission set.

Joshua Kornitsky: And I presume that that’s something they’re going to specify anyhow.

Trevor Smith: Well, what they typically would specify is an end of life wattage requirement.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: Right.

Joshua Kornitsky: So the mission is complete.

Trevor Smith: Hey we need we typically will quote a Bol beginning of life and an EOL end of life wattage. Right. But you have to design for the constraint which is the end of life. So what’s the minimum amount of power you have to have at the end of the mission. So you take that into account and we’ll we will work with our solar cell partners to find the right fit for that mission set.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and this just sort of occurred to me, right. If the if the measure is watts per kilo. Because of the weight differential of what light wing is, a kilo of light wing is going to be considerably. You’ll have a lot more potential material than you would in a traditional solar cell.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. Let’s say just for round numbers, you are setting aside, I don’t know, 100kg for your solar array. Right. So 100kg for solar array. We can give you four times more power just on that mass.

Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s what I’m realizing is it’s not just about weight and cost savings. It’s actually also about efficiency.

Trevor Smith: And we have a thing called conops in the usually on the defense side. But Conops stands for concept of operations.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: So when you have this and the thing that we are touting even more than just the watts per kilo is this retract and redeploy capability that does not exist today outside of one system on the ISS.

Joshua Kornitsky: So basically you you when you launch a satellite that has panels, You push them out and you’re all done.

Trevor Smith: Yeah, it’s a single deployment, right? So space is an ever changing environment, right? Right. You have debris floating around there and you’ve got, um, maybe you have a high thrust capability with your with your satellite. High thrust, meaning high horsepower, uh, for for car terms. Right. You got to go somewhere really fast. Um, these new engines can have a high thrust capability ripping off the existing solar arrays because of the inertia that they cause. Well, if you have a system that you can retract and lock back down, you press the gas pedal and then redeploy.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Trevor Smith: If you want to land on an asteroid or a celestial body, bring the arrays in, do your landing and then redeploy.

Joshua Kornitsky: And that just doesn’t exist today.

Trevor Smith: No, no. On unclassified side. I can’t speak to the class, but I understand. Yeah, I’ll stop saying that. Disclaimer.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so so you touched on something else, and it lets me segue to the next thing I wanted to ask about. So I checked, uh, just with NASA, and NASA says.

Trevor Smith: You called NASA.

Joshua Kornitsky: I did. I went to the. They have a website.

Trevor Smith: Okay.

Joshua Kornitsky: And according to NASA’s website. Let me clarify. There are approximately 25,000 objects larger than ten centimeters known to exist in Earth orbit.

Trevor Smith: Those aren’t the ones you need to be worried about. Do you know why?

Joshua Kornitsky: Tell me why.

Trevor Smith: Because they can track them. Right. Because if you can see it. And this happens all the time on the International Space Station, they’ll make maneuvers to go around that bigger debris.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: You cannot track three millimeters or less, which constitutes about 92% of all debris in Leo. You’re in the millions of pieces of debris. Which tiny speck of paint.

Joshua Kornitsky: Which brings me to how do you. So you’ve now got your retractable mast. I’ve got the ability to go land on the asteroid and come back. But how do I protect it from not getting smashed while it’s sitting in orbit?

Trevor Smith: Well, you know, as I say, you need both power and protection. Right. We have a second product for space. We call it space armor. I’m going to let you guess what it does.

Joshua Kornitsky: I’m guessing it’s some form of protection. And Trevor’s got a very interesting, uh, piece of white material here. Yeah, it says strike based on it.

Trevor Smith: Strike face. Um, so this, uh. Well, I’ll let you hold it. Um.

Joshua Kornitsky: So so it’s much more dense than I would have expected.

Trevor Smith: Well, you’re stopping a bullet that’s moving at Mach 21. 17,000 miles an hour.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s pretty fast.

Trevor Smith: At that speed. You could go from Atlanta to LA in five minutes. So you see an entry. Wow. You see an entry hole in the shield that you’re holding?

Joshua Kornitsky: I do.

Trevor Smith: But there’s no exit. You can look at the back side. Yeah. Um, so that was hit with a three millimeter aluminum ball. Think like a BB, right. So that BB goes from zero to Mach 21 and about 16ft. It’s overcoming 1.3 million g forces. And when it hits and there’s a great video on our website, we can show.

Joshua Kornitsky: This to see that.

Trevor Smith: There’s an explosion of plasma that comes out of this thing.

Joshua Kornitsky: Is you’re changing the state of matter at that speed.

Trevor Smith: It’s quite wild. Yeah. So this space armor is the thinnest, lightest, micrometeorite and orbital debris shield that the United States Space Force has ever seen. We built this two years ago.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.

Trevor Smith: And we got a tacfire tactical funding increase contract through that SBIR program to get this through flight qualification. So this will be going up next year.

Joshua Kornitsky: Um, and without asking obviously proprietary information, it is some form of composite. It is some layering or some combination of deposits that it is.

Trevor Smith: It’s all composite. Uh, I can tell you there is no metal. Right. So when you have metal, and if you look at that video on our website, um, there’s a thing called post-impact ejecta, basically debris that gets flung out. Right? So we did a side by side video, and you can see this on our website where this shield was impacted at three millimeters in the. The ejecta that comes out is really just like particulate and gas. There’s no like debris if you will. Nasa has a standard for the same impact. It’s a 0.44in aluminum. I forget the aluminum but 0.4in thick aluminum monolithic block.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: All right. Just a block of metal so it gets hit. And technically it has stopped the projectile. But what you see happen in the video is thousands of more pieces of metal get flung out.

Joshua Kornitsky: Into space.

Trevor Smith: Both in the front side, the strike face and the back side. So while there was no penetration, the shockwave from the impact delaminated the metal on the backside, causing metal to go back towards whatever your spacecraft is. I would not want to stand behind that.

Joshua Kornitsky: No. And it seems to be ultimately a solution that creates a bigger problem.

Trevor Smith: Yes. So there’s a thing called the Kessler syndrome. Are you familiar with this?

Joshua Kornitsky: I am not.

Trevor Smith: Okay. So imagine, you know, two satellites coming at each other and they hit. You’ve got thousands of pieces of debris. Those debris go and hit another satellite, causing thousands more pieces of debris. So you get this, like snowball effect.

Joshua Kornitsky: An exponential domino game.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. Uh, the gentleman, Don Kessler, uh, he’s still alive today. I talked to him about a month ago. It was pretty cool. Um, but, yeah, Kessler syndrome is a real concern because as we put more and more satellites up, you will have inherently more and more debris. Right, right. So until we figure out a good way for debris, uh, remediation, garbage cleanup, um, this is the only way I know. Or the Space Force knows, uh, to stop impact debris and not cause additional debris creation, which is kind of crazy.

Joshua Kornitsky: So is the intended use. Remember, I’m not an aeronautical engineer.

Trevor Smith: Neither am.

Joshua Kornitsky: I. So you know, you’re not either. Um, would this be so if we’re talking about a communication satellite. Yeah. Would this be around the outer body? Is that would it be inside where.

Trevor Smith: You you know, when you see a police officer, they have a chest, you know, a chest protector on, right? Like you want to protect the critical components of the satellite. So that might be your avionics, your your fuel tanks, what have you. Um, and this shield particularly is really special. So do you know what a radome is?

Joshua Kornitsky: I don’t.

Trevor Smith: Uh, when you get on a commercial flight, there’s a little bubble on top of the fuselage. Okay. Right. So that little bubble is a dome that protects the radar system radome. Right. So it’s protecting the comm system for the airplane.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Trevor Smith: We’ve never had a radome for space.

Joshua Kornitsky: Really?

Trevor Smith: Because when you look at how we’ve historically protected from debris, it’s with metallic systems. You cannot pass radio frequency through metal. It doesn’t work. So our ultimate goal was to build space armor with an RF permeable radio frequency permeable capability.

Joshua Kornitsky: So it can stay functioning.

Trevor Smith: So you can protect the comm system which is arguably the most important thing on the satellite. Right. Um, so this one here was the very first one that we have, uh, shot and tested and also passed RF through building the very first radome for space.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s pretty amazing.

Trevor Smith: Kind of crazy.

Joshua Kornitsky: Does it have for really I mean, both products I have to think have terrestrial application as well. Just I wouldn’t hazard a guess just because of their in the case of, of of the, the armor, it’s obviously insanely strong. And I have to think there’s other things they could do with it.

Trevor Smith: Well, before I jump there, um, there’s more as they say. But wait, but wait, there’s more. Um, we have hit this shield with a thing called directed energy weapons. Uh, in short, high power lasers. Okay. It is highly resistant to laser weapons. Uh, which maybe not for commercial users, but.

Joshua Kornitsky: But happens in a battlefield and potentially.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, space is the ultimate battlefield, the ultimate domain. Because when you look at the military branches, navy, army, the air force, they all rely on space for communications.

Joshua Kornitsky: Guidance.

