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

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is Yara Banks, entrepreneur, HR strategist, and CEO of BNX Business Advisors. With more than 25 years of experience in human resources, leadership development and business operations, Yara helps small and midsize businesses build strong HR foundations, prepare for contracts, and scale with confidence. She’s also the creator of Lead Like a Black Belt. We’re going to talk a little bit more about that. It’s a leadership program inspired by her own journey as a national karate champion, where she applies discipline, focus and resilience to the business world. Yara’s work is all about helping entrepreneurs avoid costly mistakes, lead high performing teams, and seize opportunities for long term growth. Yara, welcome to the show.

Yara Banks: Thank you so much, Trisha. It’s a pleasure to be here. I am honored and I’m super excited about it. I come with a lot of energy. Listen, I I’m pumped. I’m pumped. Good.

Speaker4: I’m glad it’s coming through the screen. I can feel it because I’ve got some here, too, so I’m not stealing yours. I’m bringing some energy to you. All right.

Trisha Stetzel: All right, so, Yara, tell us a little bit more about who you are and how you found yourself in the business that you’re in.

Yara Banks: Sure. So I am Yara Banks. I’m the CEO of Bnc’s Business Advisors. Um, all the things that she said that you already said about my business. It’s true. But the easiest way to say it is we sell profit protection. We sell profit protection. So we stop organizations from leaving money on the table or watching it walk out the door by reinforcing their HR infrastructures, right. Working on their leadership and their people strategies. So that’s any size business, right? So I just want you to know that, like, we want to work with people who want change and to want to, um, to, uh, what’s the word I’m looking for? You know what? When you get older, this is what happens, right? So we want people who want to work with us. Let’s just leave it at that. So I live in Jacksonville, Florida, but my client base is from sea to shining sea all over the country. Um, we, um, are prided. We pride ourselves in having partners where we and we have about 10 to 12 different associates throughout the country. So we have partners that can go and be kind of like released into different areas of the country in order to do what we do. Um, I am a wife and I am a mom of six.

Yara Banks: Ranging from age 34 to 11 year old twins. I am a homeschool mom. Um, like you said, I do have multiple businesses. Um, so I stay. Oh, I stay busy. And for hobby, I happen to do karate. So at age 48, I walked into a karate studio. Um, thinking to myself, so this is how we we trick ourselves. Thinking to myself, I want to do some exercise. I want some me time. I’m looking for that work life harmony, but I don’t, I don’t I’m not going to tell anybody. I’m not going to tell anybody because this is my thing. It belongs to me. No one else’s business. That’s the lie I was telling myself. At the end of the day, I was lying to myself. I didn’t tell anybody because if I told someone, that meant I couldn’t quit. If I wanted to, I would have no accountability, right? So I didn’t tell anybody, but I didn’t want to quit. It was so fabulous. So at 48, I started less than a year later, at 49, I was a world bronze medalist champion of karate. And then in July of this year, right after my 50th birthday, a two time national bronze medal champion in karate, and I have learned so much from the martial arts that I started lead like a black belt.

Yara Banks: There are principles within and disciplines within martial arts that transcend over into leadership characteristics, characteristics of good leaders. And so I wanted to bring those out things like trust, focus, discipline, humility, those things that are needed to be a good leader are also principles that stand out in martial arts. Plus, aren’t we all tired of the regular leadership development training? The same in one ear, out the other? Be good to people you know. Mind your manners that that plane stuff. So. And lead like a black belt. We we have different levels of belts. There’s six belts altogether. Each belt is a standalone so they’re not necessarily built upon one another. So for instance our white belt is emotional intelligence okay. We have a yellow belt. That’s communication. Our green belts accountability. Brown is strategic planning. So you can take different belts by themselves. Or you can take the entire all the way to a black belt. A black belt will get you all of those. Right. And so what’s cool about it is it’s transformational. People really are engaged. I wear my whole karate uniform. Trisha. We break actual wood in there. Okay.

Speaker4: Yes.

Yara Banks: Those are breakthroughs that we need. We actually sometimes need to feel the breakthrough that we. So we can manifest it for real. Right? Sometimes we just think, oh, be great if we can get past this. But when you can break that board, you you get that manifestation right then and there. And the energy is just amazing behind that and people really feel empowered by doing that. Now, of course, you gotta sign your disclaimers because we’re all business people, right? So I’m just saying.

Trisha Stetzel: Be careful breaking that board. I’m just saying.

Yara Banks: And in all in all seriousness, I tell I tell them whoever volunteers to do it, I say this every time. Do you believe you can do this? Yes. Because if you do not believe you can do this, you will hurt yourself.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm.

