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Tina Baxter with Baxter Professional Services

November 17, 2022 by angishields

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High Velocity Radio
Tina Baxter with Baxter Professional Services
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Tina-Baxter-headshotTina M. Baxter is an advanced practice registered nurse and a board certified gerontological nurse practitioner through the American Nurse Credentialing Center (ANCC), who resides in Anderson, Indiana.

Mrs. Baxter has been a registered nurse for over twenty years and a nurse practitioner for 14 years. She is the owner of Baxter Professional Services, LLC, a consulting firm which provides legal nurse consulting services for attorneys and insurance professionals; wellness and chronic disease management coaching; and customized educational and operational resources to healthcare organizations. She provides a weekly Facebook live program on business and health topics.

Mrs. Baxter teaches stress management strategies to clients of all ages and offers virtual as well as online classes. She is listed as best lessons for 2019 and 2020 from Lessons.com. She is the founder of The Nurse Shark Academy where she coaches nurses to launch and scale their businesses. She is a certified small business and benefits solutions advisor with LegalShield Business Solutions.

She is a public speaker and have spoken on numerous topics on national level. She is contributor to articles on electronic and print media such as Entrepreneur.com, The Minority Nurse, LinkedIN, as well a guest on numerous podcasts. She is currently working at Adult and Child Health in Indianapolis, focusing on the mental health needs of adults and geriatric patients.

She is a previous owner of HIS Solutions Healthcare, LLC which provided a community Certified Nursing Assistant course, Home Health Aide training course, and a Qualified Medication Aide training for which she served as the program director and chief operating officer. She was employed at American Health Network in Muncie, Indiana as a nurse practitioner where she served six different skilled care and assisted living facilities. The-Nurse-Shark-logo

Mrs. Baxter serves on several boards and community organizations such as the Meals on Wheels of Hancock County, the Anderson Black and Minority Chamber of Commerce, the Black Nurses Association of Anderson, and the Concerned Ministers of Anderson. She is also a member of the American Nurses’ Association, the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association (geropsych sig member), the Coalition of Advanced Practice Nurses of Indiana, the National Nurses in Business Association, and the American Association of Legal Nurse Consultants.

She is a mentor with the Pass the Torch Foundation and completed the inaugural class of Advancing Indy Women with IUPUI and the Kelley School of Business in conjunction with Linking Indy Women. Mrs. Baxter is an evangelist and pastor at Church Upon the Rock Missionary Baptist Church in Anderson, IN where she serves as Director of Outreach, church nurse, choir member and on the pastoral staff. Mrs. Baxter has a Master of Nursing in Nursing Education and a post-master’s as a Gerontological Nurse Practitioner from the University of Indianapolis (Indianapolis Indiana).

She has a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Taylor University (Upland, IN) and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Anderson University (Anderson, IN). Mrs. Baxter has taught on both the undergraduate and graduate level in nursing and she continues to mentor nursing and nurse practitioner students during their clinical rotations.

Mrs. Baxter has presented for PESI, a continuing education company, in the areas of “Challenging patient behaviors”, “Fall Prevention Challenges”, and “Unintentional Weight Loss in the Elderly”. She has presented other topics in the past at conferences and symposiums, “Older Adult Addictions and Intervention Strategies” (poster presentation), “The Role of the NP/PA when the patient is receiving Opioid Medications” (CME presentation), and “Women and Alcohol: Their Experience with Addiction Across the Lifespan” (original research).

Connect with Tina on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • What are some of the best side gigs for nurses?
  • Nurses opening their own businesses due to burnout from the pandemic
  • The top three business questions you get as a business coach for nurses

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you. Please join me in welcoming to the podcast with Baxter Professional Services, The lady herself, Tina Baxter. How are you?

Tina Baxter: I’m doing well, thank you for having me.

Stone Payton: Well, it is my pleasure. I have really been looking forward to this conversation. Let’s start, if we could, with Mission Purpose. What are you what are you out there trying to do for folks? Tina.

Tina Baxter: My whole mission is to have people to be better off for having met me. And that’s just the core of it. We we want to provide you with excellent service and everything that we do, but we want to make your life better so that you can get what you need and what you want.

Stone Payton: And you’re working with nurses who are looking for a side gig or a new job since leaving the the bedside. Tell us a little bit more about that work and and and that group that you have decided to serve.

Tina Baxter: Yes. So I work with nurses who are interested in starting their own business, whether it’s starting a home care agency. Maybe you want to start a C, seeing a training school, Perhaps you want to do what I do as a legal nurse consultant, or maybe you just want to have a taco stand, right? So I start you at the very beginning. There are a lot of great coaches that help you once you’re already in business, but what about the people that are just starting up? And that’s who I like to serve are the nurses that are just starting out and just need a little bit of guidance.

Stone Payton: So what are some of the the questions that that these folks have when they first get in conversation in relationship with you? What are some of the gaps that you’re trying to help them close?

Tina Baxter: One of the things is they ask me questions like, should I get an LLC and how do I get an LLC? What’s the difference between having a partnership or an S corp? They’ll may ask me, Well, what about a business plan? Do I really need to have one? And my answer is yes, because if you don’t have a plan for your business, then it’s going to be so easy for you to get pulled off in different directions and you need to have that focus. And so we look at the business plan from a practical standpoint as a roadmap for your business, and that’s how we use it.

Stone Payton: So I got to know, Tina, the back story, how did you find yourself doing this kind of work?

Tina Baxter: I like to call myself an accidental on purpose entrepreneur. I didn’t start out wanting to own a business. I started out as a side hustler, too. So as a nursing student, I taught CPR classes on the side just to make extra cash. I never would have thought of turning that into a business. And so in the middle of a time when I was in between jobs and I was looking for my next job as a nurse practitioner, I had a friend, a group of friends who were wanting to open up a business, and I said, Well, I really just wanted to leave some space that was quiet, that maybe I could work on a book or something. And she’s like, No, no, I need you to come help me start this business. And that’s how I got started and business, and it kind of stuck. You know, I really love the idea of building something from scratch. And each time I’ve had a chance to offer a new service line or to grow the business, it just gives me a charge. And I realized I had a more entrepreneurial mindset than I thought I did. And that’s what led me to to start my next business. Baxter Professional Services. And from there, because nurses were coming to me and DMing me and sending me emails, Hey, how do I do this? Or get calling me? How do I do that? That’s how the Shark Academy got launched. I was in a online challenge where, you know, you get some content and you participate in these challenges online. And the person that was running the challenge challenged us to start a challenge within three weeks of the course that we took. So I took him up on his challenge and launched the Nurse Shark Academy. Within three weeks, I had my first challenge.

Stone Payton: Oh, my gracious. All right, so the Nurse Shark Academy say a little bit more about that, the structure, the purpose and things that are that are happening within that.

Tina Baxter: So there’s a couple of ways you can work with me. You can work with me one on one. I have some clients that really want that one on one time and they’re willing to put in the resources to do that. Or you can take the coaching program, the formal coaching program, which is six sessions to get you started and launching your business. And that’s a group work and we get together and we kind of mastermind this and work with you. And then there are those that are just wanting help in one particular thing. So they may take one course like the legal nurse consulting basic course. And so that’s how it’s kind of structured. And with the Nurse Shark Academy, some of the other things that I’m doing is really trying to foster community so that we can support one another in business.

Stone Payton: So what are you finding the most rewarding at this point? What are you enjoying the most about the work?

Tina Baxter: I like seeing other people win, and that came from my educator background as a nurse educator. When we had our first CNA training school. I like seeing the students finally get it and go on. And so we’ve had students that went through our senior program or our AMA program, our medication aid program, and they’ve gone on to become physician assistants, nursing home administrators, registered nurses, Lpns one is even in medical school. And so for me that that gives me joy to see someone, you know, get that first step into health care and then find their path. I had one student in one of our programs and she hadn’t graduated from high school, so she never had a chance to walk across the stage and receive any certificate, diploma or anything. But in our program we have a formal ceremony at that time and you would walk across the stage and get your completion certificate. And for her to have all her family there to cheer her on. It just it just, you know, fill my heart up with love.

Stone Payton: So the the principles, the lessons, the disciplines that you’re teaching, did some of these come from a little bit of scar tissue, like maybe where you fell and skinned your knee a little bit on this journey?

Tina Baxter: I would say definitely, yes. As a as a nurse, you know, we aren’t taught anything about business, really. Our business is taking care of patients. And so some of the things that happened in our first business were great lessons for me. One of the things I had to learn how to do was self promotion. As nurses. That’s not something that we normally do. But I recognize that if I don’t talk about the business and let you know how we can help you, that I’m doing you a disservice. So I come from a background of wanting to serve, and so I had to reframe that in my mind. The second thing I realized is that marketing is important and you have to do it. You know the old adage, you know, if you build it, they will come. Yeah, that only works in the movies. So you need to put the effort in there. And so I’ve learned these things going on and I’ve been in business for, gosh, like 15 years. And having seen the ups and downs of business and how to weather some of those things has been really helpful for me.

Stone Payton: So let’s talk about promoting the whole sales and marketing thing. How does that work for for I was going to say a business, but you’ve got businesses. How does that work for a person like you that has so many irons in the fire, so many things going? How do you get the new business?

Tina Baxter: One my my best is referrals. Honestly, it’s just talking to people and you’ll be surprised at how many people are out there that really want to help you and give you business. And so I’ll attend networking groups and I’ll go out and meet people. And it’s kind of funny. Locally, people are like, You’re everywhere. I have people that watch me online on my social media and they’re like, I saw your post and I’m like, Wait, which post was that? So it’s opening up yourself to have a larger influence. So now I have people that I talk to from all over the world. And for me, that’s, that’s great. And, and then the other thing is just I like to say, you know, doing the road work is how I put it in the program where you’re going out to the community events and you’re being present at things that are happening, you’re showing up and that is really critical with your marketing. No matter if it’s online or in person, you have to show up and that puts you ahead of the game. For so many people who don’t want to take that time to do that.

Stone Payton: So have you. It sounds like the answer to this is yes, but I’m going to ask anyway, and maybe you can expand on a little bit. I wanted to ask, have you had the benefit of one or more mentors that have helped you sort of navigate this this business arena?

Tina Baxter: Yes, definitely. I would have to say one of my very first mentors was a business coach that I hired. His name is Jerry Foster, and I hired him to help me with branding for the Baxter Professional Services business with the Legal Nurse Consulting, because I felt like I wasn’t getting my message out and message across and I really needed to focus on on that part of the business. And so it was wonderful working with him. He’s been such a great help to me. In fact, because of that, I’ve been you know, he’s referred business to me. I’ve referred business to him. I’ve been able to be a part of his mastermind. And then I’ve had another wonderful coach for the legal nurse consulting side, and that’s Lori Brown, who happens to be a nurse and an attorney. And I have to say, having worked with her, my business has grown tremendously. So here is my philosophy. If you have a business coach and they are coachable and they are willing to work and have their own coach, then you have the role coach. And so I think all of us can go higher and do more, and we need that circle of support.

Tina Baxter: Another big mentor for me, starting out as a brand new nurse or two nurses that I still love and work with, and they are retired now, but they at the hospital provided opportunities for me. They brought me alongside them. One was a nurse supervisor at the hospital and she made sure that she put me in a position to where I could learn as a nurse tac how to do certain procedures and things like that. So she made sure she did that. I had another one that showed me how to be a leader and leadership in church nursing. And so she helped me to be instrumental in the churches and really gave me my first leadership position as a nurse, as being the coordinator for these nurse health stations, where we would go into the churches and take blood pressures and educate the members on their health conditions and things like that and train volunteers to work in the church. So I love those ladies. They were great mentors to me. So I’ve had some wonderful people that poured into me and that that makes me want to pour into others.

Stone Payton: You have so many irons in the fire, as my daddy would say, You must be incredibly organized and or be really good at delegation. How do you keep it all together?

Tina Baxter: Well, I’m going to say this Nurses know the art of delegation because that’s what we do. You have to do the appropriate delegation. So I hired an assistant to help me. When I realized I’m drowning, I said, I need an assistant to help me get things organized and make phone calls when I can’t and do the things that need to be done. But I just don’t have the time to do. And then the other thing is I’m very good at blocking my time. So when I’m working in the clinic, I’m doing the clinic stuff. If I’m working on my business, I’m doing the business stuff. And this is a shift that I made as of last week and doing that because I was putting things in there like block for times that I didn’t want appointment schedule and all this kind of stuff, but it felt so negative to put BLOCK there. So I changed it. And I call that now my glorious purpose time. And every time I see that, it gives me a smile and a lift. Now my glorious purpose time might be time for me to read some personal development book, or maybe I’m working on a project and I need to really focus on that project. Or maybe I’m just going to watch a movie with my husband. But I call it my glorious purpose time because that’s my time that I blocked out. For me.

Stone Payton: One of the reasons that I love doing this show and there are a lot is I learned so much right now as we speak. I will confess to you on my Google calendar between two and five today, as a matter of fact is in my color is blue. That’s the color I see. And it is labeled black. I am going to change. I’m going to change that. I’m going to I’m going to come up with my own inspirational title for that. Guys, if anybody’s out there listening and you want to learn a lot and build some real relationships and get to know smart folks like Tina, get yourself a radio show or something. A video show, I don’t I don’t know. But this is fantastic. Another thing that I that kind of leapt off the page for me when I was reading my notes and preparing for this conversation. You are a professional speaker, yet one more thing you’re out there doing. I’m curious, what is that like? What have you learned from it? How do you leverage that to to to serve even even more?

Tina Baxter: Well, I, I have had the gift of gab, as I would say since I was little. My report cards would say Tina is an excellent student, but she talks too much. And so the art of communication is so important. And I look at my public speaking as as a way to bring you on a journey with me. I recently had a session with a group of women business owners, and this is still when we were doing everything online, you know, during COVID and we weren’t allowed to meet in person. And I just thought, you know, I’m tired of the same boring leadership stuff that, you know, everybody’s talking about, Oh, you need to do your self care and you need to, you know, your personality. And I thought instead of doing the same leadership talk that everyone’s done, I’m going to write a short story. And that’s what I did. So I tell stories. I’m a very good storyteller. I can tell a lot of stories. My students would say to me, I think you’re making that up. No, that really happened in nursing. Yes, I did have a patient. Run around naked with a. A hospital glove on his head. A latex glove right around the table on the psychiatric unit. Like a chicken? Yep. That happened. And I’m like, It’s real. But so I tell stories, and so I wrote a short story to emphasize the leadership point.

Tina Baxter: And what was interesting as that, as I told the story, people were able to find themselves in the story. So I speak on leadership topics, health topics and faculty for a continuing education company. And so they would fly me around the country to speak on different health topics and things like that. So yeah, I’m I’ve always had that art of wanting to tell stories. And to be honest, I started out in radio in high school, so I’m I’ll tell you a little bit about that. Yeah, I was a disc jockey in high school, in college. Whoa. I had my own radio shows. I took broadcasting in high school because as typical what happens with me, I ran out of classes to take that would fit into that time. I could have graduated in January, but I didn’t want to leave school because I was involved in all these activities. So I just had to find classes to fill my schedule and I took broadcasting. Now my mom worked for the radio and television station and public relations, so she was really against it because she didn’t want me to go into radio or music. That was a whole other thing. But I convinced her. I said, Well, this fits into my schedule and it looks like fun.

Tina Baxter: And it was. And I learned so much. This is back in the day, you know, pre-Internet and all that, where you had to do the whole big reels and the tapes. Oh, wow. And I had my broadcasting license. I’m dating myself here. And so I did that and I had a jazz show when I was in high school because it was a jazz station, jazz and blues, and then on in college I had a gospel show because it was a Christian university. And so I got to put on the gospel show for them, and I did that. And so I was up and down the highway, coming straight from church right up to the studio because I had to get on the air. But those skills that I learned helped me to be a better speaker and also helped me to do a weekly Facebook show, Facebook news show. And I told my mom I came full circle. There was a reason why I had to take that class like I had to take typing in high school. And that was I was I was very smart in that because now I spend all my day on the on the computer. And, you know, I spend my time talking to people in and doing things like that. So I think it worked out great.

Stone Payton: Well, it certainly sounds like it. So let’s circle back to this Facebook Live program that you do. What are you talk about? Who is tapping in into that content?

Tina Baxter: I talk about everything and all things nursing, business and news. So I’ve covered it started out me just telling people about what was happening during the pandemic and where to get their medical supplies. It was really the focus, you know, for nurses to kind of say, Hey, I found out we’ve got medical supplies at this warehouse, you can go get some or, you know, these people have hand sanitizer. This is where you can get your COVID testing done. And that’s how it started. And then things started happening so fast in health care that I started covering the the strikes that they were having the nurses going on strike. And then it added into finding nurses that were doing phenomenal things that I wanted to highlight them. So I have a segment called Nurses Making a Difference, and then I wanted to include something about leadership. So I sent it to it’s on my Facebook page on my back professional services page, Am I a nurse Strike Academy page? But now we’re also uploading all those, not all of them, but for the last six months, I’m starting to add up the ones on YouTube’s new YouTube page.

Tina Baxter: So our targeted anybody in health care because we cover what’s happening and it started the more the news story started coming more when I saw a article about a nurse that committed suicide and they died by suicide and I thought, we have got to do something and we’re in the middle of this pandemic. My background is mental health, and I thought, I’m going to do something to help these nurses. And so I had my very first spiritual renewal for Nurses Day, and I did an online session for nurses or anybody that wanted to come because I didn’t want anyone else to have to take their own life. And I wanted some way for me to give back. And I thought, I’ve got this platform, let’s do it. And I launched that first first event through the Nurses Academy because I wanted nurses to really be able to connect and to get back to taking care of ourselves. We’re very bad about taking care of ourselves and the burnout is real.

Stone Payton: Yeah. You’ve done so much more than just build a successful business. You’ve you’ve grown this community, You’ve built this tribe as as Seth Godin would say, I think speak a little bit, if you would, to the to the idea of building a community and the care and feeding of a community. Maybe some of what you’ve learned in that.

Tina Baxter: You know, I look for opportunities and see where the needs are and gravitate towards there. And that’s kind of how the community has grown. I had so many people that say, Oh, I saw your your show and you do your daily affirmations, and I needed that affirmation for today, you know, So it’s kind of organic. Once you reach out and someone else says, Hey, you need to listen to this. And, you know, it’s it’s really great to have that find your people. You know, I discover my my people are definitely nurses and that’s my heart. But I’ve also talked to social workers. I talk to physicians. I talked to a veterinarian and found out that veterinarians are also having a high rates of suicide. And I never would have thought of that as a as a group because I’m like, you get to play with puppies all day. But there there’s a lot of underlying things that happen in the industry that if you’re not a part of the industry, you don’t know. And so it was very enlightening for me to talk to this veterinarian who was going through similar struggles, like nurses are like doctors are with burnout because you have to have so many clients to take care of in order to meet your quota. If you work for a big company that owns it. And it’s it’s the same thing that’s happening in medicine. You have to have so many patient visits in order to meet some metric. And, you know, it doesn’t matter if the care is where it should be as long as you meet the metric, right. And you have to put all the all the little push, all the little buttons and make sure you click all the little boxes and all that stuff or you don’t get paid. And so I think people don’t understand that’s what’s happening in medicine and the find that’s happening in other industries. And so I said, you know what? If you all want something for veterinarians, I’d be happy to do a spiritual renewal for you too, because I think we all need that. We all need that.

Stone Payton: So it’s very difficult for me to envision you running out of gas, getting a little low in the tank and needing it. And, you know, I’ve been around, this isn’t my first rodeo. Certainly at some point you do need to sort of recharge. Where do you go? And I don’t necessarily mean a physical place, but how do you recharge, get refreshed and ready to go out and serve again?

Tina Baxter: Well, I, I put myself on the schedule. So during during the month, during the week, I always put a little special time just for me. And I do things like getting my nails done. You know, I’ll. Or I’ll get my hair done. Or I’ll get a massage. I like to book my massages every month. That’s just one of those things. It’s like when I’m going there, don’t call me. I’m not answering the phone because I’m in that zone. But the other thing that I do is periodically, as I schedule what I call my thinking day. And I don’t put anything on the calendar. And I just take that time to think. I may read a book, I may watch a program that’s inspirational to me, but sometimes I just sit there and I think and it gives my brain a chance to rest. And then I get inspiration when I get that time because my mind is open to possibilities. And that’s where things will pop in my head in the middle of the night or I’m in the shower and I have a great idea and I’m like, I need to write that down, put that on, put on the calendar. And so that’s that’s kind of how things come. And I always make sure that I schedule time for family. I talk about those time blocks. I put them in there and that’s the time I’m going to do something with my husband.

Tina Baxter: So I’m really working on having a healthy boundaries so that I don’t get to that place of being completely burnt out because I’ve been there before and I know what that’s like and don’t ever want to go there again to where I really take a check in with myself. I was working in a job years ago and I realized I didn’t realize how burnt out I was in this job until I took a two week vacation. It took me a whole week to calm down and relax. So the second week I had, it was wonderful. I sat in the backyard, I read books, you know, I got out in the sun and then I came back to work within 30 minutes of being in the building. I started having chest pains again. And then I realize one year people are trying to kill me. And two, I needed to make a change because this job was too much. I was a supervisor. I was covering three departments in the building, plus covering the E.R. and the hospital. If they had a console and doing all this extra stuff. While I was going to grad school, and I realized that this is an unhealthy environment for me at that time. And some of the things that were happening just weren’t positive. And I decided to make a change. It was like, okay, I’m either going to stay here and die because I’m going to die from all this stress or I’m going to make a change.

