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Tim Swackhammer With Mold Medics

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Franchise Marketing Radio
Franchise Marketing Radio
Tim Swackhammer With Mold Medics
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Tim Swackhammer, CEO and Founder of Mold Medics, after a long career in sales and franchise ownership with several other companies, is launching the brand’s franchise opportunity in the booming mold remediation industry.

Mold Medics has continued to show impressive momentum, reporting a 20% increase in revenue year over year. But the brand has humble beginnings. Swackhammer did not build a career in mold remediation, or even contracting. His interest in franchising started years ago. He, his father and his brother opened Swack Business Group, a company that has taken on numerous business ownership opportunities. The collective now owns 24 units of cell phone retailer Wireless Zone, and after building the family business, Swackhammer has also been able to build Mold Medics from a mom-and-pop shop to a full-scale franchise operation.

The mold remediation brand currently has a corporate location in Pittsburgh and one franchise location in Beaver County, PA. By 2025, Mold Medics seeks to have 50 franchise units up and running and is setting its sights on development in the Northeast and Midwest.

Connect with Tim on LinkedIn and follow him on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Franchisee turned CEO launches Mold Medics Franchise opportunity with double digit revenue growth
  • Seeking to take the $200+ billion Mold Remediation Industry by storm

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Tim Swackhammer with Mold Medics. Welcome, Tim.

Tim Swackhammer: [00:00:43] Hi. Thank you very much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about mold medics. How are you serving folks?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:00:50] Yeah. So Mold Medics is a home service brand in the indoor air quality space. So our primary services are mold removal, mold remediation, cleaning, radon mitigation testing and other indoor air quality services.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:04] So what is the genesis of the idea? How did this come about?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:01:08] So really, I mean, I’ve been in franchising pretty much my whole professional life. It started a generation before me with my father. He was kind of a serial entrepreneur and heavily involved in franchising throughout his entire life. And really we were involved with a another home service brand. And basically while we were there, we saw that there was a large number of customers that were looking for solutions to mold and other indoor air quality problems that they just weren’t being serviced by the brands that were out there. Most of the kind of players in the mold remediation space were either large restoration companies whose primary work was with insurance companies and dealing with major water losses, fire losses, those kind of things. And they weren’t really that interested in the mold side of it, or it was companies that are jack of all trades, master of none, doing a variety of different things. And then, oh, they’ll come and raise some bleach on mold and kind of call it a day. So we saw a big opportunity here to really focus on kind of this niche and also bring my background, which is predominantly in sales and customer service, to really create a very customer focused brand. Because while there’s a lot of different excellent craftsmen out there in the home services and in the contracting space, a lot of it tends to be very lacking in that customer experience. So by making sure we have consistent, transparent communication, all of our software is in sync to provide that service. And really the entire experience is just very customer focused.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:46] Now having being a serial kind of entrepreneur and especially working in the in the franchising world, how do you kind of when you’re stress testing a concept or an idea like this, what are some of the things that you’re when you’re challenging kind of the concept? Okay, can this work is this niche have enough in there for us to make a go at it? Can you talk about how that looks and works? Like when you’re whiteboarding this out for the first time, when you say, hey, you know what? This might be an area where we might be able to kind of build a franchise brand around. Can you talk about how you discuss that and kind of stress test it?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:03:25] Yeah, absolutely. So what it was looking at, I mean, we’re active franchisees still in a few other brands as well. So we’ve got a lot of experience on the franchisee side and really kind of as we were building out mold medics, it was more just a consistent realization of the the processes that we’re putting in place to make this independent business really successful are a lot of the same things that we can build out and extrapolate and really. Make a franchise successful. We can we can bring these same our systematized services. We have custom software to handle the entire customer interaction, handle the bids for our clients, price them out, everything like that. Really as we were kind of building through that, it’s just like, okay, this makes a lot of sense for a franchise and just started really trying to operate our corporate territory as a franchise and as as we would if we were operating inside of an existing franchise brand and see how does that work, what do we need to do? And really, I mean, this is something that we’ve been working on for several years now to get a lot of the stuff internally really right. So that as we begin offering our franchise product, we’ve got something that definitely has some legs to it.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:46] So you had kind of the operations of a kind of home franchise baked already, and then it was just saying, okay, can we just adapt it to this niche of mold remediation?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:05:00] Yeah. It was as as we had as we grew more genetics, it was basically developing those into systems that worked for our individual business. But then, okay, we can really scale these, we can change them and have them work for a franchise support as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:16] Now when you have the concept and you go, okay, I think, okay, that’s the plan. This is how we’re going to attack it. When did you start getting kind of clues that, hey, we could be on to something? This could work really well.

Tim Swackhammer: [00:05:28] A lot of it came from customers. I mean, clients both inside our market and outside of our markets, people contacting us, saying that, hey, they’re looking for a company like ours, but not able to find it in their area. And do we know anybody that can do it? So there were some initial hints with some of those interactions. And then same thing with our existing customer base. They would go and relocate to another area and see if we can service several states over whatever area they’re in now. And recognizing that there’s there’s a need for more than just our individual market. And what we’re doing really isn’t being done most other places. So definitely saw that opportunity and really thought that we could wanted to try it and scale it and run it.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:13] Now, are the initial franchisees. Are they ones that have complementary businesses that they’re just adding this to a portfolio because they’re already working in the home anyway, and this is just another service they can add to it? Or are they people just starting out with mold medics and kind of branching out from there?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:06:30] So we definitely think that it could work in that that first scenario, somebody who has some other home service interests and wants to kind of add on additional services or additional operations because mean once you’re operating a home service brand, there’s a lot of similarities and a lot of overlap there. So I definitely think that could work. That being said, currently our franchisees are this is their business exclusively.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:56] And then so what’s it been like going to market? So how has it been how are people kind of are they grabbing, gravitating to this or is this a harder sell than you imagine, or is it something that’s easier than you imagined?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:07:11] So to be honest, we’ve really taken kind of a very slow, metered approach to bringing it to market. We have one franchisee currently up and running. He began operations in summer of last year, and he was somebody that we knew personally and really wanted to just basically make sure we start there, see how it goes, make sure everything’s going smoothly, see what we encounter. And really, as far as like marketing the franchise brand, we didn’t really start that until the summer was when we got the various media portals and advertisements running, all those kind of things. So it’s really been been an interesting process just to kind of get things going and really start the development side.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:01] Now, is this better suited like kind of is it a seasonal business? Is it better in some parts of the country and rather than others?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:08:11] Yeah. So there’s definitely some areas where it’s going to be unique geographically just based on where you’re at. Obviously, your coastal areas have a lot of different issues with hurricanes and things like that that can influence a little bit, but it’s definitely something that applies across the US as a whole. Even in people think like your desert areas don’t have problems like Arizona and whatnot. And the fact is they do. They have air conditioning that’s running consistently. It causes all kinds of leaks and issues that can really present themselves. They’re slightly different issues, but they’re definitely problems that would fit the fit the process and fit the brand in general. As far as the seasonality goes, that’s one of the things I really like about it. It is not a seasonal business. I mean, some of our services do have different seasonal ebbs and flows, just as any business really does. But it’s not something where we’re only operating during certain months of the year. I’ve done that in my past and it’s not something that I enjoy doing. The the constant yearly resetting of staff and everything is a it’s an exhausting process that I don’t want to do again.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:20] Now, do you envision this as kind of the owner, is the operator, or is this something that you’re going to quickly train someone to be out there in the homes?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:09:30] So I think it can definitely work both ways with Michael, our current franchisee. He started out as just sort of the man in the van and has since grown and he’s got an employee working for him now, doing a lot of the actual technical work, and he’s basically in more of that sales role. And that’s really where we picture a lot of our prospective franchisees coming in. And it’s a lot very similar to how I initially started it, sort of going out and filling all the roles initially. And then as we grew, as we grew our customer base and everything bringing on, okay, now we’re bringing on somebody to take over the technician role, bringing somebody else in to take over the sales role and continuing to scale from there to the point where ownership is completely out of the business. Now, somebody coming in better capitalized could do that more on the outset and we’re set up to support them as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:23] And then right now, are you selling individual units or are you selling territories or master franchises? What how are you kind of attacking this?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:10:31] Yeah, so it’s a territory based model. So geographic zip codes based on population and everything to really determine what the territory is. We are really actively looking for people who have potential for multi unit opportunities to take some of these good metro areas because nice thing as an emerging brand, we’ve got a lot of really good territory available and we want to make sure that that gets paired up with the right partner.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:00] Now, when you’re trying to identify the right partner, what are some of the qualities of that right partner?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:11:06] So a lot of it comes down to, I mean, work ethic, just general they’ve they’ve got to be willing to put in the work because obviously it is not unless you’re coming in very well capitalized and hiring on those initial rules. It is something that there will be some involvement on. And as any franchisee will tell you, building a business can be challenging at times. So definitely somebody who’s not really afraid of the work, somebody who understands people is probably the biggest factor.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:40] So they don’t have to have experience in mold remediation or kind of doing that kind of work at all. You’re going to train them on all that, right?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:11:47] Exactly. Not in the slightest. Yeah, I would I would really, to be honest, not overly interested in people that have a lot of experience in the industry just because we know our way and our process. And we’d much rather start with a clean slate with somebody who has customer service skills, has just a great personality, and is able to really take what we’ve done, learn it and implement it.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:12] Now is the opportunity for the franchisees only residential or does this work in commercial as well?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:12:18] So it’s primarily residential, but we definitely do work in the commercial space as well, mostly retail sort of light commercial settings.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:26] So if somebody is interested in learning more, what is the website, what are the coordinates?

Tim Swackhammer: [00:12:32] Yeah. So it’s more metrics. Franchising will take you right to information all about the franchise opportunity. Our regular consumer websites just Mediacom. So you can go and learn more about all of our different services and everything there.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:46] Well, Tim, thank you so much for sharing your story today. Congratulations on the momentum and best of luck in the future.

Tim Swackhammer: [00:12:54] Awesome. Thank you very much, Lee. I appreciate you having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:56] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

 

Kelley Rosequist With Dog Training Elite

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Franchise Marketing Radio
Franchise Marketing Radio
Kelley Rosequist With Dog Training Elite
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Kelley Rosequist has grown with Dog Training Elite from office manager to corporate trainer to CEO over the past decade. During the pandemic, Kelley was able to shift our business model to respond, and as a result, she successfully awarded and opened a number of franchise territories during a time when most businesses were struggling. She is driven by the impact that Dog Training Elite can have on families and their canine friends, saying, “Every day, I am amazed at the relationships we forge between your average family and their dog.” She is passionate about training service dogs for DTE customers, as well as through our nonprofit organization, The Malinois Foundation, and is always ready to answer Franchise Owners’ questions about the business model, training principles, and more.

Connect with Kelley on LinkedIn and follow her on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • The booming pet care industry
  • Demand for pet care and dog training
  • Dog Training Elite’s rapid franchise expansion over the past few years
  • Dog Training Elite’s franchise development strategy
  • What’s the next 1 – 3 years looks like for Dog Training Elite

