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Brad Englert With Brad Englert Advisory

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High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
Brad Englert With Brad Englert Advisory
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Brad Englert is the founder of Brad Englert Advisory and an author, advisor, and technologist.

He worked for Accenture for 22 years, and served The University of Texas at Austin for eight years, including seven years as the Chief Information Officer. He earned a masters of public affairs degree from UT Austin.

He lives in Austin with his wife and two sons.

Connect with Englert on LinkedIn and follow Brad Englert Advisory on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Spheres of Influence
  • What inspired him to write this book for emerging leaders
  • How does he create and nurture authentic business relationships
  • How does he approach his relationships with the internal sphere – his boss, direct reports and staff
  • How is it different from relationship-building with the external sphere – his customers, relationships, peers and influencers and strategic vendor partners

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Brad Englert with Brad Englert Advisory. Welcome, Brad.

Brad Englert: [00:00:25] Thanks for having.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:26] Me. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about your firm. How you serving folks?

Brad Englert: [00:00:32] Well, I do it consulting. One of my latest projects was for a regional liquor store chain and they needed an IT strategy. They grew from one store to 100 stores, and there it was, stuck at about 40 stores. And we came up with a mobile app and delivery and a new website, and that’s certainly served them well during the pandemic.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] So what is the typical pain that one of your clients is having where they’re like, I better call Brad and his team?

Brad Englert: [00:01:04] Well, it’s usually when their business has grown exponentially, but their it has remained where it was when they started. And so that’s that’s a real pain point.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:15] But what’s a symptom that they would notice that’s like, hey, you know, we’re growing really fast. But I don’t think our infrastructure is keeping up.

Brad Englert: [00:01:23] Complaints from your customers there. And the example I just mentioned, the customers were frustrated that the website was difficult to navigate and they loved the company, but were just frustrated that they couldn’t order what they wanted the way in an easy way. So frustrated customers.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] Is there. So I understand, like if a customer is like complaining and they have a relationship with the people in charge, they can voice that. But is there anything like that you can notice just from metrics or from, you know, things going on on the website or on your in your business? That might be a clue that, hey, we better get ahead of this.

Brad Englert: [00:02:02] Well, one thing I see most often is they have their own equipment on site and usually it’s not very well protected or backed up very well. And in today’s world most of that can be outsourced to the cloud. So a lot of these companies can quickly take advantage of outsourcing their services to the cloud, which gives them much better resilience in terms of disaster recovery and and security.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:34] Now, how did you get into this line of work? Were you always involved in it?

Brad Englert: [00:02:38] Yes, I started after graduate school. I started with Arthur Andersen, which became Andersen Consulting, which became Accenture, and my work was in IT consulting and most of it was in public sector. But also I did a lot of higher ed consulting. So my clients were University of Michigan, Illinois, Columbia, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, etc. and I really enjoyed higher ed because, you know, they have smart people with big issues that needed to be solved. And the firm when I joined was 40,000 globally. Now there’s 700,000 people in Accenture globally.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:23] Wow. Now you have a book out. Spheres of Influence. How did that come about?

Brad Englert: [00:03:30] Well, after I left Accenture, I retired. Um, I was, uh, called by the University of Texas at Austin, my alma mater, and they needed an IT strategy. And so I offered to help them because I knew higher ed and they wanted someone who had, uh, outside the university, and it was an hour a week pro bono. So they’re too cheap to pay for my parking or, uh, dry cleaning. And after about three months, they asked me, would I serve half time? And I said, sure, I can do that. And by, uh, three months later, I was full time and became the chief information officer for seven years. So at the culmination of my second retirement, I had all these stories from 22 years with Accenture and eight years total with the university, and I just wanted to share them with the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:25] And then there around the theme of relationships and spheres of influence. Can you talk a little bit about, um, how kind of this thesis came about and how you were able to connect dots and see this kind of, uh, the importance of relationships when it comes to business?

Brad Englert: [00:04:41] Sure. Well, it started with, uh, the great mentors I had at the firm over 22 years. I actually went back and looked at my annual reviews for 22 years, and my boss and mentors did a really good job of giving me stretch roles and preparing me for, uh, becoming a partner. I was a partner for ten years, and mentoring was always a big part of being in the firm. You were expected to mentor others grow, grow the pie bigger. And when I got to the university, I had a big culture change on my hands where the culture of central, it was kind of reactionary fire drill, you know, we’re heroes to save the day. And really, I wanted to change it to more of a customer oriented, uh. View of the world and relationship with our customers. And after I left the university, I still mentor 2 or 3 people. But that’s not very scalable and I can’t clone myself. So I thought, why don’t I package these stories into a book and help people who are starting their careers or already established in their careers, and the two spheres of influence relate to those people you had the most direct impact with. That’s the internal sphere of influence that would be your boss direct reports, executives, leaders and all your staff. And then you have an external sphere of influence where you have less direct impact. And that would be your customers, peers and influencers and strategic vendor partners. And so I talked about all those different types of relationships and how to be successful. The three principles that are in all relationships are you need to understand their goals and expectations, aspirations. You need to set and manage expectations. And you need to genuinely care about their success.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:45] Now, um, do you think that this, uh, premise applies to the non-business world, like your own relationships and your family or your, uh, in your community?

Brad Englert: [00:06:58] I think they can, um. Asking those people, you know, what are their goals and aspirations? What what do they want to achieve in life? Um, setting and managing expectations is it’s so easy to get crosswise if you don’t talk about what the expectations are and then genuinely caring about their success. I mean, who doesn’t want that now?

Lee Kantor: [00:07:24] Do you find that do most people have this empathy gene that you’re, I think, referring to this ability to truly care about someone else’s well-being and success? I mean, there’s a lot of folks who look at business as kind of more of a transactional, uh, occurrence rather than this deeper, relationship driven, um, interaction.

Brad Englert: [00:07:48] Well, certainly it can be transactional. Um, traditional networking tends to be transactional and short lived and many times superficial. You finish the, uh, happy hour with the stack of cards, and, you know, everyone has a what’s in it for me mindset. And I just think that rarely leads to, uh, successful outcomes. What I find is if you focus on. Understanding what people need. Like your customers setting those expectations and caring about them. It’s a more rewarding business life and it’s more fun.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:30] Yeah, and I think it’s less stressful. I think a lot of times in my experience, like in selling, for example, when I started out, I was trying to sell whatever I had to whoever was in front of me. And then over time, I learned, why don’t you just have your secret sauce superpower that you do great, and then just find people that match. And then when you’re having a conversation with someone, all you’re doing is trying to see if it’s the right fit and figure out ways that you can help them. And if it’s you as the solution, great. If it’s not you, great. You met somebody else that you know might refer you down the road, but it you don’t force fit your solution into their problem.

Brad Englert: [00:09:11] And there are times when I would say I’m not the right person for you, but I’ll find someone for you. Um, the, uh, liquor store retail firm wanted me to be their IT guy, but I wanted to write this book, so I said, I’ll find someone who will help you. And a woman who worked with me at the firm. Uh, brilliant. She actually, uh, helped, uh, Dell build Dell.com back in the late 90s. And then she worked for. She was with them for 15 years, and then, uh, built a medical marijuana website for a Canadian company. So she knew control substance over the web. Much better qualified than me. And she knocked it out of the park.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:56] Now, do you find that that just takes kind of time in business to come to that level of maturity and humbleness and, um, in order to really serve people? Like I find that this isn’t a lesson that many young people kind of have that aha moment at the beginning. That’s something that is learned over time.

Brad Englert: [00:10:17] Well, um, I have young mentees who, uh, that you can find their blurbs on the back of the book, which, um, they embraced the stories, and they are practicing, uh, some of the skills. It. The good news is you don’t have to be born with this ability. It’s a learned skill, and you just have to practice and follow the principles. And so I’ve been pleased with the feedback I’ve been getting from those just entering their career. And then the established leaders, they say, Brad, I wish I read your book 20 years ago. That would have really been a help.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:58] Now are they taking it to heart and not just reading it and going, oh, that’s a great idea, you know, for somebody else. But our business is different. We, you know, that that that wouldn’t work here.

Brad Englert: [00:11:10] Well, these principles are really, uh, applied to a diverse range of industries, organizations and backgrounds. And I’ve worked in private sector and public sector higher ed, and these principles apply to all of them.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:24] Yeah, I think that this is I mean, this is just the heart of being a good human is, you know, to focus on on relationships and how you serve somebody and how you really help them. And it’s like the the old saying from these early books, um, you know, from the beginning of last century about, you know, if you can help someone else be successful, you’re going to be successful in the long run.

Brad Englert: [00:11:48] Mhm.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:49] Like I think these are universal principles that uh, have stood the test of time.

Brad Englert: [00:11:55] So when I joined the university I met with a faculty member, been with the university for 40 years, uh, electrical engineer. I worked with him on a strategy 15 years prior for a statewide network. And, uh, we’re we were successful. And I said, okay, give me some advice. He goes, get out of your office and tell them you give a damn, right. And it was so true. And so I made a point that to build a network throughout. So the university has 52,000 students, 4000 faculty, 21,000 staff. And I made a point to build a network at the, uh, executive level. And every 6 to 8 weeks, I would meet with deans, associate deans, my peers, uh, assistant vice presidents and just ask, you know, what’s going well with central it what could we do better? And how can I help you? And one of the, uh, best relationships was with the campus safety and security, uh, associate vice president, because we knew it was not if there would be a problem, but when there would be a problem. And I wanted to make sure that everything central it could do, uh, in a bad situation would be there and tested and ready to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:24] And then did you were, uh, after having this relationship, did that help you kind of manage a situation that did occur?

Brad Englert: [00:13:33] Yes. We had a bomb scare. We had a shooting, we had a murder, and we had electricity go out. Now, the electricity hadn’t gone out in 15 years, actually generate our own electricity and backed up by a utility. Both failed and we once a year we would. Get together both our teams and we would have, um, disaster recovery scenarios. We actually prototyped or had a tabletop exercise of a power outage. What would we do? You have no power. You have no network. Um, and then we had an ice storm. We had a hurricane because we’re close enough to the coast that we can get tornadoes. Um, and by practicing these, uh, drills, we just got better at you always found gaps, and we we got better and better. Now, you can’t anticipate everything, though. And so in both our organizations, we had if there was a situation where the executives were called to the executive, uh, emergency Operations Center, we made sure that we had our backup operations centers ready to go. So if there’s a fire in the building where the main emergency operation center is, they were going to come over to my building and use our center. If that was compromised, then we would go to the third center, which was. Up more than a mile away from, uh, Central campus, and that would be ready. So, um, when there’s a situation, we all get on a conference call, we get the orders from executives, we make sure the cable TV is working, the copper phone lines are working. Um, when the power came back on the network working, and we just worked worked the issue and and and because you can’t anticipate everything.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:36] Now in the in you mentioned earlier that, um, part of the thesis of this is that your spheres of influence can be broken into two sections, internal and external is something actionable for the listener right now. Do you actually kind of write down the names of these, these spheres of influence, or you know who they are by name, and then you can like put them in the calendar like you just mentioned and say, okay, every within six months I’m going to make sure I, I, you know, have some communication with all of my internal and a portion of my external, like, like, do you do it that kind of tactically.

Brad Englert: [00:16:14] Yes, yes. And I had seven direct reports at the university. I asked them to do the same. So they all had 7 to 10 relationships across, uh, the campus. And that became like our nervous system, um, and, and our, our weekly meetings. We would talk about, you know, what have you heard what’s going well, what could we change our rumors? We would hear rumors. Um, one rumor was that we didn’t have, uh, enough diesel for the generators when there was an issue. Well, the generators were running on natural gas, so that was a good rumor, but it wasn’t true. Um, so we, um, we it was very intentional. There’s a technique that I describe in, uh, the chapter on peers and influencers, and it’s called power mapping. So you lay out your organization chart and you find, okay, who are your peers. And then and same thing with direct reports, ask them to do the same. And then who are your who are the influencers. So peers are in the same level you are. But influencers could be anywhere. And so it’s intentionally finding those peers and influencers and then connecting with them. And yes, I ended up on your calendar because when the meeting comes up you always remember, oh, I need to tell them about XYZ. And we had, uh, several major projects. We replaced all 21,000 phones and moved into voice over IP. So we basically irritated everybody. Well, you want to let people know that’s coming, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:55] You don’t want to surprise them on Wednesday that this is happening Friday.

Brad Englert: [00:17:58] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:59] Now, what’s a manageable amount of relationships for a person? I mean, when we’re all online nowadays, it makes it seem like, you know, some people have millions of followers or millions of people. They think that they’re influencing how how many is manageable in your mind, like internally and externally.

Brad Englert: [00:18:19] I think seven is a good number. Um, textbook span of control is five plus or minus two. Um, but I think seven is a good amount evenly split between internal and external. Your boss, you’re going to meet with weekly, your direct reports. You’ll meet with weekly um, staff. We would meet quarterly. I did a, um, a weekly blog to all the staff to reinforce our values and, uh, give kudos where we’re deserved. Um. Just, um, customers. We would meet with the customers. Um, and I had one customer that the relationship wasn’t working out, and we were providing a service, and they wanted to keep one of their staff. People also do help with the service. A hybrid solution, unfortunately, everything. Every time something went wrong, their staff would point at us and blame us for the problem. So I took my pure executive out to lunch and described the problems and how they reoccurring, and he looked up at me and said, you’re firing me as a customer, aren’t you? And I said, yes, I am, and I’m going to buy you lunch, and you don’t have to pay me for any service provided to date. And and he understood.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:46] Yeah. It’s that best fit. I mean, everybody does their best work when you have that good fit and everybody is on the same page and everything’s aligned. Um, so many times the problem is that you just force fit something into something, and it’s just not an optimal relationship for either side. Really.

Brad Englert: [00:20:04] That’s right.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:05] So if somebody wants to learn more about your firm and, uh, or learn more about the book, is there a website? What’s the best way to get connect with you?

Brad Englert: [00:20:14] Uh, website is Brad Engelhardt. Com I’m on LinkedIn. I have a YouTube channel, which, uh, has a book trailer and five funny stories. Uh, good customer service. It never happened. Swiss cheese beat, copious notes and give a damn. So those are kind of some fun, uh, vignettes from the book. And then, um. The book is on Amazon, it’s a best seller, and I, uh, encourage people to check it out.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:47] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success and the momentum. Uh, the website again is Brad Englert, dot com Brad e and g l e r t. Com Brad, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Brad Englert: [00:21:03] Thank you. I appreciate the invitation.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:05] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Larry Williams With Technology Association of Georgia

by

Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Larry Williams With Technology Association of Georgia
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Larry Williams is President and CEO of the Technology Association of Georgia. He brings more than 25 years of experience in global branding, international trade and finance, public and industrial policy, and administration and management to TAG.

As the former president and CEO of The Beacon Council, Miami-Dade County’s official economic development partnership, he helped facilitate local, national and international business growth and expansion programs.

Under his leadership The Beacon Council created and executed a new economic development framework to help the area grow and secure investments in today’s innovation economy. This is resulted in $687 million in new investment, 119 company relocations or expansions, and more than 4,500 new jobs. From 2011 to 2014, he helped shape the vision for Atlanta’s tech sector as vice president of technology development at the Metro Atlanta Chamber.

He provided leadership and direction to the Chamber’s Mobility Task Force, positioning Atlanta as a global hub of mobile technology, and to the Technology Leadership Council.

Connect with Larry on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • How has the role of technology shifted and what does this mean for TAG
  • How is AI helping

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by On pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Larry Williams, the CEO and president of Technology Association of Georgia. Welcome, Larry.

Larry Williams: [00:00:46] Hi Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:47] I am so excited to get caught up with you. Big anniversary this year, huh?

Larry Williams: [00:00:52] That’s right. It’s our 25th anniversary. We’re so excited.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:55] I know that is a big deal for the folks who aren’t familiar with Tag. Can you explain mission purpose of Tag and how it’s kind of different from the Chamber of Commerce and the other economic development things out there?