Tina Baxter: And I chose to take a job that was part time at the time, less money, but also less stress. And it was a job that I could grow into, which ultimately helped me as I became a brand new nurse practitioner. So it worked out. But you have to be brave and sometimes make those changes and have those boundaries, and that’s something I didn’t do very well when I was younger. I’m the girl that worked two full time jobs and worked 21 days. No, let me go back. No, it was actually 42 days. 42 days straight without a day off. Wow. And I worked. I would get typically 4 hours of sleep at night. And I was young. So, you know, when you’re young and broke, that’s what you do. But I remember I was so exhausted, I crawled up. My apartment’s on the second floor. I crawled up the stairs, got into my apartment, shut the door, then slid down on the floor and passed out. And woke up 2 hours later, crawled over to the sofa and called in for my nightshift job and then proceeded to call in for my day shift job the next day. And I remember feeling so exhausted that I’m surprised I didn’t end up in the hospital. And I thought, I never want to get to that place again. Never want to get to that place again.

Stone Payton: Before we wrap up, let’s leave our entrepreneurial minded nurses with a couple of pro tips, something they ought to be thinking about, reading, doing, not doing.

Tina Baxter: I’m going to say this. Start with what you love. So many times we look at a business and think, Oh, I can do that because someone else did it and they were successful and they made money. But if it’s not something that you love, you’re not really going to be as successful as you could be. And you may actually end up failing because you’re not going to put the effort in it that you want it to. Great example. Someone introduced me to a lice removal business, head lice. And that business is a great model. I researched it was a franchise. I thought about it. I was positioned in a great place because there’s only two other franchises in the state will be perfect or in the middle of the state would have been great. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I would be absolutely miserable. I don’t like head lice. It makes me itch just thinking about it. I could not see myself doing this day in and day out. And ultimately, I decided not to do that business. Now, is that a great business for somebody else? Yes. I can point you in the right direction with the people that get you started on that, because it was one of the nurses that did. It was a school nurse and she deals with this every day. And it worked out great for her. And she was doing great things with this business. And I thought, oh, great business, Not for me. So find out what you love, you know, and start there. Don’t just look at the numbers of how much you can make. Find out what your passion is. My passion is teaching and educating and and really helping people get to where they want to be. So that’s my passion. And then second. Don’t be afraid to just take the leap. Right. You can do the research. You can do the background. But eventually it’s a leap of faith. You’re going to have to take that leap.

Stone Payton: All right. What is the best way to connect with you? Tap into your work. There’s so much to to take full advantage of. Let’s leave our listeners with some coordinates.

Tina Baxter: You can always reach me on our website. Baxter Professional services dot com. You can give us a call 76538780467653878046. Or you can find me on social media. I’m on LinkedIn and I’m on Facebook Instagram. Now tick tock, that’s new. So you can always find us on our social media.

Stone Payton: Well, Tina, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast today. Thank you so much for sharing your insight, your perspective, your experience. You’re a breath of fresh air and you’re doing really important work and we sure appreciate you.

Tina Baxter: Thank you.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Tina Baxter with Baxter Professional Services and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Baxter Professional Services

WBENC 2022: Catherine Veal with Paradigm

November 16, 2022 by angishields

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Catherine-Veal-GWBC-WBENC-National-ConferenceCatherine Veal, Paradigm

TRANSCRIPT

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

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from the 2022 WBENC National Conference inside the Georgia World Congress, and are inside GWBC’s booth, Booth 1812. So, come on by and check us out. I’m so excited to be interviewing Catherine Veal with Paradigm. Welcome, Catherine.

Catherine Veal: [00:00:35] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:36] So, tell us about Paradigm. How are you serving folks?

Catherine Veal: [00:00:39] We are a clinical toxicology lab down in South Georgia, on the coast in Saint Simons Island. And we do testing for physicians, for providers, for their patients to make sure that they are being compliant with their medication plans that the providers have put them on, they’re taking their medications, they aren’t taking anything that the physicians aren’t aware of, or anything that’s too fun.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:09] Some extra help.

Catherine Veal: [00:01:10] Yeah. So, that’s what we do. So, we’ve got a national client base. We service providers out as far as Arizona, as north as Maryland, and then south as Florida, and everywhere in between.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:24] So, how’d you get into this line of work?

Catherine Veal: [00:01:27] I was in the pain management world with a provider and ran a couple of his practices and a couple of surgery centers. And we were using these services that we provide from a few of our competitors now. And there are just some holes in their offerings.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:46] You saw some ways it could be improved.

Catherine Veal: [00:01:48] Yeah. So, we ended up using about three or four of them, and took the pros of all of those, and added some of our own, and opened the first lab back in 2009. And then, I opened Paradigm in 2014.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:05] And then, it’s been an overnight success.

Catherine Veal: [00:02:08] It’s been great. It’s been hard work.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:10] Seven years.

Catherine Veal: [00:02:10] Yeah. It’s been hard work, but it’s been great. We have about 140 employees and over 90 percent of them are women. So, it’s kind of cool.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:20] Wow. Is that by design or by accident?

Catherine Veal: [00:02:23] You know, it wasn’t intentional at all.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:26] You just looked one day and you’re like, “There’s a lot of women here.”

Catherine Veal: [00:02:28] Yeah. Yeah. Well, we’re like, wow. But, yeah, it just happened that way. But we’ve just got a lot of diversity within our employee group, our team members. So, it really benefits us because we’re able to connect with the providers and the patient bases that they have because they are all so diverse being in treatment, substance abuse management, and behavioral medicine. And the areas that we’re in, it’s kind of nice to have our team be so diverse because we can relate really well.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:04] Now, did you get certified right away or was this something that you said, “You know, we’ve been doing this and why don’t I get certified?” Like, how did that come about?

Catherine Veal: [00:03:11] Just recently, so we’re newbies. We’re three weeks now.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:18] So, certification newbie to be –

Catherine Veal: [00:03:18] Yeah. We just started hearing more and more about supplier diversity and what some of the other vendors are trying to do with their spins in that regard. And we didn’t really understand a lot about it. But we’re like, “Wait. We may drop into that bucket.”

Lee Kantor: [00:03:35] “Why are they doing this? Why are they doing this?”

Catherine Veal: [00:03:35] Yeah. We’re like, we probably qualify being owned by a woman. So, we just started researching it. And then, we started this process kind of at the tail end of COVID. And it just took a while because of COVID.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:48] To end, it takes a while. It’s not something you do in an afternoon.

Catherine Veal: [00:03:49] Yeah. Yeah. No. We didn’t realize how in-depth the process was.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:56] Well, it’s important to have a certification standard that is thorough.

Catherine Veal: [00:04:00] Yeah. Exactly. That’s what we said once we got it this month. We were like, “Well, they’re not handing these out left and right.” So, this is great that we –

Lee Kantor: [00:04:09] Let’s not check three boxes and you’re good.

Catherine Veal: [00:04:11] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:12] So, now, that you’re here, do you have a booth here or you’re just here kind of wandering around?

Catherine Veal: [00:04:17] We’re just wandering around. We’re in health care, obviously, and there are some payors here, Cigna and Centene, that we either do have contracts with and we’re just trying to add. So, it’s been nice. I mean, we got here today and it’s been very productive and we’re coming back for some of the roundtable meet and greets in the morning.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:40] It’s overwhelming, you walk in and it’s like wall-to-wall.

Catherine Veal: [00:04:44] It’s a lot. We didn’t know what to expect. And the gal that took us to committee to get certified did a little orientation last week to kind of orient us –

Lee Kantor: [00:04:58] To prep you.

Catherine Veal: [00:04:58] … to prep us, and we missed it. My youngest daughter graduated from high school that day and so I missed the orientation. So, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it’s been a pleasant surprise. It’s a lot of vendors, a lot of booths.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:11] It’s neat to see all the women business owners together also in one place.

Catherine Veal: [00:05:16] Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And just like trying to figure out what everyone’s purpose and goal is in attending. So, we’ve just stopped at booths that we really probably don’t have any –

Lee Kantor: [00:05:27] Are just curious about.

Catherine Veal: [00:05:27] Yeah. I’m just like, “Tell me what your goals are in attending.”

Lee Kantor: [00:05:32] “What do you do?”

Catherine Veal: [00:05:32] So, we’ve learned a lot just by, you know, networking and talking to people.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:37] Yeah. This is going to be a good association for you. I’m sure you’re going to get a lot out of this over the years that you’re going to be here.

Catherine Veal: [00:05:43] I think so. I was very excited to see some of the staffing companies and logistics companies because we ship all of our samples from all of those areas I said, and we use FedEx, UPS, and we have some great pricing with them. But it was just nice to see some other options that we could maybe partner with.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:03] Right. There might be some partners and collaborators here that you don’t know yet in this room.

Catherine Veal: [00:06:08] Exactly. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:08] So, if somebody wants to learn more about Paradigm, what’s the best way to do that?

Catherine Veal: [00:06:14] We have a website, that’s www.paradigm.healthcare. And that’s the easiest way to learn more about us. And, also, there’s a Contact Us tab that you can reach out, as far as being a team member and joining us or using our services, there’s information there for whichever way you want to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:35] Well, thank you for being part of GWBC and getting certified. And we wish you the best of luck.

Catherine Veal: [00:06:42] Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:44] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll be back in a few at the WBENC National Conference.

 


About WBENC

The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) is a leading non-profit organization dedicated to helping women-owned businesses thrive.WBENC-Logo

We believe diversity promotes innovation, opens doors, and creates partnerships that fuel the economy. That’s why we not only provide the most relied upon certification standard for women-owned businesses, but we also offer the tools to help them succeed.

About GWBC

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

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

Tagged With: Paradigm

Nisla Love with Choose Love Solutions

November 15, 2022 by angishields

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Nisla Love with Choose Love Solutions
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Nisla-Love-Choose-Love-SolutionsNisla Love is a Veteran, a Military retired spouse, a mother to 3 amazing kids, a Tax Accountant, IRS Enrolled Agent, and a Certified Tax Coach. Nisla also has her Master’s degree in Accounting Taxation.

She has over 15 years of experience in tax preparation and tax planning for individuals and small business owners. She has worked in the private and government sector in the accounting field for over 15 years.

Nisla created Choose Love Solutions, LLC, an accounting firm. Choose Love Solutions, LLC helps small business owners build wealth while being compliant with the IRS. Nisla is very passionate about seeing her clients succeed in their business. She promotes financial wellness by teaching clients how to build wealth through tax planning.

Nisla provides her clients with personalized services to fit their needs. She thrives on providing her clients with updated tax law information to receive the best outcome to live better financially.

Connect with Nisla on LinkedIn and follow Choose Love Solutions on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Money management and the relationships that make an impact with it
  • Audit proof your books
  • The latest tax benefits for individuals and business
  • The benefits of tax planning

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Choose Love Solutions LLC, Nisla. Love, How are you?

Nisla Love: I am doing great. Thanks for having me.

Stone Payton: Well, it is my pleasure. So I think maybe a good place to start the conversation is if you could share with me in our listeners Mission purpose. What are you out there trying to do for folks? Nicely?

Nisla Love: I’m trying to help people save money, especially when it comes to small business owners. And I do that due tax planning. So which I love doing. I love breaking down the tax code, making it more simplify for them.

Stone Payton: I’m glad we have people like you doing that. It doesn’t sound like fun to me, but it sounds like. Like you enjoy it. How did you get into that line of work?

Nisla Love: Oh, gosh. So I always loved helping people. And I was that person where, you know, where you just stack of paper and you just give it to someone. And then I took a class when I was when I went to college in accounting, and they did a segment on taxes and I was like, Oh, this is interesting. So this is how I did this and this is how I got that. I said, okay. So I really dig deep into it, started practicing, it started doing it, and then I became an enrolled agent.

Stone Payton: I saw in your write up, I saw this phrase, and I want to I want you to dive into this a little bit because it sounds like it’s a dream that can come true, but it sounds audacious to me. Audit proof your books.

Nisla Love: Audit proof your books. So it’s it’s really simple. When I say audit your books, it starts with documentation, everything. So document, document, document. Keep everything traceable. It sounds simple, but everyone is not doing it, so it can’t happen. So if you ever want to get on it, you can always back it up. And that’s what I always tell my clients. Have proof, have a documentation. One of the things people tend to do is they buy stuff on the fly. Take a picture of it. Email it to yourself. Simple stuff, but no one’s doing it.

Stone Payton: All right, so how does this work? Someone reaches out to you or you get connected with them in some fashion. What happens in the early stages of a of a relationship, an engagement? Walk us through that.

Nisla Love: So as an engagement. So we’ll have like a one on one consultation. Let me know what are your needs and what’s your expectation in reference to that? We’ll go over what can be done and then we’ll basically talk about if you’re there for tax preparation, you know, what can be done. And so basically what I’m doing is having that one on one conversation because I always want to build relationship with my clients because, you know, we’re talking about taxes. It’s a very sensitive topic and money. So I want to build that trust and relationship with them. So they’re interviewing me. I’m interviewing them at the same token. But the thing is, I want to give them a realistic outcome of what can be done. So we’re having a conversation. I go over their tax documents and then from there I let them know this is what the cost would be and this is what what the expectation is. If they want to move forward, then we’ll continue the process and provide that service for them.

Stone Payton: So do you find that you come across I’ll call them myths, misconceptions, misunderstandings, assumptions about this whole arena that you have to help them get it straight and sort of reeducate them?

Nisla Love: Yeah, I constantly have to educate my clients and potential clients because there is a lot of false information out there when it comes to doing your taxes. Nothing about other people promoting, but they just give you like little snippets of of things you possibly can do it. People will ride into it, say, I want to do it, I can do it. And so I always tell individuals and clients that what works for somebody else may not work for you because everyone is different. So constantly educating and then also backing it up with the tax code.

Stone Payton: Well, speaking of tax code, you either are or were IRS enrolled agent. Explain that, if you would.

Nisla Love: So I am a licensed tax preparation as enrolled agent, which I had to take three part exam to be licensed by the IRS. And that’s what the enrolled agent and enrolled agent is a little bit different from a CPA. We specialize in taxes. That is our field. We specialize in taxes. With that, we’re able to prepare our taxes all within the 50 states or in US citizens of abroad. So we have that luxury where we were able to not only prepare taxes, we’re able to represent our clients before the IRS and the state also to versus where a CPA, they have to be licensed in that particular state, which as an enrolled agent, licensed by the IRS, we’re able to do all within the 50 states.

Stone Payton: Wow. I would think that that credential would really set you apart in the marketplace. So how do you get the the new clients? Do you have to get out there and and mark it or do you have some other system or are you at a point now where it’s just all referral? How do you how do you get the new business?

Nisla Love: So it’s a little bit of both. It is referral based word of mouth. And then I do workshops and I go to different places and network. And so that’s how I able to get clients also to. And then I have people Googling me. So I love Google.

Stone Payton: Yeah, Yeah. So you’ve been at this a while, 15 plus years, I think. I read in my notes what, what what’s the most rewarding? What do you enjoy the most about the work?

Nisla Love: My satisfaction is knowing that I can save people money. They’ll come to me telling me either they did it themselves before or they had another preparer. But that’s my rewarding, just to educate individuals, to let them know, make it more simplified, and then to save the money on things that come easy to me, but not to them. So that’s my reward, is helping people save money and making the tax code very simplified for them.

Stone Payton: So going into 2023 and for some context for our listeners, because sometimes people tap into this content that we publish months, even years later, but we’re in late 22 as of this conversation, we’re going into 2023. Are there some interesting new, different tax benefits, challenges, things that we ought to be at least aware of or ask our tax professional about?

Nisla Love: Yes. Yes, there is. There’s laugh. How long do I have?

Stone Payton: Well, I think the main point is that there are and you probably ought to connect with nicely to have that conversation. I just wondered if there was something standing out that maybe, you know, the average bear certainly like me. I mean, that I wouldn’t have a clue. And it’s at least something to be aware of or be thinking about.

Nisla Love: Well, I don’t know if anyone know the standard deduction went up, so that was always a plus. I know one of the things that individuals would kind of discarded because they couldn’t itemize, but the deduction did go up. For instance, the married filings, separate and single newsstand deduction is going to be 12,950 that went up. It was it was 12,500. So now you’ve got to bumped up by 450. So that’s also two. And then married filing joint. That went up tremendously also. So we’re looking at 25,900. So they’re taking into consideration inflation and cost of living. So that is a plus. And then the charity also to where the last couple of years the IRS was rewarding people for if you did the standard deduction, they were giving you that additional $300, up to $600 additional that you could do with the standard deduction. Well, they’re not doing that. No.

Stone Payton: Oh, okay. So that’s good. That’s good to know. All right. So let’s talk a little bit about tax planning, because I think probably I’m not the only one. It’s one of those things I really don’t want to think about. I it’s almost like my own mortality, right? I’m like, I don’t want to think about that, you know? But there really are some benefits of exercising a few habits all year long so that it’s not this big hairy thing at the at the end of the period. Yeah. So yeah, speak to that a little bit.

Nisla Love: So when people think of tax planning, they always think about the billionaire. All that good, great stuff where it is not for me. You can tax plan on so many levels. It could be from I’m going to and I’ll just use an example like utilize pre tax benefits like your 401. K you maximize that or the matching and that reduces your tax liability. That’s one way to tax plan to make sure that you’re putting enough money is set aside and then coming with a tax professional say like you get a bonus or you get a bump in your your income, how are you going to pay that tax? Is that something that you can anticipate? Is there different strategies in place where you could alleviate the cost of your tax liability? That’s why it’s so important. So it varies from different individuals. So I always encourage that no matter what income you have, there’s always room to tax plan and it’s better to do it before the year starts or during the year. So that way when it’s tax season, you don’t get this outrageous bill or a lower refund and you’re surprised because you had did your homework the prior year.

Stone Payton: I know that that is wise counsel and it still feels like. But no, I mean, I think I think I’ll be happier if I will actually do more of that. And I’m sure our listeners would as well. We’re having this conversation. We didn’t plan it this way or it’s just circumstance, but we happen to be having this conversation on Veteran’s Day, November the 11th, 2022. Thank you for your for your service because you are a veteran military retired spouse. My question is, do you feel like your your military experience has had some impact on your ability to to run a successful business and serve your clients?

Nisla Love: Yes, I really do. I really do. It has because with being in the military, it’s you learn so much life skills and so many tools in your pocket. And when I say tools in your pocket, where it brings you to a place of humanity, humble, and you’re exposed to so many different diversity that you can bring that experience, it gives you patience, things that other people wouldn’t endure. You just you’re able to you’re able to do it. So it has really has played a part in my life. And it also my business as a veteran and a military spouse.

Stone Payton: I thought maybe that would be your response. And I have had the pleasure of interviewing other business professionals who have served, and that has that has typically been the response. Everything from equipping these folks to lead other people to also having the the resiliency that it takes to be an entrepreneur. And you touched on it to the military, perhaps more so than a lot of private sector organizations has been for some time. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say a model for diversity and inclusion and yeah, yeah. So, man, we’re we’re so fortunate and you’re fortunate to have that background. Okay, before we wrap, I’d love to leave our listeners with a couple of Pro tips. Particularly our business owners are entrepreneurs. I don’t know if it’s tax planning tips, some do’s, some don’ts, some things to watch out just for a couple of actionable things that we ought to be reading, doing, not doing. Let’s leave them with Let’s leave them with a couple of pro tips.

Nisla Love: Okay. So process one and I touched it on before. Make sure you document everything. You have your receipts, Make sure that everything is in order in a spreadsheet or a system, a bookkeeping system where it is trackable. So that way you can always go back and retrieve your information. Another tip is don’t wait till the last minute to plan. Be proactive so that way, if anything comes up, you’re you’re ready for it. Another tip is when you get a tax professional, make sure you ask questions. If they don’t answer your question, it’s okay to move on to the next one. This is your livelihood regardless of what they do or don’t do. At the end of the day, you are liable for for that tax return because you’re signing it.

Stone Payton: What’s the best way for our listeners to connect with you? If they’d like to have a conversation with you, learn more about your work.

Nisla Love: You can reach me at Chu’s Love Solutions dot com and you can sign up for an initial consultation. And I would love to have a conversation with you.

Stone Payton: And you can practice in all 50 states, right?

Nisla Love: That’s what we talk. Yes, I can.

Stone Payton: Okay. Fantastic. Well, it has been an absolute delight having you on the show today. Thank you for investing your time with us and helping us get educated and maybe even a little recommitted to getting on top of this thing.

Nisla Love: Thank you for having me.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today with Choose Love Solutions, The lady herself and this little of and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Choose Love Solutions

Chris Burell with Compass of Greater Atlanta

November 15, 2022 by angishields

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Chris Burell with Compass of Greater Atlanta
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Chris-Burell-Compass-of-Greater-AtlantaChris Burell is one of Atlanta real estate’s most well-known and well-respected educators and brokers in the industry. Chris serves as Managing Director of Sales and Broker of Record at Compass Georgia.

He oversees a host of responsibilities including managing and working with the sales managers in the Georgia region to elevate and enhance their leadership. He focuses much of his time to the coaching and development of agent principals at Compass Georgia along with overseeing the processes, policies, and procedures to ensure Compass Georgia’s compliance with all local, state, and federal laws.

