Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand With Polish Dental Center

August 4, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand With Polish Dental Center

00:00 /

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand is the founder and CEO of Polish Dental Center, a leading provider of general dentistry with multiple locations across Georgia. Dr. Rand graduated from Xavier University and received her DDS at the Howard University College of Dentistry. Polish has received countless accolades and was recently recognized on the Inc. 5000 list due to tremendous growth.

Connect with Tiffany on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Tech-Enabled Medical Practices
The Importance of Mentorship, Community and Breaking Barriers
Purposeful Risk and Getting Outside of Comfort Zone
Paving the Way for Future Black Female Leaders

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at on pay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kanter here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the Atlanta Business Radio, we have Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand, or as her patients call her, Dr. Tiff. And she is with the Polish Dental Center. Welcome, Dr. Tiff.

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:00:55] Hey. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Polish Dental Center. How are you serving folks?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:01:03] Oh, well. So first, thank you for having me. I’m an Atlanta native, so I grew up listening to you. I am the CEO and founder of Polish Dental Centers. We have been serving Atlanta for the last ten years. We are a fast growing company of five practices, soon to be six, seven, eight, nine, ten. We just received the award and the INC 5000 for one of the fastest growing companies in the United States for for 2022.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:38] So when you started Polish Dental Center, did you always view it as a multi-location operation or was it something that just organically grew over the years?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:01:50] Well, I think it was it did organically grow. And as I’m I’m a dentist by trade, no MBA, no nothing. Right. So so my message to all dentists out there is that you can do it. If I can do it, you can do it. Nothing special. Special. They’re really, really good at dentistry. Love dentistry. It is my passion, but also the business bug bit me because I grew up, my dad owned multiple sites, technology firms and so after a while I started to as being an operator in in dentistry, I was like, well, what’s my contingency plan? What is my retirement plan? I used to see so many dentists as they got as they age and get older. They had carpal tunnel. And and my mentor talks about about about about her body and how it broke down so quickly. I started to think about my future and scaling a business was the only way because I feel like dentistry combines that entrepreneurship, spirit and health care. And it just was a fit for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:59] Now, when you’re thinking about scaling historically, dental offices tend to be kind of dentist driven, so the person has a relationship with that. Given dentist, it’s not thought of like, Oh, I’ll just pop into this. Other dental office says the same name like you would, you know, like a a restaurant or a hamburger chain. How do you kind of get over that to create a brand but also create those relationships?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:03:25] Oh, excellent question. So I always tell everyone dentistry has gone very corporate. Right. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It has gone very corporate. I mean, there are people that know nothing about dentistry that by 100, 204 hundred dental practices, and that’s one model. But my model is no investors, no private equity money taken on my part. It is just me and as a dentist, which is, you know, dentists own dentists lead. We have the resources of a DSO, a dental service organization, which is what those larger ones are that some people do pop in and out of and have the have the private practice, feel that we give our give our patients. So we are that hybrid. We’re not that that one off dentists where, you know, sometimes there’s you know, the service and the technology might not be there to service a patient. But we are a group and we hire dentists that that believe the same thing that we do. Right. We want to give our patients a quality experience with the latest technology and, you know, the the lowest amount of fuss and have the how do you say the convenience of like something that has like a major rund? So kind of like chick or Chick fil A model, but still has a relationship with their dentist. And so like that, that’s, that’s our sweet spot and that’s why we’ve been successful.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:55] So how are you kind of leveraging technology and kind of this service first mentality in experience with the patient? Can you share how that would be different for a patient as opposed to kind of maybe the old school way of what they’re used to dealing with?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:05:11] Oh, sure. Yeah. Very simple question. Number one, you can access our schedule online 24 hours a day. So so we use technology so that you can actually you don’t even need to call us. You can go online right now, see an appointment for whatever service you need to book that appointment. You get a confirmation back and we are all we are mostly techs and we have a system where we know a lot of people don’t answer their phone anymore. Right. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I have a whole bunch I don’t know what’s going on, but I just have a whole bunch of random, random people calling my phone. And with us, you know, we text you back, we talk to you back. I also have a 24 hour call center that feels all of our calls. So you can that you can call us at 3:00 in the morning and someone will answer the phone and they will you can put you right on the read our schedule and put you right there on our schedule. No, no, no questions asked. So that’s something that’s something different is access to us at all times. Access to the dentist. Right. Because because your emergency doesn’t just happen between the hours of 9 to 5. And we realize that. Another thing that we outsource is our insurance billing. There’s a lot of times people miss in dentistry. Human error is really high with insurance. So we have a dedicated team that verifies all our patients insurance to make sure that we don’t miss anything. So you don’t have any unexpected oops bills coming to you. So those are just a few things that we do.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:49] Now in your journey, as opposed to kind of growing an individual dental practice, you’ve decided to kind of build this dental empire here in Atlanta. Is this something you mentioned opening more and more sites around town? Is this something that’s going to go beyond Atlanta? Is that your vision that this will be a national chain?