angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Laura Bonich with The Leaders’ Lighthouse

June 14, 2021 by angishields

South Florida Business Radio

Laura Bonich with The Leaders' Lighthouse

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Laura Bonich is all about purpose, people, planet, and performance. She has worked with companies such as Burger King, H.J. Heinz, Kerry Ingredients and Campbell’s, as well as privately-held & family-owned companies.

Laura has developed and implemented national/global strategies that increased sales growth 20-50%, spearheaded multi-million-dollar portfolios and led projects from ideation to commercialization. With over 20 years in the Food & Beverage industry, Laura has experience in sales, purchasing, marketing, recruiting and executive coaching.

Having received a Bachelor in Psychology and a Masters in International Business, Laura has also trained at the Culinary Institute of America as a CCSP, and holds multiple coaching certifications, including with the International Coaching Federation.

Connect with Laura on LinkedIn

Matt Genova with Next Act Franchise Advisors

June 14, 2021 by angishields

South Florida Business Radio

Matt Genova with Next Act Franchise Advisors

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Matt Genova is President, NEXT ACT Franchise Advisors. Matt was a Multimedia Sales and Sponsorship professional having worked for brands like The Walt Disney Company’s ESPN and WarnerMedia’s CNN. His teams helped local, regional and Fortune 500 companies reach new customers or reinforce their brand promise to current customers via cutting edge multimedia campaigns spanning broadcast, digital, mobile, audio, print and events.

After leaving the corporate world, Matt leveraged his sales and consultancy skills and launched Next Act Franchise Advisors, a franchise consultancy where he educates, guides and coaches people through the process of exploring business ownership through franchising. After relocating to Delray Beach, FL from Garden City, NY this Spring with his wife, Matt launched another company, Snackify Vending LLC, a healthy snack and drink vending machine business that will allow business owners to provide the nourishment their employees and/or customers need when they need it.

He has a charitable side to him as well. Matt’s eldest son, Jake, who graduated from Florida Tech last month, has Cystic Fibrosis, a progressive and deadly genetic disease with no cure. He most recently chaired the Advocacy & Outreach committee for the Greater NY Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation where helped to activate the CF patient and family community around specific initiatives and lobby for the CF Foundation in Washington, DC and Albany, NY.

Matt can be reached by phone: 917-522-0040 or email: matt@nextactfranchiseadvisors.com. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Franchise vs. Starting your own business
What is a Franchise Consultant?
Advice for potential candidates
Traits of a successful entrepreneur
What it costs and funding options
Management structure options

Paul Raley with Audality

June 11, 2021 by angishields

Tech Talk

Paul Raley with Audality

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This episode is brought to you in part by our Co-Sponsor Trevelino/Keller

Paul Raley has been developing electronics for 37 years. Before founding Audality, Paul founded Paul Raley & Associates, Inc., a product design consulting firm that developed a wide range of products that includes wireless devices for the oil and gas community, wireless satellite transceivers, a wireless stereo turntable, and a robotic food processing system.

Paul previously served as a Board Member and Senior Vice President of Marketing for ESP, an electronics design firm that developed cable set top products for Arris and Scientific Atlanta. He also served on the board of directors for Coscomm Aerospace, where he was Chief Technical Officer.

Prior to that position, Paul was International Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Kitcomm, an Australian company that launched a constellation of satellites for satellite-based asset tracking systems. From 1991 to 1999, Paul was Director of Strategic Business Development for Scientific Atlanta, where he built joint ventures with Iridium Satellite, Orbcomm, GE Americom, Alcatel, and National Semiconductor.

Paul started his career as an engineer for military electronics giant Loral Electronics in 1980 in Atlanta, Georgia, before moving to electronics startup Cross Systems, Inc. He spent his first eleven years developing aircraft electronic counter measure and electronics intelligence systems for the F-16, B-52, EP3 Orion, and the Nimrod.

Paul holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics and Physics from Brescia University, and an Associate’s Degree in Engineering Technology with a minor in Physics from Brescia University.

Connect with Paul on LinkedIn.

Amber Senter with Breeze Distro

June 11, 2021 by angishields

Bay Area Business Radio

Amber Senter with Breeze Distro

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Amber E. Senter is founder and CEO of Breeze Distro, a licensed lifestyle and infused cannabis product and distribution company located in Oakland, CA.

She is also co-founder and executive director of Supernova Women, a women of color–led organization dedicated to empowering people of color to become self-sufficient cannabis industry shareholders.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

How Amber got started in the cannabis space
The lack of diversity in the cannabis business
About Breeze Distro and Supernova Women
About EquityWorks! Incubator

BRX Pro Tip: Using Credentials to Differentiate

June 11, 2021 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Using Credentials to Differentiate

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BRX Pro Tip: Using Credentials to Differentiate

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, we talked a lot about repositioning, differentiation, methods, strategies, tactics for achieving that. But one way to do this is with the credentials – credentialling, yeah?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:21] Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that’s one of the biggest gifts we give our clients is, we help them differentiate themselves from their competition by giving them the credential of being the voice of business in their niche. And the only way that someone can be the voice of business is through us. And that helps them, number one, because they get to kind of have that credential and serve their community that way. But it also helps us because we are the place where that credential is kind of handed out.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:55] And when we give our clients that credential of being the voice of business in their niche, then they get to pass that credential along to their prospects and clients as guests on their show. And they get to be part of our community and their community as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] So, our clients get to decide who gets invited in, and who gets interviewed, and whose conferences are being broadcasted from. And all of our clients have now this unique point of differentiation. They’re no longer the commodity service amongst a bunch of other people that look like them. They stand out and they truly serve their industry because they’ve elevated themselves to being the voice of business. And they are now truly indispensable in their niche.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] And we get to give them that. And that is, you know, a big part of our value proposition to our clients is, we get to help them differentiate themselves from their competition by repositioning themselves as the indispensable voice of business and the go-to resource that provides a service in their space.

Mijo Alanis with Beyond Juicery + Eatery

June 10, 2021 by angishields

Franchise Marketing Radio

Mijo Alanis with Beyond Juicery + Eatery

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

Mijo Alanis opened the first Beyond Juicery + Eatery in 2005 alongside his wife, Pam Vivio, after working in the restaurant industry for many years.

The couple founded the fast-casual concept in response to seeing how customers’ needs were changing. They noticed that people began to trade fries for salads and knew they could create a business to fill the void of healthy food options in Michigan.

With more than 25 restaurants open across the Midwest, Mijo is committed to growing the Beyond Juicery + Eatery brand while maintaining the brand’s commitment to “be the best part of someone’s day.”

Follow Beyond Juicery + Eatery on LinkedIn and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Brand overview for Beyond Juicery + Eatery
How Mijo came up with the concept
The major brand differentiators for Beyond Juicery + Eatery
How Mijo encourages Beyond locations to get involved with the community
Beyond Eatery’s culture and how it plays a role in the day-to-day operations at each restaurant and when deciding if a franchisee is the right fit
The ideal franchise candidate and target markets
What’s next for Beyond

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by CEO Sambor comprehensive high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands. To supercharge your franchise marketing, go to CEO Sambar Dotcom. That’s CEO, S.A.M. Bay Dotcom.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a good one today, we have with us Mijo Alanis with Beyond Juicery and Eatery. Welcome. Hello. I’m excited to learn what you’re up to tell us about Beyond and Eatery. What are you doing for folks?