Larry Williams: [00:01:07] Well, sure. I mean, at the top level, our job is to focus in on the technology sector, our technology industry, as well as the people that are utilizing technology to drive their business and the people that are building great careers in technology. You know, one of the great things we’ve done over the last 25 years is we’ve created one of the most connected technology and innovation ecosystems in the country with 30,000 members. You know, in Georgia. I think that’s something for us to be proud of. And as we’ve grown, not only are we doing great things to connect our our people through our societies and our major events like we have tomorrow with the Georgia Technology Summit, but we’re also very involved in lobbying and advocating for policies that help enable innovation or prevent things that might inhibit it. So both at the state and the federal level, as well as we do a lot through our Tag Education Collaborative, our charitable charitable education foundation, about how we prepare the the next generation of technology workers now.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:11] Was tag, um, kind of born out of the Chamber of Commerce or was this 25 years ago was this kind of initiative that a bunch of folks said, you know what, there should be a dedicated organization that just serves technology here in Georgia.

Larry Williams: [00:02:24] There were three technology organizations at the time. There was what is now known as Tag. I forgot exactly what the name was back then, but it was the South East Software Association and Wit. The Women in technology all came together to create an organization under one umbrella. Um, and that was just because that was there was a little bit fragmented at the time. So most of that’s stayed together. Women in technology has grown up and they’ve, um, you know, doing great work and as a autonomous organization. But they’re a great partner of ours now, too.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:59] Now, at the time, it was, was it primarily, um, software focused or was tele telecommunication kind of part of that and the growth of that industry?

Larry Williams: [00:03:09] By all means. Um, so if we think about, you know, what was going on during that time, you’ve got to think about, um, you know, the Hayes modem. So if you want to think about, you know, telecommunication that was coming up in the 70s and the 80s, scientific Atlanta was founded in the 50s. You know, it wasn’t sold until 2005. So. So, Lee, um, technology is part of our DNA here in Georgia. You know, we’ve been in this business for a long time. And, um, you know, it was taken advantage of a lot of things that was that were going on. And then with these great nexus of, uh, organizations like Scientific Atlanta, there were a lot of other companies that were starting to build and develop and come up with new innovations as well. And that’s what created that critical mass for for it to make sense to really launch an organization like the Technology Association of Georgia.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:01] Now, did it get escape velocity right off the bat, or did it take a few years to get kind of momentum and grow to the 30,000 member mark?

Larry Williams: [00:04:11] Yeah, I think it took a few years for it to for it to grow and then to get to the 30,000 mark certainly took a few days, you know. Well, you know, 25.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:20] Years now, but was it something that you were always had a groundswell of support, or was there a tipping point at some point?

Larry Williams: [00:04:29] You know, I think there had some volunteer leadership at the very early on. And then they went with a professional, uh, CEO, if you remember, they hired Tino Ventilla to come in, and he was really a catalyst to, uh, launch it and grow it, um, and shape it. And then I came in, uh, eight years ago.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:49] Now, uh, one of tino’s kind of, um, I remember him talking a lot about clusters and special groups that were serving niches within technology. Was that helpful in, in kind of growing the organization, in your opinion?

Larry Williams: [00:05:06] Yeah. Cluster theory about economic development is is alive and well. And it’s, um, you know, with clusters when you have a certain, uh, strength and other people want to be around that for a lot of reasons. It’s either it could be, um, client vendor relationships and also workforce. So, um, those all work very closely together. And it was important then. It’s important now.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:29] Now, are you seeing that, um, the center of gravity in technology shifting a little bit? I mean, there was a lot of stuff centered around Georgia Tech, but it seems like now it’s expanding out into the suburbs and exurbs of Atlanta.

Larry Williams: [00:05:45] You know, it’s, uh, you know, we’re fortunate we have a plethora of riches in many ways. Um, Georgia Tech is still extremely important to our ecosystem and to our talent, to the research and development, uh, the thought leadership that comes out of there. But we have other areas. I mean, you know, you go out to Augusta with the cyber center out there now, you know, Kennesaw State merging with Southern Poly, uh, really made it for a richer, more comprehensive, um, uh, university for us. Georgia State and I think about, you know, what’s going on there with the film industry and, uh, the media labs, Emory, all of these things work together. Clayton State is extremely important to us. Columbus. You know, uh, the the the trouble we’re trying to start listing them is I’m going to leave somebody. They’re all important. And but, you know, if I, you know. So if we think about it from an economic development point of view, um, yester year, people used to move to where the jobs are now, the companies are moving to where the talent is, um, workforce development today. Talent is economic development. And I think you’re seeing that unfold as our you know, if you look at Atlanta, our skyline has changed and that’s been a big driver of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:05] So now when it comes to workforce development, how does the organization, um, kind of serve the whole state? Because it could be almost a trap to just be Atlanta focused. You mentioned, um, Augusta. And obviously Savannah is important. And and the definitely the cities around, uh, Atlanta are important. So how do you bring all of these? Kind of I don’t want to say distant, but you are serving the state. How do you bring all those communities together? Do you encourage them to kind of find their niche that they can really lean into, or do you just let them kind of develop and you just build around what they’re doing?

Larry Williams: [00:07:45] You know, it’s a little bit of both. You know, I’ve got to bring in University of North Georgia as we’re setting up some programs with them about, you know, how do we actually develop more executive leaders, um, you know, the next generation of people that are going to be, you know, running, you know, either in-house operations or building their own new technologies. So working with them on specific things, knowing where the universities are building out expertise, um, like fintech and with our partner, the fintech and, uh, fintech Academy, these things all work together so that we can direct people and collaborate as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:22] Yeah, I think that’s kind of one of the secret sources of, um, of the state is that we are so collaborative. There isn’t kind of that zero sum game mentality where we’re it seems like we’re all kind of rooting for each other and trying to help each other all grow.

Larry Williams: [00:08:39] It’s always been that way. And I think it’s extremely importantly. And I’m glad you mentioned that. Um, you know, if we look at you and the other component of this that’s extremely important is the technical college system of Georgia. Tcsg. Um, the way we look at the world is from a talent is one. How do we how do we start preparing and how do we start building tomorrow’s workforce today? So the demand for jobs still is higher than the supply. So we’ve got to continue to work on that and creative ways. So we work on how do we connect at the high school level. How do we, uh, connect, uh, all those smart people with Stem related, um, curriculums so that they can go to whatever higher education they want to go to, or next training programs so that they can be prepared. We work on workforce, uh, so especially things that don’t require four year degrees. And there are lots of jobs out there that don’t require four year degrees. And we’ve got to make sure that we’re engaging those people. So training people, upskilling them, reskilling them in a dynamic world is constantly important. And I’ll mention Lee that last week we launched our, um, tag technology apprenticeship program. So apprenticeships or experiential learning? Uh, it’s getting back, you know, real world experience in the workplace and then being able to build a career after that. Lee, we are the only technology association or council in the southeast that has a certified, uh, apprenticeship program. This is big news. Uh, we’ll continue to partner with, uh, the Universities and Technical College System of Georgia, but this is certainly a game changer for us in Georgia being at the lead of this. Let me just give. And then lastly, it’s that, uh, professional development that I mentioned earlier. We have a program called Pathways to Leadership about to launch our fourth cohort. And that’s all about preparing the next generation of senior and executive leaders for technology roles.

Larry Williams: [00:10:43] I keep going.

Larry Williams: [00:10:43] Let me just give you a little bit of context. Um, we’re, um, there’s data out there that we’re planning on creating about 100,000 new jobs in technology over the next nine years by 2033. Um, you know, we’ve got the large companies that are here and that are headquartered here with large presence here. But we’ve got to continue to make sure that we’re, um, connecting everyone with these great opportunities that they have.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:13] And I think that, uh, the nimbleness and the, the willingness to take action is really what sets it apart. I mean, we’re not talking about things that are just on a whiteboard for year after year after year and never gets done. These are things that action is taken and, uh, moves are made.

Larry Williams: [00:11:32] Grant. Um, so excuse me, Lee, you’ve heard me say this before. Um, Georgia is really where, uh, technology meets the real world. And what I mean by that is, you know, we don’t always create the shiniest new gadget or the coolest new social app, but we have more people that are building things, um, that are driving revenue, building new companies probably than anywhere else. And if you think about what we’ve done so successfully here in Georgia is, you know, we’ve got our our favorite start with fintech, 70% of all debit, credit and reward, uh, reward card transactions are processed through Georgia. We led the way in digitizing that industry, you know, going from paper checks and manual processes. It was here in Georgia. And that’s why we dominate. You know, as I say, we have if you have 51% market share, you’re number one. If you have 70%, you dominate. We dominate in that area. You mentioned mobile technology. I mean, what we were doing is, um, you know, building it up, you know, from BellSouth to Cingular to AT&T wireless. Um, it was also AT&T, um, that created a partnership with another company that built up here called Airwatch, which was a mobile cybersecurity application.

Larry Williams: [00:12:51] When you put those two to those, the telecom with the cybersecurity application, and then at the same time, the Apple phone, the iPhone was rolling out, that was a game changer. So the partnership that was created here in Atlanta is, you know, said to be what put the BlackBerry out of business. And in fact, there was a magazine in, uh, Canada that even said that that’s the type of things that we do cybersecurity. We were the leaders at Georgia Tech with the Department of Defense talking about what can we do with back when we’re talking about mainframes and network security, that evolution of, um, being able to lock down major, uh, systems to how do we secure our laptops to now the cloud and mobile applications that all happened here. These things are transformative. So again, you know, it’s not always the shiniest new thing, but we got people that are really building real world, uh, businesses here in Georgia.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:53] How are we doing? Um, in regards to AI are um, is that something that, um, you’re finding that there’s a lot obviously there’s a lot of interest and there’s a lot of opinion about it on both sides. Um, but what’s your take on, uh, Georgia?

Larry Williams: [00:14:10] And I know AI is the most transformative shift that we’re going to see in our lifetime. We’ve seen a lot lately, but we’re this is this is huge. And if you think about. And so I think Georgia will be the leader for AI, for legitimate commercial purposes. And a lot of reasons I say that is because of the things that I talked about that we transform industries. Just I believe yesterday I saw an article and it says that Georgia Tech has more graduates working in AI than any other university in the US, and that’s ahead of Berkeley and Stanford, um, University of Southern California more than Carnegie Mellon. It’s right here at Georgia Tech in our state. That knowledge base, that research base, that amount of people, um, that are going to be interacting with our, uh, business partners and our commercial entities are going to create and lead the way in how AI is going to have very positive case studies and even help us, you know, fight, you know, when it comes to cyber security, those that thought process is going to help us not only secure our own networks, but, uh, help us fight the bad guys as well. And we need that type of, of quick, um, response and that type of thinking as well. So I am bullish. I’m going to repeat it. I believe that Georgia will lead in AI for legitimate commercial purposes.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:40] So now, um, you know, putting that in the crystal ball of looking ahead to the next 25 years, uh, being a leader in AI, obviously is part of that. What else are you seeing for Georgia in the years ahead?

Larry Williams: [00:15:55] Well, you know, I think we’re going to continue to have the great mix of the, you know, of software along with the physical world. Uh, manufacturing is still going to be important to us, and we’re going to see that that intersection of being able to have more efficient operations. Um, you know, uh, I don’t think it’s a slam dunk on the future of EVs, but there’s going to be a great place for EVs, and Georgia’s going to be at the center of it as well. So that’s certainly something that we’re looking at. But I think overall, if what we think about is automation, whether it be the automation of software, uh, utilizing AI as a tool, but also harnessing the great smart people who are going to be thinking of new ideas and how to utilize these AI tools and then marry them with robotics and other automation in the physical world. That’s where Georgia’s going to continue to lead and build great companies and be able to trade, uh, attract, you know, global leaders that want to be a part of this.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:55] Well, congratulations on 25 years. I mean, it’s an amazing achievement for your organization and your leadership. If somebody wants to plug in to tag, what’s the website?

Larry Williams: [00:17:05] It’s, uh, tag online.org. Tag online.org. And you know, Lee, I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at the Georgia Technology Summit. Uh, the new Sydney, a hotel right downtown, a phenomenal location. We have an incredible, incredible line up. And I think, uh, even the governor and the mayor will stop by and and say hello to us.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:29] As they should. Well, thank you again for sharing your story, Larry. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you. Thanks, Lee. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

About Our Sponsor

OnPay’sOnPay-Dots 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.

Our award-winning customer service includes an accuracy guarantee, deep integrations with popular accounting software, and we’ll even enter all your employee information for you — whether you have five employees or 500. Take a closer look to see all the ways we can save you time and money in the back office.

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Jason Marlowe With Market House

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Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Jason Marlowe With Market House
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Jason Marlowe is a founding partner at Market House, a creative agency specializing in website design, branding, and marketing. He leads the website design team and oversees technical implementation on projects. He is also a professor at Emmanuel University in the Communication Department.

In his free time, he enjoys time with his wife and kids, hiking, woodworking, and leading as a Cubmaster of his local Cub Scout Pack.

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Why outsourcing creative is the best solution for a company/brand
  • A brand new website won’t solve a business problems
  • Why is branding expensive
  • Defining a budget and being clear when working with a marketing agency
  • Why an entire company needs design support – not just the marketing team.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by On pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Jason Marlowe with Market House. Welcome, Jason. Hey, Lee, how are you? I am doing well. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about market House. How you serving folks?

Jason Marlowe: [00:00:51] Well, we are a creative agency. We’re based here in the metro Atlanta area. We are, uh, we’ve been around for ten years, but we are kind of like a new generation of marketing and design agencies. We’re completely remote. I work out of the Grayson and Lawrenceville area. My partner’s up in the Gainesville and coming area, and we have a team that spreads from Monroe and Gainesville up to Chattanooga. So we’re kind of spread out all over the place. But we serve the people of metro Atlanta and Georgia and beyond.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:25] Now, you used the word design agency. Can you explain what that means?

Jason Marlowe: [00:01:29] Yes. Uh, so we serve clients who are in need of branding, whether they’re coming for the first time to develop their company right out of the gate. They’ve got a name and a passion and a plan, and we help them create an actual physical look and feel to the brand. We develop a story around it. And or if you have company that is ready to be rebranded, they’ve been around for a while and something’s changed or they just need a fresh look. We’ll step in to help them redevelop the brand, but we also serve clients who need ongoing support. So you’re talking about, uh, where we outsource design and we do it all in house. So we have a team of designers with, uh, print media and digital media, web design, copywriting, kind of the whole sphere there to help and serve, uh, businesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:24] Now, if you’re an existing company, what’s kind of a symptom that maybe your brand does need a refresh? Because I think a lot of times, you know, people have a brand they decide on early on, and then it is what it is, and they kind of stop thinking about it. But are there some signals that you should be paying attention to when it comes to branding that you should say, hey, maybe we do need a refresh?

Jason Marlowe: [00:02:49] Yeah. Uh, you know, I think that for a lot of folks, when people are, um, really not connecting with the brand because let’s, let’s take one step back. Brand. One of the things that people don’t really get is that brand is more than just like a logo. A lot of people are like, oh, well, you know, can you do my brand? And they just expect some basic logo package. But really, brand is a whole voice, right? The whole presence of your business. And, uh, when people just aren’t connecting with your company and your business, maybe it’s time to really reconsider that voice that you’re using when you’re speaking with customers. Maybe your audience and your customer base has changed. Maybe they’ve gotten older, maybe they’ve gotten younger. Maybe they have different interests. Maybe it’s time to reposition yourself, uh, just because you’re not connecting, uh, the way that you used to. Right. Maybe your audience and is dropping off. Maybe your sales are going down, and that’s something symptomatic of something larger. Right? So, uh, those are usually some of the bigger signals that we see people coming in with.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:58] And I think that, uh, branding, along with corporate culture are one of those things that they’re going to happen whether you do something about them or not. So you might as well be proactive when it comes to them.