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:07:10] So, of course, you know, never my vision is God vision. But for me right now, as a as a as a wife and mother of twins, you know, it is very manageable for me to keep it in Georgia. I’m I’m from Georgia. I’m raised in Atlanta, born and raised in Atlanta. And, you know, this city and this community is something that I’m passionate about. And so, you know, everyone has teeth, everyone’s a customer. Or if they don’t have teeth, they’re still a customer. So, you know, we’re we there are plenty of mouths of service in and around the Atlanta metropolitan area. And right now we are no more than 20 miles outside of the city. And there’s there’s there’s plenty of people to service. So right now, we’re very, very much concentrating on this city, and then we’ll see where it takes us.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:02] Now, in your experience, I’m kind of fascinated by this going through like initially dentistry. That was the goal, right? Like I’m going to be a dentist, I’m going to have my own practice. That was kind of what you were aiming at. And then somewhere it kind of got modified to say, Okay, why? If I can do this in one place, why can’t I do it in five places? So that’s a that’s kind of a mental mindset shift. When you made that shift, is the dental community, your ecosystem around you of mentors and supporters, is that something that people in the dental world say? Yeah, that that makes perfect sense, go for it? Or is that are they encouraging or is that something that’s like, are you sure you want to do that? Like, that’s a lot of risk. That’s different, you know, like, what does that ecosystem feel about somebody that’s like you, an empire builder now?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:08:50] So it is very polarizing. I mean, you are absolutely right. You know, people that have have you in their mind as one thing, right. It is hard to change their mind to another thing. It’s just is more about finding other people that are doing it. So we have a I’m part of an organization called Dental Entrepreneurs Organization, which has been a organization that has connected me with other just regular dentist who want more, who want who want more, who want to scale their dental practice, who have these ideas. They’re just like, Hey, you know, I want to be able to pass on my quality of care and I don’t want to be. Run by a corporate driven machine that is going to treat my patients like a number. So, you know, there are people in our ecosystem that feel like they but they’re very few and small in between. There is a niche kind of thing. But no, you’re absolutely right. We we do have some dentists that are like, wow, how do you do that? I’m like, Yeah, you can you can do this yourself. You can do this with systems and implementation. And if you kind of remove yourself from chair side and really start thinking and researching, I mean, YouTube and Google, it has it all there. So it’s nothing. It is a niche and not everyone wants you to do that. But but they also support you. Like once you get big enough and you show that you can that it is something sustainable, people usually just get on board and and want to work with you or for you. And and so it’s been pretty good. It’s been pretty supportive for me, at least now.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:34] Recently I was asked to talk about the Atlanta entrepreneur community and the ecosystem here, and I’m a big fan of it. I think that we do a great job as a community supporting small to midsize businesses and a lot of places. There’s a lot of resources for an entrepreneur, maybe more so in the tech community than in other industries, but definitely in the tech community there’s a lot of resources. Have you found that to be the case as you’ve been trying to, to scale and being a black female entrepreneur, are you finding that this is an ecosystem that is supportive and that is trying to help? Or do you find it, you know, cumbersome and getting in your way?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:11:16] Well, it is very tough. I would say that the biggest barrier is to be, you know, there’s a lot of women. I forget what the statistics are. There’s like a very small percentage of women entrepreneurs, and there’s even a smaller percentage of women entrepreneurs that have that have employees. And so, you know, it is it is very tough. It is very hard. But, you know, if you if you put it out there, if you’re doing well, mentorship just kind of comes to you, right? People gravitate towards the light. And so whether it’s male or female entrepreneurs, you know, I do. I would say that I’m positioning myself more as a businesswoman, more than a dentist. So that opens up my ability to attract mentors that that that that can help me because at this point, I’m running a business. Not necessarily dental practices that we happen to sell dentistry. We are a business that happens to sell dentistry. So there are mentorships out there. But it is tough because mentors really, they people mentor people that they can see themselves in. And as a black female, there isn’t a lot of trailblazers, I would say, am I? That is doing what I’m doing. But I’m, I, I find myself more mentoring others to be like me because I do feel like there is the missing space as a black female in that in this ecosystem, this, this middle ground.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:54] In the dentistry ecosystem or the female entrepreneur ecosystem?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:12:58] Oh, no, in the in the dentistry niche. In the dentistry niche, not female entrepreneurs. It opens up when you, when you’re just looked at as a business. But in dentistry, there’s not a lot of female dentists that are scaling.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:11] Is there a lot of female dentists?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:13:15] Oh, no, there’s we have more, but it’s a it’s a male dominated career and especially males that are male dominated as you get older in dentistry. Right. As you as your tenure gets longer because women we decide on other paths because of family obligation and children and pressure to be a wife and a mother. So our career sometimes proved to be shorter in the field of dentistry. So like that also, that also makes it more male dominated.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:57] Now, you mentioned that mentorship is important to you. How about some advice for other, you know, entrepreneurs out there that are looking to scale their business and dream bigger and aim higher? Is there any advice you can give an entrepreneur out there to kind of maybe get out of their comfort zone and just, you know.