Mijo Alanis: [00:00:53] Well, we’re a smoothie juice cell in a rap franchise. We started back in two thousand and five, gain some traction right around 2014. We started building the franchise model and in twenty eighteen we opened our first franchise. We have five corporate locations and we’ve doubled in size for the last three years. And yesterday we opened our twenty ninth location. We have 12 more under construction.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:28] Now what’s the how’d you come up with the concept.

Mijo Alanis: [00:01:31] Boy that’s a, that’s a, that’s a story that started way back when I first started for started working. I started off washing dishes when I was 15 years old and I quickly learned what people did and did not like to eat. I would see it in the bus stops. Fast forward a. Throughout my career, I always wanted the next guy’s job from prep, cook to cook to manager to GM, worked every aspect of the restaurant business, bartenders, server, the guy that came in and cleaned. But I. I started noticing around twenty five to right around nineteen ninety nine, two thousand, I started seeing people throwing away their hamburger buns and French fries. I noticed it in the bus stops. And I went to the customer and I asked, why are you throwing it away? Because back then we were filling the plate with French fries. I was in the bar industry and they wanted to substitute a salad or they were just trying to eat healthier. And that concept didn’t really hit me until I was taking a mountain. And we’ve come down from the mountain and I would go we’d go to a juice bar. We were in Arizona at the time and I would we’d go to the juice bar and I thought it was fantastic. I like the way it made me feel. And I come back home to Michigan and I’m driving up one of the major arteries. And I realized there wasn’t a place to buy a banana. There wasn’t a place that if I wanted a quick salad for lunch or a banana or a smoothie or juice was not available. And that’s when the idea was born.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:10] So now a lot of kind of healthy eating places and drinking places are popping up, what what is separating you guys?

Mijo Alanis: [00:03:19] So for for us, we we work every day on clean products, we make our own salad dressings, we manufacture our own juice, we don’t have any preservatives in it, were clean as we possibly can get.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:38] Now, is is that a kind of a corporate culture thing? Is that you personally? Is that how you live?

Mijo Alanis: [00:03:46] Yes, well, so that’s funny you should say that I think it’s the way that a lot of us want to live, that they want to have those options. And when I have two young kids and when it’s time to eat and we want to decide where we want to go, it’s not always to where we want to go. But there’s always that option. And that’s what we consider ourselves as having that option for people when they want to eat better. You can go to our place and have something that’s not so healthy, you something in our world where healthy food meets quality.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:23] And then so the menu is it changes every season based on what’s available, like how do you manage the kind of availability of fresh and clean ingredients,

Mijo Alanis: [00:04:34] Kale, that that is a challenge. We have a quarterly offering that comes out. Our core menu stays the same. But we we run a new a new seasonal item every quarter.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:48] Now, are you finding that the public is actually kind of investing in their own health in this way? Or is it something that people say, yeah, I want to eat healthy, but they never really end up eating healthy?

Mijo Alanis: [00:05:01] I think that’s two fold. I think when we look at our kids today from the ages of 10 to 15, I think that they’re more conscious of looking at the label more conscious. And I think in the next five years we’re going to see that what’s in our foods is going to be has to be more transparent than ever.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:24] And what’s an example of something that isn’t as transparent as maybe people think it is?

Mijo Alanis: [00:05:32] When you’re talking like salad dressings, how how are they manufactured, what’s inside the salad dressing? Is it clean? Are they using preservatives?

Lee Kantor: [00:05:47] And that is that something that you find that maybe is frustrating for you, since you are kind of going this extra step of trying to be as clean as you can? Is that a lot of maybe bigger brands that have more resources are trying to pretend to be kind of healthy and clean, but in actuality, they may not be really living up to that standard.

Mijo Alanis: [00:06:09] Yeah, so, you know. I believe that once you try the product, you taste it, they don’t know they don’t know why they come back, they just know that they like it because there’s this fresh taste. There’s a fresh feel from the design of the restaurant to your experience inside the store. And they don’t know why, but they can they can tell the difference once they eat it.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:36] Now, is the prospective franchisee, is it somebody who is this kind of fitness person that’s living a healthy, wellness oriented life?

Mijo Alanis: [00:06:45] That’s a plus, but not necessarily what they do. Our franchisees recognize it, and like I said, I think that majority of the people here want the opportunity to live a healthier lifestyle. And that’s where it came from for me, was I was in the bar restaurant industry. And when I wanted something unhealthy, it just wasn’t there, you know, so I made something more as a hobby in the beginning that when I got done working out, there was a place that I could go to and get a smoothie or get a juice or have a salad for lunch. Fast food. Back then, nobody had a nobody had a salad on the menu, I think right around twenty three to twenty five as when Wendy’s came out with their salad. It was the first time that I actually saw salad on a fast food menu.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:37] And then where did you start. Where was this kind of born.

Mijo Alanis: [00:07:41] Birmingham, Michigan.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:42] So it was born and Michigan. And there wasn’t a lot of kind of healthy choices around you. Like you were kind of.

Mijo Alanis: [00:07:49] Oh, so when I opened, it was I think I had 20 customers coming in and I thought I made the biggest mistake in my life because that came from the restaurant bar industry where people come in and they don’t have one, they have one after another. And when they come to eat, they order an appetizer. They bring four people. So imagine my sales when somebody comes in about four dollars smoothie back then and I only had 20 customers throughout the entire day, I made the biggest mistake of my life. What I did realize was I had to get the product into people’s mouths in order to get the product in your mouth. Did anything and everything I possibly could. I put in a frame out on the sidewalk and I killed it, twisted it. So the only way that they could turn was towards the door. So as they were walking down, they had to actually turn towards the door and as they turned towards the door, we were there with samples. Give it a try. Here you go. Before, you know, we started getting the kids and we call them soccer moms and then the business people and they’d be walking in and it was it was something new that you haven’t actually had anywhere else at that time, especially in our area. It was it was busy in the Sunshine State and on the coast, but not in the Midwest.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:09] Now, do you partner with other businesses in the community or other organizations in the community? Is that part of how you go to market?

Mijo Alanis: [00:09:19] So that is a strategic plan of ours. We love partnering with established businesses. Back in the beginning, we had smoothies on our menu named after the businesses that were patronizing us.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:36] So is that part of the kind of standard operating procedure for a franchisee is you tell them to kind of immerse themselves in the local community, maybe partner with some fitness organizations or some schools or high schools or teams you got?

Mijo Alanis: [00:09:52] There shouldn’t be a reason why any kid that goes to school in your territory doesn’t get a free smoothie when school starts. There shouldn’t be a gym membership that doesn’t get a free society for signing up. There shouldn’t be a kids swim club, soccer team, baseball team. That’s that you’re not part of. I tell the franchisees, tell your intel you can’t answer your phone anymore. You should be giving out your cell phone to everybody. That’s I think that’s the number one thing that actually differentiates us from other brands, is that we want you to be part of the community and you need to be part of the community. And when it comes time like there is no other choice, it is us.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:35] Now, is that prospective franchisee or are they kind of is this their main business or is this kind of a complementary brand and a portfolio of brands?