Jason Marlowe: [00:04:10] Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. Um, you know, being a part of your corporate culture is one of the kind of the key things with your brand. Um, and unfortunately, a lot of folks, especially during a rebrand, it’s you got to sit down and really, like, explain to them what’s going on. Uh, because like I said, it’s more than just creating a new design. Sometimes it’s like, hey, listen, we’re changing our messaging, right? We’re not the company we were when we started 25, 30 years ago. We’ve changed. We’ve got our eyes set on something new. We might offer the same product, but we’re going to go about it a completely different way. And so it’s really important for all the stakeholders in the company to really get behind the messaging. And that’s one of the things that we help with consulting, you know, you know, after the brand has been developed, is really just trying to, you know, make sure that on all levels, not just customer facing, but on internally, uh, internal acceptance of your brand is vital, paramount.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:09] Now, um, are there some things you can do to ensure that, um, you know, everybody’s on message and that it is authentically yours and it is congruent with your values because as. Especially if you have a team and like even in your case, where you have a team that people are all over the place, uh, and not physically together, sometimes each individual will kind of have a different understanding of the brand, and they may not be communicating it. Um, you know, all from the same, uh, song page.

Jason Marlowe: [00:05:42] You know, uh, I think one of the things that you could share that we develop and other agencies develop is to start with is your brand guide, because inside of that, once you’ve been rebranded and once things have been updated, uh, there’s, there’s stuff more than just the visual aspects and the logo and the colors, but there’s voice, right? Like, how should we be talking with customers? What does our brand sound like? Uh, how are we engaging with customers? All of that should be part of your brand guide. And then, uh, you know, beyond that, it’s it’s having open discussions with the company. Um, and it is, uh, you know, making sure that people understand where you’re going. And that comes from the top down, you know. So it might be the design team along with, you know, your C-suite that’s overseeing the brand. But it’s really the the top of the company really explaining what’s up, what’s going on now.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:39] Have you ever had to have maybe kind of a difficult conversation with a client when it comes to this where like, they could think, hey, we’re Nordstrom. But you look at them and you’re like, know your target. Um, you know there’s some incongruity in what you’re saying and what you aspire to be and your behavior.

Jason Marlowe: [00:06:56] Oh yeah. Um, I think one of the biggest things is a lot of companies want to start the branding process by stripping all of the brand, uh, assets and ideas away to some really basic point. So, for example, um, you know, you have a company that comes in and they’re like, you know what? Nike’s got this brand recognition, right? Like you just see that swoosh and people just know it’s it’s sports. It’s running. It’s it’s everything. It’s you know it’s perseverance. It’s you know trying it’s trying your best when it comes to, you know being an athlete. It’s it’s all of these different aspects. But you gotta you gotta get there. So like I had a client who was like, you know, I really like this branding of X, y, z, but I prefer how they leave all of their name. They leave their name off of it. And I was like, well, you probably should leave your name on it because you’re not at that level yet. And I like to preface it with yet because, you know, you have no idea how high a business is going to fly. And, uh, but the big thing is you got to take your steps. And so a brand can be distilled eventually down to something very simple as a swoosh. But before you get there, you need to have it needs to live with Nike first, you know. So you got to you got to have you got to be around for a minute. You got to really push your brand. You got to promote yourself. You got to market. You got a campaign before you have that kind of household recognition, which is what a lot of people really they go in wanting. And it’s kind of like a baby step thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:40] And it’s one of those things that, um, it takes time and and it takes time and money, like, you can’t, you know, like you can’t call yourself Google without spending money. Like it costs money to call yourself a made up name without explaining what that means, right?

Jason Marlowe: [00:08:58] Yes. Branding. Branding is expensive. Um, branding is expensive because it’s a process so far beyond just making a logo. Um, if you want a logo and you don’t want to put any kind of thought behind it, you just say, hey, I want a logo, and it looks like the widget that I sell. Okay, great. Go to go to fiber there. Fiber. There are marketplaces for that, right? $0.99. They’re they’re places where you can go and do that. But if you want to think about your target audience, if you want to do competitor research, if you wanted to develop an actual brand around what you’re creating, you got to do the work. And that’s not, you know, unfortunately, that’s not cheap. And, you know, we’re not talking about breaking the bank, but, you know, you have to put some money down to to get to where you’re going. And it’s kind of like, um. My mama said this my entire life. She’s an entrepreneur. Um, and she always has told me the way it starts is the way it goes. And that’s literally a phrase I think about probably once a week, because it’s all about doing it right out of the gate, and then you set yourself up for success in the future. And unfortunately, a lot of people try and skip the steps when they’re starting a business. They’re bootstrapping, and there’s things you can cut corners on. But. Developing the voice and the face of your business is not something that I would cut the corners on, you know what I mean, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:10:21] Because it’s foundational. Everything is going to build on that. So if you screw that up, you’re going to have a problem.

Jason Marlowe: [00:10:27] Exactly.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:28] Now who is the ideal client for you? Are you working with large enterprise organizations? Do you work in certain industries? Is there kind of an ideal customer profile for your firm?

Jason Marlowe: [00:10:39] Uh, yeah. So, you know, we used to go after everybody, right? You know, big companies, little companies, medium sized. But, you know, after a while, we’re kind of settling into the lane that we really enjoy. Um, I love working with, uh, nonprofits and, um, you know, companies that are on a bigger mission, uh, you know, uh, those, uh, companies, like religious organizations, we work with several of those throughout the state. Um, and, um, you know, medium sized businesses, small and medium sized businesses are kind of our, our forte. You know, I’m not going after some huge company. Um, it’s a Nike earlier. That’s not my that’s not my audience. I don’t think I could fly with them, but, uh, I think for small and medium sized businesses who understand the need for solid design and marketing and the power that, uh, it can have to elevate your business and to grow and to create the life that you want. Uh, I think for those companies, that’s where we, uh, that’s where we really fly.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:51] Are you sometimes there first kind of agency that they hire that they’ve kind of tried things on their own, and now they’ve kind of graduated to the level where they need outside eyes on their work.

Jason Marlowe: [00:12:02] Actually. Yes. Um, that’s a that’s a that’s a great question. Um, you seem like you’ve been doing this for more than a minute. Uh, you know, but, uh, yes, that’s that’s actually, that’s actually nail on the head. Um, a lot of folks try and do it themselves, um, because they’re looking to, you know, save money. Oh, they don’t want to have to hire somebody, or they just want to be able to do it themselves. And they realize, you know what? You know what? I can’t do it myself. Um, sometimes it’s more of a case of, um, they have the skill set to do it. And so they just think that they can take on something else, but they know that their time is better spent growing the business, and our time is better spent helping them, you know, have the tools to do that.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:48] Is there a story you can share of maybe a client that you work with? You don’t have to name their name, but maybe share the problem that they had and how you helped them get to a new level.

Jason Marlowe: [00:12:57] Yeah. For sure. Um, we’ve got a great client we work with now. Uh, they were very they have they have ton of child companies and, uh, individual divisions, but they were all incredibly insulated. Right. So this hand didn’t know what this hand was doing and vice versa. And they were creating a lot of marketing materials and content and websites that were very disjointed. Nothing looked like anything else. And it was just a very muddy brand. It was a great brand, but all of their materials and outreach were very muddy, and one of the things that we’ve helped them do over the last I think two years at this point is start to develop cohesion across all of those. So, you know, we’ve been tackling it one website at a time, one booklet at a time. Uh, one social media post at a time is really just going like, what is the brand? How should we communicate, making sure that we’re always using, you know, always referencing the brand guide. Everything is on point and consistent and helping them create consistency is one of the big things that I can hang my hat on, that we’ve worked for them for over the years now.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:16] Is there a piece of advice you can give, uh, kind of a smaller firm when it comes to their brand or their design or even their marketing, something actionable that they can do today that would make a difference tomorrow.

Jason Marlowe: [00:14:29] Uh, a couple things. One thing is make sure that you set a budget. I talk to every, every, every business I work with. I feel like at one point or another, uh, never has a a defined budget, even if it’s just something. And I understand going into it. A lot of people are like, well, I don’t know how much it costs. Um, but it should never be this kind of song and dance between the business and the agency, the agency, like ourselves and others, we’re better suited to do the best by you, to do right by you, to be good custodians of your budget. If we know what we’re working with. Um, and it’s just it wastes time. It’s very frustrating process trying to suss out, you know, what’s your spend like, um, that is a, um, that’s one of the big ones is, uh, you know, actually sitting down and looking at your budget and to see what you can spend. Uh, I would also say that, um, sitting down and looking at your brain guide, if you have one or kind of creating like, okay, this is our logo, these are our colors. This is these are our fonts. Just go super, super basic and say this is what we should be doing. And then looking at the materials that you’re putting out, go over to sales and say, let me see your one sheets write sales. Send me all of your one sheets that you’re sending out. Hey air, what kind of stuff are we posting online? Uh, you know, looking over at maybe your customer service team or your account manager, like, hey, what are you mailing out to customers? And, you know, talk to somebody else, like, hey, send me your email signature. Right? So step back, take a look at what you should be doing, and then have everybody send to you what you’re actually doing and really go is what we’re doing matching what we should be doing. And I will tell you that there will be incongruity there 99 times out of 100.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:24] Now somebody wants to learn more about your agency or have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team. What’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Jason Marlowe: [00:16:34] Yeah. Uh, we are online at MKT Dot House. Yes that is.house.com. It’s mkt dot house. Uh and you can find us on there. We have all of our services detailed out. You can live chat with us. You can give us a call. Um, we are available that way you can shoot me an email at Jason at MKT House. Uh, any way that you can get in touch with us, we’ll be happy to connect with you, talk, and give you a free consult and see how we can help you grow.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:03] Well, Jason, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Jason Marlowe: [00:17:08] Yeah. Thank you. Lee, thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:10] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

About Our Sponsor

OnPay’sOnPay-Dots 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.

Our award-winning customer service includes an accuracy guarantee, deep integrations with popular accounting software, and we’ll even enter all your employee information for you — whether you have five employees or 500. Take a closer look to see all the ways we can save you time and money in the back office.

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Charlett Albert With The Rebel Movement

by

South Florida Business Radio
South Florida Business Radio
Charlett Albert With The Rebel Movement
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DTLLogo-Blue-Bannerv2Charlett Albert is the founder of the HIGH IMPACT METHOD, a revolutionary program designed to empower female entrepreneurs to achieve consistent sales and business growth. With a unique blend of high converting sales strategies and feminine embodiment practices, she has made a name for herself as a highly sought-after sales & feminine leadership mentor and keynote speaker.

Drawing on her corporate background as a successful sales trainer for over 10 years, she has honed her expertise in helping online business owners maximize their revenue potential. Not only has she scaled her own businesses to six figures, but she has also guided a diverse clientele of over 100 female entrepreneurs to achieve their financial goals.

In 2023 she co-founded the Rebel Movement together with 3 other business mentors Gráinne O’Malley, Hayley Barnes and Tierra Womack to empower women from around the globe to build a business their way using a unique blend of business strategy, alignment and energetics.

Connect with Charlett on LinkedIn and follow her on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About the Rebel Movement
  • Key strategies that the Rebel Movement advocates for creating a business that feels authentic and fulfilling for women entrepreneurs
  • How does the Rebel Movement support women in developing a personalized action plan for their businesses
  • What sets the Rebel Movement apart from other business coaching programs or communities focused on women entrepreneurs
  • How important is it for women to prioritize their own well-being and energy in order to succeed in business
  • How can women interested in joining the Rebel Movement get involved and start creating their own rebel energy in their businesses

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:01] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in South Florida. It’s time for South Florida Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here, another episode of South Florida Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Charlett Albert, sales coach and feminine leadership mentor and co-founder of the Rebel Movement. Welcome.

Charlett Albert: [00:00:28] Thank you, Lee, for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. First of all, tell us about the rebel movement. How you serving folks?

Charlett Albert: [00:00:37] So the rebel movement was created by me and three other business mentors, and we’ve been working with entrepreneurs for the past decade, almost. And we’ve noticed a common theme among entrepreneurs is that many entrepreneurs were always feeling overwhelmed and overcomplicated business, and they didn’t know where to focus on on simplifying their business. And they would often buy into business blueprints that are sold all over the internet, which often created in a resulted in creating businesses that didn’t feel good. Maybe they made some money, maybe they didn’t make money, but they often found themselves in a place of like, why did I start this business in the first place? Often we choose to build our own business because yes, we want to make money, but also we want to impact people. And most of all, we want to feel free. We want to create a business and a life that feels like freedom. So we came together and we’re like, we want to create something that’s different. We want to create something for that established entrepreneur that feels slightly overwhelmed and wants to simplify their business and really align their business goal with the lifestyle that they want to live. So we’ve come together with different expertise and resources to really support that entrepreneur on that journey.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:06] Now, do you find that a lot of folks like you mentioned, they they might go into a business and think, okay, if I make money, then I can all my dreams are going to come true. But if it’s really not aligned, if your business isn’t aligned with your values and your why, then it’s not as fulfilling. Like you might be making some money, but your life, you know you could be miserable still.

Charlett Albert: [00:02:30] Yes, that’s exactly what we’ve experienced. Like, the thing is, people think, okay, the moment I make $5,000 a month and have a full time income, or $10,000 a month, or $20,000 a month or whatever is possible in the online space, which is really, you know, captivating. It’s really inspiring to see what is possible. But guess what you have to do the next day? Like you hit that milestone, you hit those 5000, $10,000 a month, but the next day, what you have to do to maintain this is the process, the action steps that actually got you to that goal. And if you don’t like those action steps, the things that you have to do every single day to be successful, you won’t be happy. It’s not going to be sustainable and your business will collapse. Like you’re not going to find that motivation in the long haul to hit that income goal over and over. So a lot of people find themselves like leaving a corporate job or leaving some kind of a profession that they didn’t love, start their own business, hit certain milestones, and being so miserable that they end up going back to a 9 to 5. And we like I think I’m not cut out for this, but the truth is you are cut out for this. If you. I truly believe this. If you have this, why, if you have this big mission to do something to help people to serve, you are absolutely capable of doing it. You just have to find a business structure, a simple system that aligns with who you are at the core. And you cannot find that by buying some random business blueprint, but really aligning with your own internal strategy, which we are teaching inside of the rebel movement.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:12] Is there some advice you can give, or maybe some low hanging fruit for the listener that can get them on the right track? Is there some things they can do today that’s actionable, that maybe can get them going in the right way?

Charlett Albert: [00:04:28] Yes, absolutely. So this is the process that we’re taking our new members to actually. So first of all, you want to set one goal, not three, not nine, not 1015, whatever. Pick one business goal for the next three months. What’s something that feels a little bit stretchy but also feels like, you know, I think I can do it if I just put in the action, right. One goal, it could be hitting a certain income goal, having a certain amount of clients, having X amount of people on your email list, whatever it is, just pick one. Don’t pick so many different things and then break it down in simple, actionable steps that you can do every single day and find those. Action steps that really feel good to you. But because you do not have to have all these things in place, you don’t have to be on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok everywhere. You don’t have to do, you know, podcasts or radio interviews or be in magazine if that’s just not your thing. Like pick the action steps that will get you to that goal, but find a path of least resistance. A path that really lights your soul on fire, where every single day you get up and be like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe I actually get to do this. And listen to yourself like, where’s resistance in my every single day? And how can I, you know, find a better way that works for me to hit this one goal and. Yeah. This is this is really, I think, the main thing that we want to focus on for newer, newer people.

Charlett Albert: [00:06:02] And if you are already established in your business, look at how can you simplify things, how can you delegate tasks? What is really your zone of genius? What are you really good at in your business and what’s not your strength? And instead of trying to be good in everything, where can you eliminate things of your business? How can you take some weight off your shoulders? Because we don’t have to do it all in order to be successful, like so many of us. Like. I can speak to myself. I’ve built two six figure businesses, literally just with a stripe link, a social media account on Facebook, and a zoom account. That’s it. I didn’t have a website. I still don’t have one, really. I there’s so many things you don’t need that people tell you you need to have. You have to be on all these social media accounts and all of that. It’s it’s BS. You don’t need all of it. How can you simplify your business? So it feels light and it feels good to you. So those are kind of the things that we focus on. Another thing is what can you delegate? Can you hire a virtual assistant or some kind of an assistant who can help you with certain tasks that you feel like they have to be done and you don’t want to do them? So those are some of the things that I recommend for people who are in a place of like, okay, I want to make some small adjustments to my business today.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:17] Now, do you find that a lot of people who are especially new entrepreneurs, you know, they might have worked at a job that they were kind of being frustrated with or they weren’t satisfied there. So they say, okay, I’m going to do this on my own. And they realize quickly, you know, when you’re doing it on your by yourself, it can be lonely that without kind of the support and community around you, it’s difficult to really get the achievement you’re looking for. How important is a community for an entrepreneur in order to get to those levels that you described?