Trevor Smith: Intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, all that stuff. So really, really important. Um, yeah. But you ask about terrestrial. So, uh, I grew up in Mississippi and, um, enjoy testing things, as I say, as a redneck. Um, I took this down to my local gun range, and I said, you know, we stopped a bullet at Mach 21. Surely, surely this thing can stop my nine millimeter Glock, right? I shot it, went right through. Yeah. You have a confused look on your face, I do. Uh, so the bullet was moving too slow.

Joshua Kornitsky: Interesting.

Trevor Smith: I’ll elaborate. Um, when you when you take a supersonic round, uh, a gun and shoot it into water that’s supersonic round, which is faster than the speed of sound. Goes about 1 or 2ft deep. If you shoot a subsonic round a slower bullet, it actually will penetrate a lot farther ten 12ft. So imagine like slapping the water with your hand, right? Versus slowly inserting your hand into water. You can you can penetrate deeper, right. So these shields don’t actually start working until about, uh, Mach ten. Wow. And there are no known terrestrial bullets that move that fast.

Joshua Kornitsky: And let’s hope that.

Trevor Smith: I’m.

Joshua Kornitsky: Aware of. Let’s hope we don’t find one either. Um, okay. Well, that that’s still an amazing.

Trevor Smith: But we think there is actually a terrestrial application, and it could be very big. Um, so I don’t know if you kept up with the Russia Ukraine war, but, um, Ukraine lit up a Russian airfield with these sort of kamikaze drones that had, you know, small explosives on them. Uh, explosives, when they shoot out, projectiles detonate, come out around the same velocity as what we see in low Earth orbit. So in low Earth orbit, this was tested just to give you the right metric. This was tested at 7.2km per second. Explosives come out around ten kilometers per second. Um, so we think this actually could be really good for protecting against small explosives.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow. That’s a that’s a great idea to explore.

Trevor Smith: We think there’s a terrestrial application for it. We’ll see. We’re, uh, we’re going to go blow it up and see what happens.

Joshua Kornitsky: I imagine that may be on your website one day, too.

Trevor Smith: Oh, that’ll be a fun video. Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah, that’s that’s absolutely incredible. So help me understand because you self-admitted you are not an engineer. Is this just natural curiosity that that got you as deep in as you are now to the understanding of, of the product, the first of which you actually made yourself? Yeah. How did you how did you what is, uh, the best way to ask this question? How did you get so invested personally? Not financially, but in in the depth of understanding of the science of what you’re dealing with.

Trevor Smith: I think if there’s a topic, and this is just applicable for anybody who wants to learn, right? If there’s some topic that you’re interested in, especially if you’re really interested in it, you can learn very quickly. Like you soak it up, right? Right. Imagine being in school and you’re in class and there’s some boring class. You’re like, I don’t I don’t really remember anything from that class, but the teacher did something very unique and it caught your attention.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure. That’s the one you remember.

Trevor Smith: That’s the one you remember. Exactly. So going back, I love things that go fast and blow up and all that kind of thing. So like, for me, I was so excited about this, that learning all the metrics and and the numbers and the process was just, just went right in, right? Just soaked it right up. Um, but on top of that, I have to brag because I’m not the one that’s building this today. I have an incredible team. Uh, my my CTO, a 40 year veteran in the composites industry, has built thousands and thousands of parts, including hypersonic systems and, um, Airbus commercial aircraft things. And so he’s been great. And then, uh, we added our chief operating officer about two years ago. He’s a pretty unique individual, holds a lot of world records. His name is Christian Carpenter. Uh, he started out doing propulsion at NASA and then went to Aerojet Rocketdyne, where he set some world’s first and Guinness records, including the first 3D printed metal rocket engine for electric propulsion. So electric propulsion not not so there’s chemical. You have chemical and electric. We call it EP electric propulsion. Um, so he set that record and, um, got a call from Elon Musk. You know, he’s kind of famous guy. I’ve heard of him. Um, so Elon’s like, hey, I need a new propulsion system, an EP electric propulsion system for this new constellation of satellites that I want to put up. Have you heard of Starlink? I have essentially Christian designed the prop that runs all Starlink.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s kind of cool.

Trevor Smith: Pretty cool.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s, uh. And that’s that’s really quite a team you’ve, you’ve put together. Yeah. And, and I do want to ask about that if I may. Right. Because in addition to all of this incredible science and, and the literal, uh, outer space or near or near Earth orbit, low and high level. Right. And and who knows where from there. You still actually lead this company? You don’t.

Trevor Smith: Somehow they haven’t taken the reins from you.

Joshua Kornitsky: Still. You don’t just get to talk about how cool everything is. You still have to run the organization. Yeah. What are some of the challenges? Because, I mean, you’re you’re at an intersection of innovation, technology, defense, aerospace. I mean, you’re juggling 11 different directions at once. What are some of the challenges that anyone listening today could, could learn from on that side of the house?

Trevor Smith: Uh, so I think one skill set that I learned even from the real estate days was incentive alignment. And I think it’s one of my super skills, and I don’t have very many, but that’s probably one of them is incentive alignment. So finding out what you are personally interested in and then finding out what the other party is, whether it’s an employee, a customer, a partner, you know, finding out what incentivizes them to move and then making sure you can align their incentives with yours. And a perfect example of this, please. So we wanted to go build some hypersonic systems. And I’ll have to be careful what I say here. Yeah, yeah. Um, so Hermeus is a customer of ours. They’re here in Atlanta. Um, quite a large company. They’re building hypersonic aircraft. And so I friends with the the co-founder there, Glenn. And I said, Glenn, what what do you guys need? Right. What do you need built? What’s the hard thing that you haven’t figured out yet is we need a radome. We need a radome for hypersonic aircraft. Very difficult thing to build because you have to again pass that radiofrequency through it, but also survive the extreme environment of hypersonic speed. Right. So I was like, great, you’re not gonna pay me 100% to develop this. Let’s figure out how to get it funded. Aligning some incentives. So I call the Air Force because they have a number on their website like NASA. Yeah, no, we called our POC technical point of contact because we had another we actually had another hypersonic contract we were developing already. So I had a relationship built with them. And I said, hey, would the Air Force be interested in atomic six developing a hypersonic radome specifically for the Hermes aircraft? Yeah, we would love to see that we’re already funding them like we it’s got to be built anyway. Right? So you’re aligning and aligning incentives from the Air Force because they want to see it built. I want to get Hermeus as a customer and then Hermeus needs it built. But the Air Force is going to bring the money to do it.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s fantastic.

Trevor Smith: So we’ve we’ve brought everybody together, aligned incentives. And we have that under contract right now. We’re working on it.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s an incredible example.

Trevor Smith: So skill set right. That’s one of the one of the skill sets.

Joshua Kornitsky: And and so you’ve brought together some pretty incredible team members from pretty diverse backgrounds. How do you keep them aligned beyond creative incentive? Right. Just that with with keeping everybody on the same page.

Trevor Smith: I think if you you look at the products that we’re building specifically on the space side, it’s it’s tough to not get excited about it.

Joshua Kornitsky: I’m excited and I’m just getting to see them.

Trevor Smith: It’s tough to not get excited. So like I think if you’re building a company and this is applicable to any industry, um, you need to be focused on what you are excited to do. Money should be a byproduct, sure, but you got to make money too, right? So the thing that you’re excited to build, you need to make sure that there’s a financial outcome with it. Um, so I think keeping the team focused on, hey, what’s our next launch opportunity? Or hey, what can we go put this in an astronaut suit, which we actually are working on. Putting space armor in an astronaut suit.

Joshua Kornitsky: Seems like a good application. Pretty cool.

Trevor Smith: Yeah, right. Commander Chris Hadfield is on our board and he’s like, this needs to be in the astronaut suits.

Joshua Kornitsky: Particularly for a guy who’s been out in space, literally. I imagine he’d be very interested in having something that’ll protect him from a hypersonic.

Trevor Smith: Uh, actually hyper velocity. So it’s even faster than hypersonic.

Joshua Kornitsky: Um, I’ll need a scale next time we talk.

Trevor Smith: Yeah, like, once you get over fast.

Joshua Kornitsky: Really fast. Super. Really fast.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. Mach 20 is when things gets a little hairy. Um, but, yeah, like, spacewalks are very dangerous, right? Like a grain of sand could kill an astronaut because those things are moving so fast. Uh, they just puncture the spacecraft and they hit if they get hit in the wrong spot, you know? Thank goodness we’ve never had a, you know, a failure in a spacesuit or an astronaut really hurt, but.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Trevor Smith: It’s kind of an inevitable thing.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s hard to consider, but just the the odds of it are crazy.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. So we want to go protect. But getting the team aligned with what they’re excited to build. And then, um, you know, making sure they have ownership in the company, meaning genuine ownership, like they’re on the cap table, the capitalization table. So they have shares and equity in the company. And so they get excited one for what they’re building because it’s really cool. And then two, you have that money byproduct piece. Um, further incentivizing people to like, oh man, what was how was that last conference go? You know, what’s our next opportunity?

Joshua Kornitsky: Because then everybody’s got a reason to be interested.