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Kelley Rosequist with Dog Training Elite. Welcome, Kelly.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:00:44] Thank you so much for having me today. Lee, I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about dog training elite. How are you serving folks?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:00:52] Absolutely. So dog training elite is a mobile dog training concept. We come to our clients homes, work with them in their home, and really include them in that dog training process. We cover everything from basic obedience up to therapy dogs and service dogs as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:10] So what was the kind of genesis of the idea? How did this come about?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:01:15] So we got to have to fast go backwards a little bit here. About 50 years, my father was training, hunting dogs and really those canine athletes that we see in the world, those top tier dogs. And we are noticing more and more families that we are training these dogs for really just wish their pets could be a more active part of their life, too, that they could walk their dog without pulling and they could enjoy a day at the park with their pets. And so that’s really how we began to shift, is understanding that, you know, a lot of people were really struggling with building this relationship with their dogs, having the freedom they wanted to have with their dogs. And so that’s when we really kind of shifted into that pet sector, and we haven’t turned back since.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:59] Now, what do you attribute this kind of evolution of the kind of care of dog and pets in general with the population? Because, like you said, 50 years ago, you were training a dog for a reason, like there was a compelling reason to do this. And now people are doing this because it feels like natural and they’re part of the family. And I want to, you know, kind of enhance the relationship.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:02:24] I would say one of the biggest shifts that we’ve noticed is people are really considering their dog to be a part of their family. It’s no longer, you know, maybe even an extension of their family. It’s an integral part of their families. So that’s a really big part of it. And people are really understanding the importance of investing in their dog’s life. On average, people have these dogs 13 to 15 years, and so you really don’t have to trudge through that. It should be an enjoyable experience, particularly right now though. Lee Post Pandemic. We’re seeing this continue to surge throughout that COVID period. And those lockdowns, people’s dogs really became a part of their life. They were home with their dogs more. They were hiking, camping, doing all of these things with their dogs. And it has become customary now. And so we’re seeing more people just wanting to involve their dogs in every aspect of their life.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:24] Now, is there some kind of tips you can share for dog owners that they can do some of this work on their own as there some low hanging fruit? Maybe you can share some advice if they have a dog that maybe needs some guidance that you can give them some tips.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:03:43] One of the top places that a lot of people it starts to unravel for them is early socialization. You know, during COVID, that was difficult. But, you know, exposing your dog to as many things as possible, as many places, as many people is is really a good way to start the dog on the right foot, right paw, if you will, you know. But so that early exposure, that socialization, exposing them to new things and consistency, that’s where most people fall apart, too. And that’s really what we provide. But people can do that on their own. You know, when you give your dog a command, whether it’s just come to me, sit down, follow through, make sure they do it before you give up and move on.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:28] Now, I had a friend that their dog seemed like it had a lot of anxiety. It was very fearful of a lot of different things. Is there a way to like if you run into a dog like that, is there a way to kind of make them more common, comfortable?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:04:43] There is. So we work with anxiety a lot, especially right now post COVID because so many dogs weren’t socialized well by no fault of the owners. Of course, one of the biggest things a lot of people are natural inclination when a dog is fearful of something is to remove them from that stimuli altogether and to kind of coddle that behavior when realistically having a lot more exposure to that in a positive way, if we can. I.e. your dog’s afraid of men in hats. Get as many men and hats as you can to interact with your dog, give them treats, whatever their reward system looks like. And it’s kind of that exposure therapy, right? We do that with people. The exact same thing works for dogs in those situations.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:27] Now what about how to. When you add like a family member, then you’re transitioning the dog from being maybe the center of attention. And now there’s another kid or there’s another pet. Is there are ways that they can kind of make that go smoothly, that transition?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:05:44] Absolutely. The biggest way is to just transition without making a big deal of it. We tend as people to want to kind of overthink that and spend maybe extra time two months before the babies being born. Right, playing ball five times a day to try to make up for the time the dog is going to lose. But when we do that, all we really do is set an entirely new expectation for the dog that we absolutely can’t maintain. So some structured training prior to that transition will help it. But realistically, just trying to keep life as normal as possible for the dog throughout that process is the best thing we can do.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:22] So now let’s pivot a little bit to the franchise. Who is that ideal franchisee? I mean, they have to like dogs. Is that, though, is that kind of a knockout blow if they’re not like a super dog person?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:06:37] You know, not necessarily. They absolutely have to like dogs and want to be around dogs. That’s important. But we’re actually in the people business. I mean, at the end of the day where people forward dog training company. So our passion, our drive is about improving the lives of people through dogs. And so, you know, our franchisees definitely have to be passionate about people and improving the quality of life for them.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:04] And then so the training of the dog part, is that something that the franchisee can hire someone to be the actual kind of person going into the homes and doing the training?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:07:15] Absolutely. And, you know, our owners are split about 5050 on that. We have some owners that are very active in the training themselves, particularly the service dog training aspect of it. And we have some that completely run their business work on growing and scaling their business and hire those trainers.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:34] So now when you made the transition to be a franchise, how did that go? Can you talk about some of the learning that happened when you were making that transition?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:07:45] Absolutely. So we started the process slow. When we first decided the franchise, we really made that choice because we recognized how fortunate we were to be able to be a family operating this business in a way that was able to impact our communities and improve the lives of people in their dogs. So we wanted to give other families that opportunity, but it was really important to us to make sure that our model was successful and a completely different market. So that’s why we first opened up in Phenix, Arizona, and waited five years before we started franchising. Outside of that, we wanted to make sure that we could pick up this model, drop it in a new city with no name recognition, no roots, because we are quite rooted here in Salt Lake City and succeed. And it turns out Phenix was an even better market. So at that point is when we decided to kind of open up to international expansion, started slow, making sure again that we were able to replicate our model in many different markets. And fast forward to where we are today across the country.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:50] So now when you expanded and you go into new markets and even internationally, do you have to make any kind of drastic changes on what it looks like in these different markets, or is it kind of baked? And it kind of is a just kind of rinse and repeat situation. Now.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:09:09] At this point, it is pretty much baked. We’re able to come in and especially all of our foundational packages, training methods and types of training are doing well in every market. There’s usually the only changes we make is if we’re adding something to a market. If a market is particularly outdoorsy, we’ll focus more on our adventure dog programs if there’s lots of weddings in that area or wedding dog packages. So we really have different enhancements in different markets. But the actual business itself is pretty much similar in all markets.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:46] Is it similar like even like if it’s a rural market versus an urban market.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:09:52] It is given the fact that we’re doing that in-home training. I will say some of our owners who are in some more urban markets are looking at also are starting to also add some small facility concepts to really get those inner city people involved. But the majority of our clientele definitely live in those in the suburbs and rural areas.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:14] So what is kind of the expansion program now? Is it just kind of the world is your oyster and just like, hey, we’ll take on all comers or are you targeting certain countries, certain regions where you’re putting a lot of emphasis?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:10:29] So currently we are just focused on the US. So 50 states, the first goal is to be in all 50 states before we look at any sort of international expansion options. And at this point we’ve focused a lot of growth in the Southeast, although that area is about just pretty close to sold out. So we’re starting to move more westward in our focus.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:55] And then is there any kind of learnings you could share with emerging franchises when it comes to doing the franchise development?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:11:06] Yes, and the biggest thing I would say for us was to hire someone that we trusted. So we.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:14] Delegate. So the first move is delegate because it’s a tricky thing, right? Franchise development.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:11:19] Is.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:20] It’s a different business.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:11:24] Go ahead, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:24] Sorry. It’s a different business than your business, right? The finding of new franchisees is really business 100%.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:11:34] And for us, bringing on the right person was really important. So we did interview lots of franchise development companies and ultimately what led us to make the decision we made was finding a company that understood our culture and how important it was for us to keep that. Finding a franchise development team that was okay if they invested months into a person. And then I said, No, I’m sorry. That’s not they’re not the right culture fit. That was really important that we had someone that understood the whys of why we were bringing on owners and that we weren’t just filling seats.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:09] Right. So that takes good communication and it has to be both sides are kind of managing each other’s expectations.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:12:17] Absolutely. Yeah. Our franchise development team, as far as I’m concerned, are part of our internal team. You know, they’re not a separate entity. They really help grow our business and kind of define the direction of it by who they’re bringing to us.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:33] Now, can you share a story with maybe a franchisee that maybe kind of went into this day? I’m sure they have to be enthused. They all have to be enthusiastic. But maybe this wasn’t when they were deciding which franchise. This wasn’t like, oh, this was a no brainer. Maybe they said, oh, they kind of discovered it. And then you were able to kind of get them going and then, you know, they became successful. Is there a story you can share that is kind of meaningful to you?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:12:59] Absolutely. We actually have one owner in particular that came on with a lot of business experience. They had run and sold multiple businesses very successfully, and when they first came on, they were a little bit, I want to say, apprehensive isn’t the right word, but we’re very service minded as an organization up to and including just giving back to our communities, being very involved in that. And so they they were trying to compare everything really to dollar and cents, which, you know, if that’s all you’re doing is building and selling businesses that absolutely make sense. So they were still struggling with figuring out the whys of our business a little bit. They saw the economics. They knew that it was worth it, but didn’t quite understand how that all went together. Fast forward now. They’re our most successful franchise owner and if you talk to them now, economics wise, they are our top performer. But they talk more now about how important it is that they’re able to give back in their communities and how passionate they are. And it’s really cool to see people who have been really successful business owners and have proven themselves in that world to actually find a passion in the business that they’re running. So I say that’s one of my favorite stories is is talking with that group.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:23] Now, is there any thing you can share about how to help kind of articulate that? Because a lot of people, they’ll give lip service to the why and the values and the mission. But they’re you know, they’re always looking at the bottom line of, look, is this going to make money or not? And and it sounds like in your culture, the why is that’s not a not that’s not negotiable. Right. Like they have to kind of buy into the mission and have the values. That’s no matter how much money they have, you’re looking for the right culture fit over everything.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:14:55] Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:56] So how do you identify the and help? Kind of I don’t want to say persuade, but at least open their mind to, hey, this is important too and don’t neglect this. Or is it something that you just say, you know what, if they don’t get it, then there they are. They’re kind of self-selecting out for this opportunity.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:15:14] So I’ve I’ve found in our business throughout the entire genesis of our business that we firmly believe if you do the right thing, then good things will happen. And so that is why we do we give back to our communities so much. That’s why we care so much about our clients and whom we’re working with. But for when we’re talking to owners about it, really, we want them to see the value. But we do that through sharing stories, by being able to show the impacts we’ve made in our community by them actually getting to meet some of the people that we’ve impacted. That’s a part of our Discovery Day process, then really understanding the impact that they get to have in the world. You know, at the end of the day, if they don’t care about that at all, that is a deal breaker for us. But we know if maybe they just don’t understand it because they haven’t had that before, that they’ll find it. You know, one of the biggest pushback things we get pretty regularly that I find is kind of ironic, you know, as people are, you shouldn’t train dogs to. Money. You should train dogs because you’re passionate about it, especially service, dog training. And you know, our philosophy is why can’t you have both? And so we truly believe the right owners will find both in our in our model.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:36] But you don’t spend a lot of time overly trying to persuade them the light bulb has to go off at some point. There’s nothing you can really I guess there are things you can say to help lead them down the path, but ultimately they have to kind of get there on their own.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:16:52] Absolutely. And we want them to you know, that that’s how true passion is ignited is when you feel it, you see it, you experience it. And that’s that’s definitely something that we want our owners to to find on their own.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:04] So if somebody wants to learn more, where do they go?

Kelley Rosequist: [00:17:08] Dog training elite dot com is our website. There’s a ton of amazing information on there. Also encourage anyone to follow any of our social media channels to see the good that we’re doing in our communities.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:21] Well, Kelly, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Kelley Rosequist: [00:17:26] Thank you, Lee. I really appreciate you having me on today.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:29] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

 

Kim Seals With The JumpFund

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Kim-Seals
Startup Showdown Podcast
Kim Seals With The JumpFund
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KimSealsKim Seals, General Partner at The JumpFund

Kim is an investor in early-stage technology, health care, energy, fintech, and consumer products companies. Since 2013, The JumpFund has invested in more than 30 woman-led, Southeast-based companies across our two venture capital funds.

She has over twenty-five years of global expertise in human resource consulting, corporate and leadership roles. Kim’s experience includes leading M&A transactions, service delivery transformation, talent, compensation, benefits and recruiting program design, as well as technology development, selection and implementations.

Kim received a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Louisiana State University.

Connect with Kim on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Funding 101
  • The ROI of investing in women
  • Southeast entrepreneur ecosystem

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome back to the start of Showdown podcast where we discuss pitching, funding and scaling startups. Join us as we interview winners, mentors and judges of the monthly $120,000 pitch competition powered by Panoramic Ventures. We also discuss the latest updates in software Web3, Healthcare, Tech, FinTech, and more. Now sit tight as we interview this week’s guest and their journey through entrepreneurship.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:38] Lee Kantor here another episode of Startup Showdown, and this is going to be a fun one. Today on the show, we have Kim Seals and she is with the jump fund. Welcome, Kim.

Kim Seals: [00:00:49] Hi, Lee. How are you?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] I am doing well. I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about the jump fund.

Kim Seals: [00:00:56] Sure. Happy to do it. The junk bond is what we would call a micro VC, which means we’re a smaller size venture capital firm. We’re focused on investing in gender diverse women led startups here in the Southeast. We invest across all industries. So it’s really about are you headquartered in the southeast? Are you do you have a gender diverse leadership team? And then after that, it’s very traditional early stage startup metrics as we look to decide if we’ll make an investment or not. We started back in 2013, and in that time since then, we’ve invested in over 30 startups around the Southeast in just about every industry. So we are really excited about the progress we’ve made in our goal to get more capital in the hands of female entrepreneurs.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:46] Now, what’s your back story? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Kim Seals: [00:01:49] It’s actually a little bit of a different path. I’m not I don’t have a background in finance or investment or anything like that. I actually have a background in HR and talent strategy. And back in 2013 I was at mercer and we mercer’s a large global h.r. Consulting firm. We were doing some work with the world economic forum at that point on the mission around keeping more women in the workforce on par with men. And as I was looking at some of the research that Mercer did in conjunction with the World Economic Forum and was showing the real economic imperative behind this, really the ability to affect the GDP of countries if you can get and keep women in the workforce rates on par with men. I started looking to see was anyone really solving this problem? Where were women going when they were leaving the work place? And what I saw pretty clearly was many of them were leaving to start their own businesses and becoming entrepreneurs, as maybe there were some frustration with what was happening in traditional corporate roles. Maybe they needed more flexibility to be calling their own shots, whatever it might be. But women were starting companies at rates even higher than men, but they weren’t getting the funding. And I started looking at how I could be a part of helping to solve that problem and sort of becoming doing investing on my own as an angel investor through Golden Seeds up in New York.

Kim Seals: [00:03:12] And it was there that I met one of my fellow jump from partners, Christina Montague, who was also looking to solve the same problem. And she was looking to start a fund here in the Southeast. So she asked me if I would get involved and invest some money in the fund, help take some of my HR background, help coach some of the entrepreneurs that we were investing in. Because one of the things we know is a lot of women entrepreneurs are first time founders. They don’t really know how to grow and scale a company. You do a lot of that through your people strategy who you hire. And it was just on from there. I mean, again, it was a very nontraditional path and to becoming an investor myself. But I really enjoyed it over the last what are we going on nine years now and and really have found that my background in HR and strategy has been an interesting add to our team as we look at the entrepreneurs that we’re investing in and then how do we coach them through the lifetime of our investment?

Lee Kantor: [00:04:09] Now, you mentioned that there was some research that was part of, I guess, the impetus for you to pursue this. Can you share a little bit about that and and share a little bit about the disparity about how many women own firms get funded versus men? Because I think it is eye opening and not everybody is aware of of those kind of statistics. You probably don’t have them all off the top of your head, but you probably have kind of a general ballpark idea of what they are.

Kim Seals: [00:04:39] Sure. Absolutely. In the last several years, there’s been a lot of even some more updated tracking since what I was talking about back in the day. And the numbers are still pretty grim, right. If you look at the total amount of venture capital dollars that get allocated, it’s still something disappointing. Like less than 3% of that money goes to women led organizations. And that’s that’s really the problem that we’ve been trying to solve. And we’re trying to help these female founders get access to capital in a way that they have not been able to do traditionally. If you look at angel investment dollars, the numbers are better, right? So maybe 20%, I think was the last number I saw, close to 20% of investment dollars of angels go to women led companies. But when you’re in more traditional VC, it’s still a very small number. And then when you add on the component of race and you look at black founders, the number is even smaller. Like I think it’s somewhere around 1%. So. We’re pretty passionate about helping to solve this problem and helping these founders find the capital they need. Because on the flip side, the data also shows that women led companies are outperforming and are very capable of becoming big, scalable startups that deserve this investment.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:54] And that’s where the rubber hits the road in this in the business, right? Where the ROI of investing in women is very good and really doesn’t warrant the lack of investment if people just go by the numbers.

Kim Seals: [00:06:08] That’s right. And part of the way to solve this problem is to get more women in check records, because we know that women get a more direct, more thorough look at their at their startup or investment when there are women in the mix that are helping to evaluate these companies, because not always, but many times women are solving problems and challenges that directly impact women. And what we see is if you don’t have women in there listening to your pitch, you may be missing that perspective of really how big is this problem? Who wants to pay you to solve this problem? How big is that total addressable market? So when you’re dealing with with some of that, you can get eliminate some of those biases of perhaps the audience you’re pitching to, not understanding your product solution company. And so I think certainly when we’re talking about companies that are solving problems that that target women, it’s certainly helpful to have women in the room listening to the pitch. Right. And to jump at the jump ball. We have invested in companies beyond that, we’ve invested in clean tech, energy, 3D printing, medical device. But again, it is a part of the problem that there aren’t enough women out there that our check writers.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:18] Right. I’ve had the pleasure to interview some women that are involved in the fem care and then they weren’t getting funding because it wasn’t on the radar of a guy. Like it was something that they don’t even want to think about it. And they said they’re just passing where a woman is like, Oh, that’s a real problem. This is something this like so obvious. Thank you for sharing. Like, it’s a big it’s a totally different way of looking at it, but the guy doesn’t have that perspective and the woman lives it. So that’s real. Like this is that’s why it’s important to have everybody in the room and have that representation.

Kim Seals: [00:07:54] Yeah. I’ll give you one more data point that really backs up what you’re saying, which is every BI decision in every household, at least 85 to 90% of the time is made by a woman. And when you’re talking about health care related decisions, that number goes up exponentially into the high nineties. So if women are your buyer, then you’ve got to know more about that perspective. And so it just tells you that we should be looking at how this money is getting allocated and are we missing the real opportunity for a big ROI on our investments if we were investing in more women led companies.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:30] Right. And it doesn’t it’s not it doesn’t have to be a oh, that’s a nice thing to do. It’s a good business thing to do. Like. Right. It’s it’s great that you have kind of a female led fund that’s all in in this. And that’s super important. But it should be it shouldn’t be unusual. It should be part of all funds.

Kim Seals: [00:08:51] It shouldn’t. And I’ll I’d say I think it’s probably close to now 85 to 90% of our LP base are actually women as well. So we went after a thesis that women would invest in this asset class and women would invest in other women as another way to also make that point, that you should be engaging more women as entrepreneurs, as investors, as LPs, that women are. They play an important part in this entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:22] Right. And it sounds like you’re taking kind of a big role in building out this community.

Kim Seals: [00:09:28] We have been we were, I think, one of the first funds to come in and focus exclusively on women. We are seeing more do that now. And it was but back when we were doing it in 2013, we were getting a lot of feedback that our focus was too narrow. We were cutting ourselves off from good deals by only looking at women led companies. We were told we wouldn’t find investors. So we’re pleased to be sitting here nine years later with exits under our belt and having successfully deploy capital across two different funds.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:00] Now, you mentioned some of the industries you’re in. Are you like kind of totally industry agnostic?

Kim Seals: [00:10:07] We are. There are some industries where we feel like we don’t have a lot of expertize like food and beverage. That’s one we kind of tend to stay away from. But if people want to go to our website, the jump fund, our portfolio companies are all out there. They can take a look at them and they can see we’re in fintech, health care, tech, energy, traditional software service, we’re in HR and talent type spaces. So we really have invested pretty broadly. Across many of the industries.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:38] So now when you’re talking to a founder, what are some of the kind of green lights and red lights and yellow lights like? What do you like to see? What is kind of a turn off for you where you’re like, Oh, this is not going to be a good fit? Can you share a little bit of that for the people who are founders that are listening? Sure.

Kim Seals: [00:10:58] You know, obviously, we want to see companies that can grow and scale to be bigger companies. So we do look at the market opportunity. We look at the market size, total addressable market. So we have very standard criteria around there. We want to see traction. We want to see some proof points that that the problem that you’re solving is one that people will pay you to solve. But but when we look at the founder and our team, we want to make sure that you have a coachable, capable leadership team. We want to make sure that you understand the numbers and the financial metrics around your business. One of the red flags for me is that we are talking to a founder who doesn’t understand the economics of their business. So when we say what is the business model, how will you make money? What do you think is happening with your expenses? What do you see as your forecast over the next couple of years? If we have a founder who who can’t speak in detail and with a level of confidence about those financial projections, that’s one of those red flags for us that would make us pause and say, is this the right entrepreneur for us to invest in now?

Lee Kantor: [00:12:04] Is that do you have as part of your community or your ecosystem, a place for that person who may be just isn’t ready for you but has their heart in the right place and has, you know, the desire, but maybe just isn’t there yet from a, you know, skill set in terms of ready to launch a business and have a conversation with investors.