Chris is also a licensed Georgia Real Estate Instructor here in Georgia. He is dedicated to helping agents and leaders achieve their full potential by creating an environment of support and encouragement.

Chris’ passion is teaching and coaching. He is a certified life coach, business coaching and Certified independent John C. Maxwell coach.

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn and follow Compass of Greater Atlanta on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • The Fall housing market in Atlanta
  • Where the housing market stands as we enter 2023

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning, and this is a very special episode of High Velocity Radio. It’s part of our real estate series. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Compass of Greater Atlanta, Mr. Chris Burell. Good morning, sir.

Chris Burell: Good morning, Simon. How are.

Stone Payton: You? I am doing well. Have really been looking forward to this conversation. I’ve got a ton of questions. I know we won’t get to them all, but I think maybe a good place to start is how you and your team, how you would articulate your mission purpose. What are you really out there trying to do for folks, man?

Chris Burell: Sure. Stone I’m happy to answer that. So really, Compass is a residential real estate firm, and we also handle new development along with some commercial transactions. But our mission for all of those that we serve and also for our agents is to help everyone find their place in the world. And that’s really both from a real estate standpoint, but also from that that belonging for everyone. Everyone wants to belong and have a place in this world for themselves.

Stone Payton: So what is the back story, man? How did you get into into real estate? Describe that path, if you would.

Chris Burell: For me personally, it has been an interesting path, but a short synopsis of it was that I actually started out working for the Social Security Administration here in the greater Atlanta Metro in their human resources department. And after some time there, I just was not finding it fulfilling what I thought my purpose was. And so I turned to real estate almost 20 years ago, obtained my license and started sales with a brokerage here in town. And later on, that led to me taking a role on the leadership side of the brokerage as their training director. And from there, I took over a sales office as a sales manager, and then I moved on to a boutique firm here in town where I was actually the managing broker and the qualifying broker here in Georgia for that firm and grew that firm substantially over time. And Compass came a calling and said, Hey, Chris, you know, we’ve seen your leadership and we’d love to lean on you to continue to grow the Compass brand here in Georgia. And so I had the opportunity in July of 2021 to join the Compass family here.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. Okay, man, get us caught up on your perspective on the fall housing market here in Atlanta. What are your thoughts?

Chris Burell: Lots of thoughts running around, lots of rumors, shall we say, in the news. But, you know, I say that real estate is always local when it comes to what’s going on in the market and what we’re seeing in this fall market, we are seeing a decline in the fury of the buyers that we had in the past year, two years that we had experienced. So we do see sales are down depending on the local neighborhood. Those could be down from anywhere from 15 to about 25% this time compared to this time last year. What we are also seeing, though, is an increase in inventory. In last year we were in a circumstance where we needed inventory. There weren’t enough properties listed on market for the buyers who were in the marketplace. So it’s been interesting to see this. On one side. We do see less buyers in the marketplace, but on the flip side, buyers who are in the marketplace have a really good opportunity because there’s more supply out there from the seller side. You know, of course we saw large increases, double digit percentages in increases in their equity and in the sales prices year over year for the past two years. And this year we have seen that begin to slow down some. We’re not seeing those large increases. But knock on wood, we’re also not seeing any decreases in sales pricing as well.

Stone Payton: All right. Let’s get to crystal ball out. What do you think going into Q1 of 2023? What are you expecting?

Chris Burell: Q1? We are going to have a slow. Or market if you’re comparing it to the last two years. So from the standpoint of the Atlanta market, I do think listeners should expect there to be a slower market from the frenzy that we were having during the pandemic. But what I want to point out is that we knew both inside of the industry and outside of the industry that the two past years during the pandemic were outliers, right? We had extremely low interest rates. We had a huge demand for housing, and we had a lot of demand where people were moving who have always lived within metro Atlanta. They were either moving up to to a larger home or they were selling their large home and downsizing. And right now, I think what you’re going to see in 2023, the buyers that are in the market, they’re not buyers who are just taking advantage of circumstances. Right. These are going to be buyers who need to move for whatever reason they need to purchase a home. You’re also going to find that sellers that are in the marketplace are sellers who are realizing they have to sell their home for one reason or another, whether it’s a job transfer or perhaps they have changed points in their life where they need a different living circumstance. So I think what you’re going to see is a more level housing market, meaning, you know, last year people were literally going into a home and then putting it under contract within 15 minutes of seeing.

Chris Burell: And now you’re going to see more of a general market where buyers have time to look at the home, come back and visit the home, think through that, and then negotiate with the sellers a fair and reasonable contract instead of one of these contracts that, you know, we had a lot of buyers going. I think I just bought a house because we’re moving so fast. We’re now, you know, we have people able to breathe. And that’s also a benefit for the sellers because a lot of times the sellers were having to accept an offer based on 10 to 12 offers. And so their stress level was up as well. And now I think sellers are going to have an opportunity to do their math when they receive offers and to really think through which offer is best for them. We still are seeing some multiple offer situations depending on the neighborhood and if the home is priced right. So I do think that will lead into next year, but I definitely want to manage that expectation that we will see it down from the last two years of frenzy.

Stone Payton: So what are you enjoying the most? And you obviously find the work very rewarding. You’ve been at this a minute as as the young folks say. What’s what’s the most fun about it for you, man?

Chris Burell: You know, there’s there’s two aspects that I am extremely passionate about in this business. The first, I would say is the client experience. And regardless of how many times you have bought or sold a home, there is this amazing joy when you’re at the closing table and you realize you have achieved another chapter in your life, you know that you’re either selling a home with substantial memories of your lifetime that you’re handing over to a new person or family that’s going to take care of that home. And from the buy side, that you’re accomplishing another dream you had. You know, I’m still incredibly humbled every time I see that that sparkle and that excitement in a buyer’s eyes after closing. It’s just something that you have to experience. And I hope that lots of different people are able to experience the second component of my passion and why I continue to do this every day is my agents. When you are a manager in real estate, in your brokering and in managing agents, it is so such a reward to watch that agent grow over time and to truly take their skills and to serve their clients and to build their business over time. Many of whom came from industries that they never dreamed they could accomplish. Some of the income goals and some of the goals in their life, in their old industry. But they come to real estate, they become passionate about it, they’re able to be successful in it, and they’re able to achieve those dreams. And to me, watching them grow and achieve those goals, that’s just that’s the spark that keeps me going every single day.

Stone Payton: Well, I can hear it in your voice, and I know that our listeners can as well, that that is a part of it that you just thoroughly, thoroughly enjoy. One of the things that I’m beginning to learn as we do this series Focus on on Real Estate. It’s a far more collaborative profession than I ever anticipated. I know, you know, I know there’s competition and you have to find a way to differentiate yourself and all that. But but, but it’s a very collaborative environment at the same time, isn’t it?

Chris Burell: It really is. You know, I have the opportunity to also serve at the Atlanta Realtors Association as one of their vice presidents there. And so I work with agents and managers from all of the many companies. And, you know, I have so many great friendships and mentorships that I have had over the years within this industry. We are competitive. Don’t get me wrong. But we also know that this is a human connection industry and that, you know, at the end of the day, we all want what’s best for our clients. And I think when you go into it with a grateful heart and you realize that ultimately we all want the same thing, which is to be able to serve our clients and to see them happy and satisfied with their transaction, you begin to realize that while we live in a big city, it’s really a small world when it comes to our real estate community. And I can’t tell you how many friends that I have that work at many different companies and that I’m in contact with on a regular basis because that’s just the way the industry is here in Atlanta. And I’m so grateful for those friendships and partnerships.

Stone Payton: So early on, when you made your way into this arena, did you have the benefit of one or more mentors to kind of help you navigate this terrain?

Chris Burell: Oh, my goodness, I did. I had some great mentors. I had an agent who had been in the business for quite some time, Rodney High Note, who really was the one who encouraged me to get into the business and felt that I would be good in sales based on what he knew of my demeanor and what I wanted in life. And then as I got further into my. Career. I look at some of my mentors, like Lewis Glenn, who was the president and CEO of Harry Norman Realtors when he was here in metro Atlanta. I look at Martha Hayhurst, who is my my current regional vice president, who also was with me in prior brokerages. And I just think about everything that they showed me and showed me the importance of the relationships. You know, you can learn the nuts and bolts. You can learn the laws around real estate, but what you can’t always learn without experiencing it and having those mentors is this idea of what it means to build a relationship, what it means to invest in a relationship both with your peers in the industry, but also with your clients and with your customers. And then for me, I’ve also been influenced by a lot of leadership development and I enjoy executive coaching. And so John C Maxwell, Bernie Brown, these are also great mentors for me that I lean on and listen to their podcasts and to their their books on on tape. So all of those are really mentors that have woven this great fabric around me of knowledge and experience that I’m able to share with those and hopefully build leaders among my peers.

Stone Payton: So now that I hear you talk about this, I’m not even a little bit surprised, but I am impressed that I mean, you are a practitioner and you’re like, certified with this Maxwell outfit, right?

Chris Burell: I am. I am. I was fortunate to be in his class of the first 500 that he certified back in 2011 is a leadership coach and speaker and motivator. And it has added so much value to my life, but it has also been such an amazing tool for me to be able to use in my roles here in real estate, because I look at our agents as entrepreneurs who own businesses, who choose to align their business with our brand. And I don’t ever discount that. That’s a great honor and it’s a great responsibility. So, you know, John C Maxwell teaches leadership and teaches that, you know, you have to be able to inspire and motivate others. You don’t get to tell them what to do, but you have to be able to inspire and to lead by example. And so I hope if you ask any of my agents or clients that I’ve touched over the years that they would say that I’ve been able to do that for them in some way.

Stone Payton: What would the benefit of that experience and your practical experience base in the trenches doing this every day? I’d love to to share with our listeners, get your perspective. Maybe a couple of pro tips on this, this whole idea of recruiting, selecting, developing, creating and sustaining the kind of culture, the the leadership side of what you what you do, maybe some of what you’ve learned. And even if you’ve kind of landed on a couple of disciplines or or habits when it comes to getting results with and through other people. Man.

Chris Burell: I would love to. I think the first thing that comes to mind is this word. Listen. For all of us. I think we’ve grown up in a world where we’re so quick to have something to say, something to talk about, and we make a lot of assumptions. And what I have learned for many years now is that if you’re willing to listen, first and foremost, people will tell you their story and more importantly, they will tell you what they need and what their challenges are. And if you are listening and truly listening, not listening to answer a question, but instead listening to hear where that person is, to hear where that person is coming from, you begin to understand that the people that we come across who cross our paths every single day, that those individuals have a story of their own and have experiences of their own, which bring them to the moment in time when they are with you. And so we cannot assume that they have had the same experience that we have. And so when it comes to talking to a recruit who’s thinking about joining Compass as an agent with us here in Atlanta, you know, I start the conversation by wanting to know about them, wanting to know what their challenges are in their current business, wanting to understand how we here at Compass can help them grow and solve those challenges that they’re facing when it comes to a client that maybe is in a difficult transaction and their agent has come to me to ask me to jump in and assist in the transaction. You know, a lot of times clients are emotionally in turmoil at that juncture.

Chris Burell: And for me, it’s very important to be able to first listen to them, to listen to their concerns, listen to their frustration, to hear them and hear what they’re saying so that then we can drill down and and come up with solutions together to navigate and get to a better place in that in that negotiation. So either audience that you’re looking at, I go back to this. You’ve got to listen. You’ve got to understand that everyone comes to the table with different experiences and different things going on in their life. And then the other aspect of leadership that I have learned through all of my life is that you have to live a life of gratitude. You have to be able to be grateful for every moment and to be grateful for every person who crosses your path in business and in life and understand that you, your words, your actions influence people every single day. Some you will never know the level of influence you’ve had on that person. But if your actions are good and coming from a good place of intent, I have also found that people trust you. They’re willing to follow you as a leader, and they’re willing to put faith in what you say and believe in you. And to me, that is the most humbling part of the leadership circle is when you have gained someone’s trust and you have to honor that. So I don’t know if that answered your question, but that really is my philosophy and what has has held true throughout the years.

Stone Payton: Well, not only did it answer the question, I think I’m going to carve out that clip from our interview and I have it on my desktop. That’s man, that is strong stuff. What a marvelous way to kick off a Friday morning. And this has been terrific. Thank you so much for investing the time and the and the energy to share your insight and your perspective with us. But let’s not leave it there. Let’s make sure that our listeners have a way to reach out and connect with you or someone on your team, whether they are interested in buying or selling a home or perhaps they’re interested in joining the team or learning more about Compass and why that may be the the home for them if they’re going to if they’re going to be in this industry. So whatever you think is appropriate. Let’s make sure it’s easy for them to connect, man.

Chris Burell: Chair. Stone Well, I offer the services of our more than 500 plus agents here in metro Atlanta and beyond. We cover from Blue Ridge all the way down to Peachtree City. So if you are a client out there who is interested in purchasing or selling, I encourage you to visit our website at w w w dot compass dot com. And there you can seek out properties, you can seek out agents, and you can also find the leadership listed there. So you’ll find my contact information along with the other managers that are here at Compass. And the same goes true for any agent out there listening who would like to move their career to the next level. Always happy to speak to them and they can reach out to us through that Compass dot com website as well. So I appreciate that opportunity to share that information.

Stone Payton: Stone Well, it’s my pleasure. And Chris, let’s do this again, man, because things change. You know, the landscape changes a little bit if you if you’re up for it, let’s.

Chris Burell: Let’s.

Stone Payton: Strangers Yeah, well, this has been marvelous. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Chris Burrell with Compass of Greater Atlanta and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Compass of Greater Atlanta

BRX Pro Tip: In a Sales Slump, Try This

November 15, 2022 by angishields

High Performance Coach Eva Medilek

November 14, 2022 by angishields

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High Velocity Radio
High Performance Coach Eva Medilek
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Eva-Medilek-headshotEva Medilek specializes in helping busy professionals have more money, time, and success without sacrificing health, well-being and relationships in the process.

As a keynote speaker, Eva shows you how to generate the energy needed to reverse the burnout we experience from trying to do it all.

Most recently, Eva is a radio talk show host on Voice America’s Influencer Channel. Her show, What’s Important Now; Making Time for What Matters Most brings to light hot topics and guests that focus on important matters facing us today.

She uses her personal experiences along with her leadership, relationship, and high-performance training to teach you how to have it all without sacrificing it all.

Connect with Eva on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast Certified High Performance Coach, International speaker, bestselling author and cultural inclusivity Trainer. Ms.. Eva Medilek. How are you?

Eva Medilek: Oh, I’m doing fantastic. Stone How are you?

Stone Payton: I am doing well and really been looking forward to this conversation right there in the intro. We talk about being a high performance coach. Maybe a good place to start would be to get your perspective on what it really means to to be a high performer.

Eva Medilek: Oh, yeah, I get that all the time because most people think that because you’re a high achiever, you are a high performer, and that’s not necessarily true. So when you are a high performer, you are able to advance your career without sacrificing some other things that are important to you, like your health, your well being and your relationships in order to be successful and have it all. And most high achievers get the achieving part right, but they don’t get that special type of unique balance to where it’s not costing them and some other important areas of their lives. So it really is, you know, performing at your best and on your A-game without it costing you and some other important areas of your life.

Stone Payton: So my observation has been and I think I want to make sure I’m using the right term here, but the people that we would would say are high achievers. I mean, sometimes they just they wear themselves out, don’t they? They get exhausted.

Eva Medilek: Yeah, exactly. You know, if you’re a high achiever, most likely you’re white knuckling through burnout and exhaustion because you don’t want to quit. You don’t want to stop. There are too many things that you want to do and achieve right now. So it’s not the time to slow down right now and it’s really is costing them and how their relationships are affected, how their their mood is affected, how their health is affected. And it really it’s not attractive a lot of times, if you will, to be a high achiever if you’re not showing up in a good I like to say, in a good mood. If you’re a little Mr. and Mrs. Cranky Pants, then maybe you should look at what high performance coaching can do for you.

Stone Payton: So I got to know the back story. How in the world did you get into this line of work? What was the path?

Eva Medilek: The path was being a high achiever. I have to tell you, when I was preparing for my 50th birthday, which was about 12 years ago, I got downsized from my job as a dental hygienist. And it was that spark that prompted me to become an entrepreneur. So I started a real estate investing company, and at the time I had gotten more employment as a hygienist and I was working hard to just work full time. I was doing my business, but I was also doing all of the cooking, all of the shopping, the laundry, like all of it. I was Superwoman and some people listening might remember this commercial from the I guess it was 1980s or so where it depicted this this successful, super successful woman and she comes out singing, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never let you forget your man because I’m a woman. Well, that was me. And so basically the tagline for that was Angele, the eight hour perfume for the 24 hour Woman So basically you could work yourself to death 24 hours a day, but at least she’ll smell good in the process.

Eva Medilek: But, you know, in all honesty, I was really working myself into the ground and my health was affected my well being. You know, I was just always a tired and complaining about being tired. And then eventually my relationship with my husband became affected. We were cranky with each other and snapping at each other. And I don’t know if you ever had as as soon as disease, but I always thought as a as a busy person, as soon as the business gets to a certain level, as soon as we make a certain amount of money, as soon as I own a certain amount of units, then we can take the time to work on our relationship. And as soon as it came for me, when I discovered my husband was having an affair and that was the wake up call that I needed to realize that my current habits were contributing to my stress and breakdown in my health and my relationship. And high performance living actually resonated with me because I knew I needed to take responsibility for who I was being as I was building.

Stone Payton: So let’s talk about habits a little bit. Are there habits that we can engage in that can kind of help us navigate this this gap between busy and effective? I mean.

Eva Medilek: You know, I call them, if you will, pit stops. You know, we’ve all seen NASCAR race, right, or the Indy 500. And those cars are racing really fast, dangerously high speeds, trying to make it to the the finish line and hopefully win the race without crashing and burning. And I remember I used to think when I saw the lead car get off and stop for a pit stop, I would think that was stupid. Right? Aren’t they going to fall behind and lose the race? Aren’t other people going to pass them up? And so those drivers realize that taking pit stop is necessary to continue to race at peak or high performance without breaking down. And most of us are running our lives and business at high speeds. We’re racing around the track because we’re afraid if we slow down, we’re going to fall behind and lose. And so when you look at high performance habits, those are strategic pit stops throughout the day so that you have that energy that you need to finish the day as strong as you started it without breaking down. And so, for example, most of us eat when we get hungry. Right. If you were a high performer, you would eat to fuel yourself for performance. Just like that car at the pit stop gets gas before it’s on empty.

Stone Payton: What a great analogy. What a great frame to to view that from. So you’ve been at this a while. I can tell that you find the work incredibly rewarding. What are you enjoying the most at this point in your career? At this point in your practice? What’s the most fun?

Eva Medilek: The most fun for me is when my clients have their breakthroughs about how they are, about what they can do to show up better for themselves, their own happiness. They’re all getting clear on what they want and what makes them happy and prioritizing what’s important to them so that they can set boundaries that actually support their values and priorities and what’s important to them and when they realize that. You know, most of us are talking about how we’re working this hard and hustling and grinding for our spouse, our kids, our families and our future. But yet we’re spending very little time with the people that we claim to be working so hard for. When they get that realization that what’s important to them is not really what they’re spending their time on. That’s really fun for me.

Stone Payton: So you’re out there coaching, but you’re also a speaker. What is that world like and what is it like to get in front of a bunch of people and try to share some of these ideas?

Eva Medilek: I actually love it. I mean, because we are connecting in person and and most people can really relate to what it feels like to be hustling and grinding to get ahead and create success in your life and business. And just really seeing some of these realizations and how high performance habits can help you generate the energy that you need so that you’re not burnt out, exhausted and overwhelmed. Is is fantastic. And I just love connecting with people in person because most people on Zoom can multitask or tune out. But when you’ve at least got them in a room with you, they’re kind of a captive audience. And there’s an exercise that I do with audiences. When I do have the time to speak where I have them take out three blank sheets of paper. And I learned this from one of my coaches, Larry Winget, who calls himself the pitbull of personal development. So I want to give credit where credit is due here. But on the first piece of paper for you to write down the State of the Union of your life, how everything is in your life and your business, and on the second sheet of paper to write down how you want it to be in your life, in business and your relationships. So you’ve got the current state of affairs and the dream life, and then on the third blank sheet, write down what you’re willing to give up. To get from the first sheet of paper to the second sheet of paper, because most of us think that we need to keep adding more and more and more. And it’s not about adding more. It’s about getting rid of things like you don’t get fit and healthy. You give up. What’s keeping you from getting fit and healthy, right? You don’t get skinny. You give up what’s making you fat, You don’t get healthy, you give up what’s making you unhealthy. Right? And so most of us think that we have to add more things as high achievers, right? But the magic is learning what to let go of.

Stone Payton: How does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a person like you, a practice like yours? Are you at a point where it just sort of comes in over the transom, or do you find yourself needing to engage in some sort of structured sales and marketing process to get the speaking gigs, to get the opportunities to coach people?