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:14:18] So. Well, so my my my husband makes fun of me. He says, instead of ready, aim, fire. I’m ready, fire, aim. And he’s like, you just he’s like he’s like, you just do it. He’s like, the moment someone gives you an idea, you just do it. And so it’s a cliche, but just do it. Google YouTube, it, it’s going to be on there. Figure it out and just execute, execute, execute, execute. I have found that I’ve been able to execute my way out of every problem is all about consistency. Just keep it up and if you run into an obstacle, just continue to execute it is there. You can do it. There are there are resources out there even if they’re not people. Right. Like a lot of people spend a lot of time on, oh, I need to have a business plan. I need to do this. I don’t have a business plan. I never had a business plan. I had a vision board. That’s a vision for every year, right? Like what else do I want? And I just hit what’s on my vision board and like, that’s my style and that’s what has worked for me. I know it works for other people a different way, but for me it has been all execution and just putting the pieces together with with just with just resources from the Internet, essentially.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:37] But, but at the bottom line of this is taking action like get it out of your head and get it into real world information rather than just having all these ideas that you’re going to do one day. It’s better to just do something today then kind of dream of something tomorrow.

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:15:53] Yeah. And, and you will get comfortable with it. Like eventually it’s called I would say what I would, I feel like it is, is controlled paranoia because once you stop getting that check like every two weeks, right. People are used to getting a W-2 every two weeks. Right. And one thing that you have to get used to as an entrepreneur is that I am is you have to be like you have to realize, hey, I am enough. I don’t need this check. I can I can live. I will live. I will make it. And when you put enough pressure there to to to live and sustain your lifestyle, oh, you’re going to you’re going to you’re going to fly. You know, like it’s going to it’s going to happen for you. But a lot of time, that comfort zone that that safety net needs to be removed in order for you to really take take a bet on yourself and take a chance on yourself.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:48] Right. Because ironically, that’s an illusion, the safety net, because now you’re dependent on other people. Now when it’s your own business, you’re relying on you. And who do you trust more than you? You know, some stranger who. Who treats you like a. A line on the spreadsheet or yourself.

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:17:05] Exactly. You are the only you are enough. And that’s what I would say to anyone. You are enough. You’re right that you too. They can take it from you tomorrow. Right. And and you’re like, oh, okay. You know? And so you’re going to you are going to survive. You’ll live.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:23] Now for you, what do you need more of? How can we help? Do you just need more patients coming into the clinics? You need more dentists to partner with that kind of believe in what you believe in and want to kind of take their business to new levels. How can we help you?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:17:38] How can you help me? So the. I say this? The driving force of my business are good qualified providers. I can always find a dental practice to put them in. I have a machine, you know, bragging on myself. I have a machine that generates patients. Right. We have the model down. We can print dental practices. Having a good qualified dentist that believe in the perfect, perfect patient experience, that believe in same day start. Don’t waste our patient wasting our patient’s time. They’re driving back. Have you been to the dentist? Like. Like for one tooth, like, five times. It’s like, you know, like that doesn’t need to happen. Right. And so, like, like. Like having good qualified providers. If I had a provider come to me today, I was like, Give me three months and I’ll build a practice around you. Like that’s how confident I am about our model and our service model.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:42] Now, are these are these providers, are they right out of college? Do they have their own practice? Maybe they’re frustrated. They’re working with another firm and they’re frustrated. What is that kind of make up of that ideal provider?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:18:54] All right. So we have all so the reason the way I’ve been able to scale is I have distressed practices, distress practices. I bought distress practices. That means someone’s getting ready to retire. Someone’s died, someone’s divorced. You know, somebody is. So that’s how I’ve acquired them, right? And I judge them up and put our systems, and then they become this nice place that delivers the perfect patient experience. Right. And so those are ideal, right? Those people are ideal. Like, if you’re tired and you just want someone to take your practice over, that’s us. Now what we do is we put in people that have residencies, at least a residency. We don’t we don’t take fresh doctors out of school. They have at least had a residency and or 3 to 5 years of, of, of schooling already. They’ve already kind of been been in there, been in the game for a little while. But mostly we believe in doctors that they have to have a residency, some kind of residency, some kind of naval training, military training. Those are kind of residency programs. And we put them in there and then we kind of we teach them our thought process, the way we think about patient service, because we already know you have the tactile skills. We just we’re talking about a service and how you deliver service and how you think about delivering service to people because it’s all about people. And that’s how we have people that want to come back and repeat repeat customers just like anything else. I think I answered the question. Yeah, you were saying those are the doctors, but those are those are doctors we want.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:38] So you want them that you can kind of train them in your way before they got too many bad habits.

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:20:45] Yes. And and and even we and by the way, we even we even now were at the at the precipice where we need doctors who are mentors with inside the company. Because we have so many we have so many younger doctors. We do need doctors who are just like, hey, I’m a good doc. I just don’t want to run a company. I don’t want to run a dental practice anymore because there’s like 100 bills associated with it. And I really just want to focus on quality of care. We’ll take that, too. And so we’re at the point where we need a clinical director besides just me, right? Because I wear a number of hats as a CEO, I wear too many hats, probably. But but yeah, we, we, we definitely are expanding and we’ll, we’ll need more seasoned doctors who just want to practice and we welcome them with open arms. So all of the above great specialist oral surgeons and honest, you know, we need those.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:49] Well, Dr. Tiff, congratulations on all the success and the momentum. If somebody wants to learn more about the practice or you or their dentist that wants to learn more. Is there a website that they can go to?