Charlett Albert: [00:07:53] I think it’s invaluable. Like, it’s so important to be in the group of people who truly understand you, because people who often who are employed somewhere, people who are working 9 to 5 family members, friends often who might not be entrepreneurs, they’re in a very different mindset. And they’re they care about you and they want to watch out for you, but they might not have the best advice for you. They sometimes tell you, you know, it’s better to stay safe. You know, do the things you know, go to school, get a job like pay into your 41K and like do all these things to be safe. So being in a space where people where there are people who are like. Understand where you are. They understand the obstacles that come with being an entrepreneur was it’s not as simple as just like, oh, I create an offer and I make a couple of social media posts and or talk about it, and I’m going to make money. There are so many nuances to business, from simple things of, you know, how I manage my money? How am I now going to save for taxes? To how am I going to show up online? How do I create content? How do I sell in a way that it actually converts? There’s so many conversations and then also the emotional load to it, right. Because a business is often it feels very personal because it’s our creation, it’s our dream that we want to bring into this world, and we take things very personal.

Charlett Albert: [00:09:20] So there’s a lot of emotional weight to it. Sometimes we feel maybe we’re not good enough. Maybe I’m not cut out for this. Like all of these beliefs, these thoughts that come up of being an entrepreneur is, uh, very challenging at times. So having people who’ve been through this, having a community who’s taking who’s going through the same kind of thoughts, beliefs, steps is going to feel very soothing. It’s going to feel like, wow, like she did it. He did it. Now I can do it too. And I have these people that I can ask for advice for support and like not them telling me what to do, but more like this is where I’m at right now. How would you manage this situation? How would you manage this conversation that I’m having with someone? Or how would you manage this, this feeling that I’m having right now? I don’t feel good enough, or I feel like I don’t know if I can keep going. I’m not making the amount of money that I’m making this, all these things coming up. So being in community, being in mentorship for people who walk the the path before I think is, um, very, very valuable.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:29] Now, how does the rebel movement, uh, work for a woman that might be interested in exploring this? Is this something that is a one on one coaching? Is it kind of a group thing? Is it learning kind of asynchronously just on my own? Like how do how does it work if somebody wants to plug in?

Charlett Albert: [00:10:48] Beautiful. It’s a combination of all of what you said. So it’s a membership for $44 a month and you join. You can the first thing you want to do is you start with a quiz. We want to hear where you are at in your business. And we’re going to find out, okay, where can we support you most? Do you have a business structure already? Do you know how to write content? You know how to sell or do you need support with that? Do you want to work on on simple systems so you have a business that’s more scalable. But we also going to look into how you’re feeling with your emotional health, with obstacles and time management and goal setting and all of that. So you take this quiz so we know how to support your best. Based on that, you’re going to be provided with that resource that’s going to benefit you most every month. There’s a theme inside the membership, and always one of the four of us is hosting the membership, and the modules build on each other, and you always have access to all the modules as long as you’re part of the membership. So every single month there’s a theme where you get an in-depth training on something that will help you on your entrepreneurial journey. Sometimes it’s passive income, sometimes it’s sales strategy, sometimes it’s content, sometimes it’s nervous system regulation, goal setting, all these kind of things that are important to become a successful entrepreneur. And then every month you have the opportunity to go on a call with all of the ladies inside the robber movement and a mentor to network, because we believe so much in leveraging your network, leveraging the connections that you have.

Charlett Albert: [00:12:33] The most beautiful connections have happened in this space, from opportunities to get on podcasts to being a guest speaker. It’s someone else’s program. Like there’s a lot of opportunities that just come by leveraging that network, and you have the opportunity to ask any kind of business questions to that mentor. I just had a conversation with one of our members, and she told me that she loves these life coaching moments because things happen in business all the time. And she’s actually in the process of hosting her second retreat, and she’s promoting it right now on social media, and she wanted to get some feedback of how to overcome objections that people have of like, what if it’s too expensive? What if they don’t know if this is the next move to it? And we were able to coach you through this in this moment. So she got the clarity on one call and now knows exactly how to market that retreat. So it will sell out by summer when she’s hosting it. So whatever you’re going through in your business, you have these opportunities to get life coaching moments every single month to move your business forward. So you’re not sitting on a question forever, but you can talk through it and move forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:46] Now, is this, um, for folks, uh, primarily in South Florida, or is this something that’s, uh, kind of a worldwide online virtual experience, or is it in person?

Charlett Albert: [00:13:58] It is an online virtual experience, and we have members from all around the world. Actually, we founders are from around the world. So we have Tiarra who’s from the United States. I’m actually from Germany. I do live in South Florida now. But, um, Grania, who’s part of the membership, she’s in Ireland. Hailey is from the UK. So we have created a global movement from people from all around the world. So it’s hosted online, it’s virtually, and we connect through zoom every single month.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:30] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Charlett Albert: [00:14:34] We are actually hosting right now, a Be Seen festival, which is a virtual event for trailblazing entrepreneurs who really want to be seen and and find a visibility strategy that really works for them. Again, cutting out any kind of roadmaps but giving you opportunities that really align with who you are. It’s a free experience for the next three days. Actually, it started today. So for anyone who would love to plug in and learn some amazing visibility strategies, so your business gets seen, gets heard, and you get paid for what you get to do. I would love to invite you to the Be Seen festival.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:17] And then if somebody wants to learn more about the rebel movement or, um, learn more about what you’re up to, is there a place to go to do that? Is it mostly, um, through social media or is there a website?

Charlett Albert: [00:15:30] There is a website which goes through living business Project.com slash the rebel movement. Um, we also have a social media handle, and you can also reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook at Charlotte Albert.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:49] Well, congratulations on all the success. Charlotte, you’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Charlett Albert: [00:15:55] Thank you so much. Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:57] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on South Florida Business Radio.

David C. Williams With FlexAgent

by

High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
David C. Williams With FlexAgent
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David C. Williams, AT&T – Inventor of FlexAgent.

He’s an award-winning inventor, tech entrepreneur, and author, is celebrated for his innovations and leadership in technology. With humble roots in Dallas, Texas, David’s journey from a challenging upbringing to a tech luminary is chronicled in his best-selling book “Business Model.”

His accolades include the 2023 D CEO Corporate Innovator, multiple Stevie Awards, and the Distinguished Engineer of the Year 2023-2024 Golden Torch Awards by the National Society of Black Engineers. A champion for diversity and mentorship, he extends his impact through educational initiatives like the Solar Robot Workshops and the Robot Dream Court Competitions, in partnership with Nancy Lieberman, fostering coding skills through play.

Beyond his professional realm, he is a family man, fitness enthusiast, and motorcycle aficionado dedicated to volunteerism.

Connect with David on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The Intersection of Technology and Diversity
  • His unique experiences and cultural background that influenced his approach to technology and leadership
  • Hyper-Automation and the Future of Work
  • About FlexAgent

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here, another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have David C Williams, tech entrepreneur, inventor and author with AT&T. He is also the inventor of Flex agent. Welcome, David.

David C Williams: [00:00:31] Hey, how’s it going? Lee, great to be here with you.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Let’s start a little bit about talking about Flex Agent. I know that that’s something an initiative within AT&T that you were intimately involved in. So share a little bit about that.

David C Williams: [00:00:45] Yeah, sure. So flex agent is customer service reinvented. You know there’s nothing wrong with customer service. We all need it. We all run into issues where we have to talk to someone to get some support and help. But the difference is with flex, it works off a gig economy model. And so similar to Uber and other services like that, folks get paid by the task and by doing so, it drives a ton of efficiency and so it helps to save expenses for my firm. It helps to make sure that the folks that are taking the calls are actually earning a wage, and typically much higher than the average customer service wage, and also that the customer there’s parameters, just like in any other gig economy model, where the customer is made sure that they’re taken care of and they get the great service that they deserve.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:28] So like most marketplaces, it’s two sided. So how does it work? Like, I have a kid, he does remote work for a lot of companies. How would he kind of plug into flex agent?

David C Williams: [00:01:39] Oh yeah. So it would probably just go to flex agent Comm sign up. It’s a very simple registration process. Uh, it walks you through just a number of quick pre-hire questions. I think you usually do that with just voice. Put in your information so that you can sign up for your payments and instant payments and things like that. There’s a national background check that goes through. Training is all self-paced. You do it at your own leisure. Once you finish all that, there’s an onboarding process that happens in the background to get all your credentials together, and then we set you up so that you use your phone and your home computer, and you’re able to take calls working from home and provide customer service help for customers that may have, you know, questions about their bill or their phones and working and things like that.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:26] So it’s like you said, it’s like Uber. So I can say, okay, I want to work today from 2 to 4. I just kind of log in and, and set myself up. And then exactly as the calls come in, I deal with them. And then if I’m if I have something to do at 415, I just turn off and then I go about my day.

David C Williams: [00:02:44] That’s right. We just asked you to take about 20 calls a week as the requirement. Right now it may change over time, but yep. Uh, people get to make their own schedules. That’s the beauty of it. And so we want folks that are engaged when they want to be engaged, so that they can provide the best service to the customer.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:00] Now, is the service am I talking on the phone or am I just typing in a chat or can be a combination? No.

David C Williams: [00:03:07] Yeah, you would be talking on the phone. There’s a the system that they use is uh is that flex agents use is one browser. And so it’s a pretty simple system. But they are talking on the phone to a customer.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:18] And then how did you come up with this. What was kind of the pain point you were trying to solve?

David C Williams: [00:03:23] Well, you know, um, I’ve worked in operations and the service industry and technology for decades, and so I’ve seen a lot of the issues and problems of leaders trying to solve for. And I just realized that, you know, over time that that particular business model, I believe, is outdated and that a new business model could be used to leverage, um, and drive efficiency. And so that’s what started it. Um, the pandemic hit. And, you know, that kind of sent everybody home. And there was an opportunity to do a little toe in the water testing with it, and things looked promising. And so we just went for it. And it’s been a wildly successful.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:02] And then, uh, is this kind of only is AT&T the only customer for this? Because I would think this can work in and you know, for pretty much anyone.

David C Williams: [00:04:11] Yeah, it possibly. But right now AT&T is the only customer. That is correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:15] And then uh, your background has been very varied. Do you mind sharing a little bit about your back story?

David C Williams: [00:04:23] Sure. Um, yeah. Um, I don’t know where to start, but I would tell you, I’m a Dallas native. Um, and, um, I come from a very, uh, underserved neighborhood, maybe the poorest corner of the city, South Dallas. And, um, I lost my father very young. Um, however, you know, I believe that innovation is born out of necessity. Um, I kept that creative mind as I entered telecom, and, uh, I always felt like, um, you know, there are. Ways to drive efficiency to go, you know, proactively go find something broken and and try to fix it. And so that’s kind of been a mantra I’ve had. I went through a lot of different roles and technology and network and uh, chief of staff and customer experience. And I landed in technology just because, um, you know, I have a passion for automating things and really trying to find a better way to, to do the same things. And it’s worked out pretty well. I’ve been able to drive a culture in my organization. That culture trumps strategy. And so we work like a family and we have a lot of fun, and we go after really big problems, and we’ve been pretty successful solving them.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:29] Now, I know that diversity is important to you and your work. Can you, um, share some of your thoughts on that intersection between technology and diversity?

David C Williams: [00:05:41] Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I believe that, um. Having a diverse perspective gives you a chance to see things that you normally wouldn’t have. A lot of the folks in my organization, um, are people of color, or they don’t have a traditional technology background. Um, also, um, you know, about half the team is female. Uh, all of these are not necessarily common attributes of a technology team. We’re not a homogenous team. That gives us a perspective that that gives us a perspective where we can, um, put an idea on the table a, an issue, a problem on the table, and everyone’s voice is heard. And so you’d be surprised sometimes where, you know, the PhDs are engineers are sitting with folks that, um, are, you know, not as quote unquote technical, but the collaborations come together and they can see that really one and one is 11. You just got to get close enough together. And so that diversity of thought has proven to be very successful for us. It helps us to drive exponential results. We typically drive two, three, 4,000% ROI and, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of impact every year. And so it’s working. The proof is definitely in the pudding.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:51] Now. Um, for some people, diversity is starting to become kind of controversial. Can you share some of your thoughts on why it’s important, um, to not neglect diversity and, and to make this part of the conversation in the business world today.

David C Williams: [00:07:08] Yeah, I think the important thing is just that, you know, I understand there is an argument that, you know, you don’t want to necessarily, um, um, disenfranchize or over incentivize others just based on a specific attribute. But I would say that the key for me is to just remember that we’re all individuals. And although I may be a black man and you’re a white man, there are many things about us that make us unique. And you’re not like every man or every white man, and I’m not the same. And so I think if we’re open enough to allow people to have that type of freedom where we can view that, then we can start to appreciate the specific talents of each individual. On my team, I ask that, folks. I say, look, if you want to come to work and bring your whole self, um, you’re automatically approved for vacation. Stay at home, because the problems that we are working on are too big for Clark Kent. We need your super self, we need Superman and Wonder Woman. And so we ask everyone to come to work and bring their super self in. And we even call ourselves by those super names. There’s a burn rubber river. There’s a Obi wan Kenobi. I’m optimistic Prime. And so we take those. It’s fun, but we take those things serious. And it helps the culture that we have. And by doing that, we drive diversity without having to have a diversity label to it all. It’s really about bringing the best out of us all.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:28] Now, do you find the folks that are kind of reluctant to embrace this are maybe there is some sort of a subconscious bias in that, that they’re not seeing the need to do this, and they are in their minds believing that, yes, I’m only looking at the individual, but they’re not noticing maybe that if they look at the team or they look at, you know, kind of all the photos of the leaders on the wall, that they might all look the same. And they they just think that they are doing what you’re saying, but they’re just happened to land on this, you know, kind of group that looks the same.

David C Williams: [00:09:10] Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. It’s it’s a it’s a slippery slope and it’s very easy to just gravitate to our own. I mean, it’s super easy, you know, for guys to go talk to guys and women to talk to women. And, and before you know it, it’s guys promoting guys. And we’re not looking at promoting women. And so in these unconscious biases biases happen. Um, one thing that comes to mind for me is this. And this is a business example, but you could use it in any flavor. There was a hotel once. I was at a conference. The very nice hotel might have been a, I don’t know, a $5,060 million building. I mean, it was just absolutely gorgeous hotel. And in the hotel that all the showers had this specific type of shower head. And for a specific demographic of women, it did not work well at the conference. That topic hit the stage now. Wow. They made a huge investment. But by not necessarily taking in enough diverse perspectives, they made a small faux pas that wound up being a really big black eye for their facility. Wouldn’t it have been nice to maybe consult several types of women to get a perspective on this before going to production and rolling it out? Right? And so that’s just one example of where folks had great intentions. But by not having a diverse perspective, they didn’t get the best solution, the best reaction. That is the same in every aspect of life. We may think we have it covered, we may think we know it all. But if you get a few more perspectives from people that don’t look or talk like you come from where you come from, you may see something that you didn’t see before.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:52] And it doesn’t always have to be negative. There could be huge opportunity out there just by talking to a broader group of people that you might be missing, you could have the exact right product and service for this group, but you’re just not framing it, right? Or you’re not even asking them if they want to participate.

David C Williams: [00:11:10] Absolutely, absolutely. You know, um, here’s an example. Um, in America, cancer is a very big topic, right? Um, and I’ve definitely lost people in my family from cancer. In other countries, cancer is not as prevalent. What are those other countries doing that maybe we’re not doing in America? There are a lot of things that we can learn from others. It just takes a moment to just go look outside and say, and again, talk to the folks that don’t look like you come from where you come from. You learn things that you just didn’t know. And it’s it’s really a cheat code. Um, I believe one and one is 11. If you put two great people together and they have some conversations, they can go further, faster.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:51] Now talk, talk a little bit about Hyperautomation. I’ve never heard that phrase before. Can you talk about that and how you got involved with that?