Kim Seals: [00:12:25] Sure. I mean, if I think about just Atlanta alone, there are so many great resources here in Atlanta for someone who’s just starting out, who needs more coaching and needs to get ready to ta ta and learn more about their business before they’re ready to take outside investors. We are at the jump fund and investor in a in a fund called the Fearless Fund. And this Fearless Fund has a a program called Get Venture Ready. And that’s exactly what their purpose is, is to take in. And in fact, there’s specifically focused on women of color who have started businesses and helping them get the grounding business principles they need and learn more about how to grow and scale their business before they ever start taking on outside funding. So programs like that Atlanta Tech Village has programs. They have a whole summer school program that has a nice curriculum that helps you with some fundamentals as you’re looking to to start your business or grow your business at D.C.. The city of Atlanta has the Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, where they select 15 female entrepreneurs and put them in a 15 month cohort and help them learn some of the things they may not be as well versed in that they need to know to be to move from that founder to that CEO role. So a number of different resources that we will refer entrepreneurs to if we feel like they’re too early for us. And then we’ll track them. We’ll say, add us to your distribution list. Keep us posted on the progress of your company. And who knows, we might come back around again and be ready to make an investment later on.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:02] Now, how did you find out about Startup Showdown and Panoramic Ventures? How did that get on your radar?

Kim Seals: [00:14:10] We are co invested with panoramic in a couple of deals, so I know the team over there know one pretty well and they reached out and asked me if I would be a judge and one of their sessions, I believe it was late last year and it was a great experience and I was happy to do it.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:26] Now, any advice for a founder that’s going through an event like Startup Showdown or they’re kind of some do’s and don’ts you can recommend them for them?

Kim Seals: [00:14:35] You know, I think it’s really important that you take advantage of the opportunity to be in this in this program, because there’s some mentoring and coaching that happens as they are looking to select those top companies that actually make it to the startup showdown. So I think that’s important to to to do those mentoring sessions to learn at your meeting some really interesting people that have donated their time to to help coach you. So I really do encourage folks to do that. And the second thing I’ll encourage you is practice your pitch, because you’ve only got a very brief amount of time. You need to be really concise and thoughtful about what you’re saying when you’re up there pitching. And how do you convey the really the important details of what we need to know about your company so that you’re positioning yourself to win to win the startup showdown?

Lee Kantor: [00:15:22] Now, having you mentioned earlier that you’re coming from a kind of a nontraditional path into this world. Is there anything about your background that is maybe a superpower of yours that is different than some? The other folks that are in this industry?

Kim Seals: [00:15:38] Well, I think it’s the piece around HR and talent strategy and my ability to coach the entrepreneurs as they’re looking to bring on new talent. Many times we invest in this in these companies when they were much smaller, maybe 2 to 3 or four people. And we have some that have now grown to be over 50, 60 people. And we have and it’s been great along the way to really help help them think through their people strategy. When do they need to bring on new talent? What kind of new talent? How are they finding the best talent? How to navigate sometimes when you’re not able to pay market competitive salaries because you’re also giving equity in the company. So I think my superpower has been my ability to work with those entrepreneurs on their talent strategies as they’re thinking about hiring, growing and scaling their company through people. It’s one of the most important things they’ll do.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:26] Now for the jump fund. What do you need more of? How can we help?

Kim Seals: [00:16:32] We are currently focused on helping our existing portfolio get their next round of funding. So I would say if you take a look at our portfolio companies and listening and it goes out to our website and you think you can help make introductions to later stage venture capital? We’re we’re still trying to bust for those walls, if you will, and get more capital for our entrepreneurs as they continue to grow as they’re doing their series A and their series B. So that’s predominantly what our focus is right now, is we have a lot of companies out there continuing to raise money. We as an early stage investor, a lot of times we’re we’re out for some of those later rounds, like the B round or the C round. But we still want to support and help coach those entrepreneurs and make introductions for them as they’re looking for those later stage venture capital dollars.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:19] Now, can you share a story about a founder maybe that you’ve worked with that you help take to a new level that and maybe even it exceeded your expectations and there’s.

Kim Seals: [00:17:30] You know, there’s probably a few, but I think, again, it’s in terms of my personal impact, it really is around one of our companies just entirely replace their C-suite. So they the founder is still there, but over the last 12 to 18 months realized that what got them to the point they were at now was not what they needed for the future. And I really spent a lot of time with that founder thinking through what the new leadership team structure needed to be. What were the skills and capabilities that she needed to bring on in this new C-suite to bring in people who would complement her skills as the CEO? And I’m really proud of the work we did. And the team that that she has in place now is the team she needs to take her to that next level.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:14] Well, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more about the jump fund, get on your calendar or your radar. What’s the website.

Kim Seals: [00:18:23] Ww Have you got the job for CNN.com or connect with me on LinkedIn and and send me a message there and we’ll make it happen.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:31] All right, Kim. Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Kim Seals: [00:18:36] Thanks, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:37] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:18:42] As always, thanks for joining us. And don’t forget to follow and subscribe to the Startup Showdown podcast. So you get the latest episode as it drops wherever you listen to podcasts to learn more and apply to our next startup Showdown Pitch Competition Visit Showdown Dot VC. That’s Showdown Dot VC. All right, that’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

Mike Abdelsayed with the Comedy Clubhouse, The Titanic Players and One Group Mind

by

MikeAbdelsayed
Chicago Business Radio
Mike Abdelsayed with the Comedy Clubhouse, The Titanic Players and One Group Mind
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TheComedyClubhouse

MikeAbdelsayedMike Abdelsayed is the current Artistic Director of One Group Mind, a first-ever comedians union, The Titanic Players, the only 2-time winners of the National College Improv Tournament, and The Comedy Clubhouse, the highest rated comedy club in Chicago.

He was an iO coach, 6-year iO house team performer, an understudy for Keegan Michael-Key at Second City, and a member of Second City’s Outreach and Diversity Company. He is a 28-year veteran of the comedy industry and have coached over 3000 comedians, some for as long as 7 years.

Many of his students have continued successful careers in The Office, Community, Arrested Development, Saturday Night Live, Reno 911!, the Jimmy Kimmel Show, Cougartown, The Mindy Project, Man Seeking Woman, Last Man on Earth, Key and Peele, Parks and Recreation, the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and the Ellen Degeneres show, to name just a few.

His original play, Wishin’ Control, was a critic’s pick in Performink. His comedy studio was a finalist for the Chicago Reader’s Best Venue for Stand-up in 2019. His show Toasted was the Chicago Reader’s Nine Places for Laughs in 2019 (and beyond) and a Must-See Show from The Torch. His studio was named a Best Comedy Club Near You by Urban Matters and a Top 13 Comedy Club by Time Out Chicago.

Follow the Comedy Clubhouse on Facebook.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Chicago, Illinois. It’s time for Chicago Business Radio. Brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firmspace.com. Now here’s your host.

Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kantor. And before we get started today, today’s show is sponsored by firm space. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And we have a great guest today. Today’s guest is Mike Abdelsayed. He is the owner and artistic director of one group Mind The Titanic Players and the Comedy Clubhouse, which is the highest rated comedy club in Chicago. Welcome to the show, Mike.

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:00:48] Hi, Max. How are you.

Max Kantor: [00:00:49] Doing? I’m good. Thanks for being on today. Excited to talk about everything that you’re doing in the Chicago community. So let’s jump right in. Tell me a little bit about one group mind. What is that?

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:01:00] One group mind is the first ever developing comedians union. So we’re basically trying to rally comedians and organize ourselves so that we can get sort of basic protections and compensation. And so we have about 150 members that each pay monthly dues. And in exchange for that, we give them training performances and opportunity to get compensation. Career building resources will bring in SAG. We’re basically trying to eliminate the the middlemen in our industry that might be taking the compensation before it trickles down to the rest of us. And so, yeah, we had probably eight or nine different spaces in the past. And in 2015 we made the move to purchase our own space and that that sort of eliminated one of the biggest middlemen being the landlord. And so we’ve been able to take a lot of a lot of steps since then in that space is the comedy clubhouse that you mentioned earlier is highly rated and basically our current venue and we hope to expand somewhere down the line.

Max Kantor: [00:02:13] So you started with one group mind first and then came the comedy clubhouse in that order.

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:02:19] Actually, what started first was the Titanic players. They’re a collegiate organization. We started that back in 1994 and they have an incredible track record of success. If you’re familiar with Sarah Sherman or Sarah Squirm, who is the recent featured player on SNL, she’s from that organization. The Titanic players existed from 94 until 2001. 2002 was the first time one group mine sort of made its appearance. And then the Titanic players expanded to four teams on the Northwestern University campus and eventually expanded to eight other campuses from University of Minnesota to Madison, Milwaukee, U of I. We had DePaul, Columbia all the way down the steps in Florida. And so yeah and it kind of one good mind kind of grew from the, the graduates of the collegiate program that sort of saw a need in the professional industry to have a specific type of theory being taught. And so we were less at that time based off of a union that was more or less looking for rights and compensation at the time. We’re we were more or less just looking for an organization that’s sort of taught one consistent improv theory.

Max Kantor: [00:03:47] It’s interesting for me to hear you describe your story and all the organizations you’re a part of, because a lot of it is you creating kind of what you wanted, you know, you creating the Titanic players or you helping create the comedy clubhouse one group mind. So why is it important for someone in comedy or in improv to have that entrepreneurial spirit?

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:04:12] Well, I mean, anyone that’s enacting anyone that’s that’s going to be a performer, they’re generally their own business. They’re, you know, they’re marketing themselves as a product and they’re trying to brand themselves. That being said, I think my motivations to start these things were a lot more predicated on a lack of opportunity for put blank people with my skin color in the industry. And so just having to create my own opportunity as is par for the course.

Max Kantor: [00:04:53] And now you’ve been in the comedy world for a really long time. What were some key lessons that you’ve learned that helped you create over time? The Titanic players one group mind in the comedy clubhouse.

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:05:08] I mean, the lessons big one is take ownership for yourself. I think too many people walk into the comedy industry looking for validation, looking for someone who might have a lot of experience or a lot of time or they look up to and they’re looking for that person to come back and say, Hey, you’re good and you can keep doing this. And all those people, you know, at the end of the day, no one can really tell you that you’re good until you tell yourself that you’re good. And so, you know, those folks that are looking for that validation, they might not get it. And, you know, you have to validate yourself more than anything. And I tell my students at Northwestern all the time that, you know, that that truism of opportunity, meeting, preparation, too often people lament that they don’t have the opportunities. And the reality is, is the opportunity is there, even if it isn’t, when it presents itself, or are you ready to go or are you not just kind of looping back a few things here? You know, at the time I performed on a team called Valhalla for six years. We became a legendary team on the team with several Second City mainstage directors and performers. And, you know, there was a show that ran at Second City that ran for right after 911, that ran for two years, sold out, which is unheard of for a Second City revue.

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:06:42] And it starred Keegan-Michael Key. If you’ve ever seen Key and Peele, they pulled them from Detroit to do this incredibly complicated, diverse role. And I found out from one of my performing friends that, hey, you should go see this show. Keegan doesn’t have an understudy. And so I went and saw the show. I absolutely loved it. And I tried to see it as often as I could, but I just couldn’t afford it. So I would stand outside in the lobby and just listen through the doors. And eventually I got to know the box office staff. And one day, you know, one of them said, Hey, why don’t you sit in Keegan-Michael Keys, understudy chair. Nobody sits there. And so I sat there and, you know, eventually learned a lot about the show. And Keegan eventually connected with me and he gave me a VHS tape and said, Don’t tell anybody I gave you this. And I took it home and I memorized it. And I looked at all the the blocking. One night I even snuck in the back to write it down. And, you know, at the time I was never in Second City. I could never afford to do Second City classes or things like that. And one day, an accident, you know, had Keegan’s wife in Detroit and he had to fly out there.

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:07:53] And they were about to cancel four sold out shows. And the cast said, Well, what about his understudy? And Second City said, he doesn’t have an understudy. And they said, well, who’s been sitting in his chair? And so they they called me at 1:00 in the afternoon on a Friday, and I saw that that caller ID, you know, and knew exactly what was going on. And once she got. Pick up the phone. She said, This is Beth. You know, I know this sounds a little bit weird. And I right away said, Hey, it’s Keegan, okay? I didn’t know if something had happened to him. And she said, He’s fine, but someone said that you’ve been watching the show. And I go, Yeah, I’m ready to go. And I went in there, you know, four shows, they two shows on a Friday. They hired me Saturday morning and two shows on a Saturday. And so I kind of asked people, Are you ready for that call when you get it? I always tell my students, Hey, if you got that call, were you ready? Do you have that portfolio? Can you just grab it and hop in a in a car and hop on a plane and see who you need to see? So. Sorry to ramble on like that, but there you go.

Max Kantor: [00:08:56] Well, so what are you doing? Because I love you know, I love what you were saying. And I think the story is so important because, yeah, you’re absolutely right. You know, you can’t just sit around twiddling your thumbs hoping that one day Second City is going to go. You know who we should call, Mike? Because, you know, if you weren’t actively going there and studying and being interested, like that’s just not how it works. So what do you do for the students that walk in the door of the comedy clubhouse? What do you do to help them build their portfolio?

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:09:28] I mean, we have an extensive training program and it’s probably, in my opinion, the best and longest and most thorough in the country. It was developed because of our collegiate system where we would have these teams together for four years before they graduated. And then we were able to, you know, take a look at a laboratory experiment across eight universities at the same time and tweak it and see what was working and what wasn’t. So, you know, what I tell people and I tell students is that, you know, that last step before success or fame is your good, you know? And so, you know, what’s what’s worse to never get the call to write for SNL or to get the call and they send you back three months later. I argue the second one is worse because you just told all your friends you’re an SNL writer, you know, and you weren’t ready, you weren’t prepared. So we teach long form improv as the basis of just getting good and getting better and getting comfortable with your voice, you know? And then we teach it as a as a common language of creation so that when we collaborate on something like script or on video, we can use common terms, you know, to describe something to be funnier, more or less funny than something else.

Max Kantor: [00:10:48] So, Mike, my, my question I ask every guest is how I close out every interview. What is the most rewarding part about what you do?

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:11:00] That’s a tough one. So I’m in a unique position. I live above the comedy club and so so I’m able to be here all the time and just getting to know certain people and comedians and the people that you’re working with, you know, you hope that you can affect change, but sometimes change has to go through a few generations of people before something actually happens. So it’s, you know, the people, you know, they’re my family. So yeah.

Max Kantor: [00:11:33] And Mike, if there are any improvisers or aspiring comedians that are listening to this, how do they get involved at the comedy clubhouse? And also, if someone just wants to come watch some of your shows, how can they do that as well?

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:11:46] Oh, cool. Yeah. So, yeah, we if you ever want to see a show, you can go to the Comedy Club Hotels.com and purchase tickets there. And in fact, if you are an aspiring improviser or a standup comedian, you can let them know at the box office and you can get in for free provided that there’s, there’s seats and yeah, I’d recommend the main stage mic and the main stage improv ensemble. The mainstage improv ensemble features a team called Tricky Micky. That’s a two person team that uses some of the most complex techniques in the industry to produce as much as a team of eight or ten would do. And then if you ever want to learn how to do this, you know, most people when they join us, they don’t have prior experience. If people think that you need a performing background, that’s not the case either, you know, so every three or six months we’ll do an audition. And once you audition, you join one group mind. It’s not like you have to re audition, but you start as an apprentice and then you escalate to an ensemble member, then a House member, then an artist and a member. And at each stage you sort of get more perks and more opportunities.

Max Kantor: [00:12:57] Awesome. Well, Mike, thank you so much for being on the show today. It was great talking to you and all that you’re doing for the Chicago comedy community.

Mike Abdelsayed: [00:13:05] Thank you so much, Max. I appreciate it.

Max Kantor: [00:13:07] And thank you for listening to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Cantor, and we’ll see you next time.

Intro: [00:13:15] This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com.

Spark Stories Episode 17

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Spark Stories
Spark Stories
Spark Stories Episode 17
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Virginia NavaVirginia Nava is a strategic advisor. She helps purpose driven visionaries, changemakers and trailblazers bring their vision to life through the power of strategy, communications and marketing.

She has been advising Purpose Driven Organizations and teams in different capacities for over 25 years, including nonprofit leaders, startup leaders and female leaders and entrepreneurs.

She believes that your business needs to serve. It should be a tool you can use to impact the world, not something that drains or energy and eats up all of your time.