Trevor Smith: Yeah. Exactly right. Like, building things are fun, but you want to make sure you can also make money doing it.

Joshua Kornitsky: No, it makes absolute sense. Absolute sense to me. So the the last question that occurs to me is, is, you know, how do you measure success? Because it seems like there’s always going to be more for you to consider as an organization. Atomic six how do you what is what is the top of the of the mountain?

Trevor Smith: I mean, the mountain keeps moving, right?

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, it kind of does. And and I imagine that That, uh, if we’re sitting here ten years from today, the things we’d be talking about would be vastly different than we could even imagine right now.

Trevor Smith: Yeah, I think, you know, it’s all relative. So, uh, some people would say that Atomic six is already a success. You’re you’re a startup. We’re eight years old, you know, we’re self-sufficient, if you will. We have customers. Um, so success at that level? Sure. Um. Crazy story. When we were doing our first fundraise. Didn’t have an office, didn’t even have a customer, didn’t have our first dollar. I had a billionaire offer me $30 million for the company. Wow. So I called my dad. Um, I was sitting at the lunch table, and I said. I said, you know, I appreciate the offer. I really want to make my first dollar and see where this goes. So I called my dad and he goes, are you crazy? You you could retire today. And I was like, well, where’s the fun in that? Right? Right. Uh, same billionaire called me a month later and he said, offer still on the table. And I said, still no. Um, so, you know, had I sold at that point, maybe somebody would have called that success. Um, you know, today, I think success looks like. And we and we tell our, our, our investors and our customers, we want to build out the power grid for SpaceX and the protection grid for SpaceX, but the revenue is much more on the power side. Um, we want to build out the power grid for SpaceX. So if you could invest in, you know, Westinghouse. Right, right. Or if you could invest in some of those early electrical grid companies. That’s what we’re looking at today, right? Because there’s very few competitors. Um, because the the global demand for solar arrays hasn’t really been that big, uh, in historic past. I’ll give you an example. Why now? So three years ago, the global demand for solar array. Uh, if you exclude Starlink, which my co built. Right. Same shameless plug was about two megawatts. Uh, so 2,000,000W, I think if I’ve got that right. Um, today we have six times that in our current sales pipeline.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.

Trevor Smith: Six times the global demand. Just in my little 12 person company. Wow. Um, one, because I think we have a unique product and people are interested, but two, like, space is going to be a thing. Uh, I have the saying, um, every company is a space company. They just don’t know it. Right. I mean, today you’re interacting. You’re using space technology. Today, whether internet, whatever. You’re you’re like, every company is a space company at some level.

Joshua Kornitsky: And I think that that we learned in, in the, in the after effects of the, the Mercury and the Apollo programs. Right. That, that so many of the things that were designed to solve problems in space had practical applications to this day that still exist in ways that many people don’t even know.

Trevor Smith: Oh, well, um, you know, data centers and AI seem to be a hot topic.

Joshua Kornitsky: I think I’ve heard that.

Trevor Smith: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so data centers are a big drain on the natural resources of Earth?

Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely.

Trevor Smith: Electricity, power, water, electricity. Uh, data centers are going to be in space and.

Joshua Kornitsky: A lot cooler.

Trevor Smith: Yeah, well, again, it’s hot and cold or colder. Actually, the hardest problem. The hardest. Well, I’ll get to that in a second. Um, we announced a few months ago our very first space contract was actually for six missions. And we will be powering the very first data centers in lunar orbit. So they won’t be on the surface. Uh, this company, Lone Star Data, has already been to the surface of the moon twice. Wow. Uh, on Intuitive Machines. Uh, unfortunately, the lander tipped over.

Joshua Kornitsky: I remember that.

Trevor Smith: Both. Both attempts. Uh, unfortunate, but we’re going to put these in satellites, and so they’ll be in orbit around the moon. And this isn’t necessarily a data center for like, AI compute. This is more of a like a backup redundancy. Think like, hey, I got a hard drive and I’m putting it in a lockbox because I don’t want anybody.

Joshua Kornitsky: On the moon.

Trevor Smith: Or.

Joshua Kornitsky: Orbit.

Trevor Smith: In lunar orbit. Yeah, ultimately, they actually do want to be on the moon. Um, and then you’ve got, you know, Eric Schmidt bought relativity. You know, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google Data Centers, right? So, so you want to put data centers in space. There’s lots of space data center space startups. We’re talking to almost all of them because the two big things they need are power and protection. Well, protection ish, but more cooling. So cooling is ironically the hardest thing you got to figure out. Solar arrays are the second biggest problem, uh, because the power that they need, you’re looking at 4 or 5 times a single International Space Station. Uh, on a certain data center, there’s there’s one star cloud that we’re friends with. They want to put up a 16 square kilometer solar array. So there’s a lot of power.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s a lot of power. That’s a lot.

Trevor Smith: But you got to cool it off. So the big problem is actually getting that heat radiated out. So you got you got a Yeti cup right there. What does your. Why does your cup stay cold or hot?

Joshua Kornitsky: Because it’s double wall insulated with a vacuum in between.

Trevor Smith: It’s in a vacuum. Space is a vacuum, right? It’s really tough to get the heat out. So deployable radiators are going to be a big thing we’ve got to figure out for the near future if orbital data centers are going to be a thing. So both power and actually getting that heat out.

Joshua Kornitsky: It sounds to me that that’s definitely a problem for for some innovative thinking.

Trevor Smith: Uh, well, we have deployable structures here.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s that was the first thought that I had is, is, is if you can push them out and pull them back. Well, he doesn’t go anywhere that way. But you still got to use the you got to capture and dissipate the heat.

Trevor Smith: You need surface area. Right, right. You need surface area to get that heat out. Um, we’re flying up with Auburn University. I think we’ve announced it, I can’t remember.

Joshua Kornitsky: I won’t.

Trevor Smith: Tell. No, no, no. It’s fine. Um, we’re flying up with Auburn University next year. And it’s not the solar array. It’s just the deployable mast with our deployer. And they want to. They want to push out a sensor out away from the spacecraft. Right. So you could insert sensor for radiator or selfie stick. Really expensive selfie stick because you need to actually see a picture of a satellite. So there’s lots of use cases for just deployable structures beyond solar panels and solar power.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s going to be incredible to watch you grow.

Trevor Smith: I’m having fun, man.

Joshua Kornitsky: It certainly seems like it because you haven’t stopped smiling since you got here.

Trevor Smith: Oh, we have a I haven’t even talked. We have a version of this. Um, so the diameter you see here is two inches. Okay. We’ve built a 12 inch diameter, 33 foot tall deployable mast, which is just a demo, um, for a flight model that will be 150ft tall. The surface area will be 1.2. Nba basketball courts. It is a lunar vertical solar array tower. Wow. And the goal is to put this on the south pole of the moon in Q1, Q2 of 2027. Really powering the infrastructure needed for permanent residence on the moon.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s a little hard to wrap my brain around that. And and isn’t there? Uh, is it an eight minute communication lag between here and the moon?

Trevor Smith: I don’t know.

Joshua Kornitsky: I know, I just know that there is so. So it always makes me wonder. Knowing that that even though it’s minuscule when it’s orbit, I know that the farther away you are, the longer it takes right now to get information back and forth. But as you said, it’s not going to be necessarily for, for, uh, the data centers, the first generation.

Trevor Smith: Well, this.

Joshua Kornitsky: Customer necessarily for, for instantaneous answers.

Trevor Smith: Well, this customer isn’t even data center customer. Uh starpath. Robotics is a commercial customer of ours, and they plan on building, uh, mining services on the moon. So they’re going to mine for liquid oxygen to do refueling for Starship, uh, for SpaceX. Um, there’s another company called interlude. Rob Meyerson’s, a friend of mine, uh, former president of Blue Origin. He was employee number five. Bill built up Blue Origin. They’re going to be mining for helium three on the moon, which will help the energy crisis we have here on Earth. If we can figure out I don’t know if it’s fusion or fission, but, you know, one of those, um, uh, but that will go towards, uh, cooling systems for quantum computers because helium three is I think it’s like $20,000 a kilogram right now.

Joshua Kornitsky: A little pricey.

Trevor Smith: Real hard to get here on Earth. It’s abundant on the surface of the moon. So their idea is frozen solid. Yeah. So their ideas, they’re going to mine. But all those systems need to be autonomous, to your point, because.

Joshua Kornitsky: They’ve got to have.

Trevor Smith: Power and they have to have power. Right. So we’re going to stand up these large solar array towers and then they will beam power beam, uh, typically to these structures that are moving around and doing all the mining.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s absolutely.

Trevor Smith: I had no idea this was going to be my life. Uh, it’s kind of.

Joshua Kornitsky: I don’t know how you could have imagined.

Trevor Smith: It.

Joshua Kornitsky: Uh, but it certainly sounds like it’s a heck of a good time. Well, anybody that’s listening that wants to learn more, where would they go to learn more?

Trevor Smith: Uh, I live on LinkedIn. Um, it’s a really great tool. Uh, our our company profile is just atomic Dash, the number six on LinkedIn.