David C Williams: [00:12:00] Yeah, absolutely. And so Hyperautomation, I like to define it in two different ways. One, it is a culmination of technologies that typically work very well together, like machine learning, robotics, process automation is a big part of it. Um, AI, ML, things like that. Um, another way I define hyperautomation is it’s the least expensive way to solve business problems with software. And so we work in very short development cycles. We typically carry a very high ROI because we spend just a little bit of resources and drive a very big impact. It’s typically how most hyperautomation programs work. And so instead of, you know, spending a lot of heavy IT resources to go solve a problem, we may solve something in the back, a process we may engineer and optimize and then provide that to the business. And so it doesn’t have to take as heavy resources to produce that solution.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:56] Now is hyperautomation something that a small business or a solopreneur can take advantage of? Or is this something that only kind of these mega companies and these enterprise level organizations have access to?

David C Williams: [00:13:10] No. Um, actually, I think about hyperautomation in at a, at a entrepreneurial level, it might look like bots, it might look like some web tools that you can use, Zapier and MongoDB, things like that, where folks can, let’s say if you’re running a dry cleaner business, um, and you may need some automated spreadsheet accounting stuff, you may need some process optimization so that the clothes register in the budget and the the supply chain of ordering materials is, is is, uh, visible. You may want to connect a few of those things together. You can use some hyper automation tools to do so.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:49] So now if you were an entrepreneur or a solopreneur, how would you kind of go about learning about this where you can take advantage of it? Is there something, uh, is there some sort of training out there or is there some is this something that, you know, you just got to kind of tinker with?

David C Williams: [00:14:05] Yeah, it’s a bit of both. And so, um, one of the huge platforms is Microsoft. They have a Power Apps and Power Automate platform. It’s it has 500 connectors into the Microsoft suite of everything that they do. And so they have some very cool, uh, cloud flows where you, even if you’re not super technical, with just a little bit of training, you can connect a few different things together and see the lights come on. And so, um, that would be the first place that I would start. You know, also the University of YouTube does pretty well.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:38] Yeah. I think a lot of folks, um, really do a great job on YouTube explaining a lot of complicated things in a very efficient manner, and it is a great tool for education. Do you find that in your work? Um, that that’s the case as well. Even at an enterprise level, you can kind of lean on YouTube for some intelligence.

David C Williams: [00:15:02] Yeah. Um, there is a huge community, especially if you, uh, so getting into hyper automation to collection of technologies, the place to probably start, um, is bots or robotics, process automation. Um, there are absolutely tools out there, YouTube videos, things like that. There’s UiPath, there’s a lot of different, uh, great resources. I will tell you, when I think from a enterprise perspective, things that we’ve been able to do and in a solopreneur could do the same. But like, um, typically when you work with software development, there’s this long list of requirements and it’s an arduous process. It takes a long time. And so we thinking in a hyper automation type of methodology, instead of writing all that stuff out, we may just capture it on video. Right. And that just truncates this. It simplifies the process. It makes it a lot more fun. Uh, it moves a lot faster. And so we can move things through the development cycle a lot quicker.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:00] Is there any bot that you would say is a good starting point for somebody?

David C Williams: [00:16:06] Um, typically where people start is can they create a bot to do something with an Excel sheet? That’s usually where most people start, right? And um, if so, then they will say, okay, I’ll go from a web sheet to a website, uh, website and a web and a, and a excel sheet. Can I put these two together? And so it just starts to build more logic from there.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:35] Now, um, one of your mottos is legacy over entourage. Um, when it comes to, uh, I guess, inspiring and growing the next generation of leaders. Can you talk a little bit about that?

David C Williams: [00:16:50] Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, in my career, I’ve worked in telecom for a couple decades, and I’ve only had two professional goals. One is to, um, impact society at large, hints, um, the patents and all that kind of stuff and to mentor. And so when I think about mentoring, there’s, um, probably a few flavors of mentoring. There’s crisis management when someone really is, you know, in a situation, there’s, um, you know, helping folks to kind of find their way. And then there’s when you have folks that are hitting it, firing on all cylinders, right? They’re doing everything right, and they just need some help to get over the fence or get to the next level. And when I find those situations, you know, and I asked my own mentees to hold me accountable. But if a mentor has been mentoring someone for a long period of time, six months or more, um, we should either be. Giving constructive feedback on how they can improve things, or opening up the Rolodex, the contact list to say, how can I help you? And who can I help you with, right? Who can I connect you with? If that’s not happening, then you know, we’re really not building a legacy. We’re building an entourage. And I think sometimes, um, unconsciously or consciously, those things happen. And we have to be very mindful that we’re not, uh, that we’re empowering the youth to not only do well, but to do as well as we are or beyond. Right. I think that’s very important to make sure that we continue to strive for that, to see the next generation or the next wave of leaders go further and faster than we have.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:29] Now, is there any, um, kind of a system of mentoring that you’ve learned over the years that’s effective? Like, how important is it, you know, to set clear goals or to have regular check ins or, um, like, how do you create that accountability while combining it with the support that a person needs, a mentee needs.

David C Williams: [00:18:51] Yeah, well, I think you have to be very intentional. And so, you know, there’s probably a couple things I would say is every mentoring session I have with, um, in a group setting or one on one, I try to remember to say to the person, hey, look, if there’s ever a time that we’re having these sessions and it’s not valuable to you, I want you to speak up and say something to me. Right. And I try to say that frequently so that it is not a tough conversation the day they want to have it. And I share with them, look, you should feel this way with me and any other mentor, right? I’m not here to waste my time or yours either. The second thing is that, um, I believe that yes, you do have to set some clear expectations in the beginning. And with that, I try to just really break the ice. Let’s not have corporate speak. Let’s talk like family for a moment. Right. What is it that you really want out of this relationship? Be very direct so that we’re clear on the goals, and then we can figure out how to get there.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:52] So, um, what’s next for you?

David C Williams: [00:19:57] Well, um, it’s been a heck of a ride thus far. I’m just coming off a pretty, uh, big, uh, weekend. I just, uh, picked up the Distinguished Engineer of the year award, um, at the Nsbe conference in Atlanta. Um, next for me is going to be pushing flex. Um, I think it’s a great program for everyone involved, customers, the company and, and, um, call takers. And, um, that’s probably the the next big thing in my immediate future is pushing flex and watching it, uh, become something amazing in our society.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:28] So if somebody wants to learn more about flex, uh, what is the way to do that?

David C Williams: [00:20:34] Sure. Just go to Flex Agent Comm.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:36] Good stuff. Well, David, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

David C Williams: [00:20:42] Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:43] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you on the next time on High Velocity Radio.

Kaleb Ufton With eCommerce Wizards

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High Velocity Radio
High Velocity Radio
Kaleb Ufton With eCommerce Wizards
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Kaleb Ufton, Co-founder at eCommerce Wizards.

He’s a bleached blond surfer, father and wizard. His purpose is to bring play and fun into life. What does this mean? From a young age, he’s been deeply curious about the world around me. From building a computer from spare parts at age 10 to telekinesis.

This curiosity led him down a path of magic, math, programming, magic, becoming a father, marketing, conversion rate optimization and magic again. You might sense a theme here.

In August of 22, he committed to use his gifts to serve the world. In Feb 2023, eCommerce Wizards was created. Since then they have created a process for Shopify eCommerce store owners to grow their business with certainty. They combine data, systems, rituals and the esoteric to achieve results such as 24%, 64% and even 100% lifts revenue in just 30 days.

Connect with Kaleb on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • How to get certainty around growth in eCommerce
  • Why having fun is so important to growth
  • Rapid growth using the only 3 levers: Cost per acquisition, average order value and lifetime value, the role of faith or belief in eCommerce
  • Conversion rate optimization
  • Business optimization

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:14] Lee Kantor here, another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Caleb with E-commerce Wizards. Welcome, Caleb.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:00:26] Hi. Thanks for having.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Me. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about E-commerce wizards. How are you serving folks?

Kaleb Ufton: [00:00:34] Yeah, so Mark is my business partner. Uh, we met through a what you could call a chance encounter, although I don’t really believe in that. And we’ve combined our skill sets to sort of form this beautiful mixing pot, if you will, where we’re serving Shopify store owners, and we’re helping them break through their barriers, achieve revenue that they, in some cases, have previously achieved, but they didn’t really understand how. And then it disappeared or, uh, things happened in the business and it’s dropped back significantly and we’re helping them get back there. Or for some of our members, they have never achieved, uh, their revenue targets. And we help them break through those plateaus.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:17] So what is kind of the the mindset of a new person to e-commerce or Shopify? Do they think that if you build it, they will come and that’s all you have to do is kind of build out an e-commerce store and then all of a sudden business comes your way. Is that how they think?

Kaleb Ufton: [00:01:34] I mean, it depends who they listen to. There definitely is, uh, mentality out there that if you build it, they will come. Uh, but traffic’s traffic’s an important part of the puzzle, and a lot of people don’t understand how to get traffic or where to get quality traffic, or how to turn low quality traffic into high quality traffic. So there’s quite a few different components to it. We tend to deal primarily with businesses that have been established for maybe 2 to 3 years. They have a proven product at this point. They’ve already gone through some of those initial hurdles, but we do get a lot of people who are just starting out as well, sort of come through our front end and they have, you know, fairly similar questions. How do I get started? How do I find traffic, what product should I use? And a lot of times it can be actually quite challenging to answer that because if you’re starting any business, the question I tend to ask is is why? Why are you starting it? Um, why do you care about it? Why do you care about the solution? Why do you care about providing this for other people as a solution? And then another really important question to ask is, are you solving a problem that’s big enough for people to pay for it? And unfortunately, sometimes the answer to that is no.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:52] Now, um, like, what’s your typical customer? Are they selling like an item or are they selling a service like something invisible, or are they selling something that’s, you know, like one of my best friends sells tea online?

Kaleb Ufton: [00:03:07] Yeah, yeah. So I mean, tea is a great example. Um, at this point, all of our members are doing physical products. I don’t believe any of them are dropshipping, per se. They all have a product that they’ve sourced or they create, uh, you know, source from a manufacturer locally. We have a, uh, somewhat well known, uh, woman who runs a clothing store who creates her own designs, for example, and she gets a manufacturer to create them for her. But the manufacturer also creates other designs which she stocks and sells online.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:44] So let me help my friend out here. Let’s use him as an example. He’s selling tea, uh, in the manner you described. You know, he came up with a formula, got somebody to make it for him. So he’s got these packets of tea that he’s selling. He’s right now primarily using Amazon. Uh, but he aspires to one day do Shopify. So what are some of the things, some actionable things he could be doing right now to sell more tea?

Kaleb Ufton: [00:04:12] Yeah. So that’s actually a really common example. We’ve had quite a few people come through who have Amazon and they want to move. Uh, well, I wouldn’t say they want to move away, but they want to diversify. Um, and the main reason for that is to do with owning your customer database and wanting some independence. So one of the Amazon does let you do. An element or a few elements of testing you can through their platform. You can test out different things, and testing is probably one of the biggest ways to increase your revenue over time is just consistent testing, documenting what you’re doing, uh, researching who your customers actually are. Uh, and we’ll tell people who don’t have Amazon stores go look at similar products on Amazon, read the reviews. Because reviews are so useful. They’ll tell you what people are looking for. They’ll tell you their pain points. They’ll tell you what they like. What they wish the product had is it’s a gold mine of information. So for your friend, I would say take the time while you’re getting set up on Shopify and you’re learning how to get traffic to your Shopify, getting email sequences in place, all that kind of stuff take take time as well to really get to know your customer. Because Amazon has the customers, they bring them to you. When you leave any marketplace, you got to find the customer, which means you got to be able to speak their language. You got to know their pain points, their dreams, their hopes, uh, all that kind of stuff so that you can actually communicate to them in a way that is emotionally engaging and makes them want to click your link, go to your site, and hopefully your site convinces them to trust you enough to purchase.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:04] So what are some of the strategies to get more traffic going to your site?

Kaleb Ufton: [00:06:11] We tend to focus primarily on paid ads through Meta or Google, simply because those are platforms Mark and myself have mastered to some degree. I won’t say that we’re the world’s best in it, but Mark’s run over 80 million in ad spend in Google ads and meta, and I’ve managed millions in ad spend myself and done some pretty interesting things with it. So we’ve got enough experience and enough industries to be able to help people with those platforms. Both of us have done SEO and ranked on the front page of Google for SEO as well. So you can either go pay for traffic with money, or you can generate traffic with time, which is the organic method. And if you happen to have an existing email list, then that’s traffic you already own. So you can use that to generate sales as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:08] So is that kind of at the heart of a strategy if you’re in e-commerce that you want to at some point own a list, whether it’s a texting list or an email list, that you can reach out to these people on your own schedule, rather than pay to reach people and hope they get their.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:07:28] I would say yes, absolutely. I mean, any business that whether you’re in e-commerce or not, if you let’s say you have an email database of 50,000 people and maybe say 10,000 people have opted into SMS, the cost for you to reach those people compared the cost for you to find those people online through paid media. It just doesn’t compare for 50,000 people. You might be paying something like, let’s say on the high end, $1,000 a month to to maintain that email database. You can send an email out to them every few days. You can send an SMS out to them for cents, uh, if you try. And and these are people, ideally, who have already bought from you or are thinking about buying from you. So a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done. If you’ve got a special a sale, a cross promotion, a new product line, whatever it is, you can go to them for pennies. Uh, but if you try and do that any other way, there’s a massive time component or you’re going to pay for it, but you’ve already paid to get these people on your list.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:42] So now, um, if you were just starting out or you’re, you have a, you know, an emerging brand that’s starting to get traction, um, do you so you just what are the levers? You’re kind of, um, kind of pulling in order to keep this growth going? Is it just just more paid ads, like you just keep, you know, as long as the math is going your way, you just keep funneling money into the paid ads. Like, are you, uh, experimenting in other platforms? Like, how are you, um, growing a brand?