Yara Banks: More importantly, or as importantly, if you make me believe you can’t do this, I will get hurt.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s right. And then you can’t do it like right. No time out. Someone else get in line.

Yara Banks: Right. Exactly. So you have to be very confident that if you’re going to do this, that you believe that you can do it. And even if you believe you can do it and you don’t do it the first time, guess what? Do it again. Because guess what? A lot of times don’t happen. Things don’t happen the first time we try it. So every time though, they’ve done it, the first time, every single time. I haven’t had one where someone hasn’t broken it. So that’s really that’s really encouraging. It’s empowering. And you should see just the I don’t know how to put it the energy, the the the feel. Everybody in the room explodes and cheers. And I’m like, it’s really something we want to see people do anyway. I think it’s important because like I said, it’s transformational. We give them tips. They can leave today and go back to their office and implement today. Um, and then we do follow ups with them, not just a one and done. I want to see how you’re doing 30 days from now or 90 days from now. What’s changed for you? What do your people say have changed for you? Right. That’s what’s going to be important. My, um, one of the things that I am certified in is, uh, EQ, which is emotional intelligence.

Yara Banks: And so I give assessments, uh, but not just for the individual leader, but also for teams, but also as a 360, which means your spouse if you want your family, if you want your direct reports, your peers and your bosses. What do people what does everyone think about you and how you’re doing? And that really gives you some perspective into things that you have an opportunity to improve, or areas where you’re doing really well. So all of that plays a role in like being a great leader. Like it really does. So there’s that. Um, besides leadership development, which is something that’s near and dear to my heart, um, we do all other HR stuff too, like the whole infrastructure piece. Um, we were just talking about the leadership development because I think that’s the biggest piece of it. I believe that’s the biggest piece because you could get all the infrastructure together. But if folks have no leadership, they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re not skilled. It’s all going to fall down anyways. So those leaderships help build that strong foundation that the infrastructure is built on.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, that’s absolutely true. So one, you guys, if you want to see Yara and her karate uniform, she you can go to her LinkedIn page. You just look up Yara Banks m b and you will find on her picture she’s wearing her karate uniform. She’s not wearing it today. She looks beautiful today, but she wasn’t ready to come be, uh, do lead like a black belt.

Yara Banks: I might have it behind me. I could always go.

Trisha Stetzel: I, I love this, so, um. Yara, I would love to take a little bit of a dive into the HR space, because I know you help small to medium sized businesses. And many of us who are small business owners, small to medium sized business owners may bury our head in the sand when it comes to HR because it’s scary to most of us, and you’ve been in that business for a very long time, and now you use your skills with small to medium sized business owners. So what would you say to the business owner who is terrified of HR? Just when you say it.

Yara Banks: Get help.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm.

Yara Banks: I’m going to tell you to get help. Um, it is an area that a lot of people are afraid to touch, and it has to do with their level of confidence. Right. If you’re a barber, you cut hair really well, but you don’t do the other things necessarily. Well get help. If you are sick, you go to the doctor. If you have tax problems, you get an accountant, right? So go get help. Now people say, oh, it’s unaffordable or whatever. I promise you that. A couple of hours with a consultant like me is a heck of a lot cheaper than a lawsuit. I promise. Right. So, you know, get help to at least get the fundamentals. Like, at least get your your your handbook down. Get some forms. I work with the company who came to me. They had 50 employees in 12 states. Trisha. Wow. 12 states. Every state has its own employment laws. Okay. Right. 50 employees. They all work remotely, and they’ve been working for two years. No HR infrastructure. When I tell you she didn’t even have a job application. At all. Wow. So I had to reverse engineer an entire HR department for them to be compliant. I’d rather not do it that way, but I can if I have to.

Trisha Stetzel: And it’s okay. We have to start somewhere, right? Right. And some of us are starting from ground zero, and it’s absolutely okay to be at ground Zero.

Yara Banks: To work with Trisha, to be honest with you, because you can get that foundation and from the start and people don’t realize your HR foundation is where your culture comes from. Built off your core values, your mission and vision and why you got started. All of that’s part of your culture. So if you can start that as early as possible, you really need to have policies and handbooks and all of that established before you bring on even one person. You really do. So it’s okay. I like working with the smaller companies because it’s easier to make change. If I went into Amazon talking about, hey, we need to change your culture. You know how long that would take? You see what I’m saying? So really, it’s important to get it in early. And if you have started and you haven’t started perfectly or you have challenges or there’s some compliance issues, get an audit. There’s easy compliance audits that you can get. Get an audit to see where you stand, what you need to work on. But turning your back to it, not addressing it is going to cost you money, and it’s going to cost you more time in the long run. At the end of the day, as as founders and the C-suite, the owners. Right? Our job is to be working on the business, not in the business. You hear it all the time, right? So we need to be working on revenue generating activities, not necessarily managing people. And so if you have a handbook, your handbook should manage your people. It should tell you what to do in case. So if this happens or that happens you’re not losing sleep trying to figure out what should I do.