Joshua Kornitsky: And we’ll also share, uh, LinkedIn profile. We’ll share the company’s website. Uh, if they wanted to ask questions, where would they send those?

Trevor Smith: Yeah, we we have an email address, info, info at atomic com.

Joshua Kornitsky: I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed this conversation, Trevor. I’ve only got about 11 hours of more questions, so I’ll just start saving those up and whittling them down for the next.

Trevor Smith: Did we cover half your page there?

Joshua Kornitsky: I’m not even sure, but I don’t feel like we missed anything. I, uh, I have to tell you, this has been absolutely fascinating, and I’d love to have you back for another discussion. Uh, as as your technology and what you and your team are building, uh, continue to grow and expand. We’d love to.

Trevor Smith: Well, we’re we’re here right in Marietta, but, uh, we have expansion plans. We plan to build the first Gigafactory, if you will, for solar array production. Right? 100,000ft² will be 4 or 500 people working at this thing. So we’re doing site selection right now to go build that, because we have this massive pipeline of interest for solar array power.

Joshua Kornitsky: And I have lots of questions on that. But I want to be respectful of things that are still in motion.

Trevor Smith: Yeah, yeah. I appreciate that.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, again my guest today has been Trevor Smith. He’s the founder and CEO of Atomic six, a company creating advanced composite materials that make defense and aerospace equipment lighter, stronger and more resilient. He’s a two time founder, uh, with more than a decade of experience in technology and innovation. And Trevor has led Atomic Six from concept to securing more than a dozen contracts with the DoD, the Air Force, the Space Force, with NASA and with commercial companies. Pardon me. And he’s really pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in advanced materials with products that absolutely are going to be in orbit in one day on the moon. Oh, yeah. Uh, it has just been a pleasure having you here, Trevor. Thank you so much.

Trevor Smith: Oh, thanks for having me.

Joshua Kornitsky: Um, I want to remind everybody again that today’s episode is brought to you in part by our community partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors defending capitalism, promoting small business, supporting our local community. For more information, please go to Main Street Warriors. Org. And a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David, Inc. please go check them out at diesel David. Comm. My name is Joshua Kornitsky. I am a professional implementer of the entrepreneurial operating system. My guest today again was Trevor Smith, founder and CEO of atomic six. Thank you for joining us here on Cherokee Business Radio. And we’ll see you next time.

 

Tagged With: Atomic-6

Painting a Brighter Future: The Power of Collaboration in Franchising

September 26, 2025 by angishields

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Franchise Marketing Radio
Painting a Brighter Future: The Power of Collaboration in Franchising
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In this episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, Lee Kantor talks with Dawn Perry and Bill Palliser of CertaPro Painters®. They discuss the company’s evolution from a college summer business to a leading franchise, emphasizing the crucial collaboration between marketing and operations. The conversation highlights the importance of alignment, peer support, and shared values in driving franchisee success. CertaPro’s approach—uniting corporate teams and franchisees through training, peer groups, and open communication—demonstrates how a strong, values-driven culture leads to growth, engagement, and operational excellence across the franchise system.

CertaPro-Painters-logo

Dawn-PerryDawn Perry joined CertaPro Painters®, North America’s Most Referred Painting Company®, in August 2022 as the Chief Brand Officer.

In this role, she is responsible for leading the company’s brand strategy and marketing.

With more than 15 years of franchise marketing expertise and 30+ years of marketing experience, she has a proven track record of driving lead generation and delivering extraordinary brand experiences with a customer-centric approach.

Prior to joining CertaPro Painters, Ms. Perry held two roles over 12 years at Anywhere Real Estate as Senior Vice President Cross Brand Marketing, and as Chief Marketing Officer at ERA Real Estate. Previously, she held marketing management positions with Avis Budget Car Rental Group, Scholastic Book Club, and Time Inc. She also led her own Little Gym franchise for four years.

Ms. Perry has received several accolades for her innovative branding and marketing strategies with bottom-line impact, including being a recipient of the Consumer Marketing Achievement Award from Time Inc., the Alex Perriello Innovation Award, and the Realogy Round of Applause recognition.

She is currently a member of the American Marketing Association (AMA) and has previously contributed to Forbes. She also holds a master chef certificate from The French Culinary Institute.

Connect with Dawn on LinkedIn.

Bill-PallierBill Palliser brings over 22 years of operations, management, and sales experience to his role as Executive Vice President of Operations at CertaPro Painters®, North America’s Most Referred Painting Company®.

With a proven track record of driving organizational success, Bill leads all operations functions with a primary goal of achieving revenue targets and supporting franchise owners in reaching their individual goals. Bill is passionate about the development and execution of business plans and key strategies for franchise owners to drive significant results.

Prior to joining CertaPro, Bill spent 18 years at Sherwin-Williams, where he held numerous roles in store management, commercial and residential sales, and district management. Notably, he spent five years on the national account team, where he managed the partnership between Sherwin-Williams and CertaPro across North America, devising strategies to enhance collaboration.

Bill’s final role at Sherwin-Williams was as National Accounts Sales Director, leading a team that delivered innovative solutions to strategic clients in various market segments, including residential, multifamily, commercial, hospitality, and healthcare.

Connect with Bill on LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

  • History and evolution of CertaPro Painters® from a college summer business to a full-time franchise.
  • The significance of collaboration between marketing and operations in franchising.
  • Support systems for franchisees, including peer networks and training.
  • The role of shared core values and culture in franchisee selection.
  • The importance of operational excellence in fulfilling marketing promises.
  • Strategies for engaging franchisees in corporate initiatives and decision-making.
  • The impact of peer-to-peer learning and sharing best practices among franchisees.
  • The necessity of corporate alignment for effective communication and strategy execution.
  • The influence of franchisee engagement on overall performance and success.
  • The relationship between a strong corporate culture and franchisee commitment to the brand.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio. And this is gonna be a good one. Today we’re going to be talking about why marketing and operations must work together in the world of franchising. And, uh, to talk about that, we have Dawn Perry and we have Bill Palliser, and they are with Certapro. Dawn is the chief brand officer and Bill is the executive VP of operations. So they are very qualified to be discussing this important issue. Welcome.

Dawn Perry: Hi. Thanks, Lee. It’s great to be here.

Bill Palliser: Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to talk about this topic. But first let’s talk about Certapro painters. Tell us about your mission. Purpose. How you serving folks?

Dawn Perry: Oh, no, I’ll take that. I’m sure Bill can add on. Um, again, thanks for having us today. Look, uh, Certapro painters has been around since 1992, and and we are. Our mission is to lift up the painting painting industry, to aspire to transform homes and properties, um, by creating a workplace of choice. But even more to the core is we are strive to deliver extraordinary experiences. Every paint project at the time we paint for both residential and commercial customers, and we have core values that we live and breathe every single day, that we bring to everything we do. And so we’re happy to be here today. But I can tell you, any organization, including Enfranchising, it is only as successful as the alignment and the collaboration of all the teams that are involved in helping our franchisees succeed. And so Bill and I have been working really hard on being collaborative to deliver on that promise of delivering extraordinary experiences to our franchisees and to our painters and to our sales associates. So what would you add to that?

Bill Palliser: Yeah, I mean, I think well, well said. I often, uh, you know, talk internally and externally about clarity, unity, alignment. And you spoke to that. Dawn, it’s super important that we’re all united in the direction we’re going. We’re clear and we’re aligned. And again today we’re here to talk about, I think, internal and how Dawn and our teams work collaboratively together, but super important that we go external right to the franchise body and all of our stakeholders. Dawn mentioned a few, uh, starting with our franchise owners, of course, all their associates, the painters that put the paint on and really deliver the extraordinary experience to the customers. And then last stakeholder, of course, that that customer. So have to have that clarity in any alignment across, uh, all of those stakeholders to, uh, to be successful and drive the organization forward.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you tell me a little bit about the history of Certapro? Did it start as a mom and pop and then evolved into kind of the franchise that it is today. Is was that kind of the genesis of the idea originally?

Bill Palliser: I can take that one, Dawn, if you’d like. No. So we started many of the listeners may be familiar with college pro painters, which was a concept of, uh, taking college kids, young entrepreneurs and, uh, help them establish a robust, uh, painting business over the summer. And you can imagine how how challenging that would be a working with, uh, with college folks and then those college folks as general managers trying to recruit, uh, you know, their friends, their peers, uh, over the summer instead of, uh, doing what college kids do over the summer, typically, uh, you know, go sling a brush, go sell paint jobs, uh, go deliver extraordinary experiences by, uh, bringing beauty to someone’s home. And so that’s where it started. Uh, and then in 1992, as Dawn alluded, um, Charlie Chase, who is the founder of uh, Servpro, along with another individual, said, hey, maybe we can take this to a full time model, Obviously, working in the summer with college kids has limitations. So let’s let’s see where this could go. And, uh, you know, they had, uh, some aspirations of, of sales and, uh, fast forward 30, you know, almost 35 years. We’ve, uh, we’ve surpassed that significantly. So, yeah, started with a summertime college, uh, gig and, uh, grew into something much, much greater as, uh, what Certapro painters is today.