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:22:01] Yes, they can go to smile. Polish. Like nail polish. Smile Polish dot com. Or visit us on Instagram. You message us on Instagram or social media person. We’ll get to you Polish dental centers, plural, on our Instagram page.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:18] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Dr. Tiffany Jamison Rand: [00:22:23] Thank you. Appreciate you. Thanks for. Thanks for inviting.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:25] Me. All right. This is Lee Kantor will SEAL next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Intro: [00:22:33] Today’s episode of Atlanta Business Radio is brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll in HR software. Anywhere. Get one month free at on paycom.

About Our Sponsor

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

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

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Maija Ehlinger With Hypepotamus

August 4, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Startup Showdown Podcast

Maija Ehlinger With Hypepotamus

00:00 /

Maija Ehlinger, Editor at Hypepotamus

Maija Ehlinger is a business reporter in Atlanta covering the startup and innovation economy. A native Southern Californian, she moved to Atlanta for college and has called it home ever since.

Maija is passionate about telling the behind-the-scenes stories of founders and entrepreneurs in town. She is a graduate of Emory University, Columbia Journalism School’s Lede Program in Data Journalism, and is currently pursuing her MBA at Georgia Tech.

Connect with Maija on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About Hypepotamus
General startup trends in the Southeast

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome back to the startup 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 Web three, health care, tech, fintech and more. Now sit tight as we interview this week’s guest and their journey through entrepreneurship.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:39] Lee Kantor here another episode of Startup Showdown podcast, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor Panoramic Ventures. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Startup Shutdown, we have Maija Ehlinger with Hypepotamus. Welcome, Maya.

Maija Ehlinger: [00:00:59] Hi, Lee. Thanks so much. Excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:01] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us a little bit about hippopotamus. How are you serving folks?

Maija Ehlinger: [00:01:07] Yeah, absolutely. So we are a publication here in town in Atlanta, but we cover the southeast and we specifically cover tech startups, entrepreneurship and the venture capital ecosystem here in town. So it’s been a bit of a wild ride the last couple of years as the Southeast and Atlanta has really continued to make its mark on the tech scene. But yes, we’re here to to highlight the entrepreneurs and the founders and investors that are moving the ecosystem forward.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] Now, can you talk a little bit about the history? I know this started as kind of a venture from several entrepreneurs that wanted to serve the same community by telling the stories within that community.

Maija Ehlinger: [00:01:50] Yes, absolutely. So hydroponics has been around for for quite some time now. It actually started as a co-working space in the Biltmore for people that are familiar with the midtown Atlanta area. Now we’re just an online publication. And by that I mean we we are doing the editorial work to to highlight the great founders that are coming out of the out of Atlanta and across the southeast, as well as be a place where people can find their next job at a startup in town through our our free job board, as well as curated calendars of events to make sure that people know where they can meet people, network and continue to to help grow the ecosystem.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:37] So how did you get involved?

Maija Ehlinger: [00:02:40] Yeah, absolutely. So I joined just about two years ago and my background is kind of an interesting mixture of both startups and journalism. I went to school here in Atlanta and was working across different opportunities within journalism while I was in college. But after college actually ended up working at a couple of different startups in the ecommerce and kind of marketing space before landing full time in journalism. And yeah, it wasn’t looking for a new job, but the opportunity to take over and join hype came about in the middle of COVID, and it was a unique blend of of my background, both in journalism and working at very, very early stage startups.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:31] I think that that’s a wonderful path and I think that a lot of young people should pursue that path. Can you share a little bit about what your experience was in those kind of startups when they’re in those beginning stages where there’s so much energy and passion and hope, you know, to get involved in an organization like that, it’s a lot different than for folks that get a traditional college experience, get a job at maybe an enterprise level organization. It’s a different ecosystem and environment. Can you speak about what yours was at those startups?

Maija Ehlinger: [00:04:04] Oh, absolutely. And I give this advice to to many people who ask even if they’re looking for jobs in journalism, I say a career path is very rarely linear. And I think being having an opportunity to work at a startup is something that everybody should do at some point. Why? One, it gives you stories upon stories to tell. During interviews, you have to be able to learn how to think on your feet quickly, learn how to wear multiple hats, and often you’re going to be working on problems that you wouldn’t be able to do at a at a larger company. So, yeah, so my first experience out of college was doing marketing and operations for a menswear ecommerce brand. I had no background in men’s fashion, most definitely not. I didn’t have anything there, had really no operations experience, but for me it was I was willing to get my hands dirty and figure it out. A lot of long nights, a lot of early mornings. But for me, I use that experience so much in my journalism time now, both because I really understand what it means to join as person number three as a at a team that is literally building something in their basement. So I empathize with entrepreneurs in that way, but also just the opportunity to take on take on a challenge that. You don’t get to do very early in most people’s careers. When you when you’re at a startup, you kind of have to create your own path and be willing to jump in and and contribute to a team very quickly and to help it scale.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:55] Now, having gone through this experience, especially, like you said, employee number three, anything that you learned from leadership in terms of this person that convinced you to join the team, they had to transfer some of their dream onto you because it was their dream to build this startup. It wasn’t your dream. You were probably looking for a job and you were curious and interested. But anything from a leadership standpoint from as maybe including that first time but through the ones you’ve talked to, is how good leaders are able to kind of make their dream, your dream?

