Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for GWBC Radio: Conversations to Grow Your Business. Now, here’s your host, Roz Lewis.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] Lee Kantor here on another episode of GWBC: Open for Business. And this is gonna be a fun one. Today, we have with us Keshia Walker and she is with Insights Marketing and Promotions. Welcome.

Keshia Walker: [00:00:38] Thank you and welcome. I’m excited.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:40] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about Insights. How are you serving folks?

Keshia Walker: [00:00:44] Well, this is quite a challenging time right now. We, for the last 21 years, were lucky enough to exist in the exponential marketing, event production, and celebrity, and sourcing partnership spaces. But due to our current new norm in life trying to survive and coexist with this COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve had to pivot to continue to thrive and be successful in our ever changing world.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:14] So now, when you decided to make that pivot, how did that decision making come about? Did you have your whole team together and say, “Hey, it looks like there’s not going to be a lot of face-to-face or anything happening for a while. We’ve got to do something and let’s start brainstorming.” Like, how did that come about?

Keshia Walker: [00:01:30] Absolutely. Well, a couple things. First, from my perspective, I had to take a step back where we are. And then from there, I put 10, 15 opportunities together and then I reached out to our leadership team internally and said, “I need you guys to look at the things that seem like are working right now, where and how do you think we can fit best as we look at the next six to 18 months in terms of where we’re gonna be with this new norm?” I asked everybody to send me individually back their thoughts. And then we put together a top seven opportunities from their feedback. And then we all got on a call – a webinar together and discussed the pros and cons of those seven new services.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:13] And then, how did you start rolling that out? At that point, were you kind of contacting existing clients to see which one that they would find most appealing? Or does this mean you have to go with a whole new group of clients?

Keshia Walker: [00:02:26] It’s actually a combination of both. We, actually, went to our existing clients and said, “Hey, this is what we’re looking at now. This is the services that we’re now going to start offering. Let us know if we can continue to work with you in these new areas and categories.” And then, we also started, we went back to our regional and/or national partners, through our diversity certification, and also asked them if they could help us to find new opportunities based on our new services and capabilities. Because they’ve always known us to be in our original space, and then how can we maximize in the new space that we’re now living in and working in.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:12] So now, what are some of the new capabilities you offer?

Keshia Walker: [00:03:16] First and foremost, we’ve gone into the PPE space. We’re providing masks, gowns, shoe covers, gloves, anything that’s needed by first responders, university healthcare workers to assist them in their day-to-day work and to keep them as safe and responsible as possible. The other is COVID-19 test kits. We are now providing – and we are the only minority owned company in North America that’s offering this particular type of test kit. It is a three category test kit. It has about a 90 percent accuracy or 90 to 95 percent accuracy rate. We’re waiting right now for antigen approval, so we will be able to offer the rapid antigen test. So we’re very excited about that here in North America.

Keshia Walker: [00:04:14] And then we’re also now in the commercial sanitizing and disinfecting space for commercial buildings, universities, institutions to get them ready to either reopen and/or welcome back employees and/or students in the places where they actually have their normal business operations and/or organizations are opening for business.

Keshia Walker: [00:04:39] And then the other two main areas is we do virtual events now, virtual events and live streaming. So for a lot of our clients, we did a lot of work around conventions and conferences. And so a lot of our clients have moved their conventions and conferences to a virtual space. And so we are offering the services we did provide live and in-person to a virtual space, if needed. And as well as our celebrity clients that they would normally have in-person for a speaking engagement, or to do a fundraiser, or concert, or whatever special event. And now we’re offering those same celebrities in a virtual setting to provide those same opportunities, appearances that we once offered in an in-person live event avenue and/or event arena or space. And then the last thing is courier services.

Keshia Walker: [00:05:33] And we’re now providing courier service to sort of deliver much needed equipment, supplies, packages, documents to employees and/or vendors, suppliers, other corporate locations offices, to hospitals, institutions, if needed, by our clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:55] So now, do you see any kind of silver lining in the fact that you had to make this dramatic shift in your business? Do you see that, maybe, some of these things will be able to continue being offered as services going forward once the pandemic kind of wanes?

Keshia Walker: [00:06:12] Absolutely. I would definitely say, if nothing else, the virtual events and live streaming, I think, a lot of people and companies are going to see now that most of their employees can work from home. And/or the individuals that they’ve serviced in terms of customers and clients. So I think the virtual events and live streaming will continue to be an opportunity. And it was something we had looked at before and now we’ve made it a priority. And I think it’s going to continue to be relevant as we continue to move forward. And then also the courier services and the commercial sanitizing and disinfectants, you know, because we can, with that, do any type of traditional – everything from building washings from the exterior, from the facades, window cleaning. And then more importantly inside making sure that the insides of buildings remain clean as we move forward, hopefully, beyond this COVID-19 pandemic.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:14] Now, talk about your relationship with GWBC. Has that organization helped you kind of weather the storm here? Maybe come up with some good ideas or connections that helped you kind of handle some of this chaos?