Eva Medilek: Yes. Yes, I do. I do. I need to put myself out there and be seen. And and I usually invite people to a a session with me so that they can see the value of high performance coaching and explain that in more detail. And for them to really see the cost, if you will, of not being a high performer and just being a high achiever. I know what it nearly cost me. So I am speaking from experience. I nearly lost everything and just to to not leave the audience hanging. My husband and I are still together. That infidelity actually saved our marriage because it was the punch in the gut that I needed or the two by four to the head or whatever you want to call it. That made me realize who I was. Being as I was building was actually pushing the people I cared the most about away. And so, yes, I still mark it. I still speak I still out there on social media sharing and always inviting people to connect with me.

Stone Payton: And you’ve committed some ideas to paper. You’ve written a bestselling book. Tell us about being an author. Tell us what that experience is like.

Eva Medilek: I’ve actually it was in a compilation book with Les Brown. Some of you may have heard of Les Brown, who is a motivational speaker as well. I was in a compilation book with him and Dr. Cheryl Wood, and that made it to the bestseller list. And I also wrote a solo book to highlight some of the the diversity, equity and inclusion work that I started doing as a result of the the racial events of 2020. And that book was called The Intimacy of Race How to Move from Subconscious Racism to Active Allyship for People of Privilege. And that’s really a simple, a simple book to get you started on how to how to communicate and how to be aware of some certain things to help you be better allies for underserved communities. And what we can do as mere individuals to make a difference for people.

Stone Payton: When you were writing the book, did you find that some chapter, some parts of it came together fairly easily and others were were a real struggle for you? What was that like?

Eva Medilek: Well, what happened? It was a struggle for me to get started because I just didn’t feel worthy. But once I started, I did get an accountability partner to help me keep going. But this book was based on a live event that I produced called the Allyship Awareness Forum, and I basically took everything that was discussed in that forum. We had six amazing, powerful women of color in the leadership position. We all got together and I produced this event. I think there was 700 people on it. And we we each had a section where we talked about some myths about racism, how to communicate, what bypassing was, all of these different things. And I really took that and compiled it into a book called The Intimacy of Race. So it was pretty much lined out for me, just really getting it from kind of a listen and learn event to something on as a paper resource for people was challenging, to say the least, but just to be motivated to think that I could do it. For me, it was that personal part of, you know, I’m not a trained and I expert, although I do coach in that space for some corporations. And it was just something I felt I needed to do to to contribute and make a difference during that very difficult period in America’s history so that I could make a difference.

Stone Payton: Well, I’m asking some of these questions because I know many of our listeners are entrepreneurs. Some are coaches, consultants. You know, they have a book in them. And I think sometimes maybe they could use a little bit of inspiration or a little bit of a nudge to get going and get started on it. But again, on this book, when you got it together, was it a little bit scary to sort of put it out in the world and then like, wait and see how it was received?

Eva Medilek: You know, I actually got really excited once I finished it because it was such a huge accomplishment to get me out of procrastination because of the fear. And once I finished it and got the book cover design and everything, I was real excited actually to get it out in the world and have people have it as a as a resource that they could always refer to. But yeah, all of the feelings were there of fear. It was just something I felt out of my own satisfaction that I, I accomplished it and, and I got help. Here’s the kicker. I got help to be able to accomplish it. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs try to do so many things on their own. And success is really, really lonely. And we work a lot in isolation. And when that happens, a lot of times it really slows us down. And I had to get someone to really hold me accountable to to the milestones and the benchmarks that I set for myself to get the book written. And once I did that, I actually came in ahead of my deadline. So it was pretty cool.

Stone Payton: Oh, so on these topics, diversity, equity, inclusion, I came across a term in your write up as I was preparing to to have this conversation inclusive intelligence. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Eva Medilek: You know, I can because it really is a level of awareness and intelligence on how to be inclusive. And what I mean by that is it’s a skill. It’s a skill. It’s something that’s learned. It’s something that doesn’t come naturally to us in how to formulate conversations, if you will, that creates safety and inclusivity. There’s a certain level of intelligence. We have emotional intelligence, right? We’ve got personal intelligence. We hear all of the X and peaks, but how do we create a level of intelligence that gives that supports inclusivity? How I want to say that it supports people of different backgrounds, different upbringings, different education to feel included. In the space to feel seen, heard and acknowledged in the space. And that’s the level of intelligence.

Stone Payton: So as if you didn’t already have enough irons in the fire, as my daddy would say. You also host your own radio show. Talk about that a little bit. Tell us about the format of the show and what you’re trying to accomplish with that.

Eva Medilek: You know, my show is called What’s Important Now? Making Time for what matters most and the intention of the show is to really support people in getting clear on what really matters to them, what the priorities in our lives are. Because when we’re chasing so many shiny objects, if you will, which leads to burnout and overwhelm, we actually lose sight of what’s really important to us. So I bring on guests and experts, a lot of authors who help us prioritize our health, prioritize our mental health, our emotional health, our physical health, prioritize some of the dreams and goals that we have. Prioritize and get clear on what matters most to us in all areas of our lives. And this show is on the Voice of America Influencers channel right now. It airs live Tuesdays at 1 p.m. Pacific Time, and it’s been really fun speaking to people from all walks of life and leadership and who have been through some challenges on their own and really share how they’ve overcome those challenges and hopefully will help some of the listeners get clear on what matters most to them.

Stone Payton: Well, I’ll tell you, my experience has been as a ton of fun and I feel like I learned so much and have built, I mean, lifelong relationships that have sort of launched from having a conversation with someone on air. I got to tell you again, if you if you enjoy building relationships with people and you’re a life learner, get yourself a radio show. Don’t you agree? Oh, man, it is so much fun. Before we wrap, I’d love to circle back to this this idea, this topic of of burnout. And maybe if you could share, I don’t know, maybe a handful of pro tips things that we can be thinking about, reading, doing, not doing, just to make a little bit of headway against this, this thing called burnout.

Eva Medilek: Well, you know, I actually have a PDF called Five Ways to Reverse Burnout that if anybody’s, you know, even metallic dot com forward slash reverse burnout. But basically it really is being proactive to set yourself up to win and to create the energy that you need so that you don’t burn out. And so I would say the number one thing is to establish routines and especially a morning routine. A morning routine has been proven to wipe out 20% of stress and brings you preparedness for the day and again, reset like a pit stop. Don’t work on any one task, if you will, for more than an hour before you get up and take a break, move, have water, have an energy generating snack or whatever. But just give yourself that that break that those little breaks, strategic breaks in the day. I never schedule my meetings back to back. I always give a 15 minute buffer so that I can reset and recharge myself. And I think one of the number one things to preventing burnout or creating energy is to really make sure you get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep to optimize your performance per night. So those are three things you can start to do right now to just start generating more energy for your performance during the day.

Stone Payton: I am so glad that I asked. That sounds like marvelous counsel and I think the number one pro tip for those of you out there listening is reach out, have a conversation with Eva or someone on her team. Tap into this radio show of hers. Read the book. Attend to attend a class. Let’s make it easy for our listeners to connect with you and tap into your work. I want them to have access to this book. I want them to be able to get to the show. So whatever you feel like is appropriate website, LinkedIn, email. But let’s leave them with a with a way to connect with you.

Eva Medilek: Eva Oh, absolutely. My website is Eva Metallica, and you can actually download a free gift on there. You can read about the book and the form that I put on and you can have a link to listen to some of the past episodes of the radio show on there as well.

Stone Payton: Well, Eva, it has been an absolute delight having you on the program this afternoon. Thank you for sharing your insight, your perspective, your energy. This has been an inspiring, informative conversation and the work you’re doing is so important and it has such tremendous impact. I’m sure not only with the individuals and the teams you’re working with, but then in turn the people that they are leading with and and through. Thank you so much.

Eva Medilek: Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show. Thank you for having me.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Eva Metalik and everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Eva Medilek

Cheri’ Benjamin with Village Premier Collection

November 14, 2022 by angishields

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High Velocity Radio
Cheri' Benjamin with Village Premier Collection
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Cheri-Benjamin-headshotCheri’ Benjamin is the CEO of The Benjamin Group, Village Premier Collection (VPC), and Weinsure Jag companies. She began her journey in Real Estate as a Loan Officer in 2000 and became a real estate agent in 2006.

Since then, Cheri’ has worked diligently to have VPC recognized as one of the top 5 commercial real estate brokerages in Metro Atlanta and ranked #676 on INC 5000. VPC is also the largest minority veteran and female-owned real estate brokerage in Georgia with over 470+ agents and 22 loan officers.

Cheri’ has been featured in several national and local publications including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Business Chronicle. She is regularly invited to share her expert real estate insight on Atlanta’s 11 Alive News, as well as a host of other Podcasts, radio, in-person speaking engagements and online interviews.

As a national real estate coach, she remains passionate about helping others flourish and is currently mentoring five brokers from around the U.S. Her vibrant personality and drive to get things done well makes for a pleasant, and always professional, real estate experience.

Cheri’ is also a proud US AIR FORCE Veteran, values being active in her local community and is a family-oriented individual. She and her husband have 5 sons.

Follow Village Premier Collection on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Growing a business from fewer than 50 agents to a multi-million dollar company in 10 states and several markets
  • Slow to hire, quick to fire
  • Character traits that have helped become successful in business

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. This is going to be a fantastic conversation and it’s part of our real estate series. Please join me in welcoming to the show CEO with the Benjamin Group, Village Premier Collection and Weinsure JAG companies. Ms.. Cheri’ Benjamin, how are you?

Cheri’ Benjamin: How are you? Stone Thanks for having me.

Stone Payton: Well, I’m well, but I’m feeling a little less than accomplished as I rattle off three different companies. My goodness. Tell us a little bit about mission Purpose. What are you in in your teams out there really trying to do for folks?

Cheri’ Benjamin: When a person really gets to understand who I am, you understand what drives me. It’s just a lot of what I’ve seen that wasn’t out there. A lot of leading with a lot more compassion and empathy and all of that. And I’ve just been in this for a while and there’s just a lot of things I saw. And, you know, whenever we have our opportunity to make a change and be a part of that change, I think we should just go and jump ten toes into it.

Stone Payton: Are we talking residential real estate? What is the focus here?

Cheri’ Benjamin: Yeah, so it is in reference to real estate. So Village Premier Collection is founded in the heart of Atlanta, right in the middle of Atlanta. We are at the intersection of Linux and Piedmont. We sit in that Atlanta tech village. The owner of that building is actually who our founder is, and I purchased it from him and we used to be called Village Realty, but I bought that back in 2019. It’s really funny how that happened. I was his very first agent that he hired ever. So seeing the growth of what that company did over the five years that I was there prior to owning it was a was a good accomplishment for him. For him, it’s just that he got involved in a lot of different tech startups where, you know, ATV is the fourth largest tech hub in the US, so he has his hands in a lot of different things. And then we had this little itty bitty old baby brokerage that I said, You know what? I think I’ve got a couple of ideas of what I can do with this. So I’ve just taken that and we’ve had a great amount of growth over the last now three years, even through the course of the pandemic. So yeah, it’s been a fun ride. And so all of them kind of feed into that. The Benjamin Group is a team and then you’ve got we Insure is a property and casualty company also.

Stone Payton: All right. So if you don’t mind, let’s go back a little bit further. How did you get into this line of work, into the real estate arena? Were you in a different profession prior to that?

Cheri’ Benjamin: Oh, I was. And from when I was a little gal that was very young, I was always encouraged to just, you know, it was hard work and make sure you’re true to who you are. I went to school. I’m originally from Maryland, but then we migrated on down to Atlanta to help my parents help start up the Georgia Lottery back in 94. You know, when you say that time, I feel like it’s only like 20 years ago. But it’s not 20 years ago. But it’s okay. But in my mind, I’m like, oh, no, that was like just 20 years. No, it was like almost 30. Okay. But that’s when we went down there. I went, I actually graduated from Lithia Springs High School out in Lithia Springs, Georgia, when I was 16 with a 4.0. And I got a bunch of scholarships, I’ll tell you that. But then I really it just wasn’t school wasn’t challenging enough to me for some odd reason. So I decided to go into the Air Force where I could kind of grow and test my limits and in different ways that traditional academics couldn’t do. I rose through our ranks, got a top secret clearance. It’s I had a nice, tough job. I, I always tell people, I say I carried a nine work every day.

Cheri’ Benjamin: I worked underground. Then you had to go through a cage. Then you had to take an elevator to go a little bit further underground, where I sat side by side with the with the general of our base on these decisions. So a lot of B lines and IAMS and all of that fun stuff you see in movies. Yeah, that was I was one of those people, but I actually got out of the military, I want to say back in 90 now, 99, I got out of the Air Force, My ex husband and I moved to Colorado, try to get a fresh start. He was still in the Army at the time. I tried to become a stay at home mom. And let me tell you, kudos to every stay at home mama that’s out there because there’s no way I could do that. That just was not my thing. And I stumbled across this ad one day for a loan officer position and I answered the ad, and I don’t know what was wrong with those people, but I actually got hired, but once again rose through those ranks. I ended up closing the most amount of transactions, and I think my record still stands from the last I was told in that company, and it only took me three months to do that.

Cheri’ Benjamin: But as Baby number three started making its way on, we decided to move out of Colorado and move back. You closer to Atlanta, where my family was a few years after that, we got divorced, and that’s kind of where my real estate side of my career took off. And then, yeah, so let me think. 2016, I joined a company, coaching company, stayed with them for a while and then rose through those ranks to becoming one of their national coaches, where I helped a lot of agents go from 200,000. My personal achievement was helping them go from 200,000 to over 2 million in profit in 12 months of their their 12 month profit worth. And then, like I said, in 2019, I bought Village in. When I purchased it, we had 118 agents, 51 of them left immediately. So the acquisition happened. So that was rough. And then a pandemic hit, which made it even harder. But, you know, today we are just shy of 500 agents. So we’ve had a massive amount of growth in the last three years. And we’ve also added on 22 loan officers. So it’s been it’s been a ride stone, I tell you. But that’s kind of how the start really happened and how we got here.

Stone Payton: Well, other than your obvious charm and your contagious enthusiasm, what do you attribute the growth and the success to? How did you crack the code on this growth?

Cheri’ Benjamin: You know, I it’s really hard to say exactly one thing, but I there’s core values. You know, when you serve, there are certain things that stick with you forever. I believe that at least it’s stuck with me forever. Honesty service before self integrity in everything that you do. So I’m really big on core values, living them out, holding myself, holding others accountable, putting those blinders on, and just staying fully focused on your commitments. Some people say goals. I use the word commitments because I think that when you commit to doing something, you do it rather than a goal that you can keep on pushing out and pushing out and pushing out a little bit further. So, you know, being a veteran and at the time, I think a big part of my shift and a little bit of who I am really came from when September the 11th happened. And, you know, I look at my younger children right now who don’t understand the impact that it had in our country. My ex was stationed down at Fort Carson. I was pregnant with our with my third. I’ve got five boys. So I had to figure out which kid it was with a third son. His birthday is actually September the 15th of 2001, so he came out four days after that.

Cheri’ Benjamin: But one of the things, you know, I remember being pregnant and watching those burning buildings, tearing down and tears coming down my face and everything. It was just it was so life altering. And I think that those of us that were blessed to be alive during those times and that we’re still alive now, we the one thing we remember the most is September the 11th. But the number one thing that stands true to me is not September the 11th. It’s September the 12th, because on September the 12th is when we fell back in love with our countries. September the 12th is when we all became brothers and sisters. The the the things that we see on social media and all that stuff that happens in our our country right now was not happening on September the 12th. We were one nation, one cause. And for me, from that day forward, especially being a spouse of someone who later went to war, and I lost a lot of a lot of people and I have a lot of friends who were left without their spouse and children, who were left without their parents or one of their parents from that that it’s it’s made it to where I’m just so determined that I’m going to leave my mark and my mark is going to be a positive one.

Cheri’ Benjamin: It’s the love, the the dedication that I believe that I’m instilling in my organization. And that’s just true to the gut of who I am. There’s a proverb. It’s called a mutu, and it’s an African proverb. And it means that I am because you are, which is very hard for people to understand. We don’t get anywhere in life without the assistance and the help of others. So outside of just I am because you are. That’s a hard thing for someone to understand. I’m going to poor and I’m going to invest into you for the greater good of you without looking for an indirect return for me. And I just understand that if I put great out, then good always comes back to me. And that’s really just the core of it. And I think that operation Out of Love first, putting your agents first, going deeper than what you’re comfortable going deep with to understand who they are and taking yourself out of the equation is really how you can create a shift. And I believe that’s what I believe, that that’s probably the magic a part of the businesses that I’ve been able to grow. It’s about the people and it’s about hearing them and understanding them and really just putting them first.

Stone Payton: Well, you make such a marvelous point. And no doubt with with what you’ve accomplished and the teams that you have built, you certainly have have landed on some some discipline, some some things that you are just going to live by when it comes to recruiting, developing, retaining folks. I bet you have a good little list of do’s and don’ts and principles that you live by in this regard, don’t you?

Cheri’ Benjamin: Oh, yeah. There are standards and you’ve got to meet those every day. I mean, there are you have to have discipline. I mean, discipline is laser focus, right? And I always tell people I said, you think about a racehorse and there’s a reason why they wear blinders because they’re not looking to the left or the right. Right. It’s that beauty. It’s that. And when you think about how powerful they are, that focus is that discipline. But the constant pursuit is your diligence and you must have the diligence there. You leaders as leaders, we have these commitments and we need to keep those commitments. And so I wholeheartedly believe in showing up. I believe in doing what you say you’re going to do every single time. I live in Las Vegas, I lived in Las Vegas since I’ve purchased this company. I lived in Las Vegas before I even bought the company. It takes discipline. It takes diligence to operate 2000 miles away from your entire team. And remember, Stone, I said we entered into a pandemic right after I bought it. Six months, actually six months, almost six months after it, our world started to shut down. And so there wasn’t any traveling for me to go back and forth and go into Atlanta, to touch and to love on them and to help them and all of those things.

Cheri’ Benjamin: So I had to do the things that I knew I could do. Thank goodness for Zoom, thank goodness for modern technology. But part of that is also, you know, I had agents that told me, you know what, Sheree? I have a lot of things I have to do. I need to start getting up earlier. So I cannot that out. I’m committed to waking up at 4 a.m.. And I’ll tell you this. Stone they told me that they were committed to waking up at 4 a.m.. I set my alarm for 1 a.m. and at 1 a.m. I woke up and I texted them, Are you up yet? Wow. Making sure you’re awake because that’s what they told me they wanted to do. I’m not holding anyone accountable to something that I believe that they should do. It’s them about them. It’s their legacy. It’s their commitment. It’s what they’re driving and striving in order to achieve. I’m going to stand there and I’m going to say that I’m willing to go through this with you supporters. You know, the word support is a verb to me.

Stone Payton: Did it take a while to to get good at this? Was there some scar tissue along the way? Did you fall and skinned your knee when it came to hiring and firing?

Cheri’ Benjamin: And of course, we don’t go through anything. But you know what? I believe it takes dirt in order to grow. You know, you think about a plant, you think about a tree, you think about something solid. It takes dirt in order to grow. And so there’s not a such thing as a failure. Do we all have the wrong hires at time? Absolutely. But I do thank them for the time that they were willing to commit. I do appreciate the effort that they gave, whether or not it was the right fit for that position. I do at least show enough gratitude for them showing up every day and making that attempt. Now we have to make a lot of adjustments. There’s tons of pitfalls that happen on a daily basis and trying to grow to where you’re where we’re ultimately trying to get to. And I don’t put a ceiling on any parts of that. You know, there’s a lot of different things that in decisions that come my way all day long, and it’s just about what’s best for everyone as a whole, not necessarily what’s best for Shari, you know, And that’s how I’ve just chosen to lead, is to take my person, my personal self out of it and look at everyone else and where are we collectively getting to and can we collectively get there faster based upon whatever this decision is? And how does that help us as a whole?

Stone Payton: Well, you are clearly finding the work incredibly rewarding. What are you enjoying the most at this point in your career? What’s the most fun about it?

Cheri’ Benjamin: Oh, boy. The most fun is when I see them reach a new level. It’s almost like you know us as parents. When we see our kids hitting certain milestones, it’s that proud feeling. Sometimes it’s a little bit overwhelming, that proud feeling that comes. But that’s the thing that I’ll be honest with you. It keeps me going. I had an agent one time tell me, you know, I say I am because you are. And she had hit a huge milestone in her career and she was so excited. And she messaged me and she said, you know, I know you say I am because you are. And she said to me, I am because you had the courage to be. And Stone, I tell you, when all the waterworks came, she sent me that message. I was in the middle of a meeting and I looked down and I said, Oh my goodness. And I couldn’t contain it. I couldn’t hold it back because. It’s. It’s as if they get it. They understand. And the job is not easy, but the job is a service. And I just believe that servant hood just goes so much further than trying to just get everything for yourself. And when you see that people understand, it’s just like when your kids finally become adults and I have adult kids and I’ve got a little one. So these five boys, they go from 23 down to six. And when the older ones come and say, You know what, Mom, I know that this one time was hard for you and I know what you did. And thank you so much for not giving up on me or thank you so much for sacrificing for me. It’s it’s kind of that same exact feeling. And that feeling is really what keeps me grinding and it keeps me going, you know, every day.

Stone Payton: Okay, let’s get a little bit of a state of the industry, state of the climate, if you will. What’s happening in real estate at this point in time? What’s happening now?