Dawn Perry: Yeah. And I, I completely concur with what Bill said. I’ll tell a little illustrative story. So one of our biggest franchise owners out in the San Francisco area, um, started out in college pro slinging a brush. And then he also worked for corporate for many years, worked his way up in the organization and went back to being a franchisee. There was a lot of legacy to be proud of at Certapro, including our CEO, who once was a sales associate, is obviously leading the charge for us now. So, um, it is it’s a great operation. It started with exteriors and now moves over to interiors, uh, for both residential and then commercial. Both exteriors and interiors as well.

Lee Kantor: So how do you collaborate when it comes to delivering on the brand promise? Um, you know, in marketing, you know, you’re probably charged with making it enticing and persuading people to try it, but operationally, it has to kind of deliver on whatever it is that marketing is promising. How do you all work together, or do or do you work together and or do you just have to kind of manage whatever the other person’s doing?

Dawn Perry: Well, I think you can operate that way, but you’re not going to be successful that way. So I’ll just start with my role is to, uh, build and amplify brand awareness of certapro painters. Right. To make sure that we are always in the consideration set for anybody who needs to paint. And so how we do that is all the things that we talked about before in terms of delivering the brand promise. But I can say that all I want, but if the the teams are not delivering on that expectation, we’re we’re nowhere. Right? And so where Bill and I try to be aligned and in lockstep is not only what do we stand for and how do we go to market, but how are we delivering on that promise? And we have a phrase, and I’ll let him talk about this, about mastering the basics. Right. We most franchise concepts have a system and it works. And the ability to marry what we do in brand marketing and advertising to what actually happens on the ground, because that’s really where the magic happens, is essential. And we can’t do that without being aligned.

Bill Palliser: Yeah, 100%. And, you know, mastering the basics is kind of our, our, our thematic goal. Right. And and really execution, it’s foundation of operational excellence and executing the fundamentals on what makes our company or anybody’s company great. And we believe the more consistently you execute on the promise, the more raving fans of your brand you create, right? This leads to more referrals. It leads to more repeat customers, and the stronger the brand is. Uh, as a result, in my mind, you know, marketing is really the message, really merely how we kind of tell our story and go to market. Um, but, you know, operationally how you walk the walk and demonstrate and stand behind that message or story is really the lifeblood of of who you are as a, as an organization. So you can’t just have the message, um, and you can’t just have the operations. You need the two lock step, uh, again, with that clarity, entity and alignment, uh, rowing in the same direction together. That, to me, is what true operational excellence looks like.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you handle, uh, the franchisees as opposed to if this was a kind of a, um, uh, brand that was that owned all of their, uh, all of their stores because the franchisee and the market is an entrepreneur, maybe they didn’t have a background that you all have in on the brand. With the brand doing this kind of work, how do you get a person that’s a kind of a layperson or maybe an executive, or had a different career, and then get them number one to be proficient and efficient and effective when it comes to delivering on the brand promise, and also give them the operational skills to execute at the highest level. Because in the franchisor’s mind, the brand is one thing, but the franchisee in a given market, you would like them to actually think the same thing. But they might think that, hey, maybe that my market’s different, that maybe I am. I’m seeing things that the franchisor really can’t understand.

Bill Palliser: Yeah, I’ll take that one. Leah let let Dawn backfill. Um, she had talked about it earlier. Franchising is all about systems, right? And a good franchisor develops great systems based on, you know, feedback and and trials and pilots and then success. Um, and then once you’ve got those systems, it’s all about driving, uh, execution. Right. Of, of those systems believing that what you have works and having proven success behind it. But franchising is all about inspiration and persuasion. Um, right. We cannot. As you mentioned, they’re independent business owners. We cannot tell them what to do. So we have to inspire and lead them. And really, the best way that that we find to do that in franchising is through their peers, right? Uh, find peers, others that are having success following the systems, doing the things that we believe work and then, uh, telling, uh, telling their story. So, um, you know, whether that’s leveraging technology, adopting marketing tactics, it’s so important that we capture where owners and teams are having success, uh, and share it. And then the more successes we can share, the more feedback we can provide, the more collaboration we have with owners. And then each of us internally, the more effective we’ll be in driving adoption, making changes, and ultimately the more impact we’ll have. Uh, on our results. I always say it’s it’s really about the why, the what, the how. Right. Why is it, uh, valuable or important for a franchise owner to go in a specific direction. Um, what is that thing? Right. Whether it’s technology adoption, how does it work? Uh, and how do they use it? How do they use it to, uh, to drive or drive their results? And again, the more we can use peer to peer engagement and successes of other, uh, other owners and associates, the more likely we have, uh, to drive adoption and execution of those, uh, those systems.

Dawn Perry: And I would just add to that, and I agree wholeheartedly, is and I did not coin this phrase, but I’m sure you’ve heard it right. When you’re in franchising, you’re in business for yourself, but not by yourself. And that that definitely holds true at Certapro, right? I, uh, Bill has a phrase that he coined. I like to say access and insight. When you work with a franchising network, you Dawn’t have to think about the next thing that’s happening with AI or your Google search, or how do I, um, find a new vendor for lifts, you know, from a from an operation standpoint, right. You have the backing of not only the franchise or, um, where Bill and I represent, but also and I, I am completely aligned with him. All of the peer network is really where the strength is. They’re doing it every day, right? The success of a new franchisee comes from. Yes, representing well. And there is obviously, uh, compliance to the brand standards and making sure that you should all like the brand, but it’s what you do in your local market and how you can leverage things that you learn from your peers that will drive your success.

Lee Kantor: So if you were giving advice to other franchisors out there, other business owners out there, how do you what are some of tactically how you’re, um, encouraging, uh, this kind of peer to peer learning and developing this peer network. Like, what are you doing kind of inside that is capturing the stories and sharing the learning.

Dawn Perry: While star and then Billy. I’m sure you’re going to lean into it a little bit, but look, it starts from the moment they come to what we call a meet the team day or Discovery Day, right? Well, they get access to franchisees right then just to, to mingle with and understand. Um, but from that point forward, we make sure say they join, um, a franchise territory that’s in, uh, the New York area. They would be part of a New York co-op. So they immediately get introduced to all of their peers in that co-op. They meet regularly, um, with that peer group, and we facilitate those. Um, there are peer groups that we help facilitate along the way. And again, Bill can give you more about that, but we really just try to make sure that they stay connected to like size businesses. And they have the right support, which really comes from what Bill’s team, uh, represents.

Bill Palliser: Yeah. I think what I’d add to that is, uh, while this may appear to be slow, I often say, you know, go slow to go fast. Um, and I think that holds true to a lot of the innovation, uh, and things that we do at Certapro, and I’m sure others do as well, or I’d recommend others do, and that involve the franchise owners or the key stakeholders early in the process. So you’re rolling out something new with marketing. You’re rolling out something new with technology or something new with with operations. You Dawn’t want to work in a silo, right? Dawn and her team Dawn’t want to work in just the marketing team. I Dawn’t want to work just in the operations team. We a need to be working together and collaborating. But as importantly, we need to be pulling in the franchise owners and the key associates that are doing it every single day. Because we can sit, uh, you know, here at the corporate office and we can put our heads together and come up with what we consider some really great ideas and maybe ideas that, that that might go very far. But at the end of the day, back to that inspiration and persuasion. If we have their buy in from the front end and their input, we may or may not take all their input, and we certainly won’t always take the input 100%.

Bill Palliser: But we take that feedback. We consider that feedback and we we adopt that feedback into the thing that we’re rolling out or developing, uh, so much easier to get buy in when peers can say, yep, I played a role in that, I support that. It was well thought out, and it’s absolutely something that you should adopt or leverage to to grow your business. So again, we do that through a number of different ways. Dawn mentioned the peer groups where we work with like size owners to help them grow their business, but as importantly, get feedback from them about directions that that we’re taking. We have peer groups with associates and things where we’re meeting with these folks monthly to share success stories of where, like peers are having success with various initiatives, uh, and or just business results. And then part of that, again, is bringing that feedback internally so that we can continue to cascade, uh, out best practices, uh, and things that people are having success, success in. So to summarize all that, it’s really working together with all the different stakeholders as we make major moves in the organization to drive the business forward.

Lee Kantor: Now that sounds good from a corporate standpoint to have these things, but are you getting the engagement from these peer groups or people looking forward to these peer to peer interactions? Is this something that they, uh, schedule things around, or is this just another thing that corporates making me do?

Bill Palliser: Yeah, I would say in general they’re looking forward to it. Uh, again, our our peer to peer program, uh, which consists of, you know, probably roughly 75% of our, of our franchise owners, uh, has been the lifeblood of our organization and many of our sister brands, uh, organizations in the first service brands. And, um, yeah, they this is a priority for them because they understand they not only have an opportunity to work with corporate, but as importantly, most importantly, they have an opportunity to get feedback from like sized peers. And again, back to how I opened this. It’s all about, uh, driving success through through each other. Uh, and so short answer. Yeah, they’re they’re looking forward to these things. Uh, and again, the more of a value and the more success that you can drive as a result, the more that they want to participate. So we here have great relationships at Certapro. Again, I think that is because we, uh, we listen, uh, we continue to adapt and learn from our franchise owners and associates. And as a result, uh, they want to continue to engage and participate with us at a high level.