Connect with Virginia on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Spark Stories, where entrepreneurs and experts share their brand story and how they found their spark. The spark that started it all.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:00:13] Welcome to Spark Stories Live Business Radio brought to you by the Atlanta Business Radio Network. Every week, entrepreneurs and experts share the stories behind the brand who they are, what they do, and why their brands matter. I’m your host, Clarissa Sparks. In our own series, we dive into the everyday operations of inspiring small business owners in our community. You can listen live on Saturdays at 10 a.m. or the rebroadcast at WW dot Business RadioX dot com. Today we’re going to talk about women entrepreneurs, how you can connect your gift with others so that it can have a deeper impact on the world. Please allow me to introduce one of our amazing community leaders who owns it? Virginia Nava. She’s a strategic advisor. She helps purpose driven visionaries, changemakers and trailblazers bring their vision to life through the power of strategy, communications and marketing. She has been advising purpose driven organizations and teams in different capacities for over 25 years, including nonprofit leaders, startup leaders and female leaders and entrepreneurs. She believes that your business needs to serve. It should be a tool you can use to impact the world, not something that drains or energy and eats up all of your time. Please help me welcome Virginia. Virginia, how are you today?

Virginia Nava: [00:01:48] I am really excited to be here. I’m really grateful. Thank you.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:01:52] Thank you. You’ve taken the step to launch your company, which is transformative power, and you’re brave in the world of entrepreneurship. I just have three questions for you today.

Virginia Nava: [00:02:06] Excellent.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:02:07] Would you please tell our listeners who you are, what you do, and why does it matter? So just give us a brief introduction, introduction of yourself, and we’ll give us all of the knowledge that we need for this call.

Virginia Nava: [00:02:23] Yes, of course. Yeah. So. So my name is Virginia Nava, and I’m originally from Mexico, and I’ve been living here in Atlanta for many, many years now. And what I do is helping people to really recognize their own inner greatness and to connect that inner greatness and gifts into the specific mission that they have and vision that they have for their life. One of the things that I believe is really important is to be a revolutionary in business. I believe that for many years we have been given a lot of formulas around business and how to have a career and how to approach even entrepreneurship. And to me, I think one of the major parts of transformation in my life was when I became an entrepreneur and I and I was like, Wow, I can do anything I want. I can wake up at whatever time I want. And, you know, I can basically design my life and it just spark in me a a new perspective about what I can do within my business. And it really spark a new perspective of how I can serve others with my marketing abilities, my ability to see people gifts and connect them into a specific business model that will work to share their vision with the world.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:03:56] That’s great, Virginia. And I think it’s so important to be able to tap into your gifts now for early stage entrepreneurs when they’re starting up, sometimes they can lack the clarity and even the confidence and knowing what their purpose in. How do you help someone to identify their purpose?

Virginia Nava: [00:04:20] Yeah. So how I do it is I help. I help people in many ways. One of the ways in which I help them is asking them questions and helping them realize that the answers that they find inside of themselves. Our what matters. I think a lot of the times we believe that what matters is something outside of ourselves and some form of outside of ourselves. And we believe that that’s the key of success. And I think as an entrepreneur, I think there are so many aspects of to entrepreneurship. There is a person who they are, there is the lifestyle they want, and then there are the circumstances that they’re facing. And I think a lot of the times people give. Advice without considering the three elements, right? So it’s really important to ask those three elements. So when you ask the question around purpose and how, how can somebody discover that for themselves? How I do it is I ask questions about their story, like, what is the life story and what are the lessons they’ve learned? Because along side of the story, a lot of times there’s some pain or there’s something that they want to change in the world, or there’s a desire to continue doing something that was great in their life.

Virginia Nava: [00:05:45] And from there I think it comes the heart desire to do something. So I think part of purpose is that is that heart centered desire, then that is the other aspect, which is your gifts. What are your own innate talents? Like who? Who are you? Essentially, I think there’s a lot of work that has been done around like a schooling, you know, like a skill set. There’s a lot of work on that. There’s there’s a lot of also research around like how you can find your personality traits and all that. However, one of the things that people miss the most is their innate abilities. Like some people may be like a natural caregiver, like some person may be like a natural leader, like some person, maybe a natural artist. Another person may be a natural, like, critical thinker and visionary. And if you are that person, but then you grow up in an environment that wasn’t conducive to that in many ways. For some people, their own natural abilities feel uncomfortable, which is really strange. Or sometimes it feels like, Oh, I haven’t used that, I don’t know how to use it.

Virginia Nava: [00:06:57] So why do people don’t know how to use it is because they were not they were not nurtured like like as children or in the workplace. Those abilities were not nurtured. So people need to go back to reclaim parts of themselves, of who they are. And they also need to go back and put themselves kind of in a mirror and not this mirror that is the inner critic mirror. And I think that’s the reason why a lot of people don’t go there, because they they go into this mirror that is a really critical mirror about all the things they don’t do and all the things that haven’t done. And we need to go see ourselves in this mirror. That is, if you cannot see yourself in the mirror of beauty and amazing ness about who you are, at least see yourself in a mirror that is neutral and it gives you an ability to see all of who you are. Because that’s the secret to success in entrepreneurship, and that’s the secret to resilience when entrepreneurship doesn’t work or when you know you don’t have the money from the founder to do it, that’s when you find that resourcefulness inside of yourself to succeed.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:08:12] Yeah. So, Vijay, it sounds like to me with entrepreneurship, you are you have to change the mindset.

Virginia Nava: [00:08:21] Yes.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:08:22] And having that entrepreneurial mindset will shift you into transformation.

Virginia Nava: [00:08:28] Yes. Yes, I love that.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:08:31] And oftentimes, like you said, go trying to minimize that negative or that inner critic so that you can transform and become either the new person or a refined person, if you will. And sometimes and I think earlier you touched on environmental and environmental when that plays a part of becoming. Sometimes you have to unlearn what you’ve been taught. You have to recondition the mindset so that you can embrace who you are becoming. Yeah, I think that’s a very important for our early stage and even our season entrepreneurs to really understand because again, this is a journey. And it doesn’t happen overnight and is evolutionary, so it’s always changing. So we talked a little bit about resilience, how if you are in a space where you don’t feel as resilient as you would like, what is something you can recommend or a strategy of some sort to help? The entrepreneur get out of that that state.

Virginia Nava: [00:09:48] Yeah. So, so I would like to totally answer the question around resilience and, and how important that is and. And I will also like to make some points around mindset and how to deal with the inner critic. So in terms of. Mai Mai in terms of resilience? In terms of resilience, I believe that resilience comes from perception. And I’m a I’m a marketer by trade and a brand.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:10:19] How do you see yourself? Right.

Virginia Nava: [00:10:21] So think about marketing and branding. Marketing and branding itself a perception, right? And that is like, okay, you buy this beautiful bag and then you feel like, you know, you buy this beautiful dress and you feel amazing, right? And then you have this perfume and like, you smell like roses, right? So there is in the world, there’s a creation of perception that is happening all the time. And it’s either sold to us like an advertisement all the time or it’s a perception that we made up of ourselves. So I believe that resilience I think people think resilience is that. It’s something you acquire. And I believe it’s true that you’re acquired through how you see the lessons and all that. But I believe also resilience is a perception and how is resilience of perception? So resilience is like if I perceive a circumstance. As really dramatic and really difficult. And then I and then I perceive myself as a person or a entrepreneur as a person. And they perceive themselves as really slow against the circumstance that the circumstance is going to win. Because because already perceptually, the circumstance is too big to handle. So there is this thing called perception and resilience, which is. Can you see yourself as capable of dealing with this circumstance and whether it’s capable to ask for help like sometimes? I know it’s really interesting, like capabilities, not always knowing what to do in terms of, you know, all the steps.

Virginia Nava: [00:12:16] Sometimes knowing what to do is saying, okay, I need to ask so-and-so for help or I need to go Google it literally, or I need to go to score again or places to go to. So, so resilience to me is, is when we take our power back from an experience, whether it’s we have experience and we can ask ourselves, what did I learn? Who did I become from this experience? And this is this inner conversation with ourselves of being aware of how we see ourselves in the mirror in response to the circumstance, and then being aware that the way we see ourselves is impacting our ability to act and then shift that perception and then invite other players into the experience. So most of the time, if we see ourselves as little as not employed, that’s not enough, that’s not perfect enough or the circumstance is too big and we can do it. And we are all in fear and self-doubt. Right? Which first of all, there’s nothing to be critical about because in many ways, a lot of entrepreneurs, I believe, are really courageous people because they took a step out of their 9 to 5 jobs, like some of them are like single moms with their children doing this, you know, like some of them have like amazing life circumstances and they’re doing this right.

Virginia Nava: [00:13:53] So first of all, acknowledge yourself or your courage to be an entrepreneur and try something new. And then second of all, say, you know what, it is normal to do something new and I don’t know how to do it, you know, and it’s normal to have those learning curves. And then now look at yourself instead of from the inner judge, inner critic, inner perfectionist perspective. And look at yourself from this loving perspective, this graceful perspective, and find yourself somebody who sees you like that and imagine how they will see you or find somebody like, you know, an inspirational elf or somebody you know. And imagine they look at you like that and then that will give you a new perception around your resilience. And to me, the first step to resilience is believing you are resilient and believing you can be resilient because it’s a really actually learn the skill, just like you learn math or Spanish or language.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:14:57] Yes, right. Yeah. You have to put it into practice. That’s good. That’s really good. And I think that’s one of. The many hats that we do have to wear as an entrepreneur, and that is a hat of resilience, being able to come back. Time and time again. And one of the things that I took away from for me just now is being able. Being confident. Being curious. Being creative enough to ask for help. We do not have to do it all. Being able to remove some of those hats is just as important as the many hats that we wear.

Virginia Nava: [00:15:43] Yes. And also, it is important to me, I believe what happened to me as an entrepreneur was know I was a corporate woman for 15 years before becoming an entrepreneur. And I have you know, I have a team of people and I have an agency that work with me. And I did amazing things. Right. And then when I became entrepreneur, I was like, wow, like I make all the decisions now, you know? And I feel like a lot of times. I think it is important to know that you can ask for help. It is important to also, you know, take out any belief around it that is not okay to ask for help. So whether you believe is like you are empower female and because you’re an empowered female, you do it all, you know. So it’s really interesting how even the feminine empowerment movement has made us almost like it’s scared of our own vulnerability and is scared to ask for help. So there is really no shame on asking for help and helping yourself or shaming that. And also, I think for me, when I was an entrepreneur, I think, you know, I have a successful career of 20 years. Before being an entrepreneur. And I think I want it to be like a successful entrepreneur, like the year they won, you know? And I assume I was like, Oh, because I have this successful, you know, corporate career. Like, I know what to do in entrepreneurship. So I’m like successful day one. I wasn’t really prepared to understand that entrepreneurship is like a total different game. And one day I was like, you know, I’m comparing my results from a 20 year successful career to a one month entrepreneurship. Like, two years, entrepreneurship is.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:17:34] Not the same.

Virginia Nava: [00:17:36] So allow yourself to say, Hey, I’m a beginner entrepreneur or I’m an amateur entrepreneur or I am a pro entrepreneur. And compare yourself with yourself and your stage. And don’t compare yourself with your previous self or some other people compare themselves with other people.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:17:55] I think sometimes too, we are in a society where we’re told we’re supposed to follow this new subscription of being on social media. And I think that with social media it’s hard not to compare because you’re looking at your success compared to such a global market. And so, again, being able to tune out the noise so that again, that you can focus on your own success and not the success of someone else’s, because it’s all measured differently. And I think that’s very important to. Identify at whatever stage that you’re in. Now, when you took the leap from corporate into entrepreneurship. What challenges did you face or that surprised you the most?

Virginia Nava: [00:18:52] Thank you. For me. There were many challenges. I think. I think what surprised me the most, I think first is realizing that that the whole entrepreneurship thing is an inner game. That was the thing that I was like, Wow, this is not an outer game. This is an inner game. It really surprised me how much of entrepreneurship really is a mindset and connecting with yourself and self-knowledge. And I didn’t know that. So I think for me, the challenges I had along the way were that I believe it wasn’t an inner game, it was an outer game. And then I was asking for the outer solution, right? So like if I was going to learn how to sell my product, then I would go to a sales training. Or if I was going to learn how to manage my books or my accounting, then I was going to go get to an accounting person. So during my entrepreneurship. I, I had challenges that were functional challenges, right? Like it was like the normal challenges an entrepreneur has like, you know, technical acumen about how to learn certain things or how to create a sales process, you know, things like that. But then what I realized along the way is that at some point in my career, I knew the processes.

Virginia Nava: [00:20:30] Like I went through the training, you know, I took the sales training, I took the technical training. I knew how to post a blog. Like I knew I knew how to build my website, you know, like. So basically I went to all this training on the how to do things, and then I had to ask myself, okay, I know the training of how to sell, you know, and it’s like nutrition, right? Like you’re not you should eat carrots, you know, whatever. And I like the things that you should do. And I knew all this thing. And then I was like, Well, if I know this things, then why am I not doing it right? Right. And that was when I was like, Oh, my God, nobody has told me, like, this is an inner game, you know, that that I feel uncomfortable promoting myself, that I feel comfortable doing the sales conversation and that it feels like a start to have and like to up front, you know. And I started really understanding that I have limiting beliefs around sales conversations that I believe I was a great closer and I believe I was a great restaurateur. But the middle I didn’t believe I was great at. Right. So what other things to me that I think in my journey was really, really surprising was.

Virginia Nava: [00:21:50] I. I felt there was a lot of skill that I needed to learn. But then when I learned them, then I went, Oh, I have to learn more of this, you know? And then I started really noticing this cycle of perfectionism that I had. And then really what has been really helpful to really overcome this challenges for me is that it’s this new mindset. So there’s this new mindset that everything can be learned. Like if you want to, you can learn it. So if you want to become a technical dude, you can learn it. If you want to become a master at your books, you can learn it. And then. There are things that you may not want to learn and then that you can then delegate. So what I learned was. In order to actually grow as a person during my entrepreneurship. I’m here to ask myself many more questions that I never asked myself at the beginning. Like, What do I really want? Like, what’s the lifestyle? Lifestyle I want? Like, you know how many hours I want to be with my son? Like, how much time I want to spend with my family? Like, do I want to learn that? Like, do I really want to do that?

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:23:10] Is that right? Stop learning and start implementing.

Virginia Nava: [00:23:14] Yes. And then and then I also ask myself, I guess what I found that is that the areas of my entrepreneurship that where working. Is because either a my perfectionist was like, well, we are not perfect yet, we need to be more perfect. Or There was a part of me that made them difficult that is always so difficult. And like and then what I learned as a to solutions for this is solutions for this one. Smarter mindset about something being difficult and then make it easy and ask yourself, what’s the first easiest step that I can do to learn this? Or What’s the easiest step that I can do to delegate this? Then the two Is that the interpreter? Shit, the game is another game. So perfection is really not helpful for entrepreneurship because entrepreneurship is about this constant learning. It’s this constant evolution. And then when we are trying to perfect something and we wait six months to perfect something and then launch the product six months later, we lost six months of feedback from our community to say, I like this title, I care about this subject, or, you know, I have no clue what you’re talking about. So we did the perfect thing and the perfect lunch, and then guess what? Like nobody showed up because we didn’t ask. And if we have asked in January, we’re not to launch something and then nobody cared or nobody asked questions. We could have pivot the question or the messaging. So one of the things to me that I learned was I have many challenges. I thought the solutions came from the outside and then I did it over and over again. And then, you know, that that says like whomever is doing the same thing over and over again, it’s like not the greatest idea, but I guess there’s a better way.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:25:15] We call that insanity, right?

Virginia Nava: [00:25:17] Exactly. So I was doing that and then I was like, it’s not working, so why isn’t that working? And it really made me realize that it was it was the way I was approaching and thinking about it. So mindset is such an important thing. And in your next question, I could I could give some tools around this if that’s helpful for your community.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:25:36] Yeah, I think, like I said, it’s I think it’s definitely important because a lot of my listeners have experienced that same thing. We take a course at the course. I like to call them course junkies and we go from webinar to workshops to trainings to different podcasts, and we’re looking for these answers, these solutions. But as you stated, the answers and the solution is is within us and we have to be able to identify that so that we can change those limiting beliefs to go and launch the course and not hide behind the shield of perfection. I think perfection can come with paralysis and hold us in a place that we aren’t moving as swiftly as we could or as we should. So I think that it is very important. Again, you know, what is being echoed in this conversation is the mindset we have to change the way that we see ourselves so that we can show up for our clients. And we talked. We started the conversation with purpose and time, that purpose to your gift. If you’re trying to learn other skill sets, you’re now being distracted from your true gift.