Yara Banks: You’re being consistent. Your policies and your and your cultures being consistently applied to everyone across the board. Because all I’m doing is what does the handbook say about that? What does my policy say about that? Okay, so you’re not running the risk of treating one person different than the other. You know what compliance is supposed to be. You know how you’re supposed to flow through different processes. So yes, get help if you don’t know. I mean, uh, I hate to say this, but even if you have to go to YouTube University, I hate to say it, but even if you have to do something to show that you’re trying to get it together, meet with consultants because most of I can’t speak for anybody else. For me, my initial conversations are free. I don’t charge for those. Okay. Just to kind of give you an idea of where you are and what you need to work on, because why I want to make it accessible to all people. At the end of the day, it’s not just you as an owner and a founder. You have a fiduciary responsibility to all stakeholders, and that includes your employees. That includes the people who help build your organization. Whoever you have loans out to, like you have to be successful, right? And even your family who helps support you through this? Those are stakeholders too. So you want to do it right. And then and then with that, think about the worst boss you ever had, the worst place you ever worked. And when you think about that, the next thing you want to do is not be that.

Speaker5: Mhm.

Yara Banks: Right. So get stuff in order. Get your house in order so that you can prepare, Prepare to bring more people on because you need those more people for growth, but you want them to stay. You want them to be loyal long. They want to feel valued. You want them to help you create this, this dream that you, that you’ve made. You want it to be a reality. And you need people to do that. So you they are your biggest assets and so they should be treated as such.

Speaker5: Um.

Trisha Stetzel: It I love that you say just ask for help. And so many of us are reluctant to do that because we feel, I think the mindset around that is that we are weak because we need help. It’s actually shows strength when we reach out for help, and it also shows knowledge that we are not know it alls. We’re good at what we do in our businesses, so we need people like you, Yara, to come in and help us with the things that we aren’t so good at. And by the way, you guys know judgment. Yah’s going to come in and have a conversation with, you know, judgment and where you’re at. And she’s going to help you get where you need to go. So Yara, if people are already interested in having a conversation with you, what is the best way to connect?

Yara Banks: They can connect on all social media channels. Um, our website is Binks ba bas business advisor. So Binks com so W-w-w binks.com or our phone number is (904) 345-0070. So any way you want to reach out, I’m happy to have a conversation with you. But I need you to know, like she said, no judgment. You have to start somewhere. Every little bit helps. And guess what? You as a leader are being watched. Humility, right? To say, hey, I need help. Honesty and transparency are key drivers of leadership success, and the people around you are watching that. That’s huge. It is. So, you know, go ahead.

Trisha Stetzel: No, please keep going.

Yara Banks: I’ll say I was going to say their their professional development. It is our responsibility to continue to learn. As long as we have breath in our bodies, we need to continue to learn. Everybody, I have a coach. Okay. I have a mentor. Everybody should have a mentor. Should have a coach, should have somebody who’s helping them. Because you cannot be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, you’re in the wrong doggone room.

Trisha Stetzel: This is why I love you, Yara. I know all, all of the listeners who know me well know that I say that all the time. You can. All of the people that you allow in your room need to be bigger, better, faster, stronger, and smarter than you.

Yara Banks: Absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: Or you need to go find new friends.

Yara Banks: Exactly how can you grow and hold you accountable and hold you.

Trisha Stetzel: And hold you accountable?

Yara Banks: Yeah, I started a group of of girlfriends who were all on their own businesses. It’s called feet to the fire. I hold your feet to the fire. So we get together on a quarterly basis and. Okay. What are your goals? What’s your Q1 goal? Q2, Q3, Q4 what’s happening? How’s it going? What are your wins? What are your opportunities? So be able to hold each other accountable.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. All right you guys you you know that I will put your contact information in the show notes. So all you have to do is point and click. Yara I also know that you have some events coming up. So tell us about those.