Lee Kantor: Well, it speaks highly of the corporate culture. I mean, if you’re able to choose franchisees who, um, have that same kind of mindset and values, then it’s you’re doing a great job in terms of getting them to buy in and wanting and looking forward to kind of these kind of calls and these kind of meetings because they know the value is there 100%.

Bill Palliser: And, um, I will just say Dawn mentioned it earlier and I’ll let her speak to it. She mentioned our core values. And really, when we, you know, when we evaluate a franchise owner coming in, just as they’re evaluating us, we’re evaluating them to make sure that not only do they have the financials and the business acumen to come in here and be successful, certainly we look at that and that’s important. Are they a values fit right. Do they. Do they align with our culture here. Um and the values that we feel are so important. And that’s I think that’s a big differentiator of our organization versus maybe some others where they’re looking to just sell units. We’re not just looking to sell units. We’re looking to bring the right people into the organization, into the family that really want to give back to the brand and help see this thing continue to thrive.

Dawn Perry: Yeah. I’d just add, uh, that, you know, I’ve been in franchising over 15 years, um, the last three with Certapro painters and, um, it’s true in all franchise networks. Right? Engagement within the network and with your peers, whether it’s facilitated by the corporate office or not, is what drives success. We always find that the franchisees that come to events that we host, that participate in peer groups that are offered to them, those that show up and engage on average perform better than those who Dawn’t. Right. So that that, you know, success breeds other success. And we’ve talked around it a bunch and every organization has core values, but ours are deliver what you promised. Have pride in what you do. Respect the individual which is extremely important to us. Practice continuous improvement and embrace the possibilities in that last one is really where we all try to lean in at from the franchisor all the way down to the painter, who in many cases is a subcontractor. Right? We want to make sure that we’re embracing the possibilities of what can be for all of our success, success.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share of this type of franchise success where, um, the importance of alignment really shone through?

Bill Palliser: You want to take that one on or do you want me to take that?

Dawn Perry: You start because I’m I’m trying to think of a good story.

Bill Palliser: Yeah. I mean, um, you know, I was thinking it starts with the corporate team. And, you know, when we talk about marketing and or operations alignment, which again is a topic for today, but I think this holds true with with all departments. Uh, we’ve, we’ve led from the top. And I think that’s extremely important that, uh, Dawn and I or our CIO and I, whatever the teams are, are completely lockstep in the priorities. Uh, and the directions, um, you know, uh, that that we’re trying to drive the organization forward. And if we lead with that, that alignment, then then our teams tend to lead with that. And so the success story that I’ve shared is we’ve really Dawne and I have worked really hard at really bringing the marketing team and the operations team together, uh, not only to set goals and have goal alignment, um, you know, whether they’re bonus or reward planner type goals, but also KPI goals, um, for subsequent years so that there’s 100% alignment, uh, around where we’re going and how we’re going to get there. And what we found is that, you know, that has prevented finger pointing, that’s prevented folks working in silos, and it’s increased the level of communication that we’ve been able to effectively go to market with.

Bill Palliser: The second thing we’ve Dawne is really focused on training our teams and not not training them separately, but training them together. So operations folks really understands the roles and responsibilities of the marketing team and the tactics and things that we need to adapt and embrace. And the marketing team is completely aligned around the operations goals. And and if we have to scale them up or teach them something new with the ever changing technology and the things with Google and everything’s changing very rapidly. So we can’t assume that everybody knows everything they need to know to inspire and persuade these owners. And I think that’s created a lot of success because we’ve been able to increase the skill level of our team, create alignment of our team, and ultimately that has transpired to us Impacting specific KPIs and specific results with our franchise owners, which ultimately then leads to their success, uh, in their business. So alignment at the top, down through our teams ultimately then leads to, uh, more alignment in the franchise body and more success as a result.

Dawn Perry: And, um, thanks for the time to fill in my story, Bill. So I appreciate you filling that part in there. So I will add to maybe two different facets of this. So a lot of what Bill was talking about was our corporate alignment, which has really been impactful in we talk about um, in franchising, it’s very difficult. You have to communicate. What do we say times ten. Right, Bill. So it is um, when everybody’s aligned and singing the same song in terms of what is our strategy, our goals and initiatives and how we support our franchisees and our associates. That is another touchpoint, another way to communicate our value back to the franchisee and how they can leverage that value to their success. Um, one of the things I’ll just share, we just came out of our corporate meeting a couple weeks ago. And, you know, when we have these things and we talk about our overall strategy and goals, you’ve got folks on the team that maybe, like maybe they’re doing social media for us, or maybe they’re doing, um, finance, um, or they’re the accountant. How do how can I impact delivering more customers to our franchisees and more opportunities to our franchisees? And when we have these meetings, and we really do these workshops to really help them understand that, yes, what they do drives the end goal. We’ve had phenomenal success in really fostering that alignment. And then from the franchisee side, I mentioned before about engagement, right. Like we all strive to lead, leave a legacy that we can be proud of. And so I’ll tell a quick story. We have an owner, um, a partial owner now out of Arkansas, who he was very well entrenched with advisory boards at the corporate level. He was engaged with corporate, he was engaged franchisee, and he had two sales associates that came up in his organization. And he nurtured and they became owners of the business. Right. So it is really striving to leave that legacy that they can be proud of, and that comes from alignment on where everybody’s going. We’re all paddling in the same direction.

Lee Kantor: Well, if somebody wants to learn more about Certapro, um, if they’re a customer or maybe a potential franchisee, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect with somebody on the team?

Dawn Perry: So the best. Ah, so our website is Certapro Certapro calm. That’s Serta with a C. Um, and they can certainly connect to me, I’m sure Bill as well on LinkedIn. We’d be happy to chat with anyone.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you both for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Bill Palliser: Thanks for having us today. We appreciate you allowing us to tell our story.

Dawn Perry: Yeah. Thanks, Lee. It was a pleasure.

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

 

Tagged With: CertaPro Painters

RFPs + AI: The Game-Changing Combo WBEs Can’t Ignore

September 26, 2025 by angishields

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Women in Motion
RFPs + AI: The Game-Changing Combo WBEs Can’t Ignore
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In this episode of Women in Motion, hosts Lee Kantor and Renita Manley speak with Lisa Rehurek of The RFP Success Company about leveraging AI to improve responses to Requests for Proposals (RFPs). Lisa shares practical strategies for small businesses to build authority, customize AI-generated content, and avoid generic language. She highlights the importance of showcasing credentials and thought leadership to establish trust with evaluators. The episode also previews Lisa’s upcoming workshop at the WBEC-West conference, where attendees will learn to create tailored AI tools and strengthen their RFP proposals.

Lisa-RehurekLisa Rehurek is the powerhouse CEO of The RFP Success Company and the visionary behind RFP Success Express.

With a 78% win rate and over $500M in client contracts secured, she and her team know what it takes to win state and local government contracts through the RFP process.

The RFP Success® Company specializes in connecting the dots from Capture to Proposal to Results. It’s not enough to focus on the RFP that’s on your radar today; the best companies have a well-rounded culture and mindset that permeates the entire company.

Social Media:

    • LinkedIn Personal: Lisa Rehurek | LinkedIn
    • LinkedIn RFP Success: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rfpsuccess
    • IG Personal: Lisa Rehurek (@lisa_rehurek) • Instagram photos and videos
    • IG RFP Success: RFP Success (@rfpsuccess) • Instagram photos and videos

Episode Highlights

  • The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in responding to Requests for Proposals (RFPs).
  • Challenges faced by smaller businesses in navigating RFP processes.
  • Importance of customizing AI-generated content to maintain authenticity.
  • Common mistakes in using AI for proposal writing and how to avoid them.
  • Strategies for training AI with company-specific data to enhance proposal quality.
  • The significance of solution-focused messaging in proposals.
  • The evolving landscape of proposal responses due to AI advancements.
  • Tips for improving readability and engagement in proposals.
  • The value of leveraging past proposals for future success.
  • The importance of building trust and authority in proposals for smaller businesses.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios. It’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here with Renita Manley. Another episode of Women in Motion. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today’s episode is titled RFPs + AI: The Game-Changing Combo WBEs Can’t Ignore. Our guest today is Lisa Rehurek and she is with the RFP Success Company. Welcome, Renita. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa Rehurek : Thank you.

Renita Manley: It’s nice to have you with us here today, Lisa. So Lisa’s actually going to be joining us at this year’s conference. Big West Conference out in Scottsdale, Arizona. And she has a workshop that she’s presenting all about this topic. So this podcast is kind of like an introduction to that workshop. And in the workshop you can expect Lisa to dive in with way more details. And we’re talking specifically today about your responses to RFPs and how to use AI to make sure your response stands out from the crowd. So, Lisa, can you start off by telling us what made you choose this actual topic for the conference?