Maija Ehlinger: [00:06:34] Yeah, that’s a really good point. And I will say, my this this first job out, a startup out out of college, I followed it was a group of Emory entrepreneurs. I went to Emory and so it was through my network. I would say first. First thing is definitely the the ability to network and find people within your own network is really important. But yes, I think being transferring that kind of dream to me to want to come join a startup that I didn’t necessarily if you would have told me, hey, after college with a degree in history and working in journalism, you’re going to work in menswear. I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s what I wanted to do, but understanding the passion that those founders had for building up a consumer brand and an e-commerce platform in Atlanta, I was sold. They’re the really the ones that made me really excited about building something new and building something interesting in Atlanta. And so I would say that was a huge if you’re able to spark interest and excitement in your team, that’s really important. They also gave me a lot of autonomy, you know, having come in as as an early and very young, very green person at the time, they had the the the foresight and the trust to say, hey, if you have an idea, let’s talk about it and let’s see how we can bring it to to life. And that’s something that I definitely think as I’ve stepped into leadership roles, I try to emulate that as much as I can, because that’s how you get interest from and buy in from people on your team at any stage of growth for your company.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:26] Now, having gone through the startup experience, you kind of went back to your journalism roots. Was that always kind of the plan was always to find a way to stay in journalism and tell those stories. And this was kind of a slight detour along the way. Or was this something that if this thing really got a lot of traction in energy, you might have seen, you know, a different a different Maya might be a startup founder right now.Remove featured image

Maija Ehlinger: [00:08:54] Oh, that’s an interesting question. Yeah. I think for me, I’ve always been passionate about writing and journalism, and so that has kind of been my North Star this whole time. And for me, when I was doing operations and marketing at this company, I was able to do a lot of storytelling for for the startup and for the team. So that was great. You know what, I now in this role at hype, you know, writing is, is my passion and the the chance that I get to talk every day with founders who are bringing their stories to life. I get so inspired by talking to founders every day. I see myself staying in journalism. But there are so many great founders out there that, you know, you never know life. Life takes you in different directions. So I wouldn’t say no to joining a startup at some point in the future. I think that, as I said earlier, you know, I don’t think I think a linear career path would be very boring. And so yeah, yeah, I think there’s there’s always opportunities to or potentially opportunities to dive back into the startup world down the road.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:04] So how did you get involved with Startup Showdown and and you know, in terms of being a judge there and and probably you’ve probably mentored people throughout the years as well. Can you talk about that?

Maija Ehlinger: [00:10:18] Sure. Sure. So, as I mentioned, you know, I joined Hype in July of 2020, which is a pretty fascinating time to join a new journalism start a new position within journalism, because, as you know, in journalism, it’s much easier to to network and meet people in person. I understand your sources and meet people in person. So I wasn’t able to do that. But I have to say, the people over at Panoramic who run Startup Showdown were incredibly wonderful and helpful in terms of always talking to me for stories and and pitching me stories that they were of, whether it’s their team or the companies that they’re investing in. So I was pretty connected to to that universe, I will say. And so when they started doing Startup Showdown, it started remotely because because of pandemic restrictions. And so I got to be a judge on one of the first few startup showdowns, and it was a really cool experience. That was my first time ever judging startups. You know, I speak and listen to their pitch competitions all the time, but it was a really cool opportunity to talk with other talk with venture capitalists across the judging panel and really understand what they look for when it comes to a potential investing opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:46] Now, was there anything that when you were kind of working with them and obviously they’re they’re putting their money on the line, so they’re looking at this through maybe a different lens than you. But was there anything that was like an aha moment? Like, Oh, wow, I didn’t realize that was so important or, you know, I didn’t you know, they connected some dots for you maybe that you didn’t see in the way that they saw an opportunity or a venture.

Maija Ehlinger: [00:12:13] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I steal this question from them, I guess. And because there is an overlap between there are some overlap between the questions that a VC would ask a founder and what a journalist would ask a founder. But I think that they do a really great job at at really pulling out from a founder y asking the question very directly, why are you the right person to build this? Because inherently, as a as an entrepreneur you are, you have to see the world in a in a different way. And you have to convince people that you are the right person. Not only that, there’s a a market for your idea that doesn’t exist now, but you are the right person to to build this and and bring more people in into your vision. And so I asked that question very pointedly now, and that is something that the Startup Showdown team definitely thinks about because yeah, they are investing money and time into a founder and they want to make sure they’re that’s the right person tackling the right problem at the right time.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:23] Now, do you have any advice, since you’re in journalism, any advice for the startup founders that are listening to this right now on how to get the attention of the press? It’s so difficult to get to be heard and to be found in today’s world. How do you stand out? Is there anything you could be doing to elegantly maybe stay top of mind in terms of a reporter or of a publication, a blog, no matter what it is? And today, there are so many different choices out there. But how can a founder get the attention of the media in an elegant way that’s not turning you off and it’s not obnoxious?