Mijo Alanis: [00:10:47] So we have a mix and match that. We have some that’s actually exited other brands and started building. Building their business inside of ours, we have one offs that they bought, they love the brand and they bought it, and they’re the person that’s actually behind the counter. We have we sold Ohio. Ohio was 20 stores and they were a big company and they’re building the brand and five stores per year, actually opening one tomorrow. Green, Green, Ohio.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:24] And so it’s a combination, so you don’t have a preference, you just need somebody that really kind of believes in the culture and the mission and really wants to serve healthy food and drinks to their community.

Mijo Alanis: [00:11:36] It’s it’s being there and being the face of the business and having a good operator that is going to smile. We’ve I like to say that we’ve we’ve done it over the past 15 years. We’ve done all the work to make sure the menus correct. The flavor profiles are correct. The pricing is correct. We’ve got the labor in line. And your job is to execute the plan and take care of the guests.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:08] And how do you see kind of growth coming now as we come out of this pandemic? Is it are you guys pretty aggressively expanding?

Mijo Alanis: [00:12:18] So when the when the pandemic kills? I remember sitting in the office and by the way, that I can describe it is we were on a seven forty seven and it was heading straight to the ground and. We were debating on cutting labor, cutting corporate overhead, cutting like we could see, couldn’t see the other side, and my director of operations came in and said, Hey, model, that goes completely against our core values, like we do what others won’t. And we should be thinking in the opposite way. And I said, you’re absolutely right. We didn’t cut anybody. We we broke up into groups, we broke up into pots and we weathered the storm. I took a look at before we cast every single Sunday and decided to guarantee the employees their their wage for that time, set up meetings, got closer with our vendors. I remember I remember at one point my mainline distributor came in and I said, how is everybody else doing? He said, there is nobody else. Migiro, you’re my only client. Same thing with the produce company. We were able to pivot and switch. We moved app usage completely through the roof. We created we listen to the customer. I have people calling customers the top 10 percent of our customers every day, asking them what they want, what they need, if there’s anything we can do for them. We expanded our delivery. We created curbside for us. We actually put a little grocery store because we had all the products from lemons to oranges to tortillas, cheeses, meats.

Mijo Alanis: [00:14:09] At one point we actually had toilet paper. We realized that people were at home and the kids were driving him crazy. So we actually made we call them Kizzire in home smoothie kits where they can pick them up from the store. We’ll deliver them to your house. And you gave your kid an activity to do. There was coloring books we sell sold. We realize the moms were stressed out so we actually created a charcuterie kit. We had eleven versions of that circulatory kit that we sold over the course of the year was probably our grand slam that Friday nights. The moms going to have it delivered to their house or family because we were all in pods at that time. And I also have somebody else call the franchisee’s every day, and we had somebody else call in our employees and our general managers walking them through a. Situation that none of us have been through, but just let them know that we’re there for them and if there’s anything that they need, that we we would do it. And I knew that we get to the other side of this. We’re going to have more opportunity than we can handle. And that’s where we’re at right now, is we have opportunity and we’re building the infrastructure that we’re in. Two states now just left the meeting where they’ll be a third state here shortly. And our three year goal is to be in eight states. And it’s not if it’s it is going to happen.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:40] So now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation about this opportunity with you or somebody on the team with the website

Mijo Alanis: [00:15:47] Of the judiciary and eatery Dotcom.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:51] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Mijo Alanis: [00:15:56] Thank you. Thank you very much.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:58] All right. This is Lee Kantor rules here next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Zak Omar with Atomic Wings

June 10, 2021 by angishields

Franchise Marketing Radio

Zak Omar with Atomic Wings

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

Zak Omar has been a lifelong entrepreneur. He first learned about being a business owner from his father, an Afghani refugee who arrived in New York city in the 1980s.

His father introduced a new food option: a mobile fried chicken truck that he would park right outside of 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza.

When his father got sick, Omar and his brother, Ray, decided to pursue their own entrepreneurial goals by becoming multi-unit franchisees with Dunkin’. In 2013, Omar fell ill himself and was diagnosed with leukemia.

He used this diagnosis as inspiration to expand his portfolio, ultimately investing in Atomic Wings and taking over as CEO in 2016.

Connect with Zak on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

About Zak and his path before Atomic Wings
How Zak’s leukemia diagnosis became the driving force in his business career
How Atomic Wings differs from it’s cometitors
How the brand navigated the pandemic
Lessons learned from 2020 that will help their growth in the future
Plans for Atomic Wings growth in 2021
Atomic Wings ideal franchisee

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by Akosombo, comprehensive, high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands to supercharge your franchise marketing, go to Sambar Dotcom. That’s CEO S.A.M.. Be a dotcom.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today we have with us Zach Ohmar with Atomic Wings. Welcome, Zach.

Zak Omar: [00:00:41] Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about atomic wings, actually.

Zak Omar: [00:00:49] So Atomic Wings is a brand that was born and raised at a New York City. The brand was formed by my predecessor and founder, Adam Lipin, back in nineteen eighty nine. He actually worked out of Dove Spa, which is credited for creating the Buffalo wing. When he came to New York City, he realized there was really no good place to eat wings. So he created this awesome brand. And since then we’ve taken off and we’ve really become a cultural following here in New York City and we’re hoping to expand throughout America.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:21] So now, when he started, did he always dream of it being a franchise or did he just want it to be kind of that one shop in New York?

Zak Omar: [00:01:29] Well, when he started, he always he always he started franchising years later, so when you when he opened, it was just kind of a one shot. Yes, she opened up a bar and he started serving wings out of a bar. And then from there, he kind of took off and opened a couple locations.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:46] Now, how did you get involved with the brand?

Zak Omar: [00:01:49] So in twenty sixteen, our paths crossed, I was a franchisee of Dunkin Donuts at the time, and Adam had reached out about possibly taking about me possibly taking over territory in Maryland. And we got to talking. And Adam was in the business for about 20 plus years. At the time, I was a little burnt out and he had other things going on and. Opportunity came about where we talked and figured this was the best path forward for the brand, and he realized that with my background and the expertize that we had the best path forward for the brand and we had sold the company back in 2006.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:31] So now what did you learn from your franchisee experience that helps to make Atomic Wings franchisees?

Zak Omar: [00:02:40] So one thing I learned when school did the whole a background, did the whole Wall Street and come into franchising with Dunkin. And just in franchise world in general, I didn’t realize how Hands-On it would be and how you still have to operate your location. We still have to hire employees and you’re still in the business of customer service and employees. And at the end of the day, it’s all on you. One thing that I didn’t realize that’s helped me as a franchise owner with my franchisees is I don’t want to kill them. With construction costs, building out locations, you don’t need the high marble finishes or the high end finishes. So that’s something we’re very conscious of with our franchisees. We understand that this is their hard earned money and we definitely are sympathetic towards that. We want to make sure that they’re getting the most out of what they put in and that the return of investment happens a lot quicker than maybe some other franchises.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:49] So now you’ve talked a little bit about your back story, but can you share a little bit more about how far back that the food industry and restaurants are in your family?