Virginia Nava: [00:26:56] Yes.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:26:57] So you have to be able to block out those distractions so that you can focus on that. I like to say that God given talent, that God idea, whatever that is serving you, I think that is very important that you stay in tune.

Virginia Nava: [00:27:15] Yes. And if I may, can I can I share a tool? Yes. So so one tool that that I have on with this is I’m actually writing a book about this is that. It is important that you see yourself essentially. And what I mean by this is I make a list of all your qualities, your introvert, your extroverted, your compassionate, your kind, your loving, your caring. You are creative, you’re a thinker. Your challenge. People make a list of all those things. And then ask yourself, how can I use this to get to where I want to go? And it’s just so magical when you really start using your own powers to go to where you want to go. And then the other one is. You know, be aware of perfectionism and the trap of it and be aware that you’re a perfectionist. You put a standard, that you put the bigger standard, and then you got the bigger standard, and then you don’t get to where you want to go. And instead of focusing on that standard, focus on the impact you want to make when you when you stop putting that, how do I look like, you know, is my hair perfect? Is my post perfect? Like, is my grandma perfect? Like, for somebody like me, you know, it’s.

Virginia Nava: [00:28:45] Stop focusing on that and then think about the opportunity that you’re giving yourself to express who you are and the opportunity you’re giving to another human to come in connection with you with that amazing gift you have, that amazing idea you have. You know, I remember seeing this post one time that said that something like like somebody has a vision board. And in that vision board, there is you and they’re waiting for you. They’re like, you know, they have you their vision board. And the only thing you have to do is show up and write down the post. And because somebody out there put you on the mission board like that happened to me recently, I put somebody in my vision board and the person showed up and it’s like, Oh my God, I was praying for you. I’m so glad you connected with me and share what you do. Because, you know, I think we believe that it’s the opposite. Like we believe there’s nobody out there for us. And what if we actually believe that in the vision board of somebody is the specific title of what they’re looking for? And we’re here, we’re like, Hey, we’re here, and we’re showing up and we’re just got to help somebody else with our gift.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:29:55] Yeah. Again, purpose, gift. Impact.

Virginia Nava: [00:30:01] Yes.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:30:03] And the to me, the key ingredients for all of those things is showing up. I think we miss the value in just showing up. And when you show up, unexpected things happen and that’s when you make a greater impact. It’s not about influence. It’s about impact and being able to reach who your destined to reach. And again, block out all those distractions. The comparison analysis and show up for who you were. Purpose to show up for.

Virginia Nava: [00:30:40] And also shut up gracefully, like shut up lovingly, shut up compassionately and like and be compassionate to yourself and your process and like and love yourself along the way of showing up so you don’t show up from a pushy energy and that is going to get you to be burned out. But I think when we shut up and we include ourselves in the process, you know, like right now I’m showing up and I’ll show you I have a candle next to me, right? Because I like, you know, I had to take care of myself as I’m here. Right? Because I don’t know you yet. Right. And I’m trying to get you comfortable with you as my community. Right. So one of the things I did is I light a candle for myself to feel like, you know, to feel kind of love, right? So can you do something little for yourself like that that gets you to know that you love yourself and you love your self now where you are, you know, so that you can shut up in a way that, you know, if you didn’t make it perfect or nobody liked it or whatever, you know that you can know that you love yourself, that you know that you’re there for yourself and that and the almost becomes, I think entrepreneurship can become this beautiful relationship of self-love and self expression and that, you know what, like you put your video out there, you put out there and you love yourself and then you say, nobody saw it.

Virginia Nava: [00:32:09] It’s not true. You saw it. Yeah. Because you are listening to yourself like this. I talk to my son. I’m like, dude, everything you tell yourself you’re listening. Yes. So everything you do, you know, like showing up to the one person that is you, that you. First of all, I think we need to show up to ourselves like we need to share our gift and say, this gift is important. I want to share it. The fact that you go with your photo on Instagram or like you call somebody in a circle or a networking group is an act of self love. And a lot of times we don’t think that that way. And and then we think that the love comes from the outer and somebody is going to love us by hiring us or whatever. And I believe that that’s just a byproduct of us loving ourselves and us honoring our gifts and like and it’s not selfish to honor your gifts because actually you are becoming a person of service when you do so.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:33:05] Yes, service. I love that. I think that is very, very important. Again, the service servant leadership. In entrepreneurship. I think that, like I said, that’s another staple that you have to have to make this. And I tell people all the time, you have to trust the process. And you have to give yourself grace. Yeah. And when you give yourself grace, you just show up again. Beautiful things happen. Beautiful things happen. And, you know, you said you’ve been in entrepreneurship for what, how many years now?

Virginia Nava: [00:33:42] It’s been over nine years.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:33:44] Over nine years. So I’ll put you in the the season category.

Virginia Nava: [00:33:52] I said that I think I’m an amateur. Like pretending to be seasoned.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:33:58] No, no, no, no. You survive over three years. So that means that you’re constantly growing and you’re giving you’re continuously giving yourself grace throughout the process. But do you do you read any books or podcasts or anything that kind of keeps you prepare for what’s next?

Virginia Nava: [00:34:20] Oh, my God. I love I love, you know, I love books especially and I love personal development programs. And, you know, I can share some tools. Like, I actually took the E Connell class on how to manage the psychology of time.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:34:39] Oh, interesting.

Virginia Nava: [00:34:40] It was like, oh, my God, it was an incredible class because it was so practical and it really shared like. Like how time is actually like like a practice, you know, like, like a yoga practice. Like how you just her time and that was like to me it was so transformational to me to see that program. Also, I was in that class with the woman and. The associated time with resources and money in a way that I’ve never associated it. And I was like, Oh, how I use my time, you know, has a relationship with my abundance and I and then I take this book. So let me tell you books that I love. So a book I love is the Grade by Dr. Magdalena meier. I actually know her in person because I met her at a woman event in New York. She’s a neuroscientist, and she basically teaches you how to do the whole work life balance thing. And then she has this thing called the grid and then you have all the sections and then you’re able to. To see all the areas of life and then how you’re putting them. Because I think for me, before I was successful, like I have a 15 year or whatever, 20 year career, but then I work 80 hours a week. So yes, I was successful in my career. But then if you see other things, like I was really lucky that I have really loving friends and a loving husband and they’re really low maintenance, you know.

Virginia Nava: [00:36:10] So I was lucky that I was able to have good relationships at the same time. I had 80 hours a week work. However, now I have a different perspective on my count and nurture them and make time for them and myself. And then there is another book that I think it would be really helpful for your community, and I recommend it to the people I coach and teach all the time. And it’s called The Art of Money by Barry Tessler, because for me as an entrepreneur, I had no clue how to do personal finance thing. Like I went to school and I knew corporate finance and I knew like how you do like a balance sheet and all that. But I didn’t know. And in many ways I think when you are bootstrapping your business, it is not just about professional finance, but it’s how you manage your personal finance to bootstrap your business. And Barry Tessler talks about the elephant in the room. Yeah. And it talks about like the emotional side of money. And I, it took me like five years to go to get that book because I wasn’t ready the first four. But when I read it, it was like a really amazing and is really feminine. So she puts a lot of compassion and on shaming and like, I really like man, like, you didn’t know this. Like, okay, like give yourself some grace and then learn it. So that, that book was really great for me and my development.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:37:33] Very good. Very good. Now, how, how can my community support you?

Virginia Nava: [00:37:40] No. I think for me, I am in a mission to really help people. Like find their spot in the world. Right. So I believe it’s like, imagine you have a job ad and then the job ad says you and then you have your gifts. And then there’s somebody out there that needs them. Right. So I great at a school forgets that it’s actually all my course is done in my Virginia dot com website that has three core courses I created, which is called Discover Your Inner Gifts, Create with your inner gifts and Share Your Inner Gifts. And one of my missions is that I want to help people that think that outer is going to be fixed and then it’s not and it doesn’t get fixed. And they think that there’s something wrong with them because it’s not getting fixed. Right. Because a lot of people are saying because as I well do, you’re not doing the right thing. And I want to help society by being like if you really knew yourself, like if you really knew all that dress shoes to have inside of you, you would live your vision. You will live the life you want, because then you will stop thinking that the only way to do this is to get outside resources.

Virginia Nava: [00:38:56] So one of my missions and one of the ways I think your community can help me is, you know, can they have an opportunity for me to share an article? If they have an opportunity for me to be interviewed, if they have an opportunity to download one of my books or simply, you know, one way you can help me is if you’re a mom or a dad or at auntie or grandma or like, you know, you influence another child. Even though I’m not a specialize in children, I think. If you can give them what my grandma gave me, gave me, which was see their gifts, acknowledge them. Like every time you see another person, you can help me create a movement by acknowledging the gift of another. So next time you see your best friend say you are amazing at cooking, you’re amazing and caring for others. Next time you see a child and their inner critic is coming because something is failing and not working, notice what they’re good at. And next time you see yourself and you’re like, you know, you’re being mean to yourself because something didn’t work out. Notice one thing that you’re amazing at and that can always be like, I’m an amazing, resilient person or I’m really courageous or I’m a great learner.

Virginia Nava: [00:40:14] If you can help me create a movement of gifts, I think the world will be better because I believe it’s like it’s like we are a big world, like a big puzzle. Right? And it’s like almost like a big puzzle that hasn’t been built. And it’s like only three pieces there. And there’s all these leaders, you know, like Oprah and all these amazing leaders. But then I know this sounds weird, but Oprah and like Williams and I always amazing. People need our help. Yeah, they need us to step up, and we don’t even need to step up, like, be Oprah, right? We need to stop in our community. We need to step up and LinkedIn. We need to step a step up. And like Instagram, we need to step up and whatever, you know, the work that you do, we need to step up in our family. So really step up. Don’t be shy with your gifts. Like God didn’t give you your gifts to be shy like it gave you you didn’t give you your gifts to be humble like, you know, like humbleness meeting like I’m going to hide them and keep them that right. Gifts are given to be used.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:41:23] Use your.

Virginia Nava: [00:41:23] Gift. So use them. And so that’s the way you can help me. You can have my mama. And then maybe Clarice. I can put my email and maybe you can put a story and share how you use them and like what happened. Because I love to hear that story.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:41:38] I think we just created in our entrepreneurial minds a new movement. And we go into the gift movement and get people to encourage them. I think that is so important. People don’t often hear the value that they bring to the friendship, to the what they bring to the table. And I think if we can hear that enforced, yes, it will make change an impact in its own right. So I think that’s an excellent idea. Virginia, to the gift challenge.

Virginia Nava: [00:42:14] Yes.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:42:14] Yeah. And we you know, and it starts with us when we just kind of, like you said, send that text message, send an email or in your if you’re in person, just tell someone the value in the gifts that you see in them. And I promise you it will make the world of difference. And a greater impact. So, again, thank you for sharing. Look, thank you for sharing that challenge. I think that is super important. Super important. And we’re happy to support you in any way that we can. Where do you hang out on Facebook or LinkedIn? Where do you hang out?

Virginia Nava: [00:42:53] Well, my favorite place to hang out is LinkedIn. Definitely. There’s something about community that I like, you know. So, yes, you can find me on my LinkedIn and basically has my same name here and you can find me there, disconnected me. And then I put a lot of resources and stories and lessons I learned. I also have an Instagram account on Facebook that I don’t put as much information there as I do, and I just think that LinkedIn, there’s more entrepreneurial centric information. And also on my website, I’ve been writing these amazing blogs with this amazing co author I have, and they’re really tool driven. So you can also find them there in Virginia, Napa, and yeah, and I have several books. I actually like that. There’s a book I wrote called Your Unique Gift and that if you if you’re interested, I can give an access to your community so they can access this book.

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks: [00:43:50] Yeah, I would love to have the link so that we can support you in that way. Virginia. Thank you for sharing who you are, what you do, and why it matters. You know, here in Sparks story, we like to celebrate business owners today and every day. So our listeners. So please remember to go out and support your local businesses, express your support on their social media platforms. Like she said that she’s at Virginia now. And thank you for your time. Thank you for your expertise. And I want you to create a great day.

Virginia Nava: [00:44:25] Thank you. Thank you so much.

Intro: [00:44:29] Thank you for listening to Spark Stories. If you’re looking for more help in gaining focus, come check out our website where you can find episode show notes, browse our archives and access free resources like worksheets, trainings, events and more. It’s all at WW. She sparks dot com.

About Your Host

sparkstories2022

Dr. Clarissa J. Sparks is a personal brand strategist, trainer, mentor, and investor for women entrepreneurs. She is the founder of She Sparks, a brand strategy design consultancy.

Using her ten-plus years of branding & marketing experience, Dr. Sparks has supported over 4,000 women entrepreneurs in gaining clarity on who they are, what they do, and how they can brand, market, and grow their businesses. Using her Brand Thinking™ Blueprint & Action Plan she gives entrepreneurs the resources and support they need to become the go-to expert in their industry.

Follow Dr. Clarissa Sparks on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Kieran Scott With Pestmaster and Patio Patrol

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Franchise Marketing Radio
Franchise Marketing Radio
Kieran Scott With Pestmaster and Patio Patrol
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Kieran Scott, Brand President of Pestmaster, and Justin Kendall, Pestmaster Franchise Owner in Virginia, have recently been named to the Diversity Council and Wildlife Committee respectively within the National Pest Management Association. The association is a vital part of the pest control community, and its selection of Scott and Kendall is an effort to expand its expertise.

Scott is an immigrant, coming to the U.S. about 20 years ago from Ascot, England. He is also a proud member of the LGBTQIA community and was announced as Pestmaster’s brand president in 2021. The NPMA Diversity Council educates members about the benefits of diversity within the industry; provides tools for members to increase diversity within their organizations; promotes NPMA membership to minority owned pest control operations; and collaborates with other NPMA Committees with special issues and education.

Kendall has been a Pestmaster franchisee for years and recently acquired a wildlife business as an add-on, making him a perfect addition to the Wildlife Committee. The Wildlife Committee addresses the specialty of wildlife management, which includes any animal not covered by the traditional pest control license.

Pestmaster is the 65+ unit pest control franchise based in Reno, Nevada under the Threshold Brands unmbrella. The committee announcements signify the brand’s commitment to bringing pest control into the future with a focus on technology, updated branding and bringing on key team members.

Kieran is a graduate of the Georgetown University Franchise Management Program, and received the Certified Franchise Executive designation from the International Franchise Association. Kieran lives in Martin County, Florida with his 9-year old Chow Chow / Pit Bull mix, Rosie.

Connect with Kieran on LinkedIn

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Kieran Scott with Pest Master and Patio Patrol. Welcome, Kieran.

Kieran Scott: [00:00:44] Hey Leo, thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about those two brands. How are you serving folks?

Kieran Scott: [00:00:50] Yeah, great. So Test Master is a full service pest control company in the integrated pest management space, predominantly serving government contracts. We’ve been around for 40, 43 years. Founded in 1979 out in California. We’ve got about 45 franchisees across the country actively looking for more franchise partners to join join our team. And then Patio Patrol is a five year old mosquito, flea and tick company that we recently rebranded from what was a company called Fly Pho. And so two years ago, threshold brands purchased made promoting kilts and what was then fly pho. And over the past seven months, we’ve transitioned fly pho into patio patrol with more of a focus on general outdoor pest quality. Outdoor pest solutions is our is our tagline their outdoor pest control company servicing really mosquitos, fleas and ticks.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Kieran Scott: [00:01:47] Yeah, so I’ve been in franchising for over a decade. I started out actually as a sandwich artist at a local subway in my hometown. I was 14 and I’ve just really I fell in love with franchising ever since. And so I was with Subway for close to a decade and grew to be a regional manager overseeing 12 restaurants in the Greater Salt Lake City area. I then joined another home services company, Mosquito Joe. At the time it was owned by bus franchise brands. In 2015 was with them for four four and a half years. They sold to Neighborly, at which point I joined the Scent Hound team based in Palm Beach County as director of operations, kind of leading their franchise efforts. I was with them for about three, three, three and a half years, and then recently, just six months ago, became the president of Pest Master and Patio Patrol, the two pest control companies within Threshold Brands.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:43] So what is it about the kind of the franchise model that attracts you and is so that you’re so passionate about?

Kieran Scott: [00:02:50] Yeah, great question. So I think it’s the opportunity for everyone to own a business, right? And I think that’s where I get really passionate about people that don’t look alike or don’t sound alike, all kind of being able to follow one model or one scalable process. And that’s what refranchising really is. It’s a business in a box or it’s designed to be a business in a box that people can follow and hopefully get a scalable result from. And so that’s where I find passion.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:16] So now since you’ve worked with multiple brands over the years, is there something that you’re looking for that might be different in the franchisee and the brands that you’re working with now?