Maija Ehlinger: [00:14:01] Lee I really appreciate that question because I’m sure, as you know, journalists inboxes get pretty messy pretty quickly just in terms of the amount of pitches that go out there. For me, I think the best time to talk to a journalist and you should be creating rapport with with journalists and really the general PR world, I guess as well, long before you have news to share. And I say that because when someone raises funding, that story is going to be out there and potentially most likely picked up by multiple news outlets. You want to have a relationship with journalists that that’s before you send out that big press release, because that’s going to create a better story that you have a relationship with, with someone. And they will be they’re going to have more time to tell your story. More. Yeah. You’ll be able to dig a little bit more into what you’re building. I think a lot of times, and it happens probably every day, I get a story that says, Hey, we raised money and the embargo lifts in 2 hours or so. Can you tell our story for me? And I think I think a lot of journalists, too, that doesn’t give us enough time to to really dive in and do a great job.

Maija Ehlinger: [00:15:31] And we’re just we don’t want to just rehash the press release. We want to go deeper. So, of course, you know. I think developing those relationships early is great. Also, my other piece of advice is always pieces that if you can make your startup or frame your startup in more of a human interest story perspective, I think that’s great. You know, founders get very hyper focused on how cool their tech is and kind of the nitty gritty, technical things that make a startup happen. But if you’re not able to translate that story into why a consumer or a business should care about it, it’s going to be harder to get press. And so really take some time to think about why you as a founder are interesting and why your product is so different and unique in the market. I think that those help that helps journalists tell a better story and a better narrative about what you’re building.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:30] And I think that if I heard you correctly, it almost goes back to what you said at the very beginning about relationships being important and creating those human to human connections that help people, you know, so that you know each other prior to the story being told that, like you said, you don’t just want them to tell the story today. But if they had reached out and over time you built a relationship, you might be more interested in their story today than it was when, you know, maybe when it was a glimmer of an idea six months ago.

Maija Ehlinger: [00:17:05] Right. Absolutely. You know, I think keeping in touch is really important. You have to remember that putting putting out a news wire goes out to every journalist. And it’s so easy to to glaze over those a little bit just because, you know, you get you could get easily 100 of those a day. And so you’re reading so quickly through something. And so you want to make sure that if you want to stand out against all the news that’s going out out there, that you have those personal relationships.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:38] And so when you are kind of have a startup, you should identify who those key journalists are. That should be part of your network at the beginning, not just when you need them.

Maija Ehlinger: [00:17:49] Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s it’s very helpful for for us. And, you know, at at hype, we’re very obviously industry focused. We focus very much on on tech startups in the area, but we’re also geographically focused. So we don’t cover there’s there’s great startups happening all over the country and all over the world, but we are hyper focused on the southeast region. And so there’s, you know, four startups that aren’t in the southeast. There are awesome journalists and smaller publications in your area. I’m very sure of it in people who who would like to connect with other people. You know, I’m I’m I’m happy to connect people with with other journalists around the area or around the country, too, because I think that that’s important for people to to know, to know, to know your journalists in town.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:43] Now, if somebody wants to kind of follow hype and the different stories that you’re covering around the Southeast, what’s the best way to do that?

Maija Ehlinger: [00:18:53] Yeah, absolutely. So we put all of our stories out on Hippopotamus Dot and that’s hippie Potti and us dot com publish there pretty much daily. And then we have a twice a week newsletter that goes out as a digest of all of the the recent news and upcoming community events and jobs that are also available. So you can check us out on, on online or if you want to get a curated list, sign up for our newsletter that goes out Wednesdays and Fridays.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:29] Well, Maya, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Maija Ehlinger: [00:19:36] Well, thank you. I really appreciate the time and look forward to chatting with you soon.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:42] All right. This is Lee Kantor Lucille next time on Startup Showdown.

Intro: [00:19:48] 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 D.C. That’s Showdown Dot DC. All right. That’s all for this week. Goodbye for now.

Zoe Newman With Capital on Tap

August 3, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Zoe Newman With Capital on Tap

00:00 /

Zoe Newman joined Capital on Tap in 2012, its founding year, fresh out of school. She has worked her way around the business from operations, product, partnerships, and, most recently, launching the product and team in new geographies.

Having recently moved from London to Atlanta in the US, she is now the US Managing Director and building out the US business and team – along with enjoying all the new local Southern experiences and culture…and the fried chicken!

Connect with Zoe on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Zoe’s personal journey
The story of their US expansion
Capital on Tap
The evolution of their product
Atlanta as their US headquarters

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on the Atlanta Business Radio. We have Zoe Newman with Capital on Tap. Welcome, Zoe.

Zoe Newman: [00:00:49] Hi, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:50] Hello there. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Capital on Tap. How are you serving folks?