Lisa Rehurek : Yeah. You know, um, AI is obviously all the rage right now, right? Everybody’s talking about it. Everybody’s trying to figure out how to use it. And when you think about RFPs and what people struggle with, particularly smaller businesses that might not have a professional team internally, RFPs are hard. They take a lot of time. And so there’s a lot of people right now searching for how to combine those two. How to use AI to respond to RFPs. And frankly, we’re seeing a lot of bad use of AI. So I love this topic because hopefully we can give some tips and tricks here to hopefully help people along and make sure that they’re using it better than they probably are right now.

Lee Kantor: Can you share some do’s and don’ts, like off the top of your head?

Lisa Rehurek : Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times what people do is they just put the question into AI and say, answer this. And then they take it and they copy and paste it. And that’s the end of that’s the end of that. Way too generic. You’ve got to customize it. You’ve got to really know how to work AI to get it to the right place. The evaluators are getting savvy. They know. They know when you’ve been using AI. So you want to customize it. That’s probably the number one red flag with the don’ts. A do is just start training your AI tool to your business. Start making sure that it understands who you are, what you stand for, what authority you have in your topic, things like that.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you say train, does that require me to do a paid version of the AI tool that I’m using?

Lisa Rehurek : Yes, you should always have a paid version. It’s going to be so much better. You’re going to be able to again, kind of get the bot is going to get used to you. It’s going to learn you. But if you have an unpaid version, it doesn’t store any of that information. So you can create a custom GPT. So for example, you could create a custom GPT that says like, here’s all of the authority that we have in the marketplace. Use this to answer any questions that I ask you around RFPs, and it’ll pull that information. But you got to have the paid version.

Lee Kantor: So it keeps kind of all your content there as a resource for the AI so it can help you, um, communicate a little bit better. It doesn’t have to relearn this every single time.

Lisa Rehurek : Exactly. But if you’re the free version, it’s going to have to relearn it, and you’re going to have to retype it in every single time. That’s no fun.

Lee Kantor: And then when you’re working with it, even if you are using the paid version, how important is it to kind of go go back and forth and not just take its first answer as the answer, but to kind of ask it maybe a different way or ask it to help using different language just so that you’re getting kind of a real next level answer rather than kind of the superficial first answer.

Lisa Rehurek : It’s so important. Lee, I’m so glad you brought that up, because and I think what people are doing right now is they’re just taking the first answer and they’re like, oh, this sounds really good. And then they’re dropping it into their proposal. But it you know, the evaluators can tell it’s not perfect. So, you know, what I like to say is if you’re going to go for the first, first round, which is great. I don’t know about you guys, but I hate looking at a blank piece of paper and having to start from scratch. So it’s really great to go into AI and say, hey, I need to answer this question. Give it a little bit of a prompt and see what it gives you, and then go back again. And maybe you say, you know what, I want to integrate a little bit more fun and spunky personality as I have. So add a little bit more of that, then I’ll do another version, and then I’ll say, you know, I’d like an analogy in here, and I don’t have one off the top of my head. What kind of an analogy can we add in here to make this a little bit more compelling? And so you just want to keep working it and keep massaging it. So it does take work still. But I’ll tell you what, it’s so much better than just that blank page where you got to come up with everything yourself.

Lee Kantor: And it’s and it’s using the tool, not like a thesaurus, but more like an executive assistant where you’re, you’re kind of wanting it to, you know, think a little bit and be better and not just give you kind of the surface. You, you want it to kind of get in there and make connections that maybe a human would have trouble with.

Lisa Rehurek : Absolutely. And, you know, again, you know, kind of back to my analogy of analogies, I am horrible at just thinking up an analogy. Like, it just my brain just doesn’t go there. And so it’ll give me and I’ll say like, give me three ideas for an analogy, and then I’ll pull one and and have it keep working it. And it’s unbelievably smart. I mean, it is pretty crazy how good it is already, but it’s not all the way there yet. Right. And so to your point, like it’s gonna it’s gonna pump out stuff better than my brain could, but it’s not quite. It’s just not quite there to be like, hey, this is great. Now I’m just going to copy and paste this. Now I gotta work it a little bit and massage it a little bit, but that shouldn’t take you that much time.

Renita Manley: So how exactly can a we be make sure she’s personalizing her? Um, her response just so she’s not sounding like, um, the next VB or the next small business owner. Pretty much. How can you use words or use AI or use a prompt to help generate responses that are very much so individualized.

Lisa Rehurek : Yeah. So, um, one of the thing well, so you know how I talked about that kind of custom GPT, you want to have something that is in your GPT that is, or whatever one you’re using that is that knows you, right? So the the way that I started was I just went in and I said, I’m going to tell you a whole bunch of stuff about me, and I want you to ask me some questions to clarify anything that you don’t understand. And then I just went in and started kind of brain dumping, like, you know, we’ve been in business for eight years. I have 30 years of RFP experience where, uh, we specialize in the sled space, which stands for State Local Education. I like to be a little bit fun and spunky. Um, we here’s what our brand stands for. So a whole bunch of that stuff. Here’s the authority that we have. Here’s some evidence I just started dropping a whole bunch of stuff in there. Then ChatGPT came back and ask me some clarifying questions and it was great. I remember asking me, do you have any quantifiable statistics that we can include here? And I’m like, oh yes, I have forgot about that. So I added that in. So what’s so great about that is all of those things make us different than anybody else that does what we do. Not just the quantifiable stuff and not just the, um, you know, here’s about our brand, but also kind of the personality of who we are.

Lisa Rehurek : And when you get all of that in there, your answers are going to just be a little bit more. They’re going to be your personality. They’re going to be your brand. And that’s going to stand out above everybody else. There are other things too. So, um, one of the biggest mistakes that we see people make in RFP responses is they are all about them. We help you this, we help you that. But the evaluators don’t really care. And it’s not going to it’s not going to make them lean in and really listen. What they what you need to do is start talking about how your solution is going to help them. It’s that whole classic what’s in it for me? Right. They want to know what’s in it for them. And so when you start crafting things that way and you can say, hey, here’s the answer that I crafted. Can you help me make this more about them, more about how our solution is going to help them flip the switch and think about the Wifm, and it’ll start to help you with that. You’re going to have to massage it, but it’s going to start helping you flip that around. So things like that will make a very, very huge difference.

Renita Manley: How how do you think um, the proposal responses looked before everyone started using ChatGPT and AI and afterwards, like like you’re an evaluator, you’re getting your responses for years, and now you’re like, okay, all right, everybody’s giving me A+ responses now. So how how are how are they how are they differing now.

Lisa Rehurek : So a couple of things, um, I would say that they were much more generic and bland before. So most people just blend it in. And what happens then is the evaluators give you like maybe the meets expectations scores, but you’re kind of average. Now one of two things is happening. We are seeing some better responses. And so you got to up your game because everybody else is upping their game. But we’re also seeing AI responses, which is not making people happy. So there’s some some certain signs em dashes. Ai loves em dashes, they love quotation marks. They love certain words like robust. Take that crap. Pardon my French out of there. Take it out. Because the evaluators know that that came from AI. Um, and it’s, you know, you got to pay attention to that kind of stuff. So in the new world, there’s kind of two things happening. We’re seeing either they’re getting really smart and savvy and everybody’s elevating up. And we’re also seeing kind of a little too much use and reliance on AI.

Renita Manley: Okay. Is that fatigue. Like how does that lead to like evaluation fatigue. Like here we go again with these AI responses. And it’s kind of making. So for using that AI response for a for proposals you want to make sure you one stay solution focused not all about yourself. Try to stay away from some of those AI tall tale signs like the Em dashes, or maybe even just spontaneous, um, bolded words. Every other sentence has a bolded word that seems to be like an AI response. Okay. Uh, what? What’s the best AI program to use for a proposal response?

Lisa Rehurek : You know, honestly, I just use ChatGPT. It’s the one that I started with. I love it because it knows me now, and it. And it’s getting to know me well. We’re actually building an AI tool specifically for proposals. And the back end of that is ChatGPT as well? So I’m a ChatGPT fan, but there are a ton of them out there. And you know, if you have time and inclination, it’s always fun to go out and test different ones for, you know, some of them are free, free trials, things like that, to just play around for with them. But there’s a lot we use ChatGPT again. And then I also have starry AI that I use for some images, and we use Jasper for some other very specific things, but ChatGPT for the main responses.

Lee Kantor: Now I’d like to get back to putting in the data to start with. You mentioned, you know, having it ask you questions and getting kind of a deep dive into, um, you know, the history of the company and all it can do and all that stuff. Is it a good idea to actually input proposals that you’ve done before, like even like, hey, I won this one or I lost this one and actually input that data into the is that useful or is that, you know, is it outdated? Is there value in doing something like that?