Kieran Scott: [00:03:28] Yes, I think that we’re really looking to build a diverse group of individuals at Pest Master and Patio Patrol. Right. People that don’t come from all the same backgrounds, all the same stories, because I think that’s where that’s where franchise businesses flourish, is when they have that kind of. Inclusion of other people’s thoughts and experiences in addition to their own. And so so one, we’re looking for franchisees all over the country that come from diverse backgrounds. But second, I think the best quality of a franchisee is one that can follow that process. Right. We’ve spent years refining that process. You know, Pest Master has been around for 43 years. So we have a good scalable solution there. And so for folks to come in and follow that process, I think that we’ve built a pretty good, pretty good system.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:14] Now, you mentioned diversity, and I know that recently you’ve been kind of part of the National Diversity and Wildlife Committees. Can you talk about where you see that as maybe it maybe it’s not where you’d like it to be, but where you see opportunity, where it could be really a game changer for not just your franchises, franchise brands that you represent, but just the franchising as a whole. If they can become more inclusive and make more concerted efforts to, you know, go after a more diverse franchisee.

Kieran Scott: [00:04:53] Yeah. So I think that I currently operate in this intersection between the pest control world, the integrated pest management world, and also the franchise world. And in both of those sectors, franchising itself and also pest control, there’s a need for diversity. And thankfully, both both kind of groups or both both associations have over the past decade, 15 years been really focused on increasing the diversity within within those segments. So pest control has become much more diverse and franchising has become much more much more diverse. But there’s still a long way to go, right? Franchising still has that notion of being, you know, older males selling franchises to other older males, you know, and then same with pest control. It’s very male dominated. And so I think there’s diversity still needed in both. But when you take that and apply it to other franchises, I think that the benefit you get by incorporating other people’s opinions and ideas and histories and experiences just makes your brand that much stronger, right? I think when I look back on my experiences as an immigrant to the US, I certainly have different experiences than someone that was born here. Right? And so I bring a different experience. It’s not any better or any worse than than someone else’s just happens to be different. I think when you blend different experiences and different histories, you just get a better result.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:17] Now is there anything if you were to talk to other leaders of emerging brands, is there anything actionable they could be doing to just do better when it comes to diversity and inclusion?

Kieran Scott: [00:06:31] Yeah, so I think I think a couple of things and doing better. I think, one, when you’re hiring for someone, make sure that you’re challenging your own opinion. Right. I think that too often hiring managers get focused in on hiring people that think like themselves or act like themselves or look like themselves. And that brings about someone that has the same same background and it doesn’t offer that diversity of opinion. So I think, first, challenge your own opinion. Be willing to accept a different answer. And then from a from a very actionable or tactical action. I think making your job posting nationwide or being willing to hire someone nationally or even potentially internationally so that you can incorporate people from other countries as well. At the end of the day, makes your business more diverse, right? When I joined Mosquito Jo, I was out I was out in Utah and I relocated to Virginia Beach at the same time that our director of digital marketing was relocating from Atlanta. And so we both brought different experiences and different histories to Virginia Beach and to Mosquito Jo Brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:37] Now, isn’t the challenge when you when you’re part of especially an emerging brand and it’s it’s one thing to at least give lip service to the importance of this. But in reality, when you’re looking to hire, especially at an early stage, that you go to the usual suspects. If I went to ABC University, I’m going to look for ABC University alums or my own kind of circle, or if I was part of this fraternity or sorority, that’s where I’m going to go to first. And then inherently when you do this, you know, hiring early people that are people, you know, or people or that you know, know, you’re inherently going to get people that look like you like it’s. Yeah, that’s right. It takes a lot of kind of you have to really be mindful and purposeful to go elsewhere and say, you know what, I went to this school, but I’m going to go to the historic black colleges to look for my next chief marketing officer, or I’m going to look for the next higher in that department. Like, I just think that it’s a difficult thing to ask an emerging brand, especially where it’s. They’re already at a high risk period where they’re vulnerable and then their first moves are early moves to go into an area that they don’t know or or aren’t familiar with. You’re asking a lot. So is there a way to do this kind of elegantly and effectively?

Kieran Scott: [00:09:02] I think what I’ve seen be successful both both as an employee and as the employer is to use those third party recruiting agencies. I know that they cost money. I know that sometimes there’s a big fee involved. But they really take that notion of hiring someone like yourself out of it. Right. Because that that hiring agency is not worried about what you look like or where you went to college. They’re more concerned about where that candidate brings their experience from. And is that candidate the best fit for your business? And so when I’ve used so I’ve actually I’ve been recruited by recruiting firms three or four, four times successfully, and that’s brought me all over the country. And then similarly, when I’ve hired other individuals, I’ve also used them and I’ve found great success. And one example is a pest master. We just brought on a PhD entomologist, our first PhD entomologist, and she happens to be a female immigrant. And so we weren’t necessarily out there looking for a female immigrant, PhD entomologist. Right. Which I think is a very small subset of the PhD entomologists out in the world. But we were looking for the best candidate possible. And by opening up our horizons to looking outside of Reno, Nevada, where our headquarters is, we found someone in Orlando who worked for a competitor that happened to be female, that happened to be a PhD entomologist and happened to be an immigrant, but was the absolute best fit for our business. And so I don’t necessarily think that you have to go out and kind of identify the quality that you’re looking for. Right. You don’t have to go out and say, I’m going to go hire an African-American or I’m going to go hire a member of the LGBTQ community. But I think expanding the horizon beyond your immediate doorstep very easily just brings new opinions to the table.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:52] And then you find that by going to these third party recruiters that you are able to do that, or they’re able to do that because that’s just built into how they operate.

Kieran Scott: [00:11:02] Yeah, they’re going to search nationwide because they they ultimately get paid for providing you the service of finding the best candidate. Right. And and there’s oftentimes back end guarantees that if that candidate doesn’t work out for so long, then they have to provide another service for you to rehire that position, which they don’t want to do. And so they’re incentivized to find you the best candidate possible, which often is a nationwide search. And I think that’s where the diversity comes from.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:29] Now, you mentioned that you’ve had success being recruited. Can you share maybe things you’ve done to help make yourself more findable by those third parties? There are things that maybe there’s great candidates out there that are, you know, from underserved markets, that they’re just not doing a great job of making themselves visible to these searches. Is there are things that they could be doing to make themselves more visible to recruiters like you described?

Kieran Scott: [00:11:57] Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think from a from an employee perspective, one one having a great LinkedIn profile is key. You know, recruiters spend all day surfing people’s LinkedIn profiles. Right. And they and they get really attracted to the profiles that have a picture and have a headline and have experiences listed out. And those are often those are often the profiles that they contact. In addition to that being posting regularly, right? Having content on your page so that people can show that you provide value, whether it’s provide value to your own organization or provide comments and value to other people’s organizations. I think that providing values another thing that recruiters look for. And the third one is getting involved. Right. And so I’m involved with the International Franchise Association. I’m also involved in the National Pest Management Association. I’m an alumni of Georgetown University’s franchise management program. And so just being involved in your network and being involved in kind of your community, of your career, right? So my career is in is in franchising and so I’m involved in those I think makes a big difference.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:05] And that’s great advice for young people, especially instead of just kind of sitting there passively waiting to be chosen. You can be doing things right now to make yourself more, more visible and more sought after by leaning into these things. If you know that you want to be in a certain industry, join the associations of that industry. Take leadership positions if possible. Volunteer There’s things you can be doing and talking about and posting and and sharing your knowledge and what you’ve learned from these things. It makes you more visible. It makes you more hirable.

Kieran Scott: [00:13:39] Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Getting getting involved early as soon as you can make that decision is is definitely key.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:46] So now what do you need more of? How can we help? What are you looking to do in terms of growth? Are you. Is the world your oyster at this point? And you’re looking for franchisees for the two brands you described anywhere, or are you focusing on certain regions? How can we help you?

Kieran Scott: [00:14:03] Yes. So, yes, so there’s tons of whitespace and in both of our brands across the United States for new franchisees to join, I think it’s a really great time for franchisees to join both brands. We’re rebranding master with a new visual identity, the first new visual identity for in 43 years. And so that’s going to be an exciting thing for new franchisees to come in to. But yeah, we’re actively recruiting new franchisees. We are obviously looking for the financial qualification to be there, but also that diversity of mindset to also be there and kind of willingness to to learn and adapt as we grow. But yeah, we have we have pretty ambitious growth goals on the master side. 25 new units this year on the patio side, patio patrol side, ten new units this year, which more than doubles the system as it stands today. And I think now’s a great time to get into pest control.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:54] Well, if somebody wants to learn more, what is the coordinates to get a hold of you, somebody on your team and learn more about the opportunities?

Kieran Scott: [00:15:01] Yes. So to get ahold of me best found on LinkedIn. So just LinkedIn. Kieran Scott, CFP. Or you can email me k scott at threshold brands dot com. To learn more about Pest Master, you can visit our website Pest Master Franchised Patio Patrol is franchised out Patio Patrol dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:18] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Kieran Scott: [00:15:23] Thanks, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:23] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

 

Mike Lenard With TaKorean

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Mike
Franchise Marketing Radio
Mike Lenard With TaKorean
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MikeMike Lenard has been a leader in business operations, leadership, retail, and food service for the past 17 years. In 2010 Mike founded TaKorean, a DC based Korean Taco and Rice Bowl concept in a retrofitted 1985 Ford Box-Truck. TaKorean has since grown to as many as 5 locations in Washington DC and Philadelphia and currently operates 2 locations. Mike co-founded the DMV Food Truck Association in 2011 and served as its Assistant Director and Treasurer until 2014.

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn. 

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Worker issues including; paid time off, compensation, workplace culture.
  • Use of technology for administrative operations – making the restaurant office run itself so leaders can lead
  • TaKorean’s launching a franchisee program that it has been working on for

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Mike Lenard with TaKorean. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Lenard: [00:00:42] Thank you. Good to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about TaKorean and how are you serving folks?

Mike Lenard: [00:00:49] Yeah, so TaKorean started about 12 years ago in Washington, D.C. It’s a quick service, fast casual restaurant chain, and it served down the line in front of customers, Rice Bowl and taco concepts. So very much in line with the build your own bowl concept that we’re seeing a lot of. And it’s a Korean inspired with kind of a Latin American twist in terms of flavoring.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:13] And right now you started are you the founder of it? Did you start it or you’re the current CEO?

Mike Lenard: [00:01:21] Yes, I’m the founder and I still run the company today. We actually started out of a food truck back in 2010. And then by 2012 and 2014, we opened our first two fixed locations and in 2015 we actually retired the food truck and continued to to pursue inline and brick and mortar restaurants.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:43] So when you started it, did you envision it at some point to be a franchise and you were just kind of testing the waters with the food truck? Or is this something that just kind of organically grew over time?

Mike Lenard: [00:01:53] Yeah, franchising is something that was not on my mind when I very first started. However, in the early days in 2011, 2012, I did have conversations with some people in the industry about franchising, so it was always in the back of my head. At that time. I wasn’t ready to get into it. And you know, there are a couple of different growth models for companies and and for a while I sort of dabbled in which way we wanted to grow. Obviously, there are quick service restaurant companies that are all privately owned or they’re publicly owned and traded. And then there’s franchise companies and there’s pros and cons to both of them. And I think that with all the experience I have now, it really made sense to teach people how to help me run the business in a sense of the franchisee relationship. And that’s really where it came back around during the pandemic. I was doing a little bit of consulting on the side and I was like, What am I better at consulting it than anything in the world? How to run a Thai Korean restaurant? And I was like, Gosh, I need to look at franchising again. And and I think that we can really make a splash. And I think that we can sort of update the way franchising is and really keep a lot of quality control and and a lot of support.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:07] Now, when you were having those kind of thoughts and conversations, were you thinking, I’ll just take the food truck and franchise the food truck as the franchise? Or were you always looking, okay, now we’re going to have to get into brick and mortar here and do it that way?

Mike Lenard: [00:03:21] Yeah, the transition to brick and mortar didn’t have that much to do with any franchising ideas. It was more just food trucks are hard, man, you know, they’re hot, they’re sweaty, they’re not dirty from a health code standpoint. But, you know, there’s just a lot of grease buildup and stuff you have to clean every day. And I really enjoyed those days. But it’s actually more difficult, in my opinion, to create standard operations around a food truck and to have a general manager of a food truck, in my opinion, has to be a much higher level person than a general manager of of a quick service restaurant, because, you know, you’re going different places every day. You’re parking different places every day. You have to know how to troubleshoot a generator and fix a water pump and all these different things. So I actually found it getting into the larger restaurants, which are also higher volume to be easier. And I think that that was really what paved the way for that growth. So the food truck was never really a thought for that. We’ve thought a little bit about offering a food truck type license for college campuses, food programs and things of that nature. So you might see a little bit of that, but that’s not a huge push with the franchising.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:35] Now, you mentioned that your expertise was around kind of running this type of a restaurant. Is that something that you were able to quickly transfer the knowledge to people, maybe not as passionate or as skilled or as you? And then you were realizing, hey, maybe I can replicate this. If I can do that, then, you know, I’m almost there.

Mike Lenard: [00:05:00] Right? I mean, so I was doing consulting, restaurant consulting. But for for other people, not this was just some side stuff I was doing and I was helping them with leadership, culture and standard operating procedures and things of that nature a little bit with marketing. But to be clear, we actually have not sold a franchise unit yet. We’re just launching, we just finished our PhD. We’re out to market really just in the last couple of weeks. So we’re obviously. Really excited to get someone on board and give them give them a lot of support. And I think that passion’s a little bit of an overrated word. It’s starting to mean less these days. I think that you just need good people who want to run a good business. And and I can we can teach those people exactly what to do.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:50] So where do you think the opportunity lies when you have kind of a workforce that is a little persnickety at the moment? You know, you have a lot of folks that don’t want to get into this kind of work. And how do you create a culture that makes your place of work a place that they want to be part of and, you know, a hill they do want to climb and be part of a bigger mission.

Mike Lenard: [00:06:17] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to Korean, conceptually, is is simple, right? We have a limited amount of gas equipment. We don’t do deep frying. We have a limited amount of SKUs and prep work. So from an environmental standpoint, a lot of our employees find it simpler and easier to execute our food and it enhances the quality of the work environment. Know, a lot of the people that we have have also worked at other quick service restaurants. And it’s not that it’s easy. I mean, restaurant work’s always going to be hard, but a lot of it’s about creating a concept that’s not unnecessarily complicated. The other thing is our administrative processes and the technology we use for everything from invoice processing to scheduling and everything else. You know, the managers can spend a lot more of their time working, working in the shift shoulder to shoulder with everyone. They don’t have a lot of administrative work to do in our system. That also leads to a really good work culture. And then, you know, I can only speak for our company stores, but I think it’s a lot about leadership skills. And and this is a place where I have done leadership coaching before and we can bring that to our franchisees to create the environment we want. Our company stores, we’ve been very successful with staff retention and we haven’t had a lot of the issues you’re seeing out there right now. Obviously, those issues are real and it’s, you know, because restaurant work is kind of sucks sometimes, right? And it’s all about reframing the conversation, you know, and just creating a concept that sucks a little bit less and trying to have fun while you’re there really is how we see it. Compensation is another aspect to compensate people correctly. You know, with a franchisee, we don’t dictate that because that’s not part of the franchise process, but it’s certainly something that we want to align with people who believe in. You know, it really comes out. It’s a business decision, really, and we feel like it pays off.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:26] Now, you mentioned that like leadership and culture, it’s an important part of of what you’re offering potential franchisees. And you use the word coaching. Is coaching part of what the franchisee is going to get? I noticed a lot more franchises offering some sort of regular coaching sessions, whether it be individual or group to their franchisees. Is that something that you’re going to employ as well?