Zoe Newman: [00:00:57] Sure. So thanks so much for inviting me to join today. And just to give you a bit of background about us, so as you can probably tell from my accent, I’m not originally from Atlanta. I have recently moved to the city from London. Earlier this year I’ve been working with Capital on tap since we first got started in 2012. And really our goal is to support small businesses, to access a really streamlined, easy to use business rewards credit card and basically all the all the good features and good stuff that they would expect from a small business card. But just trying to make that better, using better technology, better customer experience and really supporting their small business to give them the time to focus back on running their business and not having to worry about their finances.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:46] Can you talk about the genesis of the idea since you were such an early employee there? Was it always kind of geared to that small to midsize business owner to give them the capital they needed?

Zoe Newman: [00:01:58] Yeah, yeah, for sure. So as I said, it started in 2012 and originally we were trying to figure out what the best product was to support small businesses and their kind of working capital and payment needs. So we’d always been small business focused. It wasn’t kind of a broader market that we were looking at and then we drilled in on small businesses. So we’ve we’ve always kind of our founders and our roots have always been embedded in supporting small businesses in the best possible way. And when we first started out, we were more kind of a traditional loan facility and giving customers access to funds through a kind of working capital loan solution. And it was probably kind of four or five years in that we started to test out our credit card products, and that’s really where things took off. We saw amazing engagement from our customer base and customers were really kind of pleased they could use a line of credit with a really great rewards card and option earning, earning rewards for all of their business expenses in the U.K. It’s just not such a common thing to be to be earning rewards on all your credit card spend. And so we saw this huge opportunity in the small business market in the U.K. And then early 2021, we launched the business over in the US and have started to support small business and customers with the rewards card over here.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:22] So you got the short straw. That’s why they sent you over here. Or how did that how did you get chosen for this adventure?

Zoe Newman: [00:03:29] I definitely don’t think I got the short straw. It’s been an amazing adventure so far. Really awesome opportunity to come over to the US and to build the team and operations over here. So I was the last kind of two or three years was looking at international expansion, looking at new markets that could be interesting for the business to expand into. And the US had always been one that was kind of front of mind for us. Our CEO and CEO are both from Atlanta and they they definitely had a connection here and kind of that that goal of launching into the US. It’s always been been one for us. And so as we started looking into different markets, it then became apparent that US was going to be a great one just in terms of market size, opportunity and kind of some of the opportunities with with payments and banking systems here. I’ve, I haven’t used a checkbook so much since I’ve been over here in the last 20 years in the UK, I think. So there’s definitely opportunities to be really streamlining and improving that payments journey for small businesses.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:32] And then when you were looking at coming to America because of some of your leadership was from Atlanta. That’s why Atlanta got chosen. Or did you look at kind of the different places to be? And just because of the strength of our fintech, this became like kind of a logical place for you.

Zoe Newman: [00:04:49] Yeah. And I definitely, definitely a bit of both. And that connection to Atlanta was was strong for the for the leadership team and just coincidentally was also a really strong city in terms of payments, infrastructure and talent and and fintechs more generally. As I’ve as I’ve spent more time here, I keep seeing more and more amazing fintech companies popping up that I’ve been starting to connect with. So there’s a really awesome and kind of network and community of entrepreneurs, venture funds and investors, and also kind of the fintech space. So yeah, it’s been a really, really, really good opportunity and. Any great talent here. And yeah, it just just feels like we just sort of scratch the surface and really sing some some great stuff from Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:37] So how do you kind of kind of penetrate America? It’s such a large market and there are so many business people where I would think that this is something they should know about and, you know, and try. How do you kind of get the word out to help, you know, put your card on their radar?

Zoe Newman: [00:05:58] Yeah, it’s a good question. So our kind of playbook and how we’ve approached things has been see what has worked well in the. We’ve got that sort of foundation and that knowledge. And we’ve then brought over and kind of followed up one of our key values, which is just pilot and testing that and seeing if that sticks in the US market and has some traction here, and then if it works, then we run with it. So we’ve tried a complete mixture from online marketing channels, digital channels and PPC and pay per click and using AdWords, that sort of thing. We also have been approaching a lot of the aggregator sites. So those platforms where you would want to look for a credit card and you know the kind of household names of ones to go to and reaching out to those providers and trying to get listed. That’s been a really good opportunity for us to kind of gain brand recognition and credibility in the US market, where we’re pretty new. We also have used direct mail in the UK, so have started campaigns with with that channel and then also looking at some above the line, we’ve done some podcast sponsoring, we’ve looked at kind of some magazine ads and billboards potentially in the future as well.

Zoe Newman: [00:07:17] So really for us it’s kind of looking at those different opportunities and seeing which ones kind of work from a pilot perspective, sort of putting a small budget into one of those channels and seeing if we can attract the right business customers, if we can convert those customers to being kind of loyal customers that are choosing to use our card over others in their wallet and then doubling down as soon as we get that traction and we can prove that those economics are working and really then kind of going full throttle to roll that out and grow that channel as much as we can. One of the other interesting ones we found in the US has been, which has been interesting because the UK has been customer referrals and and influencer channel as well. So I think it’s a British thing. People often don’t like to talk about their credit products and if they’ve if they signed up for a credit card. But we’ve seen some really good opportunities through our customers, really going out and telling their networks, telling their small business owner friends about capital on tap and really getting the word out there, which has been it’s been an awesome channel for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:26] Yeah, that kind of organic growth is probably the best because it’s coming right from the horse’s mouth. People who are benefiting from it.