Zak Omar: [00:04:00] So my father came to America as a refugee in. Nineteen eighty one, and he opened the first mobile fried chicken truck outside of one Chase Manhattan Plaza in about nineteen ninety. So I was working at that truck when I was about 12, 14 years old, and I worked until I was about 18 at the truck there in the summers and serving people fried chicken, you know, office workers, all facets. You meet all different kinds of people from the cafeteria worker to the VPE. It was really interesting. And I fell in love with that customer service aspect of it, putting smiles on people’s faces. I learned a lot from my father in terms of how he dealt with every customer and he treated everyone the same. And just it was all about delivering good hot food, fresh food and making people’s days a little bit better.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:56] So now, as a high school kid doing that work, you weren’t like, why am I doing this? You know, my friends are out hanging out, doing what teenagers do. And I’m here in this truck, you know, slinging, you know, chicken.

Zak Omar: [00:05:08] It was hot. It was hot in there. But, you know, he paid me well. So it was worth it. It was definitely worth it. I was compensated and it wasn’t working for free. But definitely, you know, summers were long and I got out about three o’clock. So still able to enjoy the rest of the day, go and play basketball and hanging out with my friends.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:30] And it did and it didn’t sour you on on getting involved in the restaurant industry. So like you

Zak Omar: [00:05:35] Did it all now

Lee Kantor: [00:05:37] And then. So when you’re when you’re telling potential franchisees because they might have to do some of that to.

Zak Omar: [00:05:45] Right. Yeah, and they have to love it, right? They have to first of all, I always tell prospective franchisees that say, listen, you need to come in. So I location try this, because if you don’t like the food, you can’t get behind this brand. You need to love the food. And thankfully, everyone that I’ve met so far and that I’ve brought on this prospect has loved the food and they’ve got tremendous things to say about the food. So that’s the first part. Second part is you have to love customer service and being able to talk to all different types of customers and be in a store. Some right now we’re at a level where we’re a growing brand, we’re an emerging brand, and we want operators are going to be hands on. We don’t want absentee owners. We want people that are going to be in their stores, care about their stores. And that’s really who we’re looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:34] And then so you’re not going after kind of the professional franchisee, you’re looking at the person that wants to invest in the community and really kind of roll up their sleeves.

Zak Omar: [00:06:45] Absolutely. And it’s part of a I’m a strong believer in that foundation has to be strong. So eventually that model may change. But as of now, we’re looking for franchises that are going to be hands on. We have great story. There was a to young gentleman who used to do deliveries out of one of our franchise locations, and they’re in college and they’re about to graduate now. They love the brand so much and they deliver. They were delivery guys. They love the brand so much that they convinced their father to back them and open up a location of their own. So right now, they’re in site selection process of opening up a location. And I love stories like that. Just give them back to folks that, you know, start as delivery guys and hopefully they go on to open a hundred locations and become really successful. And that’s what we’re all about.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:38] Now, how does atomic wings differentiate themselves from the other kind of wing players out there?

Zak Omar: [00:07:45] Sure, so the biggest differentiator, in my opinion, is our product is fresh and never frozen until today, we’re still handcuffing, cutting our boneless wings and hand running them. We take pride in the fact that our food is fresh and most of our sources are gluten free. We’ve delivered this tremendous taste for over 30 years. So some of these places come in, come and go. We’ve been around for a very long time and I believe the freshness and the quality of our product speaks to that longevity additions that we have niche segments that that love the gluten free people really do appreciate the fact they don’t mind waiting 10 minutes or 12 minutes for a fresh product as opposed to something that’s under heat lamps or something that’s been in cabinet warmers.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:34] So everything’s fresh to order.

Zak Omar: [00:08:37] Everything is fresh to order, so we don’t have any heat lamps in our locations, we don’t have any worries at all locations.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:42] And then for the folks that are doing this, are they typically like targeting college towns? Like what’s the profile of a good location for you guys?

Zak Omar: [00:08:53] So it’s all over the place, I mean, we have our college kids, but our segment is mostly, I would say 16 to about forty five years old, man and woman. Everyone loves a good wedding dance for us. But it’s interesting to note that we’re busy. Monday, Sunday through Saturday, not

Lee Kantor: [00:09:15] Just game,

Zak Omar: [00:09:17] Just game day, exactly. People love wings. I was actually speaking to the VP of some of these third party apps over Eat and GrubHub, and they said that wings are the second most searched term on these websites after pizza. So that just goes to show you the strength of the wind market. And you can probably see that with guys like Pizza Hut adding links to their menus, Domino’s adding links to their menus. Yes, 7-Eleven added weights and everyone just they’re trying to just add wings just for the sake of saying to have wings on their mind.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:53] So now the menu at an atomic wings isn’t just wings, though. You have chicken sandwiches, you have burgers.

Zak Omar: [00:09:59] We have our crispy chicken sandwich. We have our tender’s, which which are great and breaded and freshly made on a daily basis. We just relaunched our tender’s in original and spicy, and we have 14 unique flavors to dip them in.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:15] And so is that kind of very region to region what’s on the menu.

Zak Omar: [00:10:23] We have some regional items that we have limited time offers on, but with our main staple, I would say eighty five percent of our business comes from our wings up almost Langsner tenders.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:36] And then the sources, are they the same in every location?

Zak Omar: [00:10:39] They are the same in every location.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:41] And so that doesn’t change. No matter the region. You might have special specialties.

Zak Omar: [00:10:46] I have a regional yes, we if we open in, you know, in a different region of America, we might open up with the regional special or a limited time offer only and and create a sauce just for that region.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:00] And then when a person opens, are they typically are they opening one just kind of checking out or are they buying like multiple units?

Zak Omar: [00:11:09] So we’re doing multiple units outside of New York area. We’re doing a three star minimum outside of New York.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:18] And then when the customer comes in, are they. Is this just for them or is there kind of a catering or a party element to it as well?

Zak Omar: [00:11:26] So they they would have to order in advance, but there is catering a lot of that in New York City. We have a lot of office workers Thursday and Friday as they place the orders ahead of time. You’re getting the underling orders to angel wings. And it’s just something that the Oval Office enjoys

Lee Kantor: [00:11:43] And is that is like the because of New York and the office density. Is that the unique thing or is like the typical atomic weapons taps into the offices as well?

Zak Omar: [00:11:54] I believe a atomically steps its offices anywhere that we go into, but our traditional, I guess, guest is, you know, young professionals that are at home and they want something really good to eat.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:09] And are they doing it to, like, pick up? Are they getting those third party deliveries? How does that how does that.

Zak Omar: [00:12:14] Mostly it’s mostly pickup and delivery. That’s where where are spaces of service. And that’s where we keep our footprint small so that we’re doing quick service type of I guess that that’s who our segment is. It’s really delivery and pickup.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:32] Now, I’ve talked to a lot of franchise folks where the pandemic really it didn’t hurt their business so much. It kind of helped him in some places that their their sales didn’t go down because they were an essential service and they were able to pivot to the curbside and to be able to kind of facilitate the ordering and the pickup. Is that how it worked for you guys?

Zak Omar: [00:12:55] Yeah, absolutely. We had so come on location, we had some locations that were up over 100 percent in sales there and covid last year, then we have a location that’s on Wall Street where, you know, there’s nobody on Wall Street, third covid. So they were they were a little less fortunate. But a lot of our locations, for the most part, had a lot higher sales in twenty twenty than they had previously.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] Now, are you looking to grow in certain regions of the country or is it just kind of a full court press nationwide at this point?