Cheri’ Benjamin: Whoa, boy, I tell you, Turn off the news, everyone, now. We service a lot of states, so I do have a little bit of a different perspective. We are in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Nevada, and Washington. So I’m just going to give you a little perspective from that. Actually, I think it was a Bloomberg I saw a quote the other day that said 37% of real estate agents couldn’t pay their rent in October, which was actually up 10% from September. So these rising interest rates are affecting not just the consumers, but they’re also affecting your real estate agents, your loan officers, mortgage companies. It’s impacting all service industries, your painters, your electricians, your flooring, your FAC, your remodeling contractors, people who install appliances, people who want you to come purchase these new appliances. It really affects so many different people outside of just what the general public thinks. Real estate agents, loan officers. That’s what the general public thinks. It has a far greater reach than that. Inflation is making everyone hold on to their money, like when we were hoarding toilet paper back during the pandemic. Know interest rates have been creeping up closer to 8% and everybody is really worried about buying. But I’ll tell you, you know, when I started back in 99, we were at 8%. I remember that if I offered a 7.875 interest rate, seven and 3/8, people were like, Oh my goodness, it’s a steal. Take it. You know? And so I kind of I really do get it. I get why we had a raise in the interest rates. I think that the rates are probably going to end up settling coming down to about five and one half to six and one half percent.

Cheri’ Benjamin: I think that’s probably where we’re going to be at. We see it tether a little bit up and down from there, but I think somewhere in that 1% range of that five and one half to six and one half percent, if I was a betting woman, that’s kind of where I think we’ll end up landing. Home prices are starting to level out because the government’s trying their best to stabilize our economy, and that’s really why we’re seeing these rate hikes. The good thing is that we don’t have as many people that are panic buying like we did back in this time last year. You know, we saw a lot of that where people were going in and offering 50, 100 grand over on the price of what the sellers were even asking for that house, you know. So we don’t have a lot of that right now. Instead, they are a lot of the buyers have been pulling back because they’re afraid to buy. And here’s one thing that I think the buyers really need to know and understand is that sellers are doing negotiations again. And the sellers that we’re seeing that are coming on the market are not sellers or they’re just coming on to throw it against the wall to see what sticks they’re actually selling because they truly want out of their home. That means that they’re really willing to negotiate and to listen to what the buyers requests are. You know, I have a we have some few listings now that are we’re starting to see sellers are paying closing costs against sellers or know, getting a little bit less for their home or if they’re getting more for their homes or getting right at the asking price is because the buyers are now getting those closing costs paid back again as if it was pre pandemic.

Cheri’ Benjamin: And that’s really what we’re shifting back towards. You know, home equity is still going to continue to rise. It might not be at this 15 to 20% that we saw in the last two years. Typically, year over year, the increase is about 4 to 6%. And that’s kind of what we believe that we’re starting to see and where we’re going to level out at. Again, I’m one of the believers that what the pandemic did was actually re correct where we should have been. If you remember back in 2008, our tale of 2007 going into 2008, so right around 2013 or 14, that deep that that real recession that we were in and how the housing prices just plummeted down and everyone was upside down in their homes. If you just go back to that phase, go back to zero eight and just calculate a 4 to 6% increase year over year on that one home from when they bought it. Right. So they bought it pre the recession. Kidding. And you just did the 4 to 6% year over year. Each year you would land right on where home prices are today. So that’s why I kind of believe that what we went through in the recession just kind of are not the recession. I’m sorry. The pandemic shifted us right back to where what you would have been paying for the homes had that not have happened.

Stone Payton: Real estate strikes me as such a competitive arena. I got to ask, how does the whole sales and marketing thing work for an organization like yours, work for you, work for your agents? How do you go to market and differentiate yourself and get that new business, get the listings and that kind of thing?

Cheri’ Benjamin: I think it’s just very different. So the power of social media has shifted a lot of things now. So you’re seeing a lot of agents go to where their clients are. We all have phones nowadays. We typically have them in our hands and our pockets and our purse or wherever that might be. But our phones are generally with us and just about everyone is on some sort of a social platform. And that’s what you’re seeing real estate agents do now is going to where their clients are there not as many that are doing the radio or the the traditional radio, let’s say that, or the TV ads. They are shifting a lot more into the social media. A lot of the when you think about it, there’s a lot of people that are doing a lot more connected TV. So we’re seeing real estate agents shift over into connected TV rather than doing your traditional channel. Three’s Channel fives, those type of stations. They’re going to the Hulu’s and they’re going to those types of connected TVs now because that’s where most people are shifting to. I know for myself, I being honest, I don’t watch the news at all. I don’t watch any of them because I just I I’d rather have my own thoughts. I think if you’re of one opinion, you watch one station, if you’re another paying, you watch another station, and they all appeal to who their listeners and who their audience is.

Cheri’ Benjamin: I just could just take the bullet points and that’s it. And I can make my own decisions based upon that, you know? And so with that being said, though, there is some strength still in certain radio. There’s strength in podcasts, there’s strength in your series, your XM radio’s your iHeart stations, and that’s where I’m seeing real estate agents shift to. What I do believe is that. Buyers and sellers. All of us are looking for more of a sense of community. You know, we had two years of not being able to be around each other in the fashion that we chose to. Let me say that to where now more agents are starting to develop that. It’s more of a sense of community. It’s not this old, you know, get an Internet lead and let me go close it right now, know, build relationships with people. This is a relationship business. And, you know, it actually makes me smell that we are shifting more to going back to that. And the agents that I believe are having more success are those that believe in building relationships with their clients, not just treating their clients like another transaction.

Stone Payton: I’m so glad that I asked, and I think that’s incredibly wise, Counsel. I’d like to go back to this character conversation for a moment if if we could, because I sense that there’s so much more you could you have to share with us. Aren’t there some some aspects of your personal character that that you’ve identified or you reflect back on and say, okay, you know, that’s maybe part of why I’ve made a go of this thing. Character traits that not only we should maybe try to identify in ourselves, but maybe be looking for as we’re trying to grow our own teams.

Cheri’ Benjamin: Yeah, you know, I, I, I think that I kind of command attention.

Stone Payton: Yes, you do. That box is checked.

Cheri’ Benjamin: Okay. I speak with a little bit of authority when I’m talking business. I trust myself, and I just don’t compromise on that. I’m very analytical, though, and so I tend to see holes in business strategies and scale until I have the tools to overcome any roadblocks, you know, just kind of slowly growing my growth. When I purchased Village, I looked at the budget and I immediately changed that overhead, which was way beyond its growth trajectory. And I think that’s where a lot of business owners and when we’re speaking about real estate agents, I truly believe that real estate agents are a little different. Real estate agents are 1099. You know, they hang their license at their companies. And so therefore, they are really all business owners and they are the CEO of their business and they should treat their businesses as such. And that’s that’s a really core thing for me. You know, the staff of originally of 118 agents when I acquired it is that I had then is actually equivalent to the staff that we have right now that supporting almost 500 people. You know, I have the ability to kind of adapt to any situation or group of people, and I try my best to be a really good listener. I was encouraged to explore many different cultures growing up so that I can kind of adjust to any scenario or situation that I’m in.

Cheri’ Benjamin: A technique that I think that really helps is I’ve learned how to mirror the way the person speaks to me and by mirroring and matching their body language, their vocal cadence, it creates a level of trust and a feeling of comfort and ease, and that causes people to open up about their wants in their needs. This approach really helps me, especially when I’m coaching an agent, because as soon as I see a little bit of a glimmer of light, I kind of like to pour kerosene on it and help them turn that down all the way up on whatever their hopes and what their dreams are, you know? And then this also benefits the clients because I can decipher what they’re truly looking at, desiring and help them come up with a strategy in order to make that happen. And as I said before, you know, it’s like it’s my purpose is really to help amplify what people want and gain faith in their own abilities. So I just believe that that’s probably some of those characteristics of myself that has just poured over into business that is really helped me.

Stone Payton: Yeah. I am not at all convinced that you’re qualified to answer this next question, but I like to ask it of many of my guests, and I’m going to take a swing at it anyway if it ever occurs. How do you choose to address the the fear of failure?

Cheri’ Benjamin: Uh, yeah. I believe that failure is when you quit. The reality is, if you’re persevering, then you’re not failing. You’re learning a lesson. If you’re shifting to understanding something new or different, once you embrace that reality, it changes the way you think all the way around. Remember I said it takes dirt in order to grow. Right. For progress is how we stay in alignment with our purpose. If you don’t understand what your purpose is, you know that’s okay. Because as it comes to you, as long as you just keep on moving forward, you know, release some of that pressure that we put on ourselves for you to get to whatever that outcome is and that fear of failure. I just believe you have to. We give Grace out so much and we don’t give grace to ourselves. And we really have to when we’re learning something, when we’re growing through things, we have to have grace with ourselves and just understand that what you’re doing, you’re not failing your learning and you just say it as many times as you need to. I’m not failing. I’m learning, right? And then ask yourself, what am I learning? And then be sure to look back and evaluate your process and your progress. Right? Athletes, I love sports, so I do do a lot of sports.

Cheri’ Benjamin: When I talk to people, I relate things into sports a lot. I love sports. It’s all it’s typically like a team effort that goes behind a lot of it. There’s different layers. You know, you have coaches, you have the people that are grinding, you have the people that are that are sitting there calculating the Xs and the O’s. Wow. The live action is happening. Everything that has to do with it. I really love sports. And when you look at it, think about an athlete and think about the coaches and think about the people who go over the game plan. What do they do once they’re done? They look at game film. Why? Because they’re looking to gain a closer look into every era that could possibly be there to help them further improvement. If a lineman, for example, steps back on the wrong foot, he might not protect his quarterback the right way. And sometimes you don’t see that until you watch your game film. So one of the things that I’ve always told people is that you have to look at your game film. Do not be afraid of that. It’s it’s going to help propel you forward. Looking at your game, film and studying those things and honing in on those skills and that skill set that you need.

Cheri’ Benjamin: I definitely believe that sometimes you have to slow down the process in order to speed up the results. And a lot of times people have a fear of even doing that because they have a fear of failing. And what they don’t understand is that when you slow down the process sometimes and you give yourself the grace and you understand that you’re learning and you take a look back and you look at your game film, you see where your errors were, you then go into correcting. What you do is you almost put yourself in a slingshot so that when it’s time you catapult past anyone that might have been just keep on trucking along and not taking a look at it. So that’s kind of how I’ve always been able to address my personal fear of failure. I just take it and throw it out the window. I look at my game film, I give myself grace. I understand that I’m just learning. And then I always watch what is going on in between the ears because we talk to ourselves more than what others talk to us, and we are the person that we really need to listen to. And that’s really the tongue that we need to watch.

Stone Payton: If we could adopt the disciplines and engage in the habits that you’re describing, I have to believe that it would not only have a significant impact on our on our professional lives, but that’s got to bleed over into our personal lives, make us better husbands, spouses, fathers. All of that, right?

Cheri’ Benjamin: Yeah, it improved to me. I think it improves every aspect of your life and improves your parenting skills because you’re able to relate to your children when they’re frustrated or they’re feeling defeated. And you can really encourage their growth. It makes you a better spouse, a better partner, because you can offer support when they feel like giving up. And you can be that rock in business, you can redirect those you lead to show them what they’re learning rather than them seeing that they’re failing. You become the rock for others. When they think they’ve lost, you’re able to show them the opportunity and those lessons. It’s so powerful to see them become re-energized and go back into the world. And just knowing that you played a little bit of a role in that or a great role in that is so self fulfilling that it just it to me, I know for myself, it just keeps me doing it even more.

Stone Payton: I do not want to end this conversation, and I’m going to because I have to let you get back to running all your companies and leading your people. But oh my goodness, what a delight this has been. Thank you so much for investing the time and energy to share your perspective. I have found this this conversation inspiring, informative. I know our listeners have as well. Let’s make sure that they have an easy path to connect with you or someone on your team about real estate or, I don’t know, maybe even about some of these other topics. Whatever you feel like is appropriate website, you know, whatever. But I want I want folks to be able to tap into your work. This is fantastic.

Cheri’ Benjamin: Oh, thank you so much. Stone So, yeah, so my our website, our main site is just village premier, No E on the intercom and then anyone can reach me. My name is Sherry and it’s spelled c h e r i. So if you have friends, you might say Sherry, but it’s Sherry at Village Premier dot com and if anyone wants to give us a call, it’s especially for the Atlanta listeners it’s 40496543 80 and I am more than happy to schedule a time to talk with any one of your listeners.

Stone Payton: Well, Sherry, thank you. Again, this has been marvelous and what a terrific way to end to invest a Thursday afternoon. Thank you so much.

Cheri’ Benjamin: Thank you. Stone And thanks for all your listeners for taking the time out.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guest today, Sherry Benjamin and everyone here at the Business Radio X family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.

 

Tagged With: Village Premier Collection

Business Coach Ellen Tyler, Natalia Hunter with Hunter Public Adjusting and Karen McDonald with Innovative Impressions

November 14, 2022 by angishields

Cherokee Business Radio
Cherokee Business Radio
Business Coach Ellen Tyler, Natalia Hunter with Hunter Public Adjusting and Karen McDonald with Innovative Impressions
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This Episode is brought to you byAlpha & Omega AutomotiveAlpha and Omega

Women-in-Business-Top

Ellen-Tyler-Logo-Blue-2048x829

Ellen-TylerEllen Tyler is a Business, Mindset and Sales Coach who has been helping her clients create the life they want and making their (BIG) goals a reality.

Have you ever wondered why some people are successful and others aren’t? Ellen knows exactly how and why and more importantly – how many of us can have the same results.

Connect with Ellen on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Hunter-Public-Adjusting-logov2

Natalia-HunterAt the age of seventeen, Natalia Hunter applied to be a foreign exchange student in the United States of America, and she and her family were thrilled when she was approved.

Natalia came to the US and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Credit. At the age of 20, she began her journey to become an entrepreneur, opening a Kirby Vacuum distributorship, hiring sales teams, and pursuing the American dream while working 12-16 hour days, seven days a week.

Because of Kirby’s educational network, Natalia advanced and learned a lot about sales strategies, negotiating, and leadership. During the recession, she and her husband decided to take control of their lives and began a new business, Water/Fire Damage Restoration. They learned how unfair the insurance claims process is to policyholders while working with insurance claims and assisting homeowners and businesses in recovering after a loss occurrence.

They started Public Insurance Adjusting LLC when they were unable to assist and bargain with Big Insurance to get policyholders back to pre-loss conditions. In 2019, Natalia completed her studies and passed the State Exam, and they established a Public Insurance Adjusting Firm to represent policyholders against their insurance companies.

Follow Hunter Public Adjusting on Facebook.

Karen-McDonaldKaren McDonald is a Home Stager, and the owner of Innovative Impressions.  She provides vacant and occupied home stagings to Realtors as well as homeowners. When she stages, her goal is to highlight the features of the home, helping future buyers visualize their life in the new home. Innovative-Impressions-logo

Karen combines her eye for home staging with her professional art training.  Armed with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Carolina, experience as an artist, and an eye for stylish decor, Karen is uniquely poised to make recommendations that will ensure a quick sale and a higher sales price for the many Realtors she works with in the metro Atlanta area.

Having a formal background in art really gives her a unique perspective. In addition to staging vacant and occupied homes for sale, or helping a new homeowner settle in by decorating with new or existing furnishings, Karen can create just the right piece of art to complement an interior.

During the holiday season, Karen offers her clients seasonal staging. She adds a fresh spin to holiday decor by combining beautiful live greenery, a client’s treasured decorations and shopping for new items.

Follow Innovative Impressions on LinkedIn and Facebook.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. Welcome to Women in Business, where we celebrate influential women making a difference in our community. Now, here’s your host.

Lori Kennedy: [00:00:30] Hello, this is Lori Kennedy, and I’m your host today for Women in Business, powered by Business RadioX Stone Payton. Our producer is also in the studio with us today and we are grateful to have you tuned in. Today we have three amazing women. We have Ellen Tyler with Ellen Tyler coaching. We have Karen McDonald with Innovation Impressions and we have Natalia Hunter with Hunter Public Adjusting. I’m going to start with Ellen. Ellen, tell us a little about what you do and how long you’ve been in business and who you serve.

Ellen Tyler: [00:01:07] Thanks, Laurie. So my name is Ellen Tyler. I’m a business coach. I’m here in Woodstock, Georgia. And the easiest way that I can explain this, which I just heard the other day, which I thought was funny, any human who has a problem, I can help. And that’s really broad. But I come from business. I came from a very strong corporate business background. And so I knew the chains that I had when I worked with a coach. And I thought if I could just do that because there was such an impact for me personally, our family, we adopted three additional children at that point in time because of that flexibility. And I thought, what a great way to do that for other people. So I tend to like to work with small business owners, career changers who. Want to do the work for their family and their clients and community. But I help them. I help them just do business better.

Lori Kennedy: [00:02:07] I love that. I love that. I feel like whenever something in our life is an amazing makes an amazing difference that we want to. It’s like our instinct to then provide that to others, like be that same source of light for others. And I love that. There were some questions that you had, and I just want to ask one of them to start with. Tell us some goals that you that you give to people when you when you start working with them.

Ellen Tyler: [00:02:36] Sure. Thanks, Lori. When I think about goals, most people think about New Year’s resolutions, which they really don’t work. And one of the things that we help everyone understand is that we really don’t even know what a goal should entail and it should be something we’ve never done. So if it’s let’s let’s use business, it’s really easy or selling. Somebody might say, Well, I want to earn 50,000 more this year. Well, the goal has to be. But first of all, why? If you don’t know why And what does that what is that money going to do for you? Because just to have a goal of money won’t cause you to get up and get out of bed in the morning. It’s what does it do? Is it going to change your family? Are you going to take them to Disney World? Are you going to donate to charity? It’s it’s the why. And then just make it specific so you know what you’re aiming at.

Lori Kennedy: [00:03:41] That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that, Natalia. Tell us about you and what you do and how long you’ve been doing it and how it. Functions in the community.

Natalia Hunter: [00:03:54] Thanks, Lori. My name is Natalia Hunter, and I’m my husband and I own a hunter. Public insurance adjusting. So we basically represent policyholders, homeowners, business owners against their own insurance. And the claim when I say against basically working with the policyholders and represent them. So kind of like an attorney, but without being an attorney. And we are kind of the next step and. Trying to protect the policyholders before they have to go to attorneys. And we’ve been in business, in the insurance business, really since 2008. We owned the restoration company. So we saw that side of spectrum and how homeowners basically get shorthanded on their payout and nobody could help them. So they would be forced to go to attorney. And of course, attorneys do represent them, but they do get small portion. So that doesn’t help the homeowner when you have to give away all your money that you’re paying your premiums for. So that’s how we ended up kind of switching almost five years ago now into public insurance adjusting, which is something that’s not very popular in Georgia. Not popular. People don’t know about it. If you go to Florida, everybody tells you, hey, call a public insurance adjuster, and that’s your first step. So that’s that’s what we do.

Lori Kennedy: [00:05:30] That’s interesting. I had never yes, I’d never heard of that until you told me about it. And I was like, wow, that’s awesome. Because you guys also have a lot of background in home building and construction and selling of real estate, you know, real estate in general. And so that I would think that’s definitely a need to have to make that beneficial for people, for sure.

Natalia Hunter: [00:05:53] Yes. And a lot of people tell us, oh, my God, we wish we knew you existed before. You know, I had the flood four years ago or we had people say, well, I had a flood last year and I was you know, I didn’t have enough money to put my business back together. And we actually say, you know, as long as it’s been less than a year, we can reopen the claim and go back and help those people.

Lori Kennedy: [00:06:15] Oh, okay. I didn’t know that either. That’s good. Yeah.

Natalia Hunter: [00:06:18] So we’ve had that come in, you know, where people had a gas station that was destroyed by tornado and we were able to get them enough money to function on a monthly basis. You know, they still had income coming in because that was in their insurance policy. Yeah. So, yeah, that’s what we’re here for. And we love helping people. That’s that’s the reason why we exist.

Lori Kennedy: [00:06:41] Well, I can’t help but notice that you have an accent. Tell us about what? How you got here to Georgia.

Natalia Hunter: [00:06:49] On the airplane. I’m just kidding.

Lori Kennedy: [00:06:52] Okay.

Natalia Hunter: [00:06:54] Well, I’ve been in the United States for 26 years. Originally came from Russia, and I came as an exchange student, graduated high school there, came here, took an extra year of high school as an experience, and then ended up going to college. Just kind of enjoyed, you know, my adult life kind of started here, I don’t know, the adult life in Russia. So I ended up staying. I went back to Russia and, you know, visit family, but I stayed here and went to college and then eventually met my husband and got married. So 26 years later, I’m still here.

Lori Kennedy: [00:07:34] That is awesome. Well, we’re glad you’re here. I’m glad that I get to life with you. Karen, How are you today?

Karen McDonald: [00:07:40] I’m good, thanks.

Lori Kennedy: [00:07:41] Good. Can you tell us a little about your company and what you guys do?

Karen McDonald: [00:07:46] Yes. I’m Karen McDonald with innovative impressions. I’m a home stager and artist. I stage vacant and occupied homes Right now. I’m actually doing holiday staging. I offer redesign services and I sell my paintings.

Lori Kennedy: [00:08:02] That is so many things. That’s awesome. But they’re all creative. Not like not my gift. Creative. I’m like, Spreadsheet, please let me do a checklist. I think that’s awesome. I can’t do those things. How long have you been doing it?