Mike Lenard: [00:08:56] Yeah. So as part of our our manager training, which every franchisee would go to, we actually have a huge section on leadership methodology, which I think is unique. I’ve read a lot of other people’s manuals and they don’t touch on this enough. I don’t think so. There’s going to be kind of a core tenor throughout the entire relationship that’s going to be based around what we expect in terms of of how we want to lead our operations, in terms of the ongoing coaching. Yes, we will do. But it’s going to obviously be on a case by case basis because some people are going to need more than others. You know, another thing with leadership coaching is it’s not all about kind of teaching and managing people. A lot of it’s almost almost akin to therapy, right? I mean, you’re talking through issues at their store. There’s interpersonal issues between people. Okay. Like what are the nuances here? You know, how do you deal with it? And in that sense, yeah, we would we would provide a lot of support for that.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:54] Yeah. I think that one of the key things to implement any type of coaching program is to reframe it from something punitive to something as almost as a perk, that this isn’t something you have to do, this is something you get to do. And it’s only going to help you grow faster and and help you improve your, your workforce and you personally. So that’s the way I’ve seen it work best. If you can reframe it from something that is that you’re trying to fix somebody, you’re just trying to help somebody be better.

Mike Lenard: [00:10:28] Yeah, that’s right. That’s absolutely right.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:31] Now, since you don’t have any franchisees right now, have you developed an idea, at least around a persona or an avatar for that ideal franchisee? Is he the person that’s getting one area or she getting one territory and that’s it? Or are you looking for empire builders? Are you looking for professional? Franchisees where this is just another brand in a portfolio.

Mike Lenard: [00:10:54] Yeah, I mean, ideally and look, we’re there’s a lot of different types of people out there that I believe could successfully run a Taco Ryan store. So, you know, just to start with that, we’ve thought about this a lot and we have all kinds of whiteboards on the wall with different things. And yes, I mean, I think ideally to just to start, we’d like a couple of individual unit franchisees, you know, that we can really give a lot of support to people who are likely first time franchisees just because of the nature of the fact that we’re unproven and we’re aware of that. And yeah, I think the important thing is that, you know, they’ve got the finances where they can open it comfortably. They’re not spending their last dollar doing it. They potentially have the finances where if it does if it performs well, that they can expand so that there’s at least a trajectory there. And then in terms of who they are, I think that we want to have a good relationship. That could be a lot of different types of people, but they need to be basically good hearted person. And in terms of experience, we just want people who are familiar with being on their feet and facing customers. So it doesn’t have to be that they worked in a restaurant. It could be that they worked at a shoe store, could be that they were a pharmacist. It could be a lot of different things. But we want someone who at least knows what it’s like to stand on their feet and face customers, just so that we understand that they they are aware of those demands. And other than that, there’s really a lot of different types of people who could be successful in terms of empire building and multi unit. Yeah, of course we’d love to. To have the right partner, build lots of stores. Everybody wants that. But I think you have to be careful when you’re starting out and you have to create a nice base and a pad to build on. And so I think we’re just trying to start a little bit slow.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:47] Now, what about location? Are you looking at college areas? Are you looking at the exurbs? Is there a certain kind of population or demographics that you’re looking for where successful units can operate?

Mike Lenard: [00:13:02] Yeah, I think that second tier cities like in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, we’re interested in getting into Maryland and Virginia, but we’re not yet registered in those states. You know, those are the types of areas where I think we’d like to to kick it off. We’re also open to up in New England, Massachusetts. And if we found the right partner, we potentially be open in a lot of places. But I think we’re going to focus our energy in terms of marketing to the mid-Atlantic region and in terms of the real estate itself. You know, there’s a lot of types of real estate we can do well in. And I think suburban strip centers, modernized suburban strip centers are really, really good for concepts like this. And then I also think that in more urban areas they can be. But things have changed a lot in the last couple of years with central business districts being, you know, they used to be five day markets, now they’re three day markets. Right. So, you know, the office that we used to look at in real estate has changed a lot. So it’s a little bit of something to to sidestep and just kind of figure out what else is there. Ideally, we want centers where there is office and residential and experiential things going on. And you know, everybody wants that. I’m saying I’m describing the perfect real estate. I realize that. But, you know, I think it’s important to bring the product to where the customers are going to interact with it best.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:36] Does it work best in areas where, you know, people are focused on their health and wellness, like, does it work well in a strip center that has maybe a fitness center? Or is it does it have to have a grocery store? There are certain kind of markers that make one location better than another.

Mike Lenard: [00:14:56] We perform well around fitness centers. We think our food is really well balanced and eats relatively light. We don’t market ourselves as specifically healthy because we don’t want to border to disingenuous, but we do think that it’s the type of thing that’s light that doesn’t weigh you down for the rest of the day. It has a lot of vegetables in it. So there is some appeal there, there’s no question. But the grocery store thing is actually huge, right. The biggest thing is that we we know that we’re not Chipotle. Right. So we need to be somewhere where people come there on a routine basis and we get that kind of exposure. So, you know, coffee shops like Starbucks, particularly grocery stores and then gyms are good because it’s really part of someone’s routine. And so those are all very good things that we look for and also that we’ve experienced in our own company.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:49] Stores now in the growth of the company. And I’m sure the pandemic might have kind of spurred some of this. Do you have like an easy ordering app for pickup and curbside and things like that? Or is that almost table stakes in today’s world?

Mike Lenard: [00:16:04] Yeah. I mean, everyone should have that. We we have integrated online ordering for pickup or delivery. And then obviously we’re on the third party apps as well. But we encourage people to go to CNN.com for you can also order delivery through there. We also integrate directly with a third party where they actually deliver our white label orders, which operationally makes it really easy for us because we get to retain all the customer data and obviously we pay a flat delivery fee instead of a percentage and we get to own our customer experience. So if anything goes wrong, it’s easier for us to refund them or give them credit for next time. Whereas if anything goes wrong with a third party order, we we’re not the ones that took their money. So it’s hard for us to service those customers. So yeah, it’s fully integrated and from an operator standpoint, it’s all integrated into our point of sale and into our accounting system. There’s very little manual entry, if any, that’s required with that system.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:05] So if somebody wants to learn more about the opportunity, what’s the website.

Mike Lenard: [00:17:10] It’s going to launch this week? And it is well, take and you can obviously get to it.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:17] And then from there there’ll be a way to get into the franchise if you’re interested in the opportunity.

Mike Lenard: [00:17:24] But we’ll be talking in just double check taker and franchise. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t talking franchising. Yes. So it’s Takara and franchised also. You can get there from Taco CNN.com as well where you can see our core business.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:40] And that’s Taco Orian.

Mike Lenard: [00:17:44] That’s right.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:45] Well, Mike, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Mike Lenard: [00:17:51] Thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you again.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:55] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

 

Josh Hettiger With Fitness Premier

by

Josh
Franchise Marketing Radio
Josh Hettiger With Fitness Premier
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FitnessPremierJoshJosh Hettiger, COO at Fitness Premier.

After a successful football career at Saint Xavier University and a short run at the NFL, Josh Hettiger met with Jason Markowicz and Rick King to discuss life after football. After seeing how Jason and Rick had navigated the transition from college athletes to business owners, he joined forces to help grow their brands.

Josh became an owner/operator of Fitness Premier Cedar Lake while working on the development of the Franchise. As the brands began expanding, Josh moved into the COO role, meeting with potential franchisees and growing the footprint of Fit For You Franchising.

He believes that the team and systems they have in place will give potential business owners the tools they need to become successful business owners.

Connect with Josh on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Josh Hettiger and he is with Fitness Premiere. Welcome, Josh.

Josh Hettiger: [00:00:43] Hey, Lee, how are you doing?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] I am doing great. Before we get too far into things, tell us a little bit about fitness premier.

Josh Hettiger: [00:00:50] All right. So Fitness premiere, we are a hybrid concept fitness model. So our clubs range from 7500 to 12000 square feet. You kind of find us in the middle of an orange theory and a la fitness. We kind of take the best of both worlds, combine it into one hybrid fitness model and serve underserved communities, you know, typically 15,000 people or less. And we provide them with the absolute best fitness facility that we can.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:19] So what are you seeing in the fitness world now? There seems to be so many choices for the consumer. There are so many things they could be doing at home. There are so many boutique clubs, there are so many kind of low priced, you know, opportunities. Where is the opportunity for fitness, Premier?

Josh Hettiger: [00:01:37] You know, I think it’s great that there is so much opportunity for people to invest in their house because that’s really what it is. You know, we typically only need to tap into 10 to 12% of our markets, which we do in all 17 of our locations currently. If that number rises, obviously profitability rises as well. How we kind of tap into that is we give a we the markets, we go into it. Typically, we don’t deal with more than 2 to 3 competitors and we tend to believe that we do what we do better than them. So when we get members in the door, we’re providing them with a solution, not just a treadmill to, you know, walk on a couple of times a week, but we’re providing them a full plan that includes recovery, nutrition, training, and it’s just all encompassing. And it provides a really, really easy way for that individual to make a healthy choice in their life.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:27] Now, is your customer typically the person who is sedentary that is moving maybe to their first or one of the first gyms that they join? Or is this somebody that is kind of been around the block a little and this is offering them something different that’s more customized to the outcome they desire?

Josh Hettiger: [00:02:44] You know, it’s definitely a combination of both. I think the main kind of our main mission is that every person who walks through the door receives the just the absolute best everything. We have a saying like we tell people on their first tour, like, hey, 95% of the people who join gyms don’t get what they joined the gym for. We don’t want that to be you. We don’t want that to be us. So, you know, we’re going to hold your hand. We’re going to make sure you’re accountable to everything you tell us. You’re coming in here for today. We don’t want to see you fizzle out after a month and not achieve your results. So, you know, that could resonate with the person who’s been to five other gyms and hasn’t really seen progress or hasn’t ever achieved what they join the gym for or the person who’s never went into a gym and they don’t really know what to expect. We’re going to hold both their hands and make sure that they give us some goals on that first day that they want to accomplish. And and we’re going to hold them to that the whole way through.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:32] So how do you do that? Do you employ technology to help them stay compliant with their wellness and workout program?

Josh Hettiger: [00:03:40] It’s a mix of both. So obviously a lot of personal contact in that first few visits. Typically they come in for a tour, they might buy up a membership ranging from 24 to 39 bucks a month, super affordable for any consumer. Then from that first meeting, we’re going to we’re going to schedule a one hour consultation with one of our managers or trainers at the facility. They are going to decide and develop a plan together that fits both their monetary and their financial and their time kind of restrictions. Once they do that, we do incorporate technology with weekly checkups, text messages, as well as we have a app that integrates trainer eyes which can actually show them exactly what work out they’re doing each day on their phone. We have an app live attachment that kind of goes with that. So think like less mills or any of the other at home virtual workouts. Any members with us do receive FP live, so if they can’t make it into the gym one day, you know, we’re based in Chicago, so if it’s snowy and they don’t want to get in the car, they don’t want to shovel, they can they can turn on one of the virtual workouts and do it right from the comfort of their home.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:54] And when what do you find? You’ve been in the fitness world for a minute, and historically, the difficulty in an individual being compliant and sticking with the program is is really low and it’s probably much lower than the average person thinks. Why do you think that is? Is it just that the the facilities or the program that they’re with is just not keeping them interested over time? Or is it just kind of how humans are that we’re just it’s just a difficult thing for us to stay compliant with? Like, what’s your kind of theory on why it’s so hard for people to stick with? Any type of wellness, nutrition or exercise program.

Josh Hettiger: [00:05:35] I think it’s a mix of both, right? As humans, we don’t like hard. Obviously, everything we do and today is designed to make our lives more easy, more efficient. So I think someone putting in an hour of work 3 to 4 times a week, that’s that’s grueling to some people. Like that’s hard. And then I think there’s a lot of people who are in the fitness industry who do a poor job of holding those people’s hands and keeping them accountable. Not to say that we don’t lose members and lose people off their plan, but I definitely think it’s human nature to kind of want to stray away. And then I think it’s it’s a downfall on some of the people in the fitness industry who kind of let them walk away. There’s definitely a misconception with like a lot of people have a fear of their gyms kind of trapping them and not letting them in. So I don’t want to say, like, that’s what we do, but we really are personable with our members. We have a we have a program called Team Training where we actually spend hours outside of the gym with our members. We we go to kids baseball games. We sponsor the youth ministry project or whatever the case may be. So we kind of want to become a staple in their lives. So when their lives get hard, they don’t run from us. They’re kind of already integrated with us. So yeah, it’s definitely a combination of both human and downfall on the fitness professionals in the industry, but that’s just one of the hurdles you have to overcome when you’re in this industry.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:03] So what’s your back story? How did you get involved with Fitness Premier and in the fitness world?

Josh Hettiger: [00:07:09] So I kind of came, you know, completely it was a completely random decision. I graduated college in December of 2019, right before COVID hit. I was a two time all-American football player and had a decent shot at the NFL, worked out for a few teams, went through the whole process. And then March of 2020, COVID shut everything down. So I was kind of stuck in like a standstill. Do I continue trying for football? Do I go into work? And that’s when Jason Markowitz, who is the founder and CEO of fitness premier, who was also an alumni for my college, reached out to me and he said, hey, let’s let’s meet, let’s talk. He kind of presented me with this. They just started franchising a year or two earlier. He had a vision of how many locations he wanted to take the brand to, what he wanted to do. And I kind of just resonated with his competitive spirit, you know, his vision, what he wanted to do, the culture of fitness premier and kind of went out on a whirlwind. It wasn’t my major in college. I always wanted to get into business, never knew what it was, but I kind of seen that vision with him. I started as a franchisee and then elevated into a role where now I had the franchise development of the brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:22] Now what do you find the qualities or maybe the personalities of a successful franchisee with this brand? Are they kind of people like you that maybe had a you know, was in fitness in some form, maybe not the business side, but you were an athlete? Or are they kind of these new professional franchisees where they have several brands and this is just a complementary kind of brand in their portfolio?

Josh Hettiger: [00:08:51] So we actually have a very wide, very wide array of franchisees on our team right now. And I think it’s a testament to our back office support team and being able to work with anyone. I think the biggest standout component that you need for to be a franchisee with us is to just want to help your community. We go into, like I said, communities that are 10 to 15000 people and typically they’re underserved when it comes to the service industry. So to become a staple, that’s a that’s a special type of person that wants to show up to the to the league softball game or to show up to the commerce meetings with ten other business owners. I think really just wanting to help that community thrive is is a component. You need to be successful with us. But we have franchisees who are like myself, former athletes, kind of been around fitness their whole life who have found success. And we have franchisees. We have multi-unit franchisees who’ve never really I don’t even know if they’ve played a sport and they have success as well. I think our back office support team does an excellent job with tailoring their service to the needs of the franchisee because frankly, we have some who operate their business day to day. They’re in the training sessions, they’re in those first appointments and tours. And then we have franchisees who are just in the club once or twice a month, and they rely on a general manager or operating partner to do most of that day to day. So. The biggest like I said, the biggest component you need to be successful with us is just to want to make a difference in that community that either you’re from or that you find that we fit the market.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:36] Now, any advice for maybe former athletes that, you know, they finish? You know, they went as far as they can go in their sport and now they’re in that point of transition. And that’s a difficult time for an athlete, especially that is achieved as much as you’ve achieved where a lot of your identity is in that sport. You are a football player and then all of a sudden you’re not a football player. And it might seem like, well, what can I do now? You know, it’s a difficult transition for a lot of folks. Any advice for those former athletes when they’re looking for their next move to consider franchising or to consider a fitness franchise where it is kind of tangentially connected and you are serving people and you are, you know, creating that team atmosphere that you probably enjoyed in your sport. But it also you have the skills to be a successful business person in terms of having discipline, you know, believing in the team, like all these kind of qualities, maybe the softer skill qualities that that are the intangibles of what it takes to be successful in business.

Josh Hettiger: [00:11:41] So I feel like you just took all those lines straight from me because I can’t say that that’s all true enough, you know? I came everyone always is always shocked how young I am. And they’re like, Oh, you’re doing all this at a young age. But I’m like, Honestly, I’ve been doing all this for years. You know, the time management, the work ethic, the drive, the discipline you need to be successful in a sport I think goes hand in hand with business ownership and franchising. So when I kind of fell into this opportunity, like I loved it, I was like, All right, I’m building a culture with my team at the location as well as the corporate team. You know, if stuff goes wrong, it’s on me, stuff goes right, it’s on me. And I think that’s the best thing. I didn’t want to be a part of a chain where I really didn’t make a difference. I think being an athlete, you kind of you kind of always strive to make a difference. You’re always looking to make a play per se. And I think franchising small business ownership gives you that ability. And, you know, if you have if you have those those qualities, like we said, if you’re willing to show up early, you’re willing to stay late, you’re willing to put in whatever work is necessary to make that business succeed. You will find one a more fulfilling career path in this industry and to just, you know, better outcome for yourself, because at the end of the day, no one’s going to work as hard for you as you are when you’re on the field. It’s a really easy analogy. For whatever reason, it gets lost in the professional slash workplace, but I really think it’s something that more athletes need to consider because they do have, like we said, the qualities that it takes to be successful.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:19] So what do you need more of? How can we help? Do you need more franchisees? You need more people on your team to grow the franchise brand, more customers for fitness. Premier, what do you need?

