angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Andy Levine with Topeka

August 13, 2020 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Andy Levine with Topeka

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In 2001, Andy Levine was managing the rock band, Sister Hazel. That year, some of the band’s most passionate fans expressed their desire to go on a trip with the band. Andy began brainstorming ideas and eventually settled on a Sister Hazel fan cruise through the Caribbean.

Despite some initial concerns about being “trapped” on a ship, that first cruise turned out to be a reunion of fans they already knew. For four days, the band members formed friendships with their most dedicated fans. And by the end of their vacation at sea, the community had formed.

Levine returned to Atlanta with a new ambition: To start a company that would tear down the walls between bands and their fans, allowing them to connect in an authentic way. He called this new company, Sixthman. Since 2001, Sixthman has produced over 125 music festivals on cruise ships for artists like KISS, KidRock, Kesha, Bon Jovi, Zac Brown, John Mayer, Joe Bonamassa, 311, Paramore and more. More than 250,000+ guests have vacationed for more than 1 million days on sixth man cruises.

In 2011, Sixthman was named the fastest-growing travel company by Inc. Magazine and the #87th overall fastest-growing company in America.

In 2012, Sixthman was acquired by Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Levine was named Business Person of the year by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. Levine stepped down as CEO of Sixthman in 2016, though he continues to support the organization as chairman.

Today, Andy lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he raises his two children and builds new social entrepreneurial ventures (like Topeka and Moon Crush)through his startup, Always Saturday. He also invests his time mentoring young entrepreneurs and helping build empowerment paths for people lifting themselves out of poverty.

Follow Topeka on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

About Topeka
Andy’s background and how he came to start Topeka
How Andy’s start-up Always Saturday interacts with Topeka, along with Circles Morningside
How consumers and artists can utilize Topeka’s services throughout the pandemic and beyond
Plans to expand into other areas (i.e. chefs, athletes, etc.)

About Our Sponsor

OnPay’s payroll services and HR software give you more time to focus on what’s most important. Rated “Excellent” by PC Magazine, we make it easy to pay employees fast, we automate all payroll taxes, and we even keep all your HR and benefits organized and compliant.

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Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

BRX Pro Tip: Block and Bundle

August 13, 2020 by angishields

Shaun Bank with ImagineX Consulting

August 12, 2020 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Shaun Bank with ImagineX Consulting

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Shaun Bank is a passionate and seasoned technology consulting leader with almost 20 years of IT consulting experience. He loves solving client problems, delivering high quality deliverables and being a trusted advisor to his clients. He has worked across large and small clients in the Telecommunications, Auto, Finance, Hospitality, Retail, and Insurance industries including AT&T, Verizon Business, Cox Automotive, IHG, ADP, The Home Depot, and Airbnb.

Shaun’s career started at Accenture in 2001 where he focused on telecommunications and large system implementations. After Accenture, Shaun joined Slalom and spent almost a decade working to establish their reputation in the Atlanta market and became a Consultant Manager and Client Service Lead for several clients.

Since Co-Founding ImagineX Consulting in 2015, Shaun has owned their technology practices including Adaptive Agile and Software Engineering & Cloud. He has grown the Atlanta office to be ImagineX’s National Delivery Center, and home to 40 consultants and growing rapidly. Shaun is currently involved in GA Tech’s StartUp eXchange, UGA’s Terry College Mentoring Program, and KSU’s Gold Circle Leaders in Entrepreneurship and focuses corporate sponsorship on Camp Horizon of Georgia.

Shaun was a 2018 finalist for Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Small Business Person of the Year. Shaun became CEO of ImagineX in January 2020. ImagineX Atlanta has been an Atlanta Business Chronicle Great Place to Work Top 30 award recipient the past two years.

Follow ImagineX Consulting on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

Shaun’s response to layoffs / furloughs during COVID-19
About the technology environment in Atlanta
Return to work policies for ImaginX Consulting
Their shift to remove work

About Our Sponsor

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

BRX Pro Tip: Create the Right Environment

August 12, 2020 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Create the Right Environment

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BRX Pro Tip: Create the Right Environment

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with BRX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, let’s talk a little bit about the stage, if you will, creating the right environment.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:10] Yeah. This is something, you know, that I’m kind of a behavioral science nerd when it comes to some of this stuff. And there’s so much research that shows that people like things that look like the way they expect them to look. So, for example, if you’re eating fish at a fish restaurant on the ocean, in your mind, it’s going to taste better because you’re going to think it’s fresher or whatever. The thing is, it’s going to be a trigger. If you’re eating Greek food in Greece, it’s going to taste better. If you’re going to have New York style pizza in New York, it’s going to taste better.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:41] The environment plays a role in how people perceive the services. So, when you’re in your studio, if you can make it look like a studio or how your your guests imagines a studio to be, they’re going to kind of emotionally connect deeper with you in your work because it’s going to look the way they kind of envision it should look. So, add those things, have the mic flags, have the phone, headphones. All the stuff that we do in the studio, make sure that you’re doing it. It’s important for them to kind of really immerse themselves in the whole environment.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:16] And so, the little things or big things, it has to be congruent in their mind that everything that’s happening there makes sense. That this is the place they think they should be. And this is the place where this kind of work gets done.