Yara Banks: Okay. So virtually we have an event coming up on October 15th called the Pivot principle. Right. What small businesses need to know in these uncertain times. So what is pivoting? When are you ready to pivot? What does that look like? How can we pivot? Maybe we don’t have additional resources. How do we pull it from inside and pivot. Knowing your customer, knowing what the market’s doing. All of that. So that’s one. And that’s free. That’s free to attend. And then the second one is called Workplace Peace in a World on Fire. Now that one is about conflict resolution. Think about the world we live in and everything outside the four walls of our office building, everything going on and it is being dragged into the workplace. Okay, so how do we manage that? How do we how do we, um, allow for some sentiment of you being yourself, but then allow for productivity and lack of conflict within the workplace? Now that one is, um, a fee of just $59 or we have a buy two get one free special that you can get for that. But that one’s October 22nd. And I think it’s huge, especially the world we’re living in. I did one similar to that about a year ago, and that’s when we just were dealing with Israel and Palestine. It was, it was it was that much into the workplace. Now add that on to Russia, Ukraine. A lot of the political stuff going on, everything else. And it’s in the workplace. And so how do we maintain peace when the whole world around us is in fire on fire?

Trisha Stetzel: I love this, thank you for bringing these amazing opportunities out. Yara, you guys, again, Yara is going to send me these links. I’m going to put them in the show notes. And you can also connect with her through DM or conversations as these are posted out on social. I know Yara will respond to you guys so that you can get signed up for those classes. If it’s okay, I’d like to circle back to where we began. Which is your lead? Like a black belt program. I heard you talk about the two two parts of your program that I’m really interested in, which is, uh, emotional intelligence and communication. I think this plays a role in everything that we’ve talked about today. Can we talk about the importance of understanding where we are with emotional intelligence, and what do we do with the data that we gather from that?

Yara Banks: Okay. So with emotional intelligence, first of all, it starts with being introspective, looking at yourself. What are my triggers? What? What things you know are my buttons that get pushed? And how do my emotions play a role in my decisions? Then look outward and try to identify the same thing for other people around you. You get to know you build rapport. You know people around you. Let’s talk about a team. Like in a work environment, okay. You get to know those people around you, and you know that Susie tends to be a little more sensitive. So if you need to give her feedback on her work, you’re going to you’re going to maybe shoot the breeze a little bit. How was the weekend? And then kind of ease onto it, right. But then there’s Stephanie, and she’s thick as thieves and she doesn’t care. Just spit it out. What do you want? Stopping me in my day. What do you want? And you just let her know what it is. So you have to have an idea about your people. And then you. You can identify how I can deliver. Talk about communication. Deliver information that will be received the way it’s intended to be received. Like I tell people all the time, you have to like, we talk about buy in. For instance, you talk about getting buy in. If I decide in my company that I’m going in, I’m going to pivot. I’m going to go in a different direction. And some of my team members don’t agree that that’s the right way to go. It’s okay as long as you understand this is the way we’re going. You understand why we’re doing it, how we’re doing it, and how it impacts you. You don’t have to agree agreements, not part of the requirement to understand. So there are some leaders that get in trouble because they’re trying to be everyone’s friends. Oh, we’re just like a family. That’s one of the ones that I know. Red flags all over the place. Right.

Speaker5: Mhm.

Yara Banks: Because we will let our family treat us some ways that we wouldn’t let strangers treat us. So if you say just like a family I guarantee you we’ve got problems I guarantee. Right. So, so with that being said, we’re too, you know, we know too much. I want you to have a rapport. But your employees are not your friends. They should not be your friends. There’s there’s a boundary that goes there. So when it’s when, like, I worked at a, at a client one time, they had a lady who’d been there for 22 years, but she only came to work on Fridays for three hours because that’s all she wanted to work. And they didn’t want to go ahead and cut, cut her and let somebody else work full time in that slot, because she only has two more years till retirement. We’re just going to let her ride it out, okay? You know, she’s she’s a widow now. She’s just like family. We’re just going to let her work three hours a week, pay her full time until her retirement.

Speaker5: Oof! Okay.

Yara Banks: That kind of stuff. Right? So we can’t do that. Oh, well, Susie doesn’t come to work on time. She’s late like an hour, almost three times a week. But she’s got kids. So many people have kids who come to work on time. Like, we have to be able to have those tough conversations, and it takes us and we’re not having them because of our lack of confidence.

Speaker5: Mhm.

Yara Banks: That’s why that’s why we avoid conflict is because of our own insecurities. And by the way telling someone about themselves. No I don’t want to say it like that because I’m just kidding. But giving someone feedback right. Constructive feedback. Yeah. It’s not a conflict.

Speaker5: Mhm.