Zak Omar: [00:13:30] So right now it’s a full court press nationwide. We actually just signed a three star agreement out in in Texas and in the Arlington area. But where where we have a lot of people that are looking to come on board and you should see tremendous growth from our brand in the near future here.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:50] And when you go into a new market, is there a strategy that you like your franchisees to kind of do when like in terms of immersing themselves in the community, getting to know?

Zak Omar: [00:14:01] Absolutely. Absolutely. So we don’t we don’t collect advertising fees from our franchisees. And that’s done intentionally because we want them to be ingrained in their local communities and we want them to be part of the community and and spend that advertising money that they would have given us locally and helping those folks out. So that’s something that we always like to do with our franchisees. And when we go into a new market, we want to be cognizant of the fact that there’s different taste buds all over the nation. So if there’s something that we can do locally and pivot it and kind of create a local flavor for them, that’s something that we like to do.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:43] Now, fairly recently, you had a health scare. Can you talk about how that impacted you personally and how that kind of affects how you manage atomic things?

Zak Omar: [00:14:56] Capsule in twenty thirteen. I was initially diagnosed with leukemia. That was previous to me getting my tomac when I was given a clean bill of health in about twenty fifteen and then I had a relapse in twenty eighteen. I had to have a bone marrow transplant in twenty eighteen. And thank God ever since then I’ve been given a clean bill of health. But something that made me realize was I was twenty four hours a day, it was atomic weapons and I was taken on what I was doing. I was pretty much wearing 20 different hats marketing, advertising, product development, R&D, going into the stores, training. And what made me realize that I needed a team around me, a strong team that I could trust. And since then we’ve brought on quite a number of folks that have helped out with the franchise and helped us grow and have brought on great ideas.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:54] Now, can you share a little bit about how you went about creating that team and building that team, because that’s important for everybody out there that has an emerging brand. If you don’t have the right folks, it’s going to be difficult to scale.

Zak Omar: [00:16:08] Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, when looking for team members, they have to they have to share your vision. You have to share your vision with them. This is this is where I want to go. I’m open to butting heads and I’m open to different ideas. But at the end of the day, this is the path and this is where we want to be. So bringing up folks with that are going to provide something that you can’t necessarily provide that’s going to provide a different point of view that maybe you haven’t thought of and have, you know, checkmarks based on the industry that you’re in. So they have to have some sort of experience in the industry that you’re looking for or that you’re in necessarily. That experience goes a long way. And it just opened your eyes to different facets of the industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:55] Now, in your career, since you started out kind of with a super large brand that everybody knows, and then you’re creating this brand and you’re kind of developing the brand through your own efforts. How do you see kind of this playing out? How does the story end for you?

Zak Omar: [00:17:15] Well, I believe I’ve always been a very competitive person, and one of the things one of my goals and I shared that vision has to be the same is we want to be a name that’s known throughout the industry, all over the nation and internationally. So hopefully this story never ends for me. You know, we’re hoping that we take this thing and go throughout the world. And that’s that’s our hopes for the brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:47] And how many Atomic Wings units do you have right now?

Zak Omar: [00:17:50] We have 11 brick and mortar locations and another nine under construction this year, so we’ll have 20 by the end of this year. And we’re in talks with a lot of folks to double and triple that number.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:04] And then it’s right now, it’s only in the US right now.

Zak Omar: [00:18:08] We are only in the US

Lee Kantor: [00:18:09] And then any region, Europe and any region,

Zak Omar: [00:18:13] We are open to any region. Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:15] And then the ideal franchisee, are they kind of second act folks like what’s your ideal franchisee look like?

Zak Omar: [00:18:22] So Atomic Wings Franchisee is someone obviously with the financial you know, we have certain financial, I guess, requirements that they would need to be successful and to make sure that they’re healthy enough to to run an operating location but are a deal franchisee as someone that has some sort of restaurant experience that’s worked in a restaurant, knows food costs, labor costs and financially savvy in that regard, we have a lot we’re very hands on with our franchisees. We train, we have our operations manager that goes around and that’s also our franchisees on a weekly basis. But they have to have some sort of knowledge of the industry

Lee Kantor: [00:19:03] And that knowledge of the industry. It could be food truck knowledge as well, right?

Zak Omar: [00:19:07] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:09] And so they don’t necessarily have to own their own restaurant they could have worked on.

Zak Omar: [00:19:15] Yeah, I just, you know, as long as they’re familiar with what it takes.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:22] Right, exactly. Maybe manage their own restaurant is OK. And if somebody wanted to learn more, have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website to go to?

Zak Omar: [00:19:34] They could go to www.atomicwings.com or they could email us at info at atomic wings dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:41] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success and

Zak Omar: [00:19:45] I appreciate it. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:47] This is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Brian Garrison with British Swim School

June 10, 2021 by angishields

Franchise Marketing Radio

Brian Garrison with British Swim School

00:00 /

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

Brian Garrison is President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Buzz Franchise Brands (BFB), parent company of home service franchise brands Pool Scouts and Home Clean Heroes, and President of British Swim School, acquired by BFB in April 2019.

He joined Buzz Franchise Brands in 2015 and served also as the COO of Mosquito Joe until it was sold to Neighborly in 2018. He previously worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company in Washington, D.C.

He is a Boston-area native who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and The Wharton School, and served over 20 years as a Naval officer in various leadership roles in naval aviation, including command of an F-18 squadron.

Follow British Swim School on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

About British Swim School
How BSS rebounded in 2021
The integration of Buzz Franchise Brands and British Swim School
Long-term outlook for BFB and BSS

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by SEOSamba, comprehensive, high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands to supercharge your franchise marketing, go to seosamba.com. That’s seosamba.com

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today we have with us Brian Garrison with British Swim School. Welcome, Brian.

Brian Garrison: [00:00:41] Hey, thanks so much for having me. Great to be here today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about British swim school.

Brian Garrison: [00:00:49] Absolutely so, British Swim school is a learn to swim provider, we cover kind of all aspects of the swim school industry. So by that I mean think of kind of a learning how to survive or water survival for young children as young as three to six months, all the way through stroke development for your basic strokes and kind of recreational swim teams into the teens. And of course, we offer adult lessons and special abilities type offering. So kind of a full scale but really focused in on those kind of preteen ages and in just a great business model where we partner with locally available commercial pools in the territories of our franchise owner. So there’s not a big capital investment, not a big time horizon to get a dedicated facility built. We’re partnering with fitness clubs and hotels and the like. So really compelling business model, a kind of rapid time to open and pretty easy to scale. So very exciting.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:46] How did it start as kind of a mom and pop and then evolved into a franchise or was it built to be franchised?

Brian Garrison: [00:01:53] So great question, it’s the former, and so in fact, the name stems from the founder was actually a competitive swimmer in the U.K., but the name of Rita Goldberg, and she actually founded the swim school in Manchester, England, when she retired from competitive swimming, and that was back in nineteen eighty one. So we’re actually celebrating our fortieth year as a swim school business this summer. But she brought it to the US southern Florida, specifically in the mid 90s when she came over, ran a number of corporate locations in New York, Chicago, D.C., Florida, started franchising about 10 years ago. So now we’re 10 years into this as a franchising concept. We’re about seventy five owners, about one hundred fifteen open territories across twenty three states. So pretty exciting.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:41] Now, how did the franchise do during covid?