Retirement Tips Radio: Tom Lashnits with Sightings Over Sixty

August 12, 2020 by angishields

Retirement Tips Radio

Retirement Tips Radio: Tom Lashnits with Sightings Over Sixty

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After 40+ years in New York publishing, working for Time Inc., Reader’s Digest, and various other publishers, Tom Lashnits retired in 2017 to Doylestown, PA. While he admits to playing golf, he also produces a retirement blog called Sightings Over Sixty, and occasionally has a column on the U. S. News Retirement website and on Manopause, the website for men over 50.

Tom also volunteers to tutor literacy outside of Philadelphia and teaches at the retirement center at Delaware Valley University. Tom and his wife spend the better part of the winter in Charleston, SC, visiting children and grandchildren, and soon they will start making the trip to Madison, WI, where they have a brand new granddaughter.

Connect with Tom on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Hillary D. Simpson with HDS Enterprises

August 11, 2020 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Hillary D. Simpson with HDS Enterprises

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Hillary Drummond Simpson is a Certified Parent Coach and Young Men’s Success Coach who works with parents and organizations to support the success of young black men by coaching and mentoring alongside successful black men in various fields. Hillary also works with organizations that serve young men by providing turnkey programs that will motivate, inspire and help define who they are.

Hillary is the author of two books… How to Become a Successful Black Man…The Men Tell Their Story, and its companion The Action Guide. Here she gives young black men role models from various careers at their fingertips and has partnered with 100 Black Men to use this as a turnkey system for their success.

Realizing that young men start forming their self- image early, she decided to write, What Every Parent Needs to Know for Their Child’s Success. This book gives grade by grade directions so parents have the tools to keep their children at the top of the class from K-12, and focus on important milestones in their child’s school life.

This author is also an award-winning educator who holds two Master’s degrees, one in Educational Leadership and one in Elementary Education. Her Bachelor’s degree was from the prestigious New York University where she focused on Business Administration while double majoring in Marketing and Management.

Connect with Hillary on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

What the Save Our Black Sons Movement is about
How it could impact communities at large
How a black woman can coach the success of young black men
About Hillary’s two books
The ultimate goal for the Save Our Black Sons Movement
What HDS Enterprises has on the horizon

About Our Sponsor

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Toyin Adon-Abel with Civic Walls Project

August 10, 2020 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Toyin Adon-Abel with Civic Walls Project

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Toyin-Adon-Abel-Civic-Walls-Project — Photo by Mushaboom Studios

In addition to the Civic Walls Project, Toyin Adon-Abel Jr. is also Founder and Creative Director of Meddling Minds, a network of socially conscious professionals and creatives leveraging the power of marketing to empower our communities.

MeddlingMinds centers around helping aspirational brands find purpose. They help startups, large brands, nonprofits and entrepreneurs generate revenue results from marketing while also aligning with consumer values.

Follow the Civic Walls Project on Instagram.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

What the Civic Walls Project is and how it got started
Who’s involved with the Civic Walls Project
Where the walls are located and what the murals are about
What Toyin hopes to accomplish through the initiative
Plans for expansion to Miami, Boston, London and Nigeria
How people can help the initiative

About Our Sponsor

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

BRX Pro Tip: From Hub to Node

August 10, 2020 by angishields

BRX Pro Tip: Standing Out

August 9, 2020 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Standing Out

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BRX Pro Tip: Standing Out

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, I’m fond of saying, “If you want to be outstanding, you got to stand out.”

Lee Kantor: [00:00:12] Yeah. It’s important to differentiate yourself in the minds of your perspective client. If you’re doing what your competition is doing, you’re not going to stand out. If you’re advertising in the same way your competition is, you’re not going to stand out. If your tagline, and mission statement, and your about page looks just like your competition, you’re just a commodity. If it’s interchangeable with anybody else, then you’re not going to stand out.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] You have to do things that separate yourself from everybody else. You want to position yourself as the only place in order to get the unique thing that you offer. So, if you have limited funds, then it makes no sense in doing what everybody else is doing. It just doesn’t make any sense. You’re not going to stand out. You’re just going to be one of the group, one of many. And the one with the biggest budget will win that battle. And if you don’t have the money, you’re not going to win.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:08] So, if you want to win, then I would read all about that Blue Ocean strategy and read that book that talks about that. Find a place where you’re the only game in town and the only place for your clients to get what you offer is through you. So, the more you can become the only game in town, the better your chances of success are, especially if you don’t have a lot of money to invest in marketing.