Keshia Walker: [00:07:28] Roz and her entire team have always been phenomenal. And, you know, I love the fact that she takes time to call and talk to the individual members of our regional alliance. And I talked to her last week. She provided some great feedback, some great thought. We discussed a lot of our new services and the best ways to approach getting that information out to our current client base as well as our potential new client base. This radio show was a good example of that. They’ve also – we have a lot of weekly and a whole set of virtual events and meetings that have helped. They’ve been phenomenal with helping us to get and submit the PPP and the IDO and the different loan and/or grant opportunities that are out there. So they’ve continued to be phenomenal through this entire process. And I’m very blessed to have and be a member of the GWBC.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:29] Now, is there any advice to a business owner that’s out there that isn’t involved that maybe they should make it a priority to get involved with GWBC?

Keshia Walker: [00:08:39] Oh, absolutely. Especially now when you’ve got to reinvent yourself and where connections and resources and access are key. I think if there was ever any doubt as to the value that GWBC can provide, you’ll know now it will over exceed your expectations. And more importantly, the value that you get out of the membership by being a member.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:06] Well, let’s talk about a different time. Maybe the start of Insights. What was kind of the genesis of your business? What’s your origin story? How did you get started?

Keshia Walker: [00:09:17] Well, I actually spent nine years in Corporate America with Bell South which is now AT&T, and Amoco Oil Company, and Procter& Gamble, and Coca-Cola. And I was actually – I had created a smaller agency and was still working full time in Corporate America for the last two years prior to starting Insights. I had a different small agency. And then decided to go and do this full time. I have been in – and we spent most of our time in the diverse multicultural space.

Keshia Walker: [00:09:50] And so, I was doing that same work with those corporations and saw opportunities to expand on what I was doing. I was at Coke when I decided to go out full time. What I was doing at Coke and expand it and take it across different industry and mediums. And so I talked to then, who our current clients were, and said, “Hey, we’re looking to do this full time. Will you continue to support my efforts if I decide to make this a full time career and opportunity and go out and become a full time entrepreneur?” And they did. And I’ve been very lucky to have as a part of our Insights family clients who’ve been with us since day one.

Keshia Walker: [00:10:30] And so we started off, actually, and how I got the Insights name when we started off doing market research. And helping brands to understand how and why diverse consumers are different and how you should advertise to them and market and promote your products, brands, or services to them. And we did diversity training and market research, both quantitative and qualitative market research. And as a result of that, clients started asking us can we actually activate the recommendation and the learnings that we were getting from that research? They asked us if we actually bring those opportunities to life for the brands and/or companies that we were working with. And that’s how Insights got started and how that’s been the base of our business since day one.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:16] And that’s great advice for the business center out there, listen to your customers. Just because you do one thing, it doesn’t mean you can’t do something else. But as long as you serve them, have open lines of communication, do a great job, they’re going to come to you as a solution for a lot of their problems. So why don’t you say yes more, try some new stuff, and see where your business goes, because it seems like that’s really helped you grow your business.

Keshia Walker: [00:11:41] Absolutely. You’ve got to be willing to evolve and change. You have to.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:47] Now, what’s kind of your timeline for the growth of your business? Like, I would think, you know, your 2020 game plans kind of exploded. And you’ve adjusted and are adapting to this new world. Looking forward, what is your kind of view of how to plan for next year?

Keshia Walker: [00:12:05] I think the next 60 to 90 days will determine where and how we continue to evolve our current new services that we’re offering. And how and if we’re able to bring some of our original existing offerings back up to the forefront. So we’re continuing watching, analyzing, researching, to see what’s going to make the most sense.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:27] So now, if somebody wanted to learn more about what you’re up to and what services you provide, what’s the website?

Keshia Walker: [00:12:33] Our website is Insights. And that’s I-N-S-I-G-H-T-S. And then, it’s hyphen or dash, not underscore. And it’s M for marketing, P for promotions, and C for company, dot com. So, insights-mpc.com. And you can follow us on social media.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:52] Right. I’m sure you’re on all the social medias, right? LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.

Keshia Walker: [00:12:58] Correct. @insightskw.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:00] Now, what does your ideal client look like? What does somebody who’s out there listening, what’s kind of the pain they’re having where Insights is the right solution for them?

Keshia Walker: [00:13:10] I would say, especially, those looking for or interested in right now with the current climate that we’re in and they’re in need or would like to support a black owned business. We are a black and female owned business. I am the owner. So there’s an opportunity there. If they’re interested in, especially in these new areas of virtual events and live streaming, like the PPE equipment, any of the new services that we’re providing, the COVID-19 test kits for their employees and/or their staff, clients to provide, we would love to be able to work with them. Whether they’ve worked with us before in the past or never have worked with us, we’d love the opportunity to earn their business and get a chance to work with them and provide our services.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:59] Good stuff. And then once again, that website address?

Keshia Walker: [00:14:03] It’s insights-mpc.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:07] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Keshia Walker: [00:14:13] Thank you so much. I appreciate the time. And continued success. And thank you so much for the platform.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:18] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you next time on GWBC: Open for Business.