Kaleb Ufton: [00:09:16] Yeah. Great question. Uh, we’re about to launch. Uh, Mark and I are about to launch our own e-commerce store. Mark’s founded a few seven and eight figure ones, and I’ve scaled a couple to seven figures as well. So we’re launching one together as part of sort of like a follow along. And we’re taking exactly what we teach and implementing it in there to show everyone like, this is how you do it. And we look at three levers. We look at cost for acquisition, which could be, yes, more paid ads. Absolutely. Uh, it could be SEO, it could be doing joint ventures as well. Uh, we also look the other two levers that we look at are what’s your average order value? And then the third one is your lifetime value. If those are the three metrics, if you will, that you look at, generally speaking, you’ve got control over each of those. And the more you test around how you can improve those. So for CPA cost per acquisition, you want that one to go down for you or for the other two, you want them to go up. So the the higher the lifetime value, first of all, the more you can spend to acquire a customer, which means you can be more competitive in your marketing, you can be more aggressive in your marketing, and the higher the average order value that has a flow on effect for the lifetime value. But it also helps recoup cash flow in the short tum. So they interplay. But those are really the only three that. Determined growth at the end of the day, in our opinion.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:56] Now, when you’re coaching or consulting with people, how do you help them with the pricing? Like pricing to me, uh. It’s a tricky subject and a lot of people they want to go, in my opinion, too low, too quickly. Um, how do you kind of, um, or is it just strictly experimentation that you’re just look, we’re going to put a number out there and we’re going to see what we get, and then we’re going to try to beat that number. And then and where we land is where we land.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:11:28] Pricing is an interesting one. Uh, we tend to try and let the market decide that. Um, the lady I mentioned earlier that has the clothing. When she came on board, one of the first things I said to her was, you need to up your pricing. And she said, I haven’t haven’t changed my pricing, uh, in 3 or 4 years. And I said, great. Now’s a good time to add at least another 20%. And the only reason I was so aggressive in doing that was she’s selling. Clothing to a market that is willing to pay a lot more than what she was charging, and her margins were so slim it was choking her business. I still think she could charge a lot more than what she currently does, but there really isn’t any need to and it acts as a competitive advantage. She might make more margin and that’s great, but we’ve also got her from doing $17,000 a month in struggling. So she’s she’s already done something like 36 grand this month. So price is important. But it kind of comes down to how well you know, the audience and how much you’re willing to.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:12:37] When you test price, you absolutely run the risk of alienating customers. Uh, and so you’ve got to test it in a sensible way. You’ve got to approach it in a very logical sort of scientific manner where you’re going to say, okay, this audience, for example, is going to see this set of pricing, and this other audience is going to see this other set and or you split test it between them, which can be quite tricky to do on Shopify. So generally, it’s not something we suggest people test a whole heap. But if we see in the market, oh, you’re severely underpriced or the value. Maybe the value proposition is really good, but the price doesn’t match it right? Gucci doesn’t try and justify their pricing. Louis Vuitton doesn’t try and justify their pricing. They let their branding dictate. No, this is premium and you’re going to pay through the nose for it. But if you go to Walmart and you see a t shirt that’s like $15 next to one, that’s $2, well, yeah, it’s not the same.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:40] Right? But that’s part of your, um, the brand that you’re trying to build, right? Like, like you said, you can buy a t shirt for a dollar, you can buy a t shirt for $100. I mean, they’re just t shirts, you know, it’s just, you know, one, one label is going to be different than the other. And then the perceived value is going to be different in the eyes of that consumer. But when it comes to pricing, is it do you recommend having kind of a range of, of different things that cost different prices so that you can hit that person, maybe at a lower price, but also have some premium thing in there just to test the limits of what, um, you know, the consumer is willing to spend.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:14:22] Let’s use your, uh, your friend with the tea shop as an example. So, um, I’ve worked with the tea brand before, and one of the things I said was, okay, like, well, first of all, what’s your average order value? And the average order value was something like $28. Okay, that’s fairly low. Uh, what’s about 1.2 products for this guy? It was about 1.2 products per order on average. And his cost to get a sale was, say, $12. So he’s almost paying half just to get the sale. And then you have your cost of goods and all that kind of stuff. So then I was like, okay, what if we. What if we put a sample pack together for $50 or $49 for him? It’s still within that impulse purchase range, but it’s basically double. And so we tested that out and it went quite well. Okay, cool. Now what if we did say a monthly box or a seasonal box. And we started playing with how we position the product to increase the perceived value to match a higher price. And one of the ways I did this, um, many years ago, I decided to.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:15:33] Uh, this was a company that I was directly sort of like running and helping with manufacturing with. I decided to just put a product up that cost $999. The average product on the site was maybe $150. I decided to put it up, run like $5 a day with ads to it, and we got a sale within like three days. And that immediately validated my my theory that people, a certain set of people were willing to to spend a lot more, um, with Renee, the clothing lady, because she makes her own designs. She’s actually won some awards, uh, for wearable art. And I’m pressing her to get some updated photography for those, because I think there’s room for her to have a boutique side that’s, you know, more like couture, where people are paying 3 or $4000 for, for an item of clothing or more. But that’s not the same market that’s going to be spending $60 on a dress that she sells. So I think it’s something that you need to test. And the way you test it is by looking at the value for the audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:46] Right, but understanding also that they’re right, but understanding also that within that universe of an audience, there’s going to be likely, I would think, somebody that can afford to spend an insane amount of money for something way more than you think generally.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:17:06] Yeah, generally there is. Absolutely. I mean, it it depends who you’re targeting. You know, if you’re if you’re going after people who barely have disposable income, then, you know, maybe not, but with some, some quick tweaks, you could probably target an audience that have, you know, a few hundred to a few thousand dollars of disposable income a month, at which point, yeah, you can start charging $500 for a product and not bat an eyelid, and people will buy it because the value is there.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:37] Right. Or or they want to be the guy that bought the thing. Like, I mean, I’ve interviewed a bunch of the other side of it. Yeah, I’ve interviewed a bunch of people over the years, local restaurateurs or people who had even carts like this one guy was selling, um, popsicles in a cart. And I’m like, you should have $100 popsicle. Like, I don’t care if anybody buys it. You’re going to be known as the guy that has $100 popsicle. Like, that’s like the.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:18:03] Thousand dollar haircut.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:04] Right? Like somebody’s going to buy that. And as a goof to be the guy, hey, look, I’m a big spender. I bought this like, somebody out there is going to do it. Um, and even if they don’t, it’s going to improve your brand. Like you’re going to be seen differently. Your positioning in the mind of a people will be different.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:18:26] It changes the perception. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:29] So now when you’re working with, uh, clients, like how much are you getting into? Are you getting into kind of this psychology and you’re getting into kind of brand positioning, or is it more just like, this is the nuts and bolts on how to get, uh, you know, a product online and draw traffic to it.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:18:48] I personally quite enjoy getting into the psychology and the sort of, you could call it spiritual or esoteric side of things, where it’s a lot more touchy feely. We tend not to. We do deal with tactics a lot, you know, nuts and bolts. But most of the time, if we notice that we’re dealing with tactics on a regular basis with a particular, um, client or member or however you want to phrase who we’re working with, it’s a symptom of a higher order problem, if you will. If there’s a particular tactic that works and it stopped working, oftentimes it’s not the tactic. There’s something else behind it that it has changed. And maybe you weren’t aware of it or it’s not obvious. And that’s where the experience helps. That’s where we’ve been able to step back and go, okay, well, you know, how well do we actually know our audience? Do we have customer avatars? Do we know what really drives them? Do we know if this person is a mom of a child versus a mom of four children? Because there is a fundamental difference. Having three kids myself, one child is an experienced two children is a different experience. Three is a completely different experience. Um, I can’t imagine what five is like. So the more you know about your your customers and the more you understand them, I think it’s a massive advantage in business. So I tend to encourage everyone, uh, not not just the people who work with us to really spend the time because a lot of businesses don’t. If you spend the time to get to know your customers really well, it’s such a competitive advantage.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:35] And then so what is an engagement with your company look like? Is this kind of a group experience or are you working one on one with the people that are work that, um, come to you?

Kaleb Ufton: [00:20:47] Yeah, we have front end products. So, um, Mark and I put together, uh, 70 something experiments that over the however many thousands of experiments I’ve run, these are sort of the top ones that tend to increase conversion rates. So you can kind of if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can kind of blindly test those. And if you do nothing else, you’ll see a significant increase over time just by following a test measure process with that. That’s sort of like the easiest way for people to get started. And then we have some other products, but the main thing we do is as a mastermind, and we work with an intimate group of people who are looking to become seven eight figure e-commerce store owners. And inside that, we do have a boutique side where we sort of do the done for you. Side of things, but we’re talking about maybe three clients at a time. Like it’s really exclusive because Mark and I started this to have fun and we’re both run agencies. We don’t want to keep doing the agency thing. If it’s something we’re interested in and we enjoy it, then we’ll take it on. But it really we enjoy helping on the ground, you know, boots in the trenches, ecom store owners that are just sick of struggling or sick of being on a plateau and they actually want to hit revenue, that’s going to be life changing.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:11] Now. So how much is it to be part of this cohort?

Kaleb Ufton: [00:22:17] Depends on how you want to go about it. If you want to join the membership outright, you’re looking for a year. It’s ten grand. Um, otherwise we have a sort of like monthly option, which is considerably less. And that’s what most people take ends up being about 1300 a month. It pays for itself more often than not within the first month. Um, you know, depending on where you’re at in business, if you’re doing 50 K a month, we had we actually had a Pakistani guy join us who was doing 50 to 70 grand a month, and then within 60 days he was doing 140. Um, on one call, we were we’ve done goal setting and everything, and he’d set his goal to 200. And then three weeks later, I think it was we checked in with him and I asked him, what what was your goal? And he said, oh, 250. And I called him out because I knew he had said 200 and said, yep, I’ve already hit that. So the.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:18] Goal moved.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:23:19] We kind of we yeah, we we try and, um. Focus on how do we actually move the needle for you and make it so that it’s a no brainer for you to either stay with us or go to the next level? That’s our business model. So. Transparent. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:37] So but you’re looking for people who are already making ten, 20 grand a month right now so that their thing is kind of proven and they just need it, you know, maybe some escape velocity to get to the next level.

Kaleb Ufton: [00:23:50] Yeah, there’s different plateaus that you run into. So typically reaching 10-K is its own challenge. Um, that’s where you’ll see a lot of people that get stuck with dropshipping or they’ll, they’ll have an idea and they’ll struggle to get to about 10-K. The 10 to 30 K mark is sort of this, this no man’s land where you’re, you’re having to wear 70 different hats and do 17 things at once, and you don’t quite have the revenue to outsource, but you desperately need to outsource some things. And it’s this really sort of difficult place. We certainly can help those people. It’s just it’s going to be a lot more uncomfortable for them. Once you reach that sort of 20 K mark, you’ve kind of got the capital to be able to invest in systems and people and to you’re not necessarily in survival the whole time. You’ve got the capacity to be a bit more creative and start having fun again. And then. From, from there to about 70 grand a month. It’s it’s really just about you as a business owner working out. How do I not be the bottleneck? And then from 70 onwards, it’s it’s largely around leverage and. Offloading whatever you can in the most optimized way possible so that you’re in your genius zone, and everyone else in the business is in their genius zone, and things are working efficiently. But there’s always some problem that if you unlock it, it’s going to lead to two, three, 400% growth in the business. There’s always something.

Lee Kantor: [00:25:28] So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or your team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to get Ahold of you?

Kaleb Ufton: [00:25:36] Yeah. E-commerce Wizards Club club is the main site. You can find me on either LinkedIn or Facebook. Uh, Caleb with a k Hufton you a uniform? Foxtrot. Tango. Oscar. November ufton. Uh, and we just chat. We just chat with people. That’s the easiest thing to do is just have a quick conversation, figure out where you’re at. Um, we do challenges as well. So we do like a seven day revenue challenge. We run that, um, last month and a lot of people will hear that and they’ll go, there’s no way you can do that. Yeah, sure. Um, one of the people who haven’t worked with us before joined the free challenge. Had a 43% increase in revenue during the, um, as a result of the challenge. And then another woman who is in the mastermind, uh, one of she set up another experiment during the challenge just to take part and be part of the community. And she had a 212% increase. So it’s not impossible. It’s just a different way of thinking. It’s a different way of approaching it. And I would encourage anyone that’s interested, you know, reach out to myself or go to the website and drop a drop us a message and honestly join a challenge, get get the experience of what it’s like and then make an informed decision.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:02] Good stuff, man. Well, thank you so much for sharing your, uh, knowledge here today. We really appreciate that. And, uh, one more time, the website, ecommerce, Wizards Dot club. Uh, Caleb Upton, thank you so much. Thank you. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Leigh Burns With The Fox Theatre

by

Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Leigh Burns With The Fox Theatre
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Since 2017, Leigh Burns has been the Director of the Fox Theatre Institute, a division of the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Before joining the Fox Theatre, she held positions as the Education Coordinator with the Georgia Main Street Program and additionally served as the Outreach Program Manager and Certified Local Government Coordinator with the Georgia Historic Preservation Division.

Most recently, Leigh was named as Director of Community Partnerships for Fox Gives, an enhanced community partnerships program dedicated to preservation efforts and support for theaters throughout the Southeast.

In this new role, she will focus on the overall success of Fox Theatre’s Multiyear Grant Program and sustaining and leveraging partnerships for Fox Gives. She will also oversee staff of the All-Access Pass Program and will extend bilingual education goals for Fox in a Box Program.

Leading Fox Gives, she oversees all grant programs, education, membership, statewide theatre presenting and preservation partnerships. Since 2008, the Fox has awarded $3.2 million dollars in financial support for historic theatres in Georgia and the Southeast. Additionally, her team supports more than fifty-five statewide non-profit theatres and arts centers through Georgia Presenters.

Leigh has twenty-five years of professional historic preservation experience including internships with the National Park Service and the Historic Oakland Foundation and received a Masters of Heritage Preservation Degree from Georgia State University. In 2014, she received an Award of Excellence in Historic Preservation Service from the Atlanta Urban Design Commission.

A native of College Park, Georgia, Leigh resides in Druid Hills and serves on the boards of the Georgia Downtown Association, the Red & Black and Young Harris College Alumni.

Connect with Leigh on LinkedIn.

May is National Preservation Month and what a better time than to celebrate the historic place-savers who pour their time, energy, resources (and sometimes a great deal of sweat and tears) into protecting the historic places that hold our dearest memories and history! This May the Fox Theatre’s philanthropic arm, Fox Gives, will be celebrating National Preservation Month in a big way as they were recently presented with the prestigious Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation inaugural Mark C. McDonald Award, a testament to their 15+ years of relentless preservation efforts!

While the Fox Theatre is widely known for housing iconic Broadway productions and music legends, many are still unaware of its profound preservation efforts, provided by its Fox Gives’ enhanced community partnerships program. Having nearly avoided demolition itself in the late 70s, the Theatre knows all too well the importance of preservation and has worked tirelessly to prevent that fate for other historic theatres throughout the Southeast, investing a staggering $3.2M to date! Not only is the Fox Theatre celebrating its recent award, but the nonprofit also commemorated the launch of its enhanced community partnerships program in March by awarding its first Multiyear Grantee Hart County Community Theatre with a transformative $500k donation.

Fox Gives Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Mark C. McDonald award

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The main goal of Fox Gives, and how will it give back to the community
  • The main pillars of the Fox Gives program, and how this differs from the former program, the Fox Theatre Institute
  • Parts of the Fox Gives program that will stay the same
  • How they chose their first Fox Gives grantee
  • Leigh’s new role as the Director of the Community Partnerships for Fox Gives

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by On pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:25] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Leigh Burns, Director of Community Partnership Fox Gives with the Fox Theater. Welcome, Leigh.

Leigh Burns: [00:00:46] Thank you for having me. Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:47] I am so excited to number one be talking to another Lee, which like we discussed pre show short list. But most importantly to be learning about the Fox Gibbs program. Uh, you know from the Fox Theater. Can you share a little bit about that.

Leigh Burns: [00:01:03] Sure. Um, the Fox Theater for about the 15:15 years has been working with communities all over our state here in Atlanta and further out to really kind of bolster and encourage historic theaters, both through ongoing rehabilitation but also through operations and performances. We recently were rebranded and relaunched as Fox Gibbs. We were the previously known as the Fox Theater Institute.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:30] So now how does that work? Like most theaters are just kind of struggling to exist, but Fox Theater obviously has been around for a long, long time. Have you’ve gotten to a point of stability where now you can not only just thrive and survive locally, but you can reach out and support the other theaters around Georgia?

Leigh Burns: [00:01:52] Right. We’re very fortunate here in Midtown to have such a thriving, economically successful theater. And what we found over the past 15 years is that there are theaters across our state that don’t always have the resources that we do. First of all, probably more than half of the theaters that we work with are volunteer operated. Um, they’re not operated by staff. So we’ve been able to really focus on sharing over $3.2 million in grants with them that cover everything from planning for expansion of their building to ongoing restoration projects. We’re just very grateful that we have the ability to pay it forward. Many here in Atlanta remember the Save the Fox campaign of the 70s, and our mission to preserve and share really is born out of that, that place of revitalizing ourselves and then watching Midtown revitalize.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:46] Now as kind of the director of community partnerships, what is kind of a day look like for you or just theaters just constantly coming up to you and saying, hey, Lee, we need some help. Hey, we need some help, or is it you kind of going out and saying, okay, we can help this theater or that theater?

Leigh Burns: [00:03:03] Well, I think in the beginning we were definitely putting ourselves out more to to go and meet with theaters and find those. But with the growth of Fox, Gibbs and our presence in the state being known a little more, they typically reach out to us. I received lots of emails. We do initial consultations with theaters, and we work with them not only with strategic planning, you know, in their operations, but they’re building, but they’re consistently reaching out. And we also have education programs. So I oversee not just our preservation grants and our operations, but we have two other programs, our box and a box education program. And then we also have our Georgia Presenters Consortium, which is assisting theaters with booking with operations. So every day is different and always exciting, and meeting partners and building those relationships is really, I think, encouraged me to continue to do this every day.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:06] Now, with some of your work teaching the theater owners or helping them build community partnerships themselves, the way the Fox has done locally here in Atlanta?