Lisa Rehurek : So I have a whole bunch of answers. Um, so I’m going to try to keep track of my. My mind is pinging all over the place to answer this. First of all, um, if it’s a good proposal. Now, if you’ve won the proposal, it doesn’t necessarily mean it was good. It just means that it was better than everybody else’s. So you always want to make sure you get feedback. And if you get feedback that your qualifications scored you really high, then you know that that section is probably something you want to keep and you want to you want to probably put that in and say, hey, this was a winning qualifications. Um, one of the things, again, kind of back to our platform that we’re building is we’re it will have a storage for library content for those kinds of things, um, organize that way. And ChatGPT you’re just going to have to put it in your, uh, your custom GPT to have it in there, um, to use to pull from for future things. So the answer to that is yes. Um, if you’ve lost, you probably don’t want to use that because, you know, and again, if you can get the scoring tools, you might have lost. But maybe again, your executive summary was great and it scored really high. Then you want to pull that in, but you don’t want to pull in the sections that got low scores. Now what you could do is if you’re somebody that really wants to learn is put in, hey, here’s the question and answer that we got scored really low on. Help me understand what I could have done better. And there’s more things you could maybe add to that prompt, but that would get you some learning. And then maybe a revised version of that that you could store.

Lee Kantor: Now what about, um, other proposals in other areas just so that it can learn things that win? Like, is that have any value that it may not be your specific niche, but it’s a winning proposal.

Lisa Rehurek : You know, it’s interesting. I’ve never tried that, Lee, to be honest with you. I’ve never even thought about that. It would be interesting to see how you could do that. The first thing that came to mind is, well, you know, maybe you could take the winning proposal from, from what you bid on and put it in against your proposal and say, hey, you know, give us some some things that we can improve on for the next time. But I don’t know if it would I don’t know how good it would be. I guess you could. Sorry. I’m thinking out loud as I’m thinking through this. I think you could probably put in a winning proposal and say this was a winning proposal. Extract out the top ten things that they did well. Something like that. And just see what it comes back with. For things that maybe you could then take and use in your next proposal. Kind of like a little checklist.

Lee Kantor: Now are there certain, you know, kind of scoring tips that you can share when it comes to this? Are there some things that, oh, you have to do this or don’t do this. Or are there some kind of low hanging fruit in that area?

Lisa Rehurek : Yeah, I mean for sure some of it we’ve already talked about, like if you’re too focused and not solution focused enough, um, there’s there’s some readability things. So, um, you know, there’s a, a standard kind of thought out there that you should be writing to a sixth grade reading level. Most people are writing to 11 or 12th grade and that just the evaluators gloss over it. It’s not dumbing down. It’s making it more simple for them to understand and score you on. So one of the things that I always tell people is you have to think about the fact that these are human beings on the other end of this proposal, right? They are they are scoring you and minimum maybe 2 or 3 others. And up to I mean, we had one the other day with 32 people responded to it. So these evaluators are having to go through this. The more that you can do to make it easy on them. Shorter sentences, less techy talk, right to a sixth grade reading level. Um, tell them what they need to know. And also, for the love of Pete, answer the question. I will tell you that 99% of the RFP responses that we look at somewhere in there.

Lisa Rehurek : They have answered questions that have not really answered the question. And sorry, I’m going off on a tangent here, but that’s another thing that you can use AI for is to do a checks and balances. Here’s the question. Here’s my answer. You know, do a checks and balances to make sure that we’ve answered the question appropriately. And it’ll give you some feedback. So a lot of times in the RFPs they’ll give you multiple questions in one question. And it’s really easy to miss pieces of it. Um, if they ask you for a process, give them a process. Tell them. Step one, step two, step three. Don’t just drop in a massive paragraph. These evaluators are probably tired. This isn’t their full time job. Maybe they’re planning their kid’s birthday party in their heads. I mean, if you lose their attention, that’s what they’re going to be doing. Grocery lists, kids birthday parties. What do we have to do tomorrow to get the kids to school on time? All of those things that swimming around in our heads. So you’ve got to make it compelling for them to lean in and pay attention. Otherwise you’re going to get at best average scores.

Renita Manley: So it sounds like when you say they had to make it compelling, it’s almost like they need to try to connect with that human that’s actually going to be reading their response. So that’s the tricky part when you’re trying to balance how to use AI to leverage your response. But at the same time, you got to figure out how to connect with this human being who may have to cook dinner later on, go to a kid’s soccer game, go grocery shopping, go catch the game at the bar afterwards. They they want that moment of reading the responses to be compelling, to not seem boring like the past five AI responses that I’ve just I just read. So I guess the question. Another. My final question would be is, um, what would be some savvy ways then to use AI without losing that human connection? And then I want you to follow up with, um, explaining to VBS how you plan on building off this podcast episode at your session? At our upcoming conference.

Lisa Rehurek : Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, one of the things that I think when I was an evaluator I appreciated was personality. So kind of back to what I was talking about before. Get your personality in there. And everybody’s so scared to do it. They’re so buttoned up because the RFP itself is so buttoned up. It’s like let loose and put some personality in there and maybe, you know, whatever your personality and your culture of your business is, inject it in there because that will the the they will appreciate it. Also storytelling and analogies and metaphors, those are things that they remember more. And remembering is going to help them absorb. One more thing I want to tell you is that 78%, 78% of people are skimmers of readers or skimmers, which means that if you’ve got a massive paragraph, they’re probably not going to read it. 78% of the evaluators are not going to read it. So what can you do to, like, hit on those those important points right out of the gate on the front end. That’s about them and how they’re going to be able to trust you and be excited to work with you. We’ve all seen it in marketing, right? It draws us in and we’re like, oh my God, I have to have that.

Lisa Rehurek : I have to have it now. That’s what that’s kind of the same feel that we want them to have. So, um, did that answer that question, Renita? Okay, great. Um, so then for the event, you know, we’re going to dive deeper into this and we’re going to have some activities so that you are building we’re going to have you build a custom GPT. We’re going to talk a little bit about, um, authority and evidence and building those things. One of the hardest things for smaller businesses is that and a lot of us, we are smaller businesses, not all, but um, and this stays true for everybody, but particularly smaller businesses is that you’ve got to build trust. They’ve got to believe that, that you’re not going to go out of business or that you’re not going to ghost them. There’s more trust with a bigger company. So it’s a little bit of a hurdle that those smaller companies have to to come over. So we want to make sure that you’ve got the authority, you’re showing your thought leadership, you’re showing them that you are the one. And we’re going to dive into that at the conference.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any pre-work or homework you would like them to do in order to prepare in order to get the most out of the session?

Lisa Rehurek : You know, I think it would be great if they just came with kind of understanding what, you know, making sure that they come with their list of authority. And when I say authority, it’s things like, you know, have you won awards? Have you been quoted in media? Have you? What’s your customer service scores? Things like that. Obviously we’re not going to get everybody to do that because I don’t know how many people are listening to this that are going to actually be there, but it will help you go faster if you bring some of that stuff with you.

Lee Kantor: And then what would be kind of a a reasonable expectation of what they’re going to walk away with at the end of the session?

Lisa Rehurek : I would say that they’ll walk away with a custom GPT. And whether what I don’t know right now is if we’re going to all have Wi-Fi access. Um, so they might have to to do it manually and then go put it into ChatGPT or their system afterwards. Um, and then they’ll also walk out with, you know, some good thought leadership statements that they can use, that they can plug and play into proposals as well as their evidence and authority to build that trust.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more about the RFP success Company, is there a website? Is there a best way to connect with you or somebody on your team?

Lisa Rehurek : Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can always go to our website, the RFP success Company.com. Um, I’d love for people to connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m just Lisa r e h u r e k I’m the only one. Um, and yeah, I’d love to connect with anybody, uh, that that wants to connect. And we, we do a lot of, um, we do a lot of blogs and we do a lot of free information and webinars and things like that to help teach people. So the website’s a great place to start for that.

Lee Kantor: And Renita, one more time, the coordinates of the event.

Renita Manley: Yes, it is December 16th through the 18th in Scottsdale, Arizona. So if you have not purchased your tickets to attend, make sure you do so immediately because it is going to be fantastic. I’m actually going to be there this year and I’m excited about that. So I get to meet some weebs. But yeah, um, come on out. Get ready. Um, make sure you have your pen and pad and everything together. So if you go to Lisa’s workshop, you are ready the next time it comes around for you.

Lisa Rehurek : Yeah. And I’ll also do a quick little plug. I’ve been going to this conference for years. It’s so phenomenal, you guys. I mean, obviously the content itself, but also just connecting with other women, business, enterprise, women, it’s a community that supports it’s just been such a phenomenal community and we need that in our lives. So I hope to see you there.

Renita Manley: Thank you, thank you. Yeah. In an RFP game is growing and changing rapidly. So I really do suggest you all, um, come on to the conference and come to these RFP workshops, because from what I’m seeing, it is the change is lightning fast. And evaluators are very savvy and so are corporations and companies needs. They’re very savvy. Things are changing. Local, local, local. You gotta come out and get all those other tips.

Lisa Rehurek : Yes.

Lee Kantor: Well.

Renita Manley: For me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Lisa Rehurek : Thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor for Renita Manley. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.

Tagged With: The RFP Success Company

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