Zoe Newman: [00:08:32] Exactly. Exactly. Just yeah. That whole piece, as I mentioned, sort of brand recognition, credibility being a new small business credit card in the market takes some time for people to trust and kind of be willing to take a punt on us. So having that that word of mouth and yeah, people telling their friends and kind of backing us in our abilities has been a really, really great channel for us and for some great customers.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:58] So let’s educate the market. So tell us about capital on tap and tell us why a small business would benefit by using your service.

Zoe Newman: [00:09:08] Sure. So as I mentioned, we are really trying to make it as quick, easy, streamlined and simple as possible to sign up and start using our credit cards. So we have a very simple application form. It’s one page on our website. On tap. And we don’t ask for a ton of documentation. We try and source that data as much as we can so that the customer’s not having to send in lots of paperwork and lots of proof of business and all of those types of things that traditional credit card providers might ask for. And we have an all digital journey. So within four or five clicks, the, the business owner can be all the way through the process and can be accessing a virtual card to add into their digital wallet and then can be using that, that credit card for their business spend and so matter of minutes that they can get all the way through that process. And then once they once their virtual card is activated and ready to go, they can start using it for their business, earning 1.5% rewards on all their spend, and also activating additional cards for any employees in the business. They want to get signed up as well. So your finance manager, your sales manager, people team, any of those different employees can have access to. The cards can have spend controls, receipt management, tracking, and then all of that spend can flow through into your counting package. So hopefully launching with QuickBooks in the next few weeks so that any spend on the card is just straight into QuickBooks and can be easily reconciled for your business. So just really easy to use simple products with great rewards and credit limits that small businesses are looking for and needing to help them manage their cash flow a bit more effectively.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:59] Now, is the business solely focused on business credit cards, or is it eventually going to be like, you’ll be my kind of merchant account where I can clear credit cards myself in my business? Or is this the kind of the main and sole service that you’re offering businesses at this point?

Zoe Newman: [00:11:18] Yeah. So for now, we are fully focused on the credit card products and it’s tough to build a credit card product. So we want to make sure we’re doing it right and we’re focused on building the best products that we can. And I think often other financial institutions, fintechs, can try and do a lot of different products for a lot of different people. That’s not what we’re about. And so we are really focused on supporting small business owners who historically have been forgotten about by other financial companies that maybe are going after consumers or going after larger corporates. And so we always think there is a market that’s really underserved. We want to fully dedicate and focus our time on supporting those customers. And for now that credit card products, we’ve still got work to do. We can still make it better. So we want to focus on making that the best we can. And who knows, in the future there will be other opportunities, hopefully other products we can start to look at, see what pain points we can solve for our customers, take that feedback in and start to develop over time, but for now pretty fully focused on the credit card.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:24] Now, is your team solely in Atlanta or do you kind of have boots on the ground in other parts of the country?

Zoe Newman: [00:12:31] Solely in Atlanta, we have one office and that is in Atlanta. And we do have a couple of remote team members. We have one one lady who is up in Brooklyn and then a couple of members of our team are in Maine, but everybody else based in Atlanta, majority of people coming into our midtown office. And yeah, just just really building out that that office culture and kind of startup atmosphere here in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:58] And so how has it been have you been able to get you know, are you are you growing at the pace you’d like or what do you need more of? How can we help?

Zoe Newman: [00:13:08] Yeah, it’s been it’s been good. It’s the first few months I was I was remote from London. That was definitely pretty challenging. And time zones and just not being able to be here was, was tough. But since I’ve been able to be here and since we’ve started to kind of build out our office in this midtown location, we’ve brought in a number of people. We’ve got over 50 people in our office here now. And so, yeah, really just always looking for new talent and new people to join the team and any of your listeners. I would I would always suggest reach out to us if people are looking for new roles in a in a new fintech interested in the space, we always love to hear from you. And then yeah, really try now to support as many small businesses. We’ve started to do a few events in Atlanta to reach out to the Small Business Network here. But yeah, if anybody is interested in kind of checking out our products, please, please come and see us and have a look on our website and reach out for any questions you’ve got.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:09] Now, is there a certain type of business this is better for? Like, is it better for, you know, brick and mortar stores is a better for ecommerce? Is it any service business, professional service, creative like? Is there a better fit or is it just kind of industry agnostic? And if you’re a small business, then you should consider this product exactly that.

Zoe Newman: [00:14:34] Yeah, we really try and keep it industry agnostic. We’re not specifically focused on ecommerce or service providers. We really want to keep it broad. And the small businesses we serve usually kind of less than 20 employees and kind of not multimillion dollar revenue is probably our sweet spot. So those smaller mom and pop independent retailers, stores, consultants, landscapers, they have real, real mixture of businesses. But as I