Josh Hettiger: [00:13:32] All the above. Now, honestly, we’re at a we’re at a point of growth right now. We we mapped out we just went through the iOS implementation for the second time as a company. You know, we’re really we’ve dialed in what our growth looks like and now we’re just, you know, we’re executing what we need to to be successful. We’re at 17 locations now. We predict we’ll be at just over 20 by the end of the year. We have four in progress. We’ve signed we recently signed a franchisee in Georgia. We have some plans in Wisconsin right now. So we’re we’re we’re expanding to a few new states. We’re adding people to the team, and we’re constantly looking for franchisees. You know, our process is super diligent with who we kind of let into our team because we are so culture, community based. We want to make sure everyone’s the right fit for us. So all of the above, to answer your question and you know, we’re on that path.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:32] Well, if somebody wants to learn more about the opportunity, what is the website for fitness premier and or the best way to get a hold of you or somebody on your team.

Josh Hettiger: [00:14:40] So they could go to fitness premier clubs dot com or 1851 franchise fit for you franchising dot com. My my personal number is 7082891681. Feel free to call text email me any hour if you’re looking for any of that information, whether you’re looking to come join one of our clubs or come build a club of your own, I’m always available.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:06] Good stuff. Well, Josh, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work. We appreciate you.

Josh Hettiger: [00:15:12] Thank you, Lee. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to come on and talk.

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

 

Matt Riley With ICS

by

MattRiley
Association Leadership Radio
Matt Riley With ICS
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MattRileyMatt Riley, CAE, is the Director of Associations for ICS, an internationally recognized full-service professional conference organizer (PCO) and association management company (AMC) with over 40 years of experience managing medical, academic, and scientific conferences and clients all over the world.

A Certified Association Executive, Matt has served in senior leadership positions in numerous associations including the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the National Court Reporters Association, and the Shop Environments Association. He was also the CEO of The Conference Agency, based in London England, providing event management and strategic planning services to European and North American clients. Matt has also volunteered to write articles, give presentations, and serve on committees for numerous industry organizations including the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), the Association of Association Executives (AAE), the International Association of Professional Congress Organizers (IAPCO), Conference News, and others.

He lives in New York City with his wife, Jacque, and when they’re not working or traveling the world, they enjoy amateur motorsports racing in a spec Miata named Kristen.

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Top challenges facing international associations in the 2020’s

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:20] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Matt Riley with ICS International Conference Services. Welcome, Matt.

Matt Riley: [00:00:33] Hi, Lee. Thanks for having.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:34] Me. Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about ICS. How are you serving folks?

Matt Riley: [00:00:40] Sure. So ICS is both a professional conference organizer and an association management company. We’ve been in business for over 30 years and we’ve got clients all over the globe. So just kind of helping with running their conferences, running their association’s strategy and everything in between.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:56] So how did this come about? I’ve been talking to several folks that are in that same space. Does it typically happen with they start running one association or they’re working with one and it just kind of organically expands from there, like, what was your history?

Matt Riley: [00:01:10] Yeah, correct. We were a PKO first and really kind of became known for that and then over time started to have clients who were looking for association management help. And that was when our association management department was started. My teams started to build up, so and now we have about 15 clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:28] So now when you’re building up, you’re the director of associations. Can you talk about what a day in the life is for you?

Matt Riley: [00:01:36] Sure. So I lead a team of about 12 people. They’re all executive directors of different associations. Our focus is international. We work with a lot of medical and scientific societies. So my day consists of helping clients just kind of navigate the waters of association management, a lot of sort of mentoring with the team and providing resources and ideas and that sort of thing. For all the different challenges that our clients are facing right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:05] And an association kind of leans on an association management company like yours because a lot of times they’re volunteer organizations and maybe their vision is is bigger than the kind of the team that they have around with around them. So they have to, like hire a professional to help them kind of expand and grow and serve their members.

Matt Riley: [00:02:27] Yeah, correct. Most of our clients actually don’t have their own staff, so they are doctors or scientists or commissioners or some, some they’re focused on their profession. So they’re the subject matter experts. They kind of have a handle on on content and on whatever that industry is. But they’re really looking for association management knowledge and best practices and sort of the business side of running the organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:53] And I would imagine when you put a professional group like yours in place, you can really accelerate their growth because you’re kind of getting the best practices from all the other folks that you’re serving and you can really institute some efficiencies quickly.

Matt Riley: [00:03:08] Absolutely. And it’s become especially important in the last few years. The pandemic really sort of shined a light on a lot of practices. And if, you know, if you weren’t looking to the future, if you weren’t thinking about revenue diversification, if you were relying on one big conference for basically all of your business operations, then those were the associations that really kind of had their eyes open in terms of needing to diversify a little more, needing to look at some other options. And that’s something that’s really a strength for us now.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:35] Are there certain challenges that are facing international associations that maybe aren’t as prevalent for ones that are just kind of in America?

Matt Riley: [00:03:47] Absolutely. Yeah. You know, we’re seeing domestic conferences starting to come back. I would say I think it’s safe to say they are back for the most part, but international, there’s still a lot of there’s still barriers to travel, there’s still political instability. There’s still a lot of economic volatility in the world. So a lot of our international conferences are not still moving forward and we’re just still seeing a lot of barriers to our our international associations still kind of lingering.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:16] Now, are you or can you share some maybe some solutions or some opportunities that you see in that space?

Matt Riley: [00:04:24] Sure. Absolutely. I mean, I think one big opportunity right now is this is really an opportunity for innovation. So like I was saying, if maybe the association was kind of in we’ve always done it that way. So that’s sort of my my least favorite phrase in the association space. I really think there’s a lot of permission right now to experiment and to innovate. So just because maybe maybe that you thought the conference was your main driver of of member value. And it may well be like I say, we’ve really kind of been made aware now in a painful way of the need to have other other. To hang your hat on, you know, other sources of revenue and other drivers of member value for the association. So if you’re not already looking at publications or digital content or some, it all depends on the industry and the member and what their challenges are and what their needs are. But we really kind of have to get a little more diligent and a little more creative and looking at how can we how can we serve members in a different way from that. We’ve always done it that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:26] Mindset Yeah, I guess the pandemic really forced that, right? So you have a period where a lot of organizations were saying, Hey, it’s our big event and that’s why we’re here for the big gala or the big event conference. And then when the pandemic shut that down, now you’re like, Well, why are people still members? You know, if our whole reason of being was this big event.

Matt Riley: [00:05:46] There’s you know, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Like I say, we’re a conference company. So we we we live and breathe that. But it’s just, you know, it’s kind of thinking bigger than that, you know? Yes, you need a world class event, but it’s kind of like what else, you know, what have you done for me lately as sort of the member the member opinion? So if you’re only engaging one time a year, no matter how good that conference is, you’re going to struggle to kind of keep keep front of mind with your audience.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:12] Right. It’s like you said, diversify your portfolio a little bit. Don’t put all your eggs in that one basket. Let’s see what else we can do and see. Be creative. Yeah, absolutely. Now, when you’re working with an association and you’re having this, this is a tough conversation, I would imagine, for some folks, because, like you said, that inertia of the status quo is a tough one to to really move off of. But I guess the pandemic helped that in that it just kind of forced their hand. They had to do this. They had to make some moves.

Matt Riley: [00:06:45] Yeah. Forced a lot of conversations among leaders. And then like I say, I think it also gave us a lot of permission with with numbers, with conference attendees, with whoever needs to sort of approve some sort of change or give a little bit of a little bit of patience or a little bit of permission. I think we’ve really got that right now because, you know, we’re hopefully emerging from a time of disruption. But the upside of that is you really get a chance to kind of create something new. And I think a lot of people, especially if they maybe haven’t been super engaged or they haven’t been really sort of wowed by the experience that they’re getting out of their membership, they really are more willing than a lot of people think to, you know, to give you time and space to experiment. And maybe you try some things and it doesn’t work. That’s not the end of the world. Like know people I think are not as critical as maybe they would have been before.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:39] Now, are you seeing younger folks being drawn to associations or is that something that associations need work to attract younger people to not only join but also to take have a path to leadership?

Matt Riley: [00:07:54] Well, it’s certainly a big focus. I mean, I don’t you know, we do a lot of strategic planning with our clients. And I don’t think I’ve had a strategic planning session in the last three years that didn’t come out with some kind of goal, focusing around engaging younger members and the next generation of leadership, and also looking at diversity as well and broadening broadening the membership in that way. So it’s a really key area of focus. I would say. I’m seeing different levels of success and it really depends how much are you really willing to put your money where your mouth is as an organization and really invest in in driving real change that’s going to going to attract both younger and more diverse numbers and leaders.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:34] Is there any advice you can give in that area? Because that is an area of concern for a lot of folks struggling with the same issues.

Matt Riley: [00:08:43] Well, I mean, I think my advice would be it has to be more than lip service. A lot of organizations are coming out with a diversity statement or maybe they’re creating a young member committee or something along those lines. And that’s great. It’s definitely a starting point, but I think it has to be more substantial. You know, those those efforts have to have some kind of real impact on the organization. It has to be visible. One thing that we say a lot in diversity is that if I’m coming into the organization and there’s no one who looks like me in leadership, then that’s a big red flag. And it kind of sends a message that either I’m not really fully welcome or if I am, I’m not. I don’t really have a seat at the table in terms of decision making or how the organization is run. So I think it’s not just sort of creating something to check a box. It’s really sort of creating change in a way that we’re bringing new, new voices in and we’re making sure that the leadership looks and feels like the community that we’re trying to create, if that makes sense.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:43] Yeah, it does. I mean, you go to some of the websites of some of these associations and then you check out the leadership and it doesn’t always reflect the the membership.

Matt Riley: [00:09:53] Yeah. So the organizations that are seeing success are not the ones that sort of create a committee for four young members and put. Set off in a corner and kind of do that. It’s the ones that they create a board position for a number that’s sort of reserved for that purpose so that that voice is in the meetings and the thing that nobody else sees, because a lot of these organizations, you have to be around for 50 years to get into one of those leader leadership positions. But getting somebody in the room or on the Zoom call these days, you know, who who understands what the next generation is looking for. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about that changes the thinking and that that leads to different decision making.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:32] Right. So then they have kind of that seat at the table and they have a voice in these kind of conversations when people are making the decisions, especially budgetary decisions.

Matt Riley: [00:10:41] Mm hmm. Yeah. It kind of addresses both the symbolic and the substantive at the same time.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:45] And that probably gives you a quicker means to be successfully making that happen and moving the needle, if that’s really, truly important. You are kind of walking the walk at that point.

Matt Riley: [00:10:58] Yeah. Yep, I would say so.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:01] So what’s next for you? How does the rest of this year look and in the coming year?

Matt Riley: [00:11:08] Well, like I said, I mean, we’re really trying to get sort of international events back off the ground. I hope we’ll be more and more able to do that. I just I was supposed to have a conference in Taiwan this year. They still have a three day quarantine. The last that I looked, which is really kind of anathema for for a conference. So we’re still trying to move forward with that in the best way that we can. We’re trying to choose destinations that are resilient and hedge against all of the the sort of risks that we’re seeing out there. And then at the same time, like I say, push forward with a lot of the new experiments that we’re trying out, whether it’s restructuring membership categories, this is a good time to be doing that. If you if your membership categories haven’t changed in in 50 years, the industry probably has. So looking at that kind of restructuring, revisiting dues, a lot of dues for we’re sort of stagnant. And if you’re not increasing in to keep pace with inflation, then you’re not really taking care of your business in that sense. So just trying to keep keep our head on a swivel and look out for all of the opportunities that this time provides and at the same time, all of the ways that we can protect ourselves from sort of ongoing uncertainty that’s out there.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:22] Can you share an example of maybe one of the associations you work with? You don’t have to name the name, but maybe explain what the challenge that they were having before they they started working with ices and then you coming in and helping them solve it and maybe getting to a new level.

Matt Riley: [00:12:38] Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we have we have one association in particular. It’s the International Association for for that for that scientific field. And there’s a lot of strong national and regional associations for the field as well, because it’s a it’s an important medical field. So with all of these challenges, with the sort of added complexity of operating internationally, I think they they a little bit fell into a rut of more trying to compete with the regional societies, going to the regions that had a lot of members that had a lot of money and sort of trying to to rest their laurels on that because it was the it was the low hanging fruit. And it worked to some extent, but it created competition with the regional associations and it was sort of it was splitting the pie to many different ways. And they they would have very good years when they were in those regions and then they would have bad years when they tried to do anything else. And they sort of took that as, let’s stop trying to be global and let’s kind of try to be what already exists in these regional associations. So we did a strategic planning. We, we did surveys, we did targeted conversations with a lot of the different leaders. And that was the conclusion we came to was we sort of fallen into this strategy, not really meaning to where we’re not truly we’re not truly a global association and we’re not we’re not taking advantage of that that unique selling principle that we should have as an organization and where we’re sort of trying to play somebody else’s game.

Matt Riley: [00:14:13] And what we did was we started to really look at how are we choosing where we engage in the world, how are we selecting destinations for the conference? How are we choosing partners to work with other associations to partner with, even sort of how are we finding influential members who can help us in different regions? So for instance, South America was very underserved. So we basically just kind of across the board started to change how we thought about the identity of the organization. And now they’ve had some very successful conferences in some less traditional regions, and they’re really sort of, I guess, just embracing a new identity and really thriving with that. And that’s something that I really talk a lot about strategy and the importance of doing. Strategic planning. A lot of the smaller organizations that we work with, they don’t necessarily think that they have the resources or they don’t know where to go to find that. And that’s something that we bring to the table that I think is really, really helpful.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:12] Yeah, you have to invest in that because if you don’t know what you’re aiming at, how do you know you’re never going to get there? You know, it just it makes sense.

Matt Riley: [00:15:20] What tends to happen is, is sort of management by crisis. In that case, you know, you’re very reactive. And what whatever happens to you, you sort of try to react to it. But that’s I think we all know that’s not the way to get ahead of the ahead of the curve. If you really want to be leading in our industry, then you need to be looking ahead and you need to be preparing at least three or five or ten years out and really kind of looking where your industry is going and trying to be the the resources that is where your members want to go, that you’re helping them kind of create create the industry of tomorrow or the or the scientific field of tomorrow.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:53] Right. Which is usually at the heart of the mission of most associations. Yeah.

Matt Riley: [00:15:58] Ironically, it kind of, it’s kind of the opposite of the. We’ve always done it that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:01] Right, exactly. They’re supposed to be leading and being the role models for the industry, not the laggards.

Matt Riley: [00:16:08] Right.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:09] So what do you need more of? How can we help? Are you looking for more associations to serve? Do you need more talent? What do you need?

Matt Riley: [00:16:17] I mean, yeah, absolutely. I think there are so many associations that could use help. So I think just having people know that there that association management companies are out there and that it’s, you know, it’s an alternative to maybe if you don’t see having the resources for a full time staff, I think that’s a great thing for for people to know. And we’re always looking to partners. So anybody who’s interested in what we do, I’m always open to a conversation. You know, travel industry right now, hospitality industry I know has really just had so much turmoil. And they’re trying to start back up and they’re trying to find good talent. So we’re really looking out for our our hotel and our destination partners and everybody in that world where we’re trying to support however we can. But really any industry, you know, we work with technology quite a bit. Association management software is really important to what we do. So there’s there’s a whole a whole bunch of different worlds. And as I say, there’s an association for everything. So we do a lot of medical and scientific, but we really are sort of conservatively looking for other other organizations to work with as well. So I think the sky’s the limit for associations. I really do, yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:22] I think that there’s a lot of opportunity, especially coming out of the pandemic. The need is so great at this point.

Matt Riley: [00:17:30] Yeah, I.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:30] Agree. Now, if somebody wants to learn more about this or maybe get on your calendar, what is the website? Best way to get a hold of you or somebody on your team?

Matt Riley: [00:17:40] Yeah, our website is ices events dot com. Check us out. We’ve got a great website with a lot of information and my email address is. Riley. Riley. That’s m as an matt Riley Y at ices events dot com. So I’d love to hear from any of your listeners who are interested in working together.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:57] All right, Matt, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Matt Riley: [00:18:02] Thanks a lot, Lee. I really appreciate.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:03] It. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Association Leadership Radio.

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