Brian Garrison: [00:02:47] Yes, a great question. We were definitely impacted and as you can imagine, it’s kind of a retail, you know, close contact service business. So we we were basically shut down from the first week in March until about the first week in June and then started reopening over the course of twenty twenty, kind of depending on the local conditions. So we’re in the US and Canada. I should have mentioned that. And depending on the state and even down to the city or county, you know, we reopened at certain times over the course of the year and really had a strong rebound. And now we’re basically 100 percent open. We have a few owners. Our Canadian owners are still kind of working through the latest kind of lock down mandate up there. And we have two or three owners in the US who have kind of unique issues where they’re not able to open yet, but than that fully reopen. And I really feel like the reopening phase of the last year set the stage for really a strong recovery this year. Happy to provide some detail on that, if that’s helpful.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:51] Yeah, yeah. Let’s dove into that a little bit. And what were you doing that enabled you to kind of get this kind of momentum?

Brian Garrison: [00:04:00] Absolutely, so we were having a pretty strong year in January, February last year, we’re growing about thirty five percent year over year, which is kind of right on our budget forecast. And then, of course, everything came to kind of a screeching halt in in March, as I mentioned. So, you know, we think of three main drivers to what allowed us to reopen and rebound so quickly. And so one was we really kind of doubled down from a franchising perspective. Our corporate team here, we immediately kind of stopped all financial requirements for our franchisees. We deferred fees back into February, basically wanted to make them feel comfortable that they could manage themselves through the crisis from a cash perspective. So I think that was very well received. The second is we we really focused on helping them make the right decisions. I say to them, I mean, our franchise owners, of course, helping them make the right decisions as far as furloughing their teams, negotiating with their local vendors, thinking to kind of keeping them focused on the long term. And then the third is that we we worked pretty hard, especially through our national director of aquatics, Melissa McGarvie, really got involved with the US Swim School Association, with various local charities and governments to really make the case that we could deliver our service into the swim school business in a very covid safe environment.

Brian Garrison: [00:05:33] So we we kind of reimagine what that meant. We reduced some of our class ratios. We introduced face shields. We worked with our pool partners to kind of minimize the flow of people onto, into and out of the pool and pool deck area. And so we invested a lot of time and communication, energy, if you will, making the case know state by state, sometimes even writing letters to to the governors and whatnot to let us reopen sooner rather than later. So throughout the course of the summer, when a lot of the retail businesses were still shut down, we were starting to reopen work through the process, make sure our families were comfortable to come back to the service and to the schools. And it really kind of gave us a head start heading into the fall. And now twenty, twenty one has been supercharged for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:20] Now, what does that kind of ideal franchisee look like? Is there kind of a profile you develop over the years?

Brian Garrison: [00:06:29] I would say yes, I think the key differentiator, certainly you want some management experience, preferably maybe some marketing experience or at least an understanding of running a small business. But, you know, the differentiator is something where they want the independence of being a small business owner, the opportunity to grow wealth. But really, do you have a passion for making a difference in their communities? Right. So that could be maybe they come from an early childhood development background. Maybe they have an aquatics background or maybe they’re just at a point in their lives that they should have done very well. I want the flexibility of being a small business owner, but I want to do something that’s really purpose driven. And so that’s what we look for. Certainly we see a fair number of corporate transactions. We do see kind of husband, wife or business partner or some other duo where one person wants to be kind of the face of the business and the marketing and sales and brand development. The other wants to kind of run the aquatics team. So there’s got to be that one that one piece of passion around the purpose driven nature of the business.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:39] Now now is an ideal franchisee, somebody who is getting in the pool, or is this something that you can just manage a bunch of people and build the team?

Brian Garrison: [00:07:49] So great question, I would say, can be either one, there’s just a little bit different org structure. If I think of our top five to eight business owners, that top 20 percent, most of them are doing well over a million dollars in revenue. We have two or three of them that still like to get in the pool. That kind of came up as a true owner operator and bootstrapped it in the water. And then the remainder are really more corporate or other professional services types who came in with an eye towards I’m going to build a team, I’m going to know what the aquatics program should look like at its best and be able to provide better quality control than an owner needs to do. But I have no intention of getting in the water. So it really works both ways. And we coach and advise our owners on, OK, if you want to go down this path, your hiring profile and the team you want to build looks like this. You want to go down the path of being never in the water that we need to kind of think through a little differently. Who’s leading your aquatics team and making sure we’re finding the right person.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:58] Now, does this franchise work best in kind of the warm weather cities or is can it work in the, you know, kind of north in the Midwest and the upper states in the top of the country?

Brian Garrison: [00:09:10] Yeah, sure. Great question. So it works all over. And I say we’re in twenty three states. We have a real nice density in the northeast. So Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. We started as corporate locations in Florida. So we have Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and then of course not, of course, but then we have a handful in the California and Arizona market as well as up in Seattle. So because we’re largely call it eighty five percent plus in indoor pools, the weather and the seasonality really doesn’t matter. We do operate or have opportunities to work in outdoor pools, but that’s really kind of that’s where it becomes more southern state or southwest state, the north.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:59] Now, in your growth, are you looking for that kind of person, they want to have their own business with their spouse and is looking just kind of have that second act maybe in their career? Are you looking for more empire builders that are either using this as a complementary business and they have a portfolio of franchises that are just trying to add this to a portfolio and they’re, you know, kind of take over the world mentality or is it kind of, you know, a lifestyle slash business, build my wealth for my family business?

Brian Garrison: [00:10:32] Sure. So we see a little bit of both. We definitely have some empire builders that are either complementing it with other, like I said, or I guess I didn’t mention, but early childhood, whether it’s like a, you know, an early childhood development center or a tutoring business or something of that respect, or maybe they have one of the two. If it’s a couple, one of them works in a school system. So they really understand the community and the people, but they want to build, you know, three, four, five, six territories. When I say territory, we’re looking at a unique set of zip codes that have at least are up to thirty five thousand kids under the age of 10. So really focusing in that target market and being able to develop the brand around that group. So we have people with three, four or five of the six territories who are looking to build an empire, maybe in conjunction with other businesses. But we also have those who feel like they can do very well with one or two territories. And as you said, there are a different point in their careers where they want something that’s a little more lifestyle and more meaningful, but still can be scaled. It in the scale is all in offering, you know, more days of the lessons that more pools. Basically, it’s a very simple model, the scale, and it’s truly a recurring revenue model because you’re building by the lesson or your invoicing on a monthly basis in advance. So, you know, the last week of June will bill for the month of July, etc..

Lee Kantor: [00:12:04] So now what what’s kind of the growth outlook for you guys? Are you looking pretty bullish now that we’re the pandemic’s kind of behind us, at least in the US?