Leigh Burns: [00:04:18] Absolutely. One of the things that we work on is leveraging partnerships locally. So when we invest, say, $100,000 in a new roof on their building, what we look for are other organizations locally that might join us in supporting those efforts, but also letting people know what we’re doing and letting them know the importance of why the fox is in their community and trying to make an effort there, and why the arts are so important to every community in Georgia.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:49] Now, um, is there any advice or tips that you can share with our listeners who, you know, building a community partnership program around a theater that has some allure, just kind of the history and things like that. But is there any advice you can give for any other business that maybe is transferable that how to, you know, get your whole community to support your effort is have you got anything you can share in that regard? Because I think that pertains to pretty much every business.

Leigh Burns: [00:05:19] Yes, absolutely. I think when you work in business, going back to the stories in your own organization, um, looking at the staff that you work with your own people and recognizing how important the arts are to their family and to their children’s education and making those investments, I think meeting people and putting yourself out there not only to financially support them, but to maybe have volunteer days where you work with them at their theater, where you give them advice on marketing. Um, there’s so many theaters around our state that need assistance in growing strategic planning and marketing support, and so many businesses want to reach out and do this. So I think there’s endless opportunities there.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:04] But at the heart of it, you have to get to kind of the why and the story behind the story where you’re emotionally kind of connecting rather than the transactional, oh, you’re coming here for a show. Thanks. Bye. You know, you’re trying to really integrate them into the why of the business.

Leigh Burns: [00:06:22] Absolutely. I think you need to make connections. Maybe they have a summer camp for children and, you know, you could sponsor certain components of that. Um, maybe there’s opportunities for people to really reach out and offer support in certain areas that they excel with in their own business. Yeah. I think when we look at partnerships in the past, a lot of times we see typical partnerships like banks with investment or, you know, those types of industries. But there’s so many other opportunities for small businesses to engage with partnerships at local theaters.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:59] And I guess, like you’re saying that historically, you know, the sponsor was happy with a plaque on the wall or a name of, you know, their brand associated with the thing, but now it’s people are getting more creative and, um, leveraging the theater and the work that’s being done there differently than maybe in the past.

Leigh Burns: [00:07:21] I think if you look, um, at the old look at investing in, in sponsorships and partnerships, it was a lot. The plaque on the wall in the restaurant, you’d walk in and and see people being sponsored by baseball teams, you know, businesses. Now, I believe that, you know, with technology and with the expansion of what these theaters can do behind the scenes to build audience development, there’s so many new opportunities there that we would have never even imagined. The possibilities are endless for those creatives to really get in there and kind of see what kind of impact they can make.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:59] Now, you mentioned the importance of having a theater in a town or a city. Can you talk about, um, is there any data to support that? Like, it sounds and feels like it’s the right thing to do, and especially for the character and of the the town or the city? Uh, is there a kind of data to support the importance of, um, leaning into the arts for community?

Leigh Burns: [00:08:22] There is data. Um, we have two partners that we work with here in the state quite a bit. The Georgia Council for the Arts and the Georgia main Street program. And, you know, when you look at towns that are really viable, when you see a theater, you see restaurants that are open before and after the theaters open. You see Friday night downtown opportunities that might include an engagement from the town theater company in the square. There’s endless ways that we can quantify how this creates a ripple effect. And if you look at the fox here, we’re really the main proponent of that. We look at the businesses around us that that help us and in turn, we help them. I think that one of the things we have to start thinking about as a whole is what preservation looks like, not just for the landmarks in in the town, like the courthouse, the theater, the schools, but the buildings around those that are sustained because of these key landmark buildings and their success.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:24] Is there a story you can share where some of the work you did in a in a locale that has made a difference and moved them to a new level?

Leigh Burns: [00:09:32] Sure. Um, there’s a small town outside of Athens, Georgia, um, called Winterville. We began working with Winterville in 2017. They had an auditorium, uh, built in the 50s, and it had been dormant for many years. And this is a very small city where people usually go into Athens to see live music, or they go to Greensboro around them. But they really wanted to reengage this auditorium and reopen it. Um, they started looking for public private partnerships. They started trying all kinds of opportunities to raise awareness. They raised a lot of funds. And at the same time, the state was developing a bike trail from Athens to Union Point, and they knew it was a good time for them. So now when you look at that community, there’s more of a cohesiveness in what their programing looks like for their city. While there may not be direct restaurants opening yet, there is a re-engagement of people coming there and seeking out these things versus going outside of the city. And so we do think that there’ll be continued growth there around opening restaurants. Um, and we’ve already seen a tremendous success. They’ve joined our group, Georgia presenters, and they present all types of music, theater, dance that in the past they would not have had. So we’re that’s just one small example. Um, but there’s many across Georgia. If you look at Augusta and the success the Miller Theater has had, um, that was a massive rehabilitation of a dormant theater and restaurants, re-engagement of downtown. So there’s so many about about these stories on our website. You can you can look at the map of all the theaters and see some of the impact.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:25] But the theaters don’t have to have kind of that, um, the bones of maybe that the fox had. It can be a smaller, um, auditorium like, uh. Place that, um, you know, still, you can build a theater program around. It doesn’t have to look like the Fox Theater for you to help them, right?

Leigh Burns: [00:11:46] Not at all. You know, these are not many foxes. These are theaters that can also be in auditoriums and old school buildings. Um, we’ve seen churches that have been repurposed as art centers. Um, these don’t have to be traditional theaters. It can be a place where this development can grow for the arts and take on many forms. We don’t really want them to be miniature foxes. We want to celebrate their their own identity and their own town and all of those wonderful things that come with it.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:17] Now, um, you mentioned the, uh, I guess previously this was called the the Fox Theater Institute, and now it’s Fox Give. Was that just a name change or has other parts of that changed as well?

Leigh Burns: [00:12:32] No. We’ve also launched two new programs.

Leigh Burns: [00:12:36] Um, Fox gives really is at the heart of our mission, which is to preserve and share the Fox Theater. And when we looked at we had we went through strategic planning and we looked at a lot of ways that we thought expansion would be most impactful. So we began two new programs. We have an all access Pass program, which is a high school program where we bring students here to the Fox to see shows on our stage, and then have a have a presentation with them from someone in the field who works behind the scenes in presenting. Um, that can be someone who works in tech design and costumes. We want to mentor with them the arts, vocations. You know, the film industry in Georgia obviously has been a huge success and performing arts, so we want to prepare the next generation to really dream of these opportunities. Maybe not always acting and dancing, um, on the stage, but there’s so many other great opportunities. So that was our All access program. And then we also decided to expand our grant program. And we have a multi year grant. Um, when we relaunched into Fox Gibbs, we announced a half $1 million investment into Hart County Community Theater in Hartwell. And they will now receive the largest investment for any single theater that we’ve ever awarded.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:57] Now, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Leigh Burns: [00:14:00] We awareness is so important. Um, we would absolutely love for more businesses to be engaged in, in smaller communities across our state, to really take on the role of leveraging some of our own work. Uh, it’s just really exciting to see we have a leveraging partner through Southface Institute. We’re growing our sustainability and that impact, but we’re always looking for individuals and organizations that can assist theaters in some of the behind the scenes operations. Um, and we would absolutely love for people to visit our website and become more engaged with some of our partner theaters.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:39] And, um, what is the website and what is the best way to connect with you or somebody on the team?

Leigh Burns: [00:14:45] It’s, um, Fox Theater. Org and you can look there at Fox Gibbs and see all of the theaters that were networked with around the state. You can always reach out to me directly, and I’d love to hear from others how they would like to be engaged.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:01] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the momentum and the impact is real and we really appreciate the work that you’re doing.

Leigh Burns: [00:15:10] Thank you so much, Lee. I appreciate this opportunity to really expand our, our imprint and and further our mission out into the state. Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:20] You got it. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

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George Sudarkoff with George Sudarkoff, LLC

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Bay Area Business Radio
Bay Area Business Radio
George Sudarkoff with George Sudarkoff, LLC
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Leah-Davis-Ambassador-logo1George Sudarkoff, Executive Coach at George Sudarkoff, LLC.

He specializes in guiding gifted leaders with ADHD. With a background in Systems Engineering and Psychology, he leverages over three decades in engineering and entrepreneurship for his coaching, established in 2019. Diagnosed with ADHD later in life, George empathizes deeply with his clients’ challenges.

He resides in Campbell, California, with his wife, Adi, their two children, and their Labradoodle Rosie.

Connect with George on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • Harnessing ADHD as an Entrepreneur

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:06] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in the Bay area, it’s time for Bay Area business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Bay Area Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have George Sudarkoff, who is an Executive Coach for Leaders with ADHD. Welcome, George.

George Sudarkoff: [00:00:32] Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving folks?

George Sudarkoff: [00:00:38] Well, as you said, I’m an executive coach and I spent a good 30 years in tech myself. I went from an individual contributor all the way to CTO of my own company, and that switch from individual contributor to a leader and executive was a pretty rocky one for me, and I. I struggled and, uh, when I left my W2 job in 2019 to start a company, I also discovered that I have ADHD myself and kind of losing that structure and support once again, I struggled again, and people have been telling me for literal decades that I should teach or coach. So I decided to try. And the rest is history. I work with founders and executives with ADHD and help them to transform their ADHD from a liability into an asset.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:32] So what are some maybe clues that you might be suffering with ADHD?

George Sudarkoff: [00:01:38] Well, the trifecta of symptoms is distractibility, impulsivity and hyperfocus. Obviously, if you want to get a officially diagnosed, there’s a DSM five manual. It’s a manual that psychologists psychiatrists use to diagnose. But this trifecta is is a pretty good clue that maybe you should look into it if you keep getting distracted, if you can’t focus on on a task, and at the same time you get hyper focused on something that maybe you shouldn’t be doing at that time. Those are pretty good clues.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:14] Now, how do you define either the focus part or the distracted part? Like is it something that happens once or like, are you distracted for hours at a time? Like how? Like there has to be kind of a spectrum to this, I would imagine.

George Sudarkoff: [00:02:30] Oh yeah. There’s a there’s a big spectrum. You know, there’s a classic story of you’re trying to focus on something and oh, squirrel! And you go in a completely separate direction. And you might have also heard some people like the way they tell stories. They jump from tangent to tangent to tangent. That is another way ADHD and Distractibility sometimes manifests. Doctor Hallowell, who’s a world authority on ADHD. He wrote the book ADHD 2.0, compares ADHD to a Ferrari with a bicycle brakes. So you have this powerful engine, you can go fast, but you constantly seem to lose control and drive off the road. So that’s that’s the experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:19] So how do you help your clients? Kind of like you said, uh, make this from a take it from a liability into a strength. How do you kind of, uh, harness this so that you can leverage it to your benefit?

George Sudarkoff: [00:03:33] Yeah, I love to look at it from the ability point of view. I really don’t like calling ADHD a disability, because if you go back to this metaphor of having a Ferrari with bicycle brakes, you already have the most powerful, the fastest one of the kind car. And maybe you’ve seen those videos. People getting in. Somebody else’s supercar and wrecking it within seconds. We don’t call it the car’s fault. We. Instead, we think maybe the person should have taken the car to the track and learned how to to control it. I see ADHD very much the same way. Adhd is a is a big bag of gifts. Uh, they’re, uh, difficult maybe to unpack sometimes. But if you look at this trifecta of symptoms that I mentioned earlier. Distractibility impulsivity. Hyperfocus. Every single one of them has a brighter side. Distractibility, for example, is a curiosity on the other end of the spectrum. Impulsivity is creativity. You can’t be creative on command. You can’t schedule a 12. I’m going to come up with a brilliant new idea. It just does not work that way. And hyperfocus on the on the positive end of the spectrum is just boundless energy. Being able to dedicate inhuman amounts of focus and dedication to to a particular topic.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:08] So now in your work are people, um, like, what’s kind of the impetus of of calling you like, there’s something happened that they’re like, look, I got to get a handle on this, or are they, uh, not happy? Like, what is kind of the the reason where they’re like, I need a coach to help me kind of navigate this.

George Sudarkoff: [00:05:31] Yeah, yeah. Well, often happens with ADHD folks when we grow up, we hear. And there’s a very common phrase that you have so much potential, but you’re wasting it. If only you could focus. If only you can apply yourself. I’m the guy to call when when you’re tired of being that fuckup who constantly seems to. And go through the all out, followed by burnout cycle.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:01] So the person that maybe isn’t living up to their potential, or they’re frustrated that maybe they’re at a plateau in their career or their life may be that the ADHD is kind of the culprit or is lingering around this, that you need a coach to kind of help you navigate this.

George Sudarkoff: [00:06:20] Yeah. And I work with founders and executives, and we address leadership issues as well. But, uh, a lot of the leadership issues when you have ADHD have a particular flavor. If a lot of my clients, um, profoundly gifted, so they, they can read a book, they can take a course and they can figure out how to address a problem. It’s not the lack of knowledge. It’s it’s this other thing that the executive function, being able to take that knowledge and turn it into something. Um, in the real world and do it consistently. And that’s just, uh, one month you’re you’re all out, and then you burned out for the next six months.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:07] So what does, um. What does it look like when someone begins an engagement with you? What are what is, uh, kind of. Can you walk me through what the beginning of a relationship looks like?

George Sudarkoff: [00:07:19] Yeah, yeah, we would spend the first few sessions just to get to know the the particulars of this person’s ADHD. The presentation, because there’s a as you mentioned at the beginning, there’s a big spectrum of how it, um, presents in life. So we will we will try to understand. Exactly the exact flavor that this person has and how it gets in the way, how it, um, prevents them from achieving their goals. And over time, I don’t like to follow a, you know, a specific program because, um, every person is unique, every person, every challenge that they have is, is unique and different. Um, so I like for the relationship for the coaching relationship. So. Um, to grow organically. And, uh, we will address the, the issues that they might face in that moment. Um, and the ADHD itself is going to be the, the bigger theme that we’re trying to tackle. And ultimately I, I want them to learn to manage the. This Ferrari, that they have learned to drive it completely on their own, so they don’t need me.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:44] Can you share a story? Maybe don’t name the name, obviously, but maybe the reason somebody came to you and then how you helped them get to a new level and maybe manage this so they can kind of control the Ferrari and get kind of the best outcome from having a Ferrari.

George Sudarkoff: [00:09:00] Yeah, yeah, a very typical scenario. And I have a particular person in mind who is still my client. Um, is they, uh, a profoundly gifted? They’re very gifted. They have lots of fantastic ideas. They start a company, um, with a co-founder, um, and they find themselves in a situation where, um, the way they. Operate. The way they approach work creates a lot of friction and a lot of, um. Conflict with the co-founder because they cannot be consistent. They cannot be relied on. Um, and so that becomes the, the first focus for our work. And we figure out exactly, um, where. There may be some additional support is needed. And at the same time, um. Maybe a re design re engineer and renegotiate the responsibilities that the two co-founders have in their company.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:13] So then you help them kind of, um, maybe re maybe just adjust the way that they each deal with themselves and maybe with the projects on hand and maybe align their skills and strengths accordingly. Yeah.

George Sudarkoff: [00:10:29] Yeah, we all have strengths. And if we approach work with strengths in mind, um, it’s a lot easier to be productive and happy at the same time, right? Because a lot of us with ADHD, we learn to use anxiety as our coping strategy. And even if you master. Using anxiety as your motivation. Um, in at the end of the day, it leads to burnout and you become unhappy with the work. And, um, it does not lead to a lasting, productive relationship.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:05] So is this something that, um, you’re cured of, or is this something you manage, or is there something that how does it work? Like what’s the long terme kind of, uh, prognosis when you are diagnosed with ADHD?