Yara Banks: Conflict. The word conflict is has a negative connotation around it. Right. But to tell you as your leader that I need something different from you is helping you grow. That’s not conflict. So people say, oh, that’s conflict. I’m trying to avoid conflict. That’s not conflict. That’s your job. That’s your responsibility to help me lead and grow. So, Introspectively, what is it about me that’s blocking me? Where’s the barrier that’s stopping me from having these true, sincere, authentic conversations with my people? They’re going to help me grow, help my organization grow. What is what’s within me that’s stopping me? Is it fear of rejection? Oh, they’re not going to like me anymore. They’re going to think I’m picking on them. Is it fear of of of them? Of their response? They might get angry at me. You know what? What is it? Do you not have the skills to have communication in a conversation that might be sensitive? Then you need some training and it’s okay. You need training. It’s okay. The ability to make the the decisions that. Yes, Susie, who works on Friday three days a week, she’s gotta go. We appreciate her 22 years. But in order for this, for this organization to move forward, we need that full time salary to put somebody in there to get that production. It’s not personal. It’s business.

Speaker5: That’s right. All people.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. And all of those things damage the culture as you were talking about earlier. Right. Um, because the people. Yeah. That’s right. People on the outside looking in are going, well, they’re getting special treatment or you’re doing something different with that person. Well, why can’t I have some of that? And, um, I. Yeah. Okay. So are you going to have to come back? We have to have a whole nother conversation about hard conversations. Yes. I think this is a big deal. Uh, and I know we’re already out of time, but I’ve got one last question for you. You are a superwoman.

Speaker5: You have kids, you’re homeschooling.

Trisha Stetzel: You run a business. You have you have this beautiful multiple programs. But this beautiful program lead like a black belt. You’re doing events. You also are a champion in this fun thing that you decided to do just a couple of years ago. Karate. How do you do it all? How do you balance everything? And what advice would you give to the women out there who are listening, saying, I could never do all of the things that Yara is doing?

Yara Banks: First of all, never compare yourself to someone else, okay? That’s number one. Number two, it is not a balance. It’s in harmony. It’s a harmony. Okay? So some days I’m in my office till 9 p.m. and I get to spend the time with the kids and my husband the way I want to. Or I miss out on the movie night because I’m in here working. It’s. It’s in harmony. You have to have the support of your family so they understand the main goal. Your why of what you’re doing has to be so big. My, why is if my six kids can watch me build something out of nothing, then they know they can too. And that’s big enough to keep me going, right? I do my karate as a way to do my. For me, that’s my self-care. Um, I try to incorporate the family members into the different things that I do like, if especially we do also a lot of community service at banks. So like hurricane comes, we will load up a U-Haul truck and take it to wherever it needs to be. And we do back to school drives and all that. I incorporate the kids and my family into those things so that they are still spending time with me. Um, but don’t let it be a barrier that because you’re a mom, you still can’t go be great. You can still go be great. Um, as a mom, even as a single mom, you could still go be great. Um, and so I want to encourage people to not let that be a barrier. And if you have that barrier and get a piece of wood and smash it, I was looking for a piece of wood and smash that barrier, because it is not something that’s going to hold you back unless you let it. Your only limit is your mind. Your limit is your mind.

Trisha Stetzel: And who’s in your room?

Speaker5: Yes. Yeah.

Trisha Stetzel: Because you need that support. Oh my gosh. Yeah. This has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining me. I can’t wait to have you back. And I want to talk about having hard conversations.

Speaker5: When you come back. Absolutely.

Yara Banks: Absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: Tell everyone how they can reach out to you in the best ways to connect.

Yara Banks: Sure. All outlets on social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, um, Instagram. I think we have a TikTok now. I’m excited about that. We do have YouTube, so there’s videos where you can see me breaking stuff if you like. Um. Um. Phone number is (904) 345-0070. And, um, our website is ww.com. And for those of you who like to read, I do have a book, my second book out called The Executive Blind Spot How misalignment with HR can, um, impact your Bottom line. So all of that’s available, um, for you guys as resources and tools. And I look forward to speaking with you again, Trisha. I look forward to speaking with members of your audience. I really am truly humbled to be a part of the show today.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. It’s been my pleasure. Can they find your book on your website, or do they need.

Speaker5: To go to another.

Trisha Stetzel: Outlet?

Speaker5: Okay, fantastic.

Trisha Stetzel: So you guys go right over to Yara’s website to find all of the resources that she’s talked about today. And of course, I will include the event resources as well in the show notes. And you can go to Bnc’s NBA.com. Or you can find Yara on social y a b a n k s m b a. That’s specifically on LinkedIn. Yara, thank you again for your time today.

Yara Banks: Thank you Trisha I appreciate it.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that I had with Yara, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. And be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours. Your business, your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.