Brian Garrison: [00:12:16] We are definitely very, very enthused, very bullish right now, we’re you know, we’re on track to exceed what we did in twenty nineteen. So when we first reopened in June of last year, our mindset was we powered through the worst of this. But there’s going to be you know, it’s probably a two year time horizon to rebound. And I think we probably cut that in half almost. And so at some high level numbers, close to sixty five percent of our owners are operating, you know, within 90 percent or higher of what they were doing in twenty nineteen. So there’s a lot of enthusiasm there. And then on the franchise development side, part of the reason that our parent company, both franchise and branch, part of the reason we acquire British film school with the aquatics program is is second to none. With Buzz. We have a really strong marketing component. And so when we looked at the ability to scale existing franchises to move more of the base towards the top performers in terms of customers and revenue and then three to four hundred unopened territories across the US and Canada, we really were pretty excited about the opportunity and what I would say even better than the rebound of our existing base is really the interest from from franchise candidates, the number of multiunit deals we’ve been able to to bring on in the first four or five months. I guess now the year has been very exciting and gives us really great confidence that twenty, twenty two is going to be even better than twenty twenty one.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:52] Now, are you finding that a lot of folks out there are looking towards franchising to kind of maintain or grow their family’s wealth because of a lot of people getting displaced or maybe frustrated with the corporate world?

Brian Garrison: [00:14:09] Sure, when I think of the group of owners we’ve brought on so far in twenty twenty one there, it’s about half and half, I would say half of them are pretty successful, pretty senior corporate types who either voluntarily left or unfortunately lost their positions because of the pandemic and felt like they’re not going to go back to an uncertain corporate environment when they had the opportunity to get into something different, more compelling. And then we have some people who are using it more as I’m going to grow this as my wife and I or my husband and I are going to grow this over the next two to three years, even as I continue with my corporate job, with the intent of stepping away in the future. So I think that’s probably pretty common, I would say, across franchising right now. But it’s definitely been our experience with British one school.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:03] And if somebody wanted to learn more, have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, is there a website for prospective franchisee?

Brian Garrison: [00:15:12] Absolutely, Bruce. When school franchising dotcom, that’s where to find us. And we do a lot of the one on one calls with franchise owners or myself with interested candidates. And I’ve got a great franchise development team led by Timothy Holiday and Dave Warren. So they love talking to people and sharing the British home school story.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:34] Good stuff. Well, Brian, congratulations on all the success and thank you so much for sharing your story today.

Brian Garrison: [00:15:41] We really appreciate the time and appreciate all your listeners out there, so thanks so much for the opportunity. You got

Lee Kantor: [00:15:46] It. All right. This Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Kimberly Davis with Davis Professional Services

June 9, 2021 by angishields

GWBC Radio

Kimberly Davis with Davis Professional Services

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Kimberly Davis is Owner and CEO of Davis Professional Services, an Atlanta-based, minority woman-owned management consulting firm.

DPS collaborates with commercial organizations and government agencies to help them improve quality of services to their customers, create efficiencies, and achieve cost savings.

Kimberly started the company in 2017 as an independent consultant. Since opening, DPS has grown to a team of eight consultants.

Connect with Kimberly on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

About Davis Professional Services
What customer pain points DPS addresses
Why GWBC
Advice for new entrepreneurs

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. Another episode of GWBC Open for Business, and this is going to be a good one. Today, we have with us Kim Davis with Davis Professional Services. Welcome, Kim

Kim Davis: [00:00:29] Hi, Lee. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Davis Professional Services. How are you serving folks?

Kim Davis: [00:00:37] So, Davis Professional Services is an Atlanta-based management consulting firm. We provide business consulting services to commercial organizations and federal government agencies. And our mission is to become an extension of our client’s teams helping to solve their most pressing issues while ensuring the customer experience as top of mind.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] So, how’d you get into this line of work? What’s your back story?

Kim Davis: [00:01:01] So, my background is in consulting and marketing within the business process outsourcing space. I spent many years at Electronic Data Systems in Hewlett-Packard focused on those areas. And back in 2017, I started Davis Professional Services as an independent consultant, focusing on the things I did well while in corporate America. I had a former employee who supported me part-time from the very beginning and, later, became my first full-time employee. And, now, we are a team of eight. And so, I really like to think of myself as a connector connecting talent and resources in my network to projects and also to fellow small businesses to help them fill gaps.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:47] Now, could you share a little bit about that transition, going from working for a fairly established firm known around the world, to starting your own kind of venture?

Kim Davis: [00:01:58] Sure. So, back in 2017, I was laid off from my corporate job. And almost immediately, I was tapped by some folks in my network who I had supported while in corporate. They wanted to procure some of my services just from an independent consulting perspective. And so, I just leaped in. So, it really was me leveraging all of the experience and the talent that I had developed over the years and supporting some of the folks who I had already worked with while in corporate, and just started doing that on my own. So, it really was a pretty smooth transition. I learned about starting a business and did everything I had to do to get everything set up from that perspective. But it really was a pretty smooth transition because I was able to tap into that existing network.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:55] So, now, it sounds like from kind of sales and revenue standpoint, that was pretty seamless. Was there any challenges like from, maybe, just seeing yourself now as leading an organization rather than being maybe a cog in the machine of a larger entity?

Kim Davis: [00:03:10] You know, it sounds seamless, but it wasn’t without its challenges. You know, it was feast or famine, right? I had projects that were flowing. And then, of course, I would get these periods where I had nothing. And that challenged me. I was used to working a corporate job where I had a steady paycheck. And it was a different mindset that really forced me to learn how to budget and to just be more mindful of my spending. And, as you said, as a leader of my own company, it taught me to develop those skills, those entrepreneurial skills that I had not developed while working in corporate. And so, it was definitely a process.

Kim Davis: [00:04:01] I actually just recently completed a Goldman Sachs program. It’s the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program, which was a 14-week program designed to help small businesses grow and create jobs. And so, essentially, over the 14 weeks, I spent time developing a growth opportunity for the business. And so, that was really like an MBA program on steroids. I had received my MBA several years ago, but it wasn’t through the lens of an entrepreneur. And this program really forced me to look at the business as an entrepreneur, all aspects from marketing to execution, to operations, and really dig down deep and develop a plan that would help me grow and sustain.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:49] Now, as you’re kind of evolving in your business and in your practice and you have, like you said, now a whole team around you, how important was kind of being mindful about corporate culture and building the culture that you wanted rather than just having the culture form around you?

Kim Davis: [00:05:10] Culture, it was really important to me. While in corporate, I have really maintained a professional disposition. And so, I always wanted to maintain that in my company as well, always putting client first as well as just taking care of the team. And so, from a corporate culture perspective, you know, those are my themes, making sure you’re always professional, the client is always first, and you’re always supporting your team members. And so, I instilled that into all of my folks who are on the team as well as new ones that I’m bringing on just to make sure that, you know, that’s always top of mind as they support DPS projects.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:00] Now, when clients are working with you, are they coming to you typically with a certain type of pain that they’re like, “Okay. The Davis Professional folks, they’re the ones that can help us with this.” Or are they coming kind of based on a referral? Like, what does that first engagement typically look like for your firm?