Karen McDonald: [00:08:16] I became certified in 2016 with the Cherokee Board of Realtors.

Lori Kennedy: [00:08:21] Oh, wow. That’s great. So how do you set yourself apart as far as marketing yourself and your business? This is this is one of the questions you sent in.

Karen McDonald: [00:08:35] Yes. So a few things. My background. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in graphic design. Being an artist gives me a unique perspective to I use my paintings and my vacant homes. This makes it very personal and sets me apart from others. And number three, persistence. Whether it is a painting, staging or networking, I challenge myself to always be the best. It plays a role in all phases of my work.

Lori Kennedy: [00:09:04] Well, so you said something about certification. Tell me what degrees or qualifications qualify you for this job.

Karen McDonald: [00:09:12] I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of South Carolina, and I became certified through the Cherokee Board of Realtors in 2016 as a home stager.

Lori Kennedy: [00:09:22] That is awesome. Thank you for sharing that.

Karen McDonald: [00:09:25] Thank you.

Lori Kennedy: [00:09:26] Ellen. I’m going to come back. Q Because I have a question. In reference to goals. You talk about things like habits or. Tell us a little about how habits help you succeed in your goals.

Ellen Tyler: [00:09:41] Well, so I’ll I’ll I’ll help you understand. I’m going to ask you a question because this will help everybody understand habits. I know. Well, and actually it’s just going to be one to think about. So when you wake up in the morning and I always say this to anyone, if you have a spouse or you’re living with someone or just you, what’s your morning habit? And go to the bathroom. And then what?

Lori Kennedy: [00:10:03] Every morning.

Ellen Tyler: [00:10:05] I know. And then it’s like. And then what? Like you can you know, you can just look at it. I tell people, I get up and you go to the bathroom and brush your teeth. I take my animals downstairs, I feed them all happens the same way. Those are habits. And so when we’re not paying attention to the importance of habits in our day to day life, it also shows up. If I get my car and I normally go to the gym, but I think I’m going to the doctor and I go the same way to the gym. So if you think about it in that terms of how your daily life and working, if you let it just happen without paying attention, it’s very hard to get to a different place. So if I have a goal and I want to get to a different place and I’m using my same habits. I’m not going to get there. So we just have to change them.

Lori Kennedy: [00:10:56] Yes. That is awesome. That is awesome. Is there a book that you specifically recommend for somebody to starting along this journey? Like, I’ve read Atomic Habits and I thought it was amazing.

Ellen Tyler: [00:11:09] He’s really good because what he does in that book is James Cleary, who wrote Atomic Habits, and he actually helps people understand it’s small steps. Yeah, and the challenge for anyone in trying to create a habit is they go all in New Year’s resolution habits. 21 days later they give up. And it’s just it’s the repetition. And I think and I’m actually going to repeat one of the stories in this book because it’s really good to understand it was a gentleman who wanted to go to the gym and start working out. The first habit he had him do was get in the car, drive to the gym, sit in the car, drive home. So think of it that way. That’s how you can instill a habit.

Lori Kennedy: [00:11:50] I remember when I read it, it was habit stacking, which is basically what you’re saying. You start with something you’re already doing and then you just add something small to it and then you kind of correlate those, I guess, together.

Ellen Tyler: [00:12:03] Right, long term. Right. So the book is helpful, but one of the things I would I would tell anyone sitting here or anyone listening is that pick the one habit that you want to work on because the other challenge is, is that we go, I’m going to do this. I’m going to go to the gym, stop eating donuts, stop drinking my favorite drink, eating French fries and all. And we try to do everything. Pick the one that’s the most impactful. You get up every day. Attempt to keep the habit, start the next day, start the next. The illusion is in 21 days I should be able to do this. But the research actually shows it’s between 21 and 277 days for a person to make a habit. So but once they know that, then they can understand, Oh, I’m just going to try again tomorrow. I’m just going to try again tomorrow. And it is just building that skill.

Lori Kennedy: [00:12:58] I was that you were you’re funny because you were right ahead of the next question. Like, I was like, how long does it take to make a habit? And you were already answered it. Thank you for reading my mind today. All right, Natalia. Tell me what motivates or inspires you?

Natalia Hunter: [00:13:18] Oh, boy. It probably depends on the day.

Lori Kennedy: [00:13:23] I guess.

Natalia Hunter: [00:13:26] And it might be a. Not the answer you expect, but I guess financial freedom. And then there’s reasons why we do it. But most of the time we get up and do things is to make money and to have things and to be able to take care of our family and, you know, maybe help with community. So I’d say that’s what makes me get up and that’s what. Makes me move in the mornings.

Lori Kennedy: [00:13:59] Yeah, for sure. Karen, I’m going to ask you that same question. What motivates or inspires you?

Karen McDonald: [00:14:10] I love the creative process because I’m an artist and I love to help people and serve. Knowing that I’ve made a positive impact in the way someone feels about their space or about one of my paintings is very rewarding.

Lori Kennedy: [00:14:24] It’s awesome. I’m going to go back and ask you a couple of questions from your sheet. I want to know. I want you to share some difficulties that you’ve had to overcome in your business.

Karen McDonald: [00:14:40] So after renting furniture for my staging jobs, I decided to invest in my own inventory. This decision enabled me to cut cost and remain competitive. By making this investment, I’ve had more opportunities to stage.

Lori Kennedy: [00:14:55] That’s great. Well, what about a testimonial or a success story? Like, how is that fit into that?

Karen McDonald: [00:15:03] Actually, I do have a testimonial from my friend and realtor, Kris Contreras. We were recently featured in around Woodstock in the October issue, and here’s what he had to say. Having Karen as part of our listing team on every property has been an amazing investment for my clients and business that has more than paid off, Chris said. On every listing Karen has consulted, We have gone over the asking price. She’s my secret weapon.

Lori Kennedy: [00:15:31] That’s awesome. I feel like, yeah, when you I mean, we see it all over TV these days, you know, when the on all those real estate channels where they go in and they decorate the house with a professional not, you know, grandma’s old rose wallpaper and, and it makes, you know, it increases the value of those homes. So I love that you participate in that. Thank you. Ellen. What motivates or inspires you?

Ellen Tyler: [00:15:57] My family are, you know, when I and actually one of the things that it goes a little bit broader is like we all have a purpose. And so the purpose is really like Natalia said, you know, financial freedom is a huge motivator, but it’s because of the things that we get to do. And I always know that it’s I do it for my family. We’re changing the lives of five kids and it’s it’s just allowing them to experience life differently.

Lori Kennedy: [00:16:27] That’s awesome. Tell me, what what can you help with and why should I consider investing in a coach?

Ellen Tyler: [00:16:37] So the easy answer is anybody who has a problem but we don’t raise our hands usually. Well, here’s what I would say. A person should hire a coach to hire to help them solve a problem that they have that they’re that they’re aware that they have. Because I work with business owners, there’s usually a frustration or a plateau of the businesses staying at a certain point and they just can’t move past. And a great way to understand why a coach helps is if you ever played sports, played a musical instrument or learned how to drive a car, somebody taught you. We get as far as we can go with our capabilities. And there’s nothing you know, people think that that’s a bad thing to say. Goal. I got pretty far, but I don’t know how to get to the next stage, and that’s what the coach will help with.

Lori Kennedy: [00:17:31] And so in reference to that specifically, the expectation shouldn’t be that you know more about their business, but just that you know more about how to push people to achieve the next level within their their own selves. Is that a correct statement or how would you say that?

Ellen Tyler: [00:17:51] And that’s it’s a good statement because it actually differentiates. Think about all the coaches out there. I mean, like there’s been an explosion of people who help in different areas, and I think that’s actually great. But it’s what does the coaching help you get to? And the process shouldn’t just be specific, those words specific.

Lori Kennedy: [00:18:14] To like going.

Ellen Tyler: [00:18:15] For. Right. So let’s just say, does it have to be somebody who has just automotive experience? No, because that makes it sound too specific, like it’s only going to work for auto repair shops or realtors or lawyers or fill in the blank. It should have a process that you can apply to anything. Business is usually the first thing.

Lori Kennedy: [00:18:38] Gotcha. How, Natalia? How to use your influence in the community.

Natalia Hunter: [00:18:48] Well, that’s a good question. I don’t know if I use my influence. I try to be helpful as far as guiding people in a certain way, like if they need somebody, you know, they need help with their car. I know. Hey, call Lori, Cal. You know, they’ll they’ll take care of you, you know, or just I feel like I’ve known. I’ve met tons of people, tons of business owners, and that’s been very helpful. Also, try to volunteer as much as I can, you know, on a couple of different boards where I’ve realized that the only way you can make changes is to be part of it and, you know, make some suggestions for changes. And that’s pretty much how I do it. And of course, you know, donating time, money, food, whatever it.

Ellen Tyler: [00:19:40] Takes, I will actually add to that because I don’t she didn’t mention this. So Natalia took care of her health about a year ago. And I think sometimes that question can have the perception, like, I have to do something where Natalia just showed up healthier, which caused people to ask her questions so it might not be related to work or something else, But you inspired a lot of people.

Natalia Hunter: [00:20:10] Yes, actually, I didn’t even think about it, but I guess I was. Yes. I’ve decided to take control of me for once and lost £40 and change my lifestyle. And I did have I think I helped about 25 people on top of it because everybody was reaching out. What do you do? What did you do? What’s the secret? Well, it’s not a secret. It just, you know, you just have to get discipline and you have to want the bad enough.

Lori Kennedy: [00:20:34] But yeah, for sure.

Natalia Hunter: [00:20:36] For sure.

Lori Kennedy: [00:20:38] Karen, how do you use your influence in the community?

Karen McDonald: [00:20:42] Um, I actually am a sponsor of the Lights of Joy in Kennesaw. I look for opportunities to support nonprofits, and I’m continuously seeking out events that make a difference in the community.

Lori Kennedy: [00:20:57] That’s awesome. Ellen, how about you? How do you use your influence in the community?

Ellen Tyler: [00:21:01] So for me, it’s. It’s what do I care about? And and who do I want to help? And and I think one of it we’ll think about this like we got invited to come here today to share what we do with the community. And my mentor, Bob Proctor, was really great at this. I will tell you exactly what I do. I any business owner, anyone I get to spend time with, we’ll share. This is how you do it because. It’s not a secret. And so if they can just change something little by something I said. That’s the best thing ever. And then, you know, I love animals, so it’s why I can’t go into the humane shelter anymore because I will bring home more.

Lori Kennedy: [00:21:47] But it’s just I’ve been banned. Yes. Well.

Ellen Tyler: [00:21:51] It’s kind of like you can’t bring any more animals in. But, you know, it’s just really how can we help in the community? And we’ve always been a big supporter of doing business in the community.

Lori Kennedy: [00:22:01] Well, you mentioned mentors, so let’s go into that question. Tell us about if you have many mentees and if you are being mentored and how that looks for you.

Ellen Tyler: [00:22:13] Sure. And I actually love that question because a question I’ll get asked if somebody is intrigued about investigating hiring a coach, they want to know, what should we ask? And they said the first question you should ask a coach, Well, there’s two. One is who do they work with? Like who is their mentor or what coach do they hire? Because if I gave the impression that I’m done.

Lori Kennedy: [00:22:38] Like for sure.

Ellen Tyler: [00:22:40] Yeah, it doesn’t work. So we should always be working. So yes, I actually have to now that I work with. And then the benefit is, is that it filters down through. So if people hire me, it works for them. And but anyone I sit with it, they have the ability to learn from that knowledge that I gained from my coaches.

Lori Kennedy: [00:23:00] Yeah, I felt like this was a funny question for you because like, while I mentor for a living. Hello, You know, so. Yeah, no.

Ellen Tyler: [00:23:08] Well, but there’s, there’s free mentoring because it does happen. People aren’t always, they’re not always in the place, but can I give them something that can propel them. I actually, I will tell anybody this. There’s three things of a person did they never have to hire a coach? Do you want to know what they are?

Lori Kennedy: [00:23:29] Yeah.

Ellen Tyler: [00:23:30] Have a gold card with your goal written down. Gold card? Have a vision board with no more than 4 to 5 pictures on it and have a written descriptive statement of your goal. That’s it.

Lori Kennedy: [00:23:46] Hold on. I’m writing this down.

Natalia Hunter: [00:23:48] I just need one more. I need the gold card.

Lori Kennedy: [00:23:51] Well.

Ellen Tyler: [00:23:52] I have them. You all can hunt me down for them. But. But. And. But here’s the intriguing thing with all of my clients. Last December, this is. I told them the same thing. 90% didn’t do it.

Lori Kennedy: [00:24:06] Yeah. Wow. Okay.

Natalia Hunter: [00:24:10] And deceive him may mean to send text to a picture of picking one goal from my vision board. So just pick one. I’m like, I pick two. Like.

Lori Kennedy: [00:24:19] Of course you did. I’m surprised you didn’t pick ten. When we came in, I introduced Natalia to Lori, who owns Innovation Spot. And I said, I don’t even know all the businesses she owns because she’s like, She’s got an addiction. And it has to do with owning businesses.

Natalia Hunter: [00:24:40] We narrowed it down only to now.

Lori Kennedy: [00:24:43] So tell us about mentoring and how you are mentored and and how you mentor others. And if you don’t have an answer, I do. Oh, I’m kind of like Ellen had an answer for you on something else.

Natalia Hunter: [00:24:59] I guess I don’t consider myself a mentor. I try to learn from every person that I meet. Like, I feel like every time I talk to somebody, I learn something new. You know, it’s so to me, I these are my mentors. As people I meet, I try to read books, you know, sometimes. Listen. Listen to the motivational speeches. As far as me mentoring anybody else. I guess just when I did my weight loss journey and lifestyle change, I did that. And we try and we try to help people that call us that have small claims that it would not be financially responsible for us to get involved to help them. So we try to give them a few pointers and say, hey, we can’t get involved because it would hurt you more than, you know, we’d be able to help you. But here’s what you should do. You know your options is this, this and this and good luck. You know, like, let us know if that works and if there’s anything else we can do. That’s pretty much it.

Lori Kennedy: [00:26:14] Yeah, I do feel like I feel like you and I are very similar in the sense that I want to whenever I sit down with somebody, I want to learn from them, and I also want to give something to them. And so I feel like all of my many of my relationships are both mentor and mentee, depending on wherever. They’re going to know more about one thing and I’m going to know more about something else. And so when you and I sat down, for example, together, I was trying to structure some things for our future, you know, to prepare. I’m not a spring chicken, so trying to kind of prepare for what our next steps are and how to structure the businesses and that sort of thing. And you were very forthcoming and helpful. You’re like, okay, I’ve already done some of this, so let me share it with you. And I feel like those are my favorite relationships with people. Or when I sit down with somebody, I learn what their needs are and if I know something about that, I share that and then I listen and then I, you know, I get the same from them and it’s kind of like our sharpens iron, but I just.

Natalia Hunter: [00:27:15] Help each.

Lori Kennedy: [00:27:16] Other. Yeah, I just love that. And so I feel like all my relationships are mentor mentee to that effect. But Karen, tell us about your mentor and mentee relationships.

Karen McDonald: [00:27:27] I actually don’t have a mentor and I’m not. I’m kind of like Natalie. I’m not sure if I’m mentoring, but I do go to networking groups and try to learn more about the folks there.

Lori Kennedy: [00:27:41] And yeah, I feel like every time I see you, you’re like taking pictures and encouraging people and getting the word out about them and tagging them. Like there are ways that you are showing that you’re bringing people along with you on a journey.

Karen McDonald: [00:27:56] Good for sure.

Natalia Hunter: [00:27:57] But you do help like you came in and help some of my clients. You know, she came in and did a free consultation on one of the listings I’ve had before in my real estate business and give them some pointers. So that’s part of you being mentor.

Karen McDonald: [00:28:12] That’s true. I do offer first time realtors a complimentary consult, usually for an occupied home, but it’s up to 2 hours and it’s a $250 value.

Lori Kennedy: [00:28:23] Look at that post that later and tell us who’s in your household or who’s in your family. Who’s in your family?

Karen McDonald: [00:28:32] Actually, my kids are 18 and 22 and they are out of the house. My dog Abe and I are the household.

Lori Kennedy: [00:28:40] Gotcha. Tell you who’s in your household or who’s in your family. Because like I have adult children that are in my family but not in my house.

Natalia Hunter: [00:28:47] I was going to say it’s just me and my husband and our dog right now. But we’re blended families, so we have three kids, 31 be 26 and 19. So the last one is in college. She’s got another year. So hopefully by December next year she’ll be graduating. And so in.

Lori Kennedy: [00:29:07] Your and your bank, okay will be one step closer to financial freedom.

Natalia Hunter: [00:29:10] Yeah I know I told her play the lottery.

Lori Kennedy: [00:29:14] Maybe you will maybe retire. We’ll all retire. Oh, my goodness. What about you, Miss Ellen?

Ellen Tyler: [00:29:22] Well, a week ago, we finally got the last child out.

Lori Kennedy: [00:29:26] Who had come back finally.

Ellen Tyler: [00:29:27] During the pandemic. So honestly, and we’ve been married 40 plus years, and it’s the first time there was only there’s probably only been one year where we didn’t have somebody living with us. So we’re kind of going we don’t know what this is like, but there’s five kids, there are two grandsons, and then we have the fur babies at home.

Lori Kennedy: [00:29:48] Oh, I have one that keeps coming back. But did you see that maybe was I think it might have been failure to launch. Yes. But where he was like feeding the fish naked. Yes. Yes. Okay. My husband was like, oh, once everybody moves out, we’re going to have a naked house. I’m like, We’re too old to have a naked house. That would be scary. Well, all right. We’re going to everybody’s got like a little bit of blush on right now. Natalia, tell me about a mistake that you made in business and what you learned from it.

Natalia Hunter: [00:30:18] Oh, boy. I felt like I probably make them. If not daily, but weekly. I feel like there’s like whether it’s you said something or, you know, I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is to stop talking and start listening more.

Lori Kennedy: [00:30:36] Oh, that’s good.

Natalia Hunter: [00:30:38] You know, because when I feel like when you first get in business, especially being self employed, do you try to sell yourself so hard and you just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and then you realize you talk to yourself out of business because you either come through too strong or you set too much or something happens. So that’s one of the things I still work on or try to work on and listen to people.

Lori Kennedy: [00:31:05] Gotcha. I like what you said about that. You fail daily. Not because I like that you fail daily, but there’s a somebody that I work with that my other job and his name is Ryan Lake, but he has a book called Chasing Failure. And and we all know this like you’re never going to succeed without making an attempt and you’re probably going to fail before you get it right. So I just I have tried to I, I have a fear of failure and I’ve tried to embrace that. That is not going to help me gain my best life.

Natalia Hunter: [00:31:40] I have to change a paradigm on that, too, because I had that same, you know, have a strong personality control issues and like, I need to be in charge. I need to be the one making decisions and not fail. But then I kind of start looking at it as well. The only way I fail is if I don’t learn from it, from if I quit, if I quit trying. So that helped me change my paradigm and kind of start. And doing things differently.

Lori Kennedy: [00:32:09] Yeah, for sure. For sure. Karen, tell us about a mistake you made and what you learned from it.

Karen McDonald: [00:32:16] Yeah, I actually underestimated my time on a project in the beginning, but I still honored the price. It was a good lesson to learn early in my business.

Lori Kennedy: [00:32:28] Yeah, for sure. How about you, Ellen?

Ellen Tyler: [00:32:31] I would say early on, not charging enough.

Lori Kennedy: [00:32:34] And.

Ellen Tyler: [00:32:35] Letting individuals come into the group coaching who were not a good fit and disrupted it more than anything. So just personality wise. And. They weren’t really ready.

Lori Kennedy: [00:32:51] So tell us. I haven’t heard about group coaching before from you. So tell tell me a little about this and like, what kind of personality would mess up your group?

Ellen Tyler: [00:33:02] Well, so first I’ll tell you that the ideal person is somebody who is hungry and disciplined, who really wants to. Move the needle. The ones that don’t fit are the ones that blame everything outside and aren’t willing to look at. Like Natalia said, paradigms like so see where the problem. But we’re the solution. So if I can’t accept I’m the problem, then I’m not going to believe that there’s a solution that I can come with up with versus somebody outside has to give me the answer to my problem.

Lori Kennedy: [00:33:37] I love that. And I it was too much to write down, so I’m going to go listen to it later. So how did you start to discern who could be in the group and who couldn’t? How did you discern who has this attitude? Because I need this to hire employees.

Ellen Tyler: [00:33:53] Yeah, well, a lot of.

Lori Kennedy: [00:33:54] It.

Ellen Tyler: [00:33:55] I’m just going to tell you it’s intuition. But sometimes it’s like, think about the questions you would want answers to, and sometimes it’s their past. That would be a good clue. So for me, it’s that. Have you ever hired a coach or bought a program? Because most everybody would say, Oh, I bought I bought this program to do this and this, and it sat in the drawer or on the computer. The key is if they’ve done something in the past similar to what you’re looking for. My question is, did you do the work or why didn’t it work?

Lori Kennedy: [00:34:29] Yeah, I think why didn’t it work would help, you know, if they’re blaming themselves or blaming someone else. And I.

Ellen Tyler: [00:34:34] Right.