George Sudarkoff: [00:11:20] Well, ADHD. Um, it is called, um. Um, a disability by by the medical establishment. I don’t see it as a disability, but it is just, uh, my point of view. Um, there’s medication that you can take that, um, can help you using the same metaphor of Ferrari with bicycle brakes. Maybe can strengthen your brakes and medication. Um, could be a really important part of of the of this process. Um, but ultimately, it never goes away. It’s it’s genetic. Um, some even believe there’s a, um, evolutionary advantage. Um, as a matter of fact, if you have ADHD, you’re 32% more likely to become an entrepreneur and to start a company. At the same time, you’re 27% more likely to end up in jail. Um, so it does come. There’s benefits and, um, and they’re costs. So. I think ultimately it’s about learning to to manage what you have. But you are never cured now.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:33] Now, um, is there any advice you can give to somebody who’s listening that maybe is seeing themselves in this conversation? Is there some low hanging fruit that an individual, uh, can be doing, or some actions they can be taking today to, um, either assess or improve their situation?

George Sudarkoff: [00:12:54] Yeah. Yeah, it’s. Well, that’s such a good question. It’s hard to pick just one thing if I, if I wanted to, like, deliver just one idea to your listeners, it would be to. Really try and see the positives in ADHD symptoms and and be more gentle with yourself and um. Forgiving. Maybe there’s a balance we don’t want necessarily to let ourselves off the hook. We’re still responsible for the things that we’re responsible. But finding the way. Um, when we can use our strengths to, to to get to our goals. That’s that’s the ultimate.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:40] Well, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what is the website? What is the best way to get Ahold of you?

George Sudarkoff: [00:13:50] Uh pseudo.com is my website. Uh, there’s a button to schedule a free consultation with me, and I would be happy to talk to everybody.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:00] And that’s s u d a r k Ofcom. George, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

George Sudarkoff: [00:14:10] Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:11] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Bay Area Business Radio.

Mary Ellen Garrett With Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

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Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Mary Ellen Garrett With Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
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Mary Ellen Garrett, Senior Vice President, Wealth Management Advisor at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management.

Her financial and civic life has been a profile of influence and devotion since she joined Merrill in 1985. Highly regarded in the industry and among a loyal and growing clientele, she has built a reputation for caring deeply and sharing important life lessons with generations of clients and their families.

Her skills and ability to provide outstanding wealth management have been recognized repeatedly. She has been named to:

  • Forbes “Best-In-State Wealth Advisors” List (2018-2022) (Published annually Jan – April. Rankings based on data as of June 30 of prior year.)
  • Forbes “America’s Top Women Wealth Advisors Best in State” List (2022-2024) (Published annually in February. Rankings based on data as of Sept 30 of prior year.)
  • Forbes “Top Women Advisors” List (2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021) (Published annually Feb – April. Rankings based on data as of June 30 –September 30 of prior year.)

She was also recognized by Merrill – from among more than 50,000 employees worldwide – as a recipient of the 2015 Bank of America Corporation’s David Brady Community Service Award. An active listener, she has long facilitated thoughtful discussions with clients and sought to empower their confidence in making informed financial decisions – educating whenever possible and meeting with entire families to explain how each stakeholder can contribute to positive outcomes.

Known for her candor, she often tells clients “yes” to sensible ways of saving, investing and savoring meaningful outcomes – and “no” to excessive spending that may seem extravagant or short sighted. Encouraging families to ask questions and share any circumstance that could have financial implications, she looks to educate, so that clients are able to develop and sustain wise financial habits.

In the Atlanta community, she currently serves as a Trustee & Vice Chair of Emory St. Joseph Hospital Board, as Chair of the Atlanta Catholic Archdiocese – Finance and Advisory Council, and as Trustee of The Parkinson’s Foundation.  She also speaks at seminars on many topics including wealth & estate planning strategies.

Mary Ellen and her husband, Scott, have been married for more than 40 years. They have three children and three grandchildren.

Connect with Mary Ellen on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Teach them while they’re young about saving, spending, and budgeting.
  • Discuss finances with your partner to understand each other’s perspectives
  • Close the gender wealth gap
  • Financially bouncing back post-divorce
  • Diapers, Decisions, and Dollars: Plan for financial stability by creating a financial plan before a career break can help ensure long-term stability.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by On pay. Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Onpay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Mary Ellen Garrett with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. Welcome.

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:00:44] Thank you very much. Happy to be here today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, I am so excited to get caught up with you. But for those who don’t know, can you tell us a little bit about Merrill Lynch Wealth Management? How you serving folks?

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:00:55] Oh, absolutely. Happy to talk about this. Merrill Lynch Wealth Management is a global partner, but also at the local level. We service our clients individually. We work with many families in the Atlanta area and all over. And in addition, we also do quite a bit of corporate work in that corporate work. Uh, we include 401 K’s in the nonprofit sector. We deal with many nonprofit organizations as well from an investment management standpoint. And just we cover it all.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:34] Uh, we’re here to talk about a recent a report, I guess, that Merrill was involved with regarding women investing for women and women’s finances, I guess specifically in concert with Women’s History Month. So, Mary Ellen, do you mind sharing a little bit about what was learned?

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:01:51] Oh, happy to do that. So according to a recent poll, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management discovered that 62% of women have learned about money and financial topics already, and with an additional 21% reporting that they would like to learn. But they haven’t gotten around to it. But these there are so many areas that we talk about with our clients and with people who are interested in the markets. And one of the things we tell them is to teach them all when they’re young. And the younger you can learn about this topic, the better it will be for all of you. So, for example, having discussions about finances with children from a young age helps them grasp the concepts of saving and spending and budgeting. Also understanding how money works. Very important. Also, we talk to individuals about having the investment discussion with your partner, and that would be including items such as up talking about questions about your upbringing, your spending patterns, your work history to understand each other’s perspectives. It really starts with communication and being able to talk about how did your family talk about money, but having that discussion with your spouse, with your partner is so important to get that communication started properly.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:28] Now, why do you think that more people don’t learn about finance and money and growing wealth earlier? Um, you know, we live in a country that’s among the most wealthy and affluent in the planet. And we, you know, we see successful people all the time. You know, at least it looks they look successful to us. Um, but why do you think there’s a disconnect between so many folks who really don’t grasp some of the basics when it comes to growing their wealth?

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:04:03] Well, I think that percentage of people who think like that is really going down, because I do think that more and more people are learning about it and are, uh, comfortable with handling things on their own. But I think it really goes back to, um, a question of who took care of things for them and if they weren’t involved with the discussion from a younger age, or they weren’t included in that discussion in their family or in their new family, maybe when they marry, um, it’s just that somebody else has always done always done that for them. Um, but really, statistics tell us that the majority of women at some point in their lives are going to have to take care of the money for themselves, and they may be divorced, they may be widowed, and at some point they need to learn. Um, so when clients come in to us, we really take it upon ourselves to teach that client what it’s all about, teach them to look for certain things and to be able to have that open communication with their advisor. Um, and so I think that these are some of the very important things to have part of this statistic. Um, we have uncovered that 69% of people have of women have created a financial plan where 68% of them actually have a financial advisor. Um, so we love to hear that because those numbers are going up. And it means that people are they are taking charge of their own finances. And we like to see that.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:57] Now, you mentioned kind of addressing some of this as when people are young, how would you recommend a family have kind of a financial discussion when there are children involved? Like how much of kind of the finances should be transparent amongst everybody? Um, while you want to protect everybody from fearing being fearful, but how much should they know about, you know, this is how much money comes in, this is how much money goes out. We save this amount like some of the kind of the basic blocking and tackling of finance, like how would you recommend it, the different stages in life, you know, as a child, maybe as you’re going to college or turning into an adult and, you know, as you kind of progress?

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:06:42] Well, every family is different and every child is different too. I’m having three of my own. And, um, having those discussions when they were younger, and it’s the amount of information that you feel they can understand. Um, but giving them chores, giving them tasks, giving them things, um, opportunities to make money. And then what do you do with that money? Um, how do, um, how do Mom and dad, um, take care of things in the home? Um, and then that stretches out to the independence of the, of the younger child to be able to take care of things for themselves when they get a little bit older. Um, and then having those discussions with their own family. I know my husband and I have been married a long time, and the first couple of years are a little awkward. I think that’s true of just about everybody. But the more open you can be about your communication, about what you make, what you save, what you spend, those are everyday questions that should be addressed. And then when you’re getting to the period where you’re working so hard, both of you and, um, you want to have that, uh, discussion between the two of you, and you want to have a plan. Um, the planning part of the business of saving and investing is so important because it’s that plan that’s going to take you to the levels and the goals that you have set out for yourself. You’re so busy working that you want to make sure that plan is in place, that you’re taking advantage of what your, um, what your job has to offer you. Participating in your company’s 401 K, most offer 401 S, most have a match. Um, and to make sure that you’re taking advantage of that and taking advantage of everything that, um, that is to be offered in the working world. Um, so lots of different points there. If you want me to focus in on one or more of those, I’m happy to do so.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:03] Yeah, well, I’d like to get into the, uh, to me, one of the most important tenets when it comes to wealth. Uh, growing wealth is the concept of compounding. And I don’t think that that’s taught well for children at a young age. And when, when you can really benefit from it the most. How do you kind of explain compounding to a young person, and how do you explain it to maybe your clients later on? Because obviously, the sooner you start on any plan, forgetting about really the allocations, but just on the just the habit of of saving and leveraging compounding, how do you have those conversations?

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:09:43] Well, you talk about um, almost it’s like a, an investing 101 course is the longer your money, um, sits and is invested according to an appropriate strategy for you, the power of compounding helps to continue to increase the value of your money a lot faster than if it was just sitting in a savings account. Um, but it’s something that you really do have to spend a little bit of time, um, going over that and making sure that you understand that when the light bulb goes off and you’re saving and all of a sudden you get your monthly statement and you see what kind of returns you’re getting from the investment of your, uh, your overall strategy. Younger people will start to understand that if their families teach them at a young age and they review their statements with them, when most usually get it, is when they are out in the working world for the first time and they’re taking money from their paycheck and they’re putting it into the company retirement plans that are offered to them, and they start to see those monthly, um, savings add up. And and it really comes over time. Um, so I think that the importance of starting early, I can’t emphasize that enough. But I’ll also tell you, it’s never too late either. I know some people may be in their mid 40s or mid 30s and say, oh my gosh, it’s too late, I’ve missed it. No you haven’t. Um, I think it’s for every age, just the desire to want to know, um, and the desire to partner with somebody professionally. So you’re checking your work. And I think that that’s a very good point to make for those people who are, um, who are considering working with an advisor for the first time.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:51] Now, is there anything that you use to really kind of drive the point home? Because it compounding is one of those things where it looks like nothing’s happening for a long period of time, and then all of a sudden it’s like, wow, how did this happen? Like it just starts becoming more noticeable and more dramatic. And a lot of people, you know, they. When things are gradually improving, you don’t really see it. But when something shocking happens, it gets your attention. And, um, well, how do you kind of illustrate that to people so that, you know, that light bulb does go off like this is, uh, worth doing? Putting a little bit aside, every month is going to pay off.

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:12:36] Well, I think you just hit on the key fact of that is that it it doesn’t happen overnight. It does happen over time. And you do have to be patient. Um, and you have to be disciplined. The discipline of putting monies away, um, whether it’s on your own as an after tax savings or an after tax investment or a pretax savings or pretax investment that you may be able to do with a retirement account, and it is that time and discipline to be able to continue to make, um, in the ups and the downs of the market. Um, you hear so much, uh, buzz about the markets when everything is going great. Oh, gosh, the stock market’s up. I must be making a ton of money. And and it truly is the discipline of having that strategy and being able to continue to make those deposits on a disciplined basis, um, every single time. And it might be monthly. It might be quarterly, but continuing to do it don’t stop when you hear that the markets are down. You have to continually make those deposits because on average an over time, the compounding of your deposits plus interest, plus the returns that you get when the market is appreciating, you will see those funds continue to rise and periodically check in, um, on your strategy to see if you should maybe be saving more, maybe to be a little more aggressive or maybe more conservative with your portfolio strategy. Um, there’s a lot that can be done, and I would encourage your listeners to, um, go and check what they’re doing right now if they are investing with their company. Um, do a check on your accounts, talk to your HR person to make sure that you are taking advantage of everything that’s available to you. And if you’re working with an advisor, um, check with him or with her to be able to make sure that your strategy is appropriate for you. Um, are you, uh, goals based? Uh, do you have some things that you’re saving for and making sure that you are invested appropriately and taking the proper risk that you’re comfortable with?

Lee Kantor: [00:15:22] Something that helped me, uh, early on when I started saving was somebody told me this. And this reframing helped me is when the market’s going down, you’re buying things on sale. Like, if you if if you believe, uh, in kind of an optimistic manner that the economy is going to grow and, and we’re going to keep improving over time. If you believe that, then you’re going to, you know, be invested, stay invested, and, um, just be disciplined in knowing that it’s going to go up and down. It doesn’t go up in a straight line, but it goes up and down. And when it goes down, that’s an opportunity to buy more shares that it over time, hopefully that’s going to benefit you even more. And that’s where the gains really come in.

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:16:08] That’s exactly right. And um and again that points back down to the discipline of being able to get used to the routine of investing. Um, I know many people who are in the savings, um, part of their lives. They are making a sacrifice, um, to take some of their paycheck, to put it away. Um, and to be able to create that routine and discipline. It’s just like a routine and discipline of anything that is good for you. Anything that’s worthwhile is is worthwhile to create that discipline and routine of doing so. Um, but it is true, just like you said. And when the markets are down, you want to continue to make those investments, because when they’re down, you’re buying a little bit more. Um, when the markets are up, you might be buying a little bit less. But over time, as the markets continue to provide that return to you. Um, also make sure that your portfolio is diversified, um, that you have a position of stock that is including the areas of, um, investing in the equity markets and that is investing into large cap companies, midcap and smallcap as well as international, and a growth in a value side of each of those areas. Um, when you try to hone in and to just bet on one particular area or a handful of stocks that may work for you for a short period of time. But over time, it’s the discipline of that diversification strategy, um, that you need to be invested into.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:04] Now, isn’t this where having a partnership with a professional like yourself and your team is really important? Because most individual people have their own lives that they’re dealing with, and it’s hard for them to stay on top of all of this stuff that your organization is doing 24 over seven. That’s all you’re thinking about. And, uh, you can, you know, you know, kind of get an idea of my risk tolerance and what is important to me and my objectives. And you can kind of create a customized approach for me to help me achieve whatever outcome I desire, rather than me. Like you said, hearing, you know, somebody say, oh, this company ABC is that’s the one you should be investing in. Look, it’s hot. And then I’m spending money there and it goes up or goes down and then like, I can’t react as nimbly as somebody like you or your team when it comes to, you know, over the long haul, making the right choices, I think.

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:19:04] Well, the first thing that someone should do when they are considering investing, whether they are investing at their company or on their own, um, is to find an investment advisor that you can partner with, someone that you’re comfortable with, someone that you communicate, uh, that you can communicate with, ask any questions. I know when someone comes in here for the first time and they say, oh, gosh, you know, I’m I’m embarrassed. I don’t know this or I hate to ask a dumb question. And we try to put our clients and our, our people who are coming in to talk to us for the first time, at ease, because this isn’t something that you do every day, but it is something that we do every day. And, um, creating that plan first is so important. Knowing what someone is saving for. Knowing what their overall financial situation is, and to have someone like us make the proper recommendations for you with your best interest at heart. Um, that’s a partnership. That’s gold. Uh, somebody that you can find and to grow with you over the years. Um, to be able to be a partner for all financial decisions.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:35] So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What’s the best way to get Ahold of you or learn more?

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:20:44] Oh, the best way to, uh, to get Ahold of us is to, uh, look at our website or go to, um, uh, send us an email, um, or our main number. Um, our. May I give that information? Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:59] Please start with the website because. Okay.

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:21:02] Uh, so our website, um, if you’ll bear with me just one moment, I should have this right in front of me. Beverly, do you by any chance.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:11] I have the I have Wfan, MLB.com slash the Garrett group?

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:21:18] Yes, that’s the one. I guess I don’t look at my website as much as I should. Um, and then, uh, our email email directly is m underscore Garrett Garrett at MLB.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:35] And MLB.com is the Merrill Lynch kind of, uh, main website. Yes.

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:21:40] Correct. Um, and then our direct number here is 404 2312506.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:48] Well, Mary Ellen, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Mary Ellen Garrett: [00:21:54] Well, thank you very much. I appreciate being asked today. Hope you all have a wonderful afternoon.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:59] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio. Thank you.

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