Kim Davis: [00:06:19] So, it’s a combination of the two. One of my oldest clients came as a referral. And I mean, what you typically see is oftentimes organizations just don’t have the time or resources to focus on key important areas. Or they just may not have the expertise to address business challenges. And so, leveraging that network perspective, you know, I’ve had folks to bring me into their corporate organizations to support some projects that either fell into one of those two buckets. And we typically go in and we become an extension of those teams, immersing ourselves into their culture and ways of working.

Kim Davis: [00:07:01] And so, I would say, primarily, it’s been through networking, through leveraging relationships with organizations like GWBC and a couple of other organizations of which I’m a member. So, I would say, leveraging the network as well as marketing and leveraging these professional organizations as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:23] So, you mentioned GWBC, how did that group get on your radar and how does it help?

Kim Davis: [00:07:32] So, GWBC got on my radar early on. And it escapes me how I was made aware of the organization. But I’ve been a member now for about four years, so very early in my entrepreneurial career. And it’s an awesome organization for women in business. GWBC provides phenomenal resources which proved invaluable during the pandemic.

Kim Davis: [00:07:58] Within GWBC, I’m a member of the Voice Committee, which is comprised of a great group of women who pour into each other’s businesses and lives. And we meet monthly to share, what we call, our roses and thorns of our businesses. And so, we’ve created a small family inside of GWBC that has provided a real safe place for us to just be real authentic with each other and to support each other.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:24] And then, are you seeing any benefit in terms of getting clients or connecting to maybe larger entities that you would have trouble as an individual getting in front of?

Kim Davis: [00:08:36] Absolutely. So, several years ago, I was at a GWBC function, actually it was the Tables of Eight, and I just overheard a couple of women having a conversation about their business. And what they were talking about was very similar to the type of work that I do. And so, I walked up to them, introduced myself, and let them know that we do very similar business. And they said, “Hey, well, that’s great. We’re always looking for other small businesses to bring in from a subcontract perspective.” And that’s exactly what they did.

Kim Davis: [00:09:15] We started working together back in 2018. And they brought me on to several projects as a subcontractor, which was just an awesome way to get in, and get my feet wet, and get some exposure. So, yes, absolutely. GWBC is just amazing from a small business to small business perspective, as well as the access you have to large organizations.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:41] So, now, do you have any advice for that person that maybe is in a corporate job that maybe they’re frustrated with or it’s not kind of leading them down the path they envision, but they want to kind of venture out on their own? Is there any advice you would give that person as they kind of launch into maybe a second act in their career?

Kim Davis: [00:10:02] You know, my advice for anyone thinking of starting their own business is to really do good work and build great relationships. You know, as an entrepreneur, you will tap constantly into your network for support, for advice, or talent, and you want to have laid the foundation for doing so. And so, you know, you want to have that history. You don’t want to have to build it as you go. But from the onset, you want to establish a great reputation for doing work, being a person of your word. And so, I would say the time is now. If you’re ever thinking about doing this in the future, just make sure you lay that good foundation.

Kim Davis: [00:10:43] I would also say be patient. Success certainly doesn’t happen overnight. And so, it’s really important to be diligent and to stay the course. And then, lastly, look for opportunities to participate on projects as a subcontractor. As I just mentioned, you know, it’s really a great way to get exposure with minimal risk. So, you know, you don’t always have to step out there and try to prime contracts for large organizations. Look for other small businesses to sub to and use that as an opportunity to get your feet wet and get that exposure with minimal risk.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:22] Now, can you share a story, maybe, that kind of occurred over the last few years, you know, as your business has grown in terms of having an impact that you were proud of. Don’t mention the company’s name, but maybe talk about the pain that they were having and how you were able to kind of come in and provide the service that helped take them to a new level.

Kim Davis: [00:11:45] Yeah. Sure. So, we had one client who had really lost control of the customer experience after the sale and they didn’t understand why. And so, they hired us to come in and just try to help them figure out what they could do to recapture that experience. And so, we went in and performed a customer journey mapping exercise, and discovered that one of the third party vendors that they had been using had assumed ownership of their clients, post-implementation. And was, essentially, leaving their business cards with the clients after they implemented the systems. And so, the client was calling on the vendor for support instead of the client.

Kim Davis: [00:12:36] And so, uncovering that really helped to determine ways to quickly address the issue, recapture those customer experiences, and ensure that the client had more control over that relationship. And so, we were able to quickly implement. There were low hanging fruit there, you know, a 1-800 number leaving behind a welcome kit. So, making sure the customer had everything at their fingertips to contact the client whenever they had an issue or concern instead of going to the third party vendor. And so, that was huge for this client. It was right there. They just didn’t see it. And so, bringing us in and having us uncover that proved very instrumental in helping them regain that customer control.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:35] And that’s an important part of when you’re working with a firm like yours. Just those conversations can help you through some blind spots that you might have or have acquired over the time. That you may be having these fresh eyes to look at something you’ve seen gives you insight and uncovers things that maybe you don’t see anymore, even though it becomes obvious for having a third party person come in and look around.

Kim Davis: [00:14:05] Oh, absolutely. And, you know, one of the things we do is, we leverage our cross-industry experience to provide the best solution for our clients. And so, for example, if we’re working with a government entity, we can leverage some things that we’ve done for more cutting edge industries and bring that to bear to that client. And so, that’s really the value becoming an extension of those teams but, also, bringing those cross-industry experiences. Because we’re nimble, we’re able to flex to our client’s ever changing environments.

Kim Davis: [00:14:40] And so, that’s one of the reasons that I believe our oldest client has been with us almost since day one and the team is continuing to grow. I was actually the very first person to support the client. And I’m no longer there, but I have four people there now. And so, I think it’s because of those things that I just mentioned why we’ve had longevity there.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:02] Now, you mentioned working with commercial organizations and government agencies. Do you have a sweet spot when it comes to industry? Like you’ve mentioned, that you kind of cross pollinated across a lot of different areas, but do you have an area that you feel that this is an area that’s a sweet spot?

Kim Davis: [00:15:19] You know, we’ve done quite a bit in the utility space. And I mentioned a while ago that, you know, I recently participated in this Goldman Sachs program, and so what I identified as my growth opportunity is to penetrate the federal government market. And so, right now, I have supported that market just minimally as a subcontractor. But I’ve been spending quite a bit of time laying the foundation to pursue federal government contracts. In fact, we were just awarded a few GSA schedules and we’re working on a few more.

Kim Davis: [00:16:01] And so, you know, from an industry perspective, the services we provide are really cross-industry, but have had a lot of experience with the utilities, some healthcare experience, and now looking to grow in the federal market space as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:17] Well, congratulations on all the success. If there’s somebody out there that wants to learn more about what you’re up to and maybe have a conversation with you or somebody on the team, is there a website?

Kim Davis: [00:16:29] Absolutely. www.davisprofessional.net.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:33] And right now, are you looking for other professionals to join the team or are you now more focused on growth and trying to find more clients?

Kim Davis: [00:16:42] Oh, both. Both. So, you know, always looking to grow the team, grow that network, so we can support our projects and also support some of our fellow small businesses as well and looking to grow as well. So, open to both.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:58] Good stuff. Well, again, thank you so much for sharing your story today. Kim Davis with Davis Professional Services. That’s davisprofessional.net. Thank you, Kim. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Kim Davis: [00:17:11] Thank you, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:12] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on GWBC Open for Business.

About GWBC

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

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