Lori Kennedy: [00:34:34] That’s a big key.

Ellen Tyler: [00:34:35] You get really good at just when you come into a conversation. There’s actually a way you can prepare even in interviews. And it’s to ask yourself, what do I want the outcome to be? Usually it’s that let’s use an interview as a process. Well, it’s that I want I want to determine if this is somebody I want to go to the next step with, not like hire them on the spot and then then it’s us. What do we have to think? I have a great place of work. We have great camaraderie. Camaraderie. I can’t talk today, you know, but just I’m creating this spot. And so you have to think about that. Okay. So if I think that, then how do I have to feel? Not like, oh my gosh, you know, if they’re the last person on earth, I’m going to hire them anyways because nobody’s walking through the door. That is not going to help you. It’s more that, you know what, I’ll know when they come in. It’s I’m just going to listen to my gut. And then you ask yourself, what are the action steps I need to do? Which in any situation it’s usually ask really good questions and then shut your mouth.

Lori Kennedy: [00:35:40] So what is different about you in reference to being a coach?

Ellen Tyler: [00:35:46] So for all of us, it’s what is my personal background that I brought into this that makes a difference. And I discovered I didn’t know this. I was an entrepreneur hiding in the corporate world. So I opened businesses, open businesses, open businesses.

Lori Kennedy: [00:36:03] Sounds like Natalia. Yes.

Ellen Tyler: [00:36:05] But I hid under the corporate umbrella.

Lori Kennedy: [00:36:07] She did it without it.

Ellen Tyler: [00:36:09] I was like, I’m going to wait.

Natalia Hunter: [00:36:10] And see that.

Lori Kennedy: [00:36:11] Now. It’s all fixed. I’m like.

Ellen Tyler: [00:36:14] Okay. And it’s that background. So I didn’t come out of that and go, Well, let me be a relationship coach, but it’s what do I care about and what can I help them with? And I had the experience because I did the work and I did the process. And coming from my background, I’m highly structured. I former life financial advisor, all designated. And that’s what makes me different is that I have a process. I didn’t just wake up and go, I think I had a life changing event. Let me see if I can help people. How are you feeling today?

Lori Kennedy: [00:36:50] Well, I’m feeling pretty good. I got out of bed this morning and I went to the bathroom.

Ellen Tyler: [00:36:54] I tell people I might be your friend. He goes, You go. But you don’t hire me to be your friend.

Lori Kennedy: [00:37:00] Yeah.

Natalia Hunter: [00:37:02] You got two habits for me. That would.

Lori Kennedy: [00:37:03] Be. I know, I know. I know. Lori was.

Ellen Tyler: [00:37:06] The bathroom when she.

Lori Kennedy: [00:37:07] Wakes up. That was good recall, wasn’t it? Right. And that back like that.

Natalia Hunter: [00:37:11] Learning good, fast learner.

Lori Kennedy: [00:37:14] All right. The next question is about a message that is for women specifically. Karen, I’m going to start with you.

Karen McDonald: [00:37:24] Great. Actually have an inspirational saying that I brought today. Clothes won’t change the world. The women who wear them will. Anne Klein.

Lori Kennedy: [00:37:35] I love it. Wow. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Natalia, do you have a message for women specifically?

Natalia Hunter: [00:37:46] Well, I guess it’s just just do it. Be like Nike. I mean, if there’s something you want to do it, do it. And don’t be afraid. I mean, the worst thing you happen is it doesn’t work out how you wanted it to be. Maybe, But it’s something’s going to change and it’s going to be a learning process. So whether you want to start a business or switch career, there’s plenty of places and people, you know, like Allen that can help you, guide you and tell you what to do if you lost. Yeah. So I just say, don’t be afraid of trying new things.

Lori Kennedy: [00:38:26] Ellen, do you have a message for women specifically?

Ellen Tyler: [00:38:30] I would say if you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do? And start dreaming again?

Lori Kennedy: [00:38:37] What are some misconceptions about your industry?

Ellen Tyler: [00:38:40] That we’re consultants and will come in and tell you exactly what to do?

Lori Kennedy: [00:38:45] And that we don’t have to do any work. On the other hand, on the other side of that.

Ellen Tyler: [00:38:49] Right.

Lori Kennedy: [00:38:50] What are some misconceptions about your industry, Natalia?

Natalia Hunter: [00:38:54] I guess the biggest one is people think that when you know there’s a loss and because there’s award insurance and and our description that we work for the insurance company, just like when they send their own adjusters and tell you how much they’re going to pay you on the loss, we don’t see no conflict there. Right. People think we work for the insurance company and we don’t you know, we represent policyholders. And then. I guess another thing is that people think, Oh, it’s expensive. I already don’t have enough money. Well, our average increase from initial offer when we come in is about 600%. It’s not a yes, it’s not. So it’s more than covers our fee to the point where the numbers are staggering. I just did one of the videos. I don’t know if you happen to see it. The client called us. They had a flood. They offered they received from the insurance company was 122,000. So they didn’t hire us until two months later. And within a month and a half we were So far. So far we are up to 522,000. Wow. And it’s not we’re not finished yet. So it is huge difference Now, obviously not in every house, but 600% is big.

Lori Kennedy: [00:40:18] Right. And that’s definitely the difference. There is enough to have your fee.

Natalia Hunter: [00:40:23] More than that plus. Not to mention because my husband is a general contractor and like you mentioned, we have the knowledge of the construction we use to build homes and real estate knowledge. So the values we are able to get them, the money that’s going to get them put him back to pre loss condition in today’s market, not what they paid for it when they bought it because that’s what they entitled to to be indemnified and that’s why we exist.

Lori Kennedy: [00:40:51] Wow. That’s very eye opening. I appreciate that. Karen, tell us about a misconception in your industry.

Karen McDonald: [00:41:00] Sure. Staging a vacant home is essential, but staging an occupied home is equally essential. I think people only think about staging a vacant property. This is a misconception because occupied homes need to be staged. Occupied home means the home owners are living in the house while it’s for sale. During an occupied consult, I have the advantage of looking at the property with my staging and not from the homeowners perspective that live there.

Lori Kennedy: [00:41:29] So when you do that for a homeowner that actually lives there, do they have to move their furniture out? Like, do you have to? Do they have to like, get a storage unit and get their furniture out of that? Or how does that typically work? Like what? What do you do different for them that you would do for an unoccupied home?

Karen McDonald: [00:41:49] Yeah. So if it’s occupied, I go in and do a consult and I work with what they have. We start outside, we go room by room and I, you know, talk about making conversation areas with the furniture they have. Getting rid of personal items in the home. We’re trying to create a neutral environment.

Lori Kennedy: [00:42:09] Yeah, kind of simplifying it, Right? Got it. That makes sense. We’re going to start winding it down, ladies. So, Ellen, I’m going to start with you. I want you to tell me a tip of your trade, and then I want you to let us know how others can get in touch with your business.

Ellen Tyler: [00:42:25] So a tip of the trade is that. Guys. There are so many. Let’s do one. Pick one thing and do it. Pick one thing. You don’t have to do 100. Pick one idea. One idea from a book, one idea from a person, and just do it and they can reach me. I have a website. Ellen Tyler, Coach Pinkham The email is pretty simple. There’s contact me on there. They can get in touch.

Lori Kennedy: [00:42:53] Awesome. Natalia, how about you?

Natalia Hunter: [00:42:57] I guess the biggest or step one would be for the policy holders is read your policy. Know what you bought and see if you have a coverage and you know some of the policies could be up to 100 pages long. It’s not just a declaration page, you know, it’s the whole policy. So you have to read your policy. As far as getting in touch with us, our website is go back dot com. It can be reached at our office number 7702137020. And we’re here to help.

Lori Kennedy: [00:43:38] I’m going to ask you one more question, though, because I probably haven’t read all my policies. I’m just being honest. Am I looking for something specific?

Natalia Hunter: [00:43:48] Well, you’d be surprised. Some of the policies, for example, you buy insurance to protect you from flood, right? The flood happens. You want to be protected. Well, sometimes insurance policies exclude that or they may exclude something else that you want to have, you know, like or sewage backup, for example. Most policies don’t give you that automatically. You have to get that as endorsement. So, oh, that’s a big one.

Lori Kennedy: [00:44:17] Do you have like a little piece of your company that just helps people read their policies?

Natalia Hunter: [00:44:22] That would be actually, that’s our next business.

Lori Kennedy: [00:44:26] Oh, we’re back to that again.

Natalia Hunter: [00:44:30] Yes. So we were just we we’re restructuring as of New Year will have a new business or it will.

Ellen Tyler: [00:44:36] Be your new client.

Lori Kennedy: [00:44:37] Yes. I want to sign up for that to get my policies looked at. Yes. Because I don’t know what I’m looking for. Even if I read it, I don’t know what I would want. But I did remember hearing something about if the water comes in from above versus below, it’s different. Like this is a storm that’s a flood. And even though they might be the same thing. Yes, that one might. They are. They are right there. So you have a.

Natalia Hunter: [00:45:05] Flood in your basement that came in from outside. You do not have a coverage unless you have flood insurance. Yeah, I know. People don’t know.

Lori Kennedy: [00:45:15] That. Let me write this down, too. I’m going to have to go back and listen to this one for sure.

Natalia Hunter: [00:45:19] Yeah, So but yes, you know, we do do consulting. And like I said, that’s going to be our next business where we combine it and we’re going to have, you know, this department for this and that. And so we able to help people and business owners and, you know, anybody that we can because as of right now, we cannot represent the third party. We can only work for policyholders. But with consulting business will be able to help contractors, builders, anybody.

Lori Kennedy: [00:45:49] Got it. All right, Karen, tell us a tip of your trade and then how others can get in touch with you.

Karen McDonald: [00:45:56] Okay. A tip in staging is that less is more. Almost every home I see has too much clutter and furniture. Owning less is better than organizing more. Not only does it free up the space, but it frees you up mentally in staging. We want the rooms to feel bigger and creating a neutral environment and highlighting the features of the home is the goal. Folks can get in touch with me at I staging on social media. I also have a website I staging and my phone number is 404538885.

Lori Kennedy: [00:46:34] Awesome. I want to ask one more question and that is I want to know what areas you all serve or work in. So, Karen, what areas do you work in?

Karen McDonald: [00:46:42] Yeah, I work in the metro Atlanta area.

Lori Kennedy: [00:46:44] Okay. So any, any like on the south side or just on the north?

Karen McDonald: [00:46:49] Yeah, I’m all over. Most of my work is in Cherokee and Cobb, but I go all over Atlanta.

Lori Kennedy: [00:46:54] Okay, awesome.

Natalia Hunter: [00:46:55] Natalia Well, we are licensed in the entire state of Georgia, so it depends on the scope of work and the job. You know, we will go all over the state, but as of right now, you know, probably within, I’d say an hour, hour and a half radius from Atlanta. Got it. But we do right now. We do most in Cherokee County.

Lori Kennedy: [00:47:20] Okay. Okay. What about you, Miss Ellen?

Ellen Tyler: [00:47:22] Humans in the world.

Lori Kennedy: [00:47:23] Yeah, you can do Zoom or whatever. Some kind of online thing. Okay, great. Awesome. Well, thank you, ladies, for being here today. Before we close stone, say hi. Hi. Do you have anything brilliant Yesterday? Brilliant for y’all. But I am going to reach out to Natalia and bring her my insurance policy. I tell you that much for sure. Awesome. Well.

Natalia Hunter: [00:47:49] Thank you, Laurie, for having me.

Lori Kennedy: [00:47:50] Yes. Yes. I was so happy that you’re here. And thank you for joining us today. On Women in Business Powered by Business Radio X. Until next time, this is Laurie Kennedy reminding you to keep learning and growing.

 

Mindy Johnson with Beyond the Spotlight Dance Studio

November 14, 2022 by angishields

Mindy-Johnson-Feature
Cherokee Business Radio
Mindy Johnson with Beyond the Spotlight Dance Studio
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Mindy-Johnson-studio

Mindy-JohnsonMindy Johnson is the co-founder and executive director of Beyond the Spotlight Dance Studio in Woodstock, Georgia.

She has been teaching for 20 years and grew up dancing at the age of 4. She has an Associate in Early Childhood and is Acro Arts certified. She has choreographed high school productions of Cinderella and Chicago musical.

Follow Beyond the Spotlight Dance Studio on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:18] And well, hello, Happy Friday and happy, fearless formula. I am so happy to have this on the air. Last week I had some technical difficulties. However, it still did work out in the atmosphere somewhere, but hopefully things are going just fine this week. And today in my studio I have the co founder and executive director for Beyond the Spotlight Dance Studio here in Woodstock, Georgia. She has been teaching for 20 years and grew up dancing starting at age four. She has an associate’s in early childhood and Acro Arts certified. She’s choreographer. She knows how to work sound boards because she’s my backup today. Please welcome to the studio, Mindy Johnson. Hey, thanks for coming in.

Mindy Johnson: [00:01:03] Thanks for having me.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:05] Welcome. I’m excited to talk to you because you have a brand new business. Really?

Mindy Johnson: [00:01:09] I do. Yeah. We just opened in August.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:12] How is it going? That’s such a big question.

Mindy Johnson: [00:01:15] It was busy. We it’s been really interesting. We got into the building August 1st, and I had my open house, like, big grand opening on the sixth.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:26] Wow. So you only have three days.

Mindy Johnson: [00:01:29] Yeah, And luckily, it was the location we’re in was a studio before, so the flooring was there. Majority of the stuff I needed, like it was set up for how I needed it, but it was a lot of painting, a lot of.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:46] Scuff marks on the floor from legs kicking or whatever.

Mindy Johnson: [00:01:49] You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, a lot of people helping to paint that week. It was it was exhausting, but so good. And then, you know, we went into the open house and all that, and then we went into trial week where kids could come in and just try classes. And then we went into starting our actual years. So it didn’t stop and still kind of hasn’t, I guess.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:10] Maybe the week of Christmas, you know, where it gets kind of quiet. Well, so what were you doing before? This is a brand new venture for you and you’re the co founder and who is your other co founder?

Mindy Johnson: [00:02:21] So my sister and I started this together. Christy Johnson. Hey. Hey. She she has always been there. She’s my younger sister. She’s always kind of encouraged me and, you know, always there to talk through all the things where four years apart. So it’s kind of nice. And so she’s she wanted to jump in on this and she’s got the business side. She works for the county and she does the business admin. And so she knows all of that stuff. And, you know, I’m not a math person, so she handles the the money side and all the numbers and I’m like, just tell me.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:58] It’s nice to have someone who can balance you out like that.

Mindy Johnson: [00:03:00] Yes. Yes. And I’ve got like the creative teacher side because I also teach preschool. So, you know, I’ve had that in my life forever. I’ve been doing that for ten years ish, I think, now.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:13] So did you always want to have your own studio to to dance? How did it come about?

Mindy Johnson: [00:03:18] So surprisingly, I didn’t. I’ve been teaching, like you said, 20 years now. I actually when I was dancing, when I was younger, I actually wanted to be a dance teacher. I think it was about ten or 12 ish age. And, you know, back then my teacher, who was also one of my mentors, I wanted to be like her and I wanted to learn all the things. And so I assisted all the classes and I was at the studio all the time when I wasn’t dancing. And so then. As I got into high school, they had an apprenticeship program back then and I jumped into that so then I could go teach dance classes and get paid for it and do what I wanted to do. So I did that. So I technically have been teaching since I was a junior in high school, which is kind of crazy. So that’s why when I say 20 years, it sounds like forever ago, right? Right.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:14] But you can consider that actual that is teaching and experience.

Mindy Johnson: [00:04:17] So, I mean, they paid me. So that’s a professional. I did it.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:22] Good for you. Yeah.

Mindy Johnson: [00:04:24] So I was content, though, just kind of teaching. And then over the years, you know, all of my bunch of my coworkers that became friends and just friends in general all kind of said, you know what you’re doing? And you know, you know, you’re so good at this. Help me with this, you know, So they would come to me for stuff. And so then during quarantine, when we all had to change our lives and figure all the stuff out, you know, I always helped out in the studio and had different jobs and positions where I was in charge of stuff. So I kind of always had that leadership role somewhere throughout the years. And that one just kind of, I don’t know, it just kind of like taught me and showed me that I know I could do this. And then there were times that I would think, Oh, this would be a really cute idea to do. I wish I wish I could do it. But, you know, it’s like not my place. So I didn’t you know, I didn’t want to do any of that in that situation. So then I thought, well, you know, I’ve kind of been here in this same spot forever. So I thought it was a change, a time for a change. And. I went for it and it was terrifying.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:35] The show is all about fearless. It’s all about the ups and downs of the business world and how you navigate your emotions around business. Because it’s not just numbers. It’s, you know, it’s highly emotional, you know, and your your heart and your soul and spirit and all of that gets involved. So but you know, what that’s like says a lot about just sort of your belief in yourself, because there are lots of people who have dreams, who’ve always thought, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. And they don’t know, you know, because time goes by and there are million reasons why it’s not a good time. I mean, let’s just talk about the pandemic. What was that? How did that impact you?

Mindy Johnson: [00:06:08] Oh, so, you know, dancing.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:11] Yeah, I know. We got together.

Mindy Johnson: [00:06:14] Yeah. We’re we’re always so close to each other, you know, always breathing the same air. So we ended up where I was teaching before they we went straight to Zoom. I mean, we stayed open the whole time. It was it was awesome. I was happy that I could still work and get paid for it.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:33] Then that’s a big deal. A lot of. Yeah, you know, struggled so much. But were you also still doing preschool then?

Mindy Johnson: [00:06:39] So for preschool, because I teach, I’m teaching like the five year olds. So they all go off to kindergarten the next year. They we kind of stopped and then we kind of picked up like Storytime on Zoom. And I was sending a lot of stuff for preschool, like sending it to the parents. Now, you know, that age, it’s super hard to get kids to sit in your house and do work, which, you know, most parents know this now, right? So I was doing as much as I could to make sure that they felt like they were getting the education they still needed if they wanted to do it at home. And then, you know, sadly, we didn’t get to have our little graduation, but we did like a drive by car thing and it was really cute. And I delivered ice cream and balloons to my students with my assistant that year. So it was nice. We we got a little closure, but yeah, dance. We kept going on Zoom. We, I was making schedules for that and figuring out four different zooms and who’s on what zoom and what time. And and we actually ended up doing summer camps that summer in person, you know, all of the the cleaning and all of that and just making sure everyone was safe. But yeah, it was hard.

Sharon Cline: [00:07:48] You were still able to do it. So exciting to hear so many people struggled, you know, but it’s it’s probably the highlight of kids day, you know, to be able to do something that’s familiar. You know, I would have been a horrible teacher to my own kids. They know that. I know that. I’m just saying it probably would have been like a nice break for parents to have, you know, something. And plus, it gets their energy out. All the good things.

Mindy Johnson: [00:08:10] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, the kids were awesome on Zoom. Now I’m going to tell you for sure. Tapping on Zoom is very difficult. Unless you have all the fancy equipment. Zoom does not pick up taps very well. Oh, really? Yes. So I was I literally a lot of my teaching was sitting watching a screen because it was either acrobatics where, you know, I still they still did some tricks, but it was a lot of just conditioning. So I was sitting there counting how many, you know, tricks, you know, pushups they were doing or little obstacle courses they could do at home or, you know, in tap. I would I would have to do one at a time and you’d push play. And on your side it’s playing the right speed. But on the taps it was slower.

Sharon Cline: [00:08:55] Oh, fascinating.

Mindy Johnson: [00:08:56] So I would be like, Yeah, sure, sure. That looks good. Yep. Good job, guys.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:01] So when you really decided to go ahead and go for creating your own business, was it even from start to finish, like you came up with the name that you wanted, a logo LLC or DBA or, you know, when you actually start to create your own business, there’s so much behind it.

Mindy Johnson: [00:09:18] Yeah. There. I didn’t realize how much I had to think. I was just like, at first I didn’t I wasn’t going to do a studio studio. I was going to do mobile studio where I would rent like a room at a community center around town and maybe eventually do the studio just to kind of like get my feet in there. And then the location just opened up in like things just happened in the perfect amount of time in like two weeks. My plans changed majorly.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:43] Kind of opened up for you then. It feels like it was meant to be. If that’s the case sometimes.

Mindy Johnson: [00:09:48] You know, I didn’t even I really wasn’t even looking in Woodstock because there’s so many here.

Sharon Cline: [00:09:54] And I was taking a salsa class at that exact location before. Yeah.

Mindy Johnson: [00:09:59] It’s so crazy. But I mean, I’m so much I’m in this community all the time, so I guess it was meant to be that way again.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:06] Like things sometimes do just kind of fall into your lap. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, when you’re trying to fight to make something happen, it’s so frustrating compared to something just naturally opening.

Mindy Johnson: [00:10:16] So right when I was picking the name, I think that that was the hardest. And the person my one of my mentors that was my old boss a while ago, she was like, Don’t worry about the name until you get all this, this and this. And I was like, But I’m a theme kind. A person like when I teach preschool, it’s themed, so I need a name so then I can figure everything else out. So there was a lot of lists between me and my sister. And then we asked a lot of our friends to vote, and then we would explain why we like this name. Like what the meaning behind the name was for that.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:51] So, yeah, that’s so nice. You had support, such support?

Mindy Johnson: [00:10:53] Yes, it’s been a lot of support, a lot of friends, a lot of community help for sure.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:59] But I feel like. Plus, your location is so wonderful right in the heart of downtown. I mean, you can walk to your studio from anywhere in the downtown area, which is great. Yes.

Mindy Johnson: [00:11:08] I love the market on Saturday morning, so it’s kind of perfect because I make the schedule, so I made it so I could go to the market still and get my breakfast and coffee, and then I can walk down back to the studio and start teaching class.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:23] Has it been a challenge at all to get students? Because obviously you were working from another studio involved in another studio. So when you break free and have your own dream, you know, what’s it like to recruit people or to advertise?

Mindy Johnson: [00:11:37] I’d have to say in a sense that’s one of the hardest things in a way, because I was not out to poach students. That was not like the whole me doing this was just for myself, of course. And I’m sure it’s tricky.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:52] Because you’re the teacher, but but you’re not the first person to ever have wanted to break free and and do your own thing. It must be it must be a hard line to kind of navigate it.

Mindy Johnson: [00:12:03] It definitely is. So my goal was just to get the word of mouth out, you know, having my friends, my community, you know, having everyone announcing it to my, you know, networking groups and having them kind of pass the word out, getting it on social media. So then my Facebook friends and Instagram people will pass it out. So that that’s kind of been our our biggest thing, I think. Trying to figure out how to really recruit maybe is one of the harder things because, you know, not knowing where to put that money, you know, for advertising or I did a trunk or treat, which was really fun. So that was like free little thing. And I love that I had a blast because it was again, I was around kids, so I was in my element. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:53] And it’s it’s so cute. It’s such a great Halloween area. Is that right Where it All over the area in downtown Woodstock. They really they do it well yeah, I think.

Mindy Johnson: [00:13:02] Yeah. No, it was great. So I mean I’ve been doing a lot of that and getting in into the community and getting our our name out there. And just like you said, there’s so many people around here working with other businesses here. I love that connection and just making those connections because there’s something between everyone.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:24] It’s true. And you just had an event last night.

Mindy Johnson: [00:13:27] Last night?

Sharon Cline: [00:13:28] Yeah. How did it go?

Mindy Johnson: [00:13:30] It was so much fun.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:32] So let’s talk about your your official event. It was called Empower, right?

Mindy Johnson: [00:13:36] Yes. Yes. So we jumped in with in Woodstock and we hosted last night the Empower Event. And that’s your.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:45] First time hosting, right? Yeah. How was it? Were you nervous? I would have been so nervous.

Mindy Johnson: [00:13:49] You know, I wasn’t nervous because I guess I was in my building and I was in my element. We did a tour and I had some snacks and goodies and and then I taught everyone there to conservative a little combo. Oh, it was a lot of fun. And everyone had a blast. They took some of the props and danced with those. You know, we had a blast and then we we split up and did some leadership questions about confidence. And that was that was a lot of fun.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:19] Were there any surprises that happened last night? Were you surprised at how excited people were or willing to participate?

Mindy Johnson: [00:14:26] I was actually I mean, they were they were kind of defensive at first because they knew they had to dance. But I think that goes for like anything when you do it new, you know, you’re you’re terrified. And then once I started teaching and they got a couple of it, you know, steps going, they their confidence kind of picked up. Yeah, I learned that. And then at the end we were all cheering after we ran it two or three times and they’re like, Oh yeah, this is fun. And I was like, I’m glad that’s what I wanted.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:55] So what do you think is the most satisfying part about having your own business? What do you think is sort of what drives you and kind of just makes you feel like, yes, all of this is worth it?

Mindy Johnson: [00:15:05] Oh, man. I feel like there’s a lot of things I want to say. Building that community and taking all these ideas that I didn’t know I had and being able to do them and make them my own. I grew up, you know, in an amazing studio that I learned so much from, and they were part of the community. And I just remember all of that. And I think I want to get my kids out there to do that. I want them to feel like they have this community, even with with the with people in the mornings, Like that group has just changed the way I’ve thought about everything. They they’ve kind of pushed me, in a sense, to do this, too. They gave me that, that feedback that I needed to tell me I could do it. So I think taking. Taking all of that and kind of putting it into the business is kind of where. Where I love all of that and having my own business to do that.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:09] I don’t think it’s really underestimated how important support is and how much that can really affect your thought process. Oh yeah. You know.

Mindy Johnson: [00:16:18] I love asking for help. I know it’s hard for a lot of people, but I’m one of those that I will take all of it. You want to offer it? I will take it. I just because then I, I feel like it connects us even more. So I feel like that’s going to help grow any business. You know?

Sharon Cline: [00:16:36] I do. And I think one of the things that I love about just sort of this community in itself is like, this is a real family community. And so it just works so well for I can imagine people coming back 15 years from now and being like, I took my dance classes right there, you know? Yeah, that’s.

Mindy Johnson: [00:16:53] Exactly my like, that was that’s one of my, like, visions for my studio. That’s what I want because, I mean, I’ve had I mean, obviously teaching for 20 years. I’ve gone through a lot of graduations with kids. So I think and in the last I’m going to say ten years maybe, or maybe even less or more, I, I finally seen the ones that I’ve taught when they were two or three growing up to then graduate and go off to college. And just hearing them when they come back are like, you know, being friends with them on Facebook and Instagram and seeing where they’re growing and keeping in touch with their parents, like having that community. That’s what I want to bring to to my studio. And so they they’re comfortable in my building talking to the teachers and then they can take what they learn here, bring it into their lives, you know, whether it’s college or professional dancing or something else, that they feel that they can come kind of like back home, you know, and and want to come back and tell me about how their life is or, you know, want to come back and take classes as an adult or bring their kids to me. And I just that’s that’s one of my biggest things.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:04] What are the ages for your for your studio? Are they all ages?

Mindy Johnson: [00:18:08] So right now in our first year, we are doing ages two through ten ish. Then we have some adult classes going on as well. I have a tap in a jazz class for adults. There’s so much fun. It’s such a different vibe from kids to adults. I love it. And then so yeah, and you know, eventually I would love to have a company and grow that so I can have them go around and perform, you know, out in the community more at festivals and, and do that. Yeah, that’s so we have right now we have 2 to 10 but eventually we’ll have all ages is my goal.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:47] What do you think Is you talking about sort of having your own business? Do you think that you’ve had something where it’s been sort of like, Man, I wish I had known that before I got started in this. Is there anything that you kind of wish that you had known from the beginning? Anything that surprised you? Oh.

Mindy Johnson: [00:19:05] Let’s see. Maybe, I guess, more of the business stuff. I mean, I, I learned a lot before, and I knew going into the studio, I felt like even now when people ask me, oh, is it like, isn’t it hard? Or is it, you know, are you surprised about how hard this is or something? And on the dance side, it’s so easy. It’s exactly where I was before. I’m doing.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:32] Your wheelhouse.

Mindy Johnson: [00:19:33] Yeah. Like, I know what I’m doing. I got that. But the business side, like the marketing, the. That was my next question. Finding the accountants, finding. I don’t know, whatever else. Again, that’s why I have my sister, thank goodness. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:47] But how challenging is it? I mean, if you’ve never run your own business before, there’s a whole side that has absolutely nothing to do with your exact product. It’s more about making sure you’ve got all of your ducks in a row and you’ve got everything paid correctly. Yeah, exactly. So where did you go to get information on that? Because I really went to the basics. Like when I started doing voiceovers, I was just doing like, Google.

Mindy Johnson: [00:20:09] Yeah, exactly. No, that’s where we went. I Googled how to open a dance studio for sure. That’s so great. Or what? I what? I need to open a dance studio and, you know, and just talking to other people, you know, in, in my little network and asking those entrepreneurs, Hey, we’re doing this. Do you know someone who you do? Who’s your accountant? Who’s how did you do this when you opened, you know, stuff like that. Again, that’s using that community that you have. I think that’s I think that’s the biggest thing when you open a business and not feeling like you have to do it alone.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:47] We talked about this with other guests on the show about how important it is to have some good people around you that you feel like you can ask. You can be vulnerable enough to say, I really don’t know what I’m doing. Right, right, right, exactly. Work. Yeah. But, you know, we luckily have like some really great people that are willing to spend some time and explain things and not mind the helping.

Mindy Johnson: [00:21:08] Oh, exactly. Exactly.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:09] So what do you do for your marketing Now? I know we kind of briefly talked about it, but so you’ve got your social media, which is huge. That’s what everyone’s doing on exactly marketing with social media. So you have have you ever advertised on Facebook or do you just have your page?

Mindy Johnson: [00:21:28] We have not advertised on Facebook. From what I hear, it’s very tricky. If you don’t know how to do Facebook ads, I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’m still trying to figure that one out.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:38] Well, if you learn you can let me, I will. Like, we’ll help each other.

Mindy Johnson: [00:21:41] My sister talk to you about that because it’s not going to be me.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:44] No. You know, it is a whole world that I’m not as savvy.

Mindy Johnson: [00:21:47] No, I know we we were in some of the magazines when we did our ribbon cutting, so that that’s kind of nice doing that.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:57] So like the local Woodstock ones and.

Mindy Johnson: [00:21:59] Yeah, gotcha. We are doing we have a little ad in at St Michael’s Catholic Church down the road. So a few ads here and there. A lot of it, again is word of mouth. You know, the parents making sure your parents are out there talking about your studio and mom groups. I’m part of a few mom groups on Facebook, so that’s been helpful to kind of advertise that way in a sense. Let’s see, I don’t think we haven’t really paid for any advertising yet.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:31] Well, it’s just so fascinating to me. Yeah, because not everybody does. Yeah. You know, I think one gentleman I had has his own jujitsu studio and he said, I think I put like 100 bucks and advertising, but like, he’s enormously successful. But I think that’s actually even more important to have word of mouth because people are going to tell you the truth. It’s true. You know that’s true. This has gone well. This is not gone well. Yeah.

Mindy Johnson: [00:22:54] Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:55] So. What do you do as far as planning out, I guess, where you want to be? Do you have a long term or a five year goal or are you just taking it year by year as far as being a business owner?

Mindy Johnson: [00:23:08] So I want to say, I don’t know. I feel like I haven’t talked to my sister about this in a minute. We have kind of a five year plan. Like, we have an idea of where we want to be. We’ve also taken it into yearly. We do. Me and my sister, well, will meet even though we live together. We will meet and talk every every week about what we need for, like the next month or the next week. So I feel like us communicating like that has helped. And then kind of talking quarterly as well.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:44] When you’re new, I’m sure it’s hard to know exactly what to expect.

Mindy Johnson: [00:23:48] No. And you know, going into it, not knowing how many kids I’d have jump in here, you know, just having to play in that way. It’s it’s been. It’s a little bit harder to plan, but at least we have some ideas going into it. So yeah, we have a few a few ideas that we want for the future and where we want to go.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:08] I love that because like I said, a lot of people have their sort of dreams and goals and they never take that step of, Well, let me just Google how to do this, whatever it is, whatever their dream is. And so I like that you kind of it’s not like you have this huge. Set plan that you’re really sure is going to go this way. You’re kind of taking it as it comes because that’s how life is. But that’s also so less daunting for someone who’s wanting to open their own business. You know, they don’t have to have everything spelled out exactly right or know everything. Has there been anything that’s kind of been super challenging for you?

Mindy Johnson: [00:24:42] Um, I think making that, that work life balance for sure, which I think is kind of for everyone, honestly, unless you’re really focusing on it. I mean, I, but I also want to make sure I do it all. I have a hard time kind of giving stuff away. I will admit that. So me trying to plan out around my schedule when I should work studio stuff because I teach preschool in the morning, I’ll usually just go straight to the studio after and sit there until it’s time to start teaching, which is different every day. So I try to use those hours as my my working hours. And then usually during the weekend, at least one day during the weekend, Sundays, usually my me and my sister will go to a coffee shop and just like work on stuff. And it’s kind of our meeting. Right. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:35] Like crazy how that is. Well, if you’re just joining us, we are speaking with Mindy Johnson of Beyond the Spotlight Dance Studio. I think that’s a big issue for everybody that I’ve interviewed on the show is trying to manage the work and life balance, because with social media being the way it is, if anyone posts anything, anytime, anywhere, there is a feeling of I need to respond to this or I need to be able to always be reachable through through texting or or through social media so that my business will grow. You can’t ever.

Mindy Johnson: [00:26:05] You can’t turn it off. Yeah, it’s horrible. I hate it, but I love it.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:10] I know it’s a good problem. But at the same time, no, it’s interesting. I’ve talked to a couple of people who are like, you know, having to put some some strict boundaries around themselves is. Is really difficult. I’m the same. You know, if anyone wanted me to do voice, I don’t care where I am. I drive home, I do it, I make it happen. But at the same time, I don’t know if you try to have a, you know, a life outside of work or, you know, even like kids and family. I was speaking with someone who’s a plumber on here. What the challenge is to kind of strictly this is my date night. This is my time out, you know, having to put. But then there’s the struggle of wanting to make money and be successful. So I don’t know. I haven’t really managed it.

Mindy Johnson: [00:26:52] I haven’t either. Yeah. I’m trying to build myself up to do the whole time blocking thing. The idea sounds amazing. I just really struggle to do that because then my brain is just like, Well, but I have this to do and I have this to, Oh, I could work on this. I feel like it’s a little A.D.D.. I’m not really sure if I am or not, but I feel like it’s a little bit.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:14] So you had done also some choreography for different shows. What kind of shows have you done?

Mindy Johnson: [00:27:20] Yeah, I got into choreographing musicals lately in the last, I guess, year. I guess I could say not this summer, but the summer before. It kind of fell into my lap and was amazing. And I was terrified to do it because I’d never done it before.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:38] Where do you find like, where do you if I were to I’m sure I’m picturing myself. Who knows nothing. Imagine going, you know, and knowing I have this whole show to do. Where do you find the inspiration for the different ways that you can choreograph? Is it already sort of spelled out for you or is it strictly up to your creativity?

Mindy Johnson: [00:27:55] So I did a lot of YouTube watching. That was where because so my first show was Cinderella, which is my favorite, like Disney Princess, and I love all those movies that are out. I’ve watched them all. So it kind of was like one of those, You need to choreograph this.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:17] Oh, that’s so great. It was in your heart.

Mindy Johnson: [00:28:19] It was. Yeah, it was meant to be again. So I went a lot of YouTube. I did Chicago in the spring, and then this summer I did Elf the Musical. So much fun. They did a Christmas in July. I was going to.

Sharon Cline: [00:28:32] Say, It’s summer.

Mindy Johnson: [00:28:33] It was well, it was really cute. But yeah, a lot of YouTube just watching. I know. Watching a lot of those. Every time I had to choreograph a piece, I would pull it up on YouTube, watch what a bunch of other places had, or even the real Broadway’s have. You know, like with Chicago, some of it you kind of use that. The Bob Fosse. Yes. Yes. So I used a few steps from that, but most of it I just had to come up with my own.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:03] So are you working with high schoolers? Is that what it is or what age group?

Mindy Johnson: [00:29:06] Yeah. So I go down to Newnan. Oh, okay. And choreographed down there. They have a star program during the summer. And then East Coweta High School is where I go during the spring. They’re doing Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat this spring, so I’m excited for that.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:23] How fun. And you know, what’s cool is you’ve got a couple of different communities that you feel like you’re involved in. You know, I do Woodstock, you know, you’ve expanded.

Mindy Johnson: [00:29:32] Know and I’m I’m hopefully I’m going to be bringing in January we’re going to be doing some musical theater classes, dance classes for like. Little sessions at the studio, so I’m going to do it. Elementary school, middle and high school. So yeah.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:47] How cool do you feel like? So where were you living before? I’m still.

Mindy Johnson: [00:29:51] Here. I’ve lived. Yeah, I’ve lived in. I mean, technically, I live in Canton. I grew up there. When to.

Sharon Cline: [00:29:59] So how does it feel to kind of be putting down serious roots in a town that you grew up in? You know, it’s like an official part of the directory. You know what I mean?

Mindy Johnson: [00:30:10] No, it is. Yeah, it’s great. I mean, I’ve always you know, I grew up in the Canton side, went to Cherokee High School and lived my life in Canton all of those years. And then since I worked in Woodstock and, you know, teach down the road at a preschool church, Woodstock was always where I came. I mean, it was always had good restaurants and all that and then.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:35] Grown so much.

Mindy Johnson: [00:30:36] Yeah. And then I came started going to the networking group, and then I’m just here all the time because I made those friends. So then we were going to events here and now I’ve got the studio here. So it’s been kind of crazy how it kind of just laid out in Woodstock.

Sharon Cline: [00:30:50] Yeah, but, you know, I love that you I mean, you know, you grew up here, so you have family roots and friends roots here and now you’re making such an impact on their family and friends. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it’s really kind of cool to think about.

Mindy Johnson: [00:31:04] Yeah, it is. It’s kind of fun.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:06] So if someone were wanting to start their own business, what would you recommend? Do you have any sort of things where you’re like, Man, I wish I had known that before. I always like to give people maybe like a heads up of things to think about if they’re interested in doing something.

Mindy Johnson: [00:31:27] I don’t know if I had anything where at least he had. I mean, we’re only since August. I don’t know. Maybe. Planning ahead a little bit more and not being so scared to do the things.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:46] But that’s huge because people are. So how did you manage to not allow your feelings, I guess, or being concerned or. I mean, money is so important to everybody. No one wants to lose, you know, an investment. So how did you push on?

Mindy Johnson: [00:32:02] Again, with my support, I mean, my sister has been awesome with all of that. Having the people around me just keep saying, you’re doing awesome. Your city is great, you know, giving me that reassurance. You know, I think everyone needs that, too.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:18] I do too.

Mindy Johnson: [00:32:19] Especially if you don’t. If you’re someone that doesn’t even want to ask for help, but then hears all of this coming from people that they’re close to, I think I think that’s big. If you don’t have that kind of system around you, then I feel like you’re you’re going to get lost.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:34] Well, there’s lost in the details and then lost for me in my own thoughts of insecurity, I guess.

Mindy Johnson: [00:32:42] Yeah, it kind of keeps you grounded. You know, it makes you realize this is where I still want like, this is where I want this to go and not make it so much about yourself. It helps you think about, you know, like for me to think about the kids and where I want them.

Sharon Cline: [00:32:57] Because it’s not about me so much as what I’m trying to do. And your product or who I’m trying to help. Yeah, that is very motivating.

Mindy Johnson: [00:33:04] Thanks.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:06] Well, if anyone wanted to reach you or find your studio, what would you recommend? The best way.

Mindy Johnson: [00:33:12] I would say go to our website, Bts’s Dance studio, not the K-Pop group.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:21] Yes. Oh my gosh.

Mindy Johnson: [00:33:22] Another reason why I really liked this name.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:25] Yeah, that’s hilarious.

Mindy Johnson: [00:33:27] So yeah Beats dance studio dot com. And we have a little thing where you could fill out questions. We also have a Facebook page and an Instagram so you can find us there, send us in a message there. Our schedule and everything is on the website though, so you can always look and see what we have.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:44] Are you on are you on TikTok?

Mindy Johnson: [00:33:46] I mean we have an account.

Sharon Cline: [00:33:49] You’re just like me. I have an account and all I do is follow people. I do nothing on there, but I barely.

Mindy Johnson: [00:33:54] Even get on my regular Tik tok to just scroll. But no, we I’ve been trying. I think I’m going to have to start doing Tik Tok just because, I mean, they’re fun, they’re cute. I just have to get over wanting to be on the screen.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:08] Listen, there are people who that is like their big way of advertising and like always surprised to hear about it. But I had a gentleman in here who he’s a real estate agent and was talking about how he kind of did like a Tik Tok kind of in service, you know, where he learned everything about it and a challenge so that it made it more comfortable for him to just make little videos and kind of made him do it. Because I think that’s what I need. I know, right? But, you know, I can imagine how cute it would be to have, like, little kids. Yeah, I could see it being something.

Mindy Johnson: [00:34:38] That’s where I need to go. I take enough video during class and like pictures to help for the page. I just need to actually put them for some like music for Tik Tok or something.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:46] Yeah, absolutely. No, and I need to as well. Maybe we could make a promise to each other. Like, yes, in like, I don’t know, a month, two months, two months. We’ll do one.

Mindy Johnson: [00:34:56] Let’s go. Yeah, let’s go out End of the year. We. I’ve got Thanksgiving break off and Christmas break so we only have like six more weeks of classes.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:03] I’m so busy. Well, Mindy, I can’t thank you enough for coming in and kind of giving some insight and what it’s like to open your own business and and kind of throw yourself in there and really have enough belief in yourself that no matter what, you’re still doing it for the right reasons and it’ll land where it lands.

Mindy Johnson: [00:35:21] Thank you so much. This was great. I had so much fun.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:24] Okay, good. Well, if everyone else is interested, please feel free to check out Beats studio. Is that.

Mindy Johnson: [00:35:32] Right? Beats dance studio. So close.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:34] So I got the beats.

Mindy Johnson: [00:35:37] See, now you’re going to remember it.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:39] Wasn’t that funny. Oh, that’s hilarious. Yes. So thank you so much for coming. And everyone out there, thank you for listening to Fearless Formula. I’m Business RadioX. And this is Sharon Klein again, reminding you that with knowledge and understanding, we can all have a fearless formula. Have a great day.

 

Tagged With: Beyond the Spotlight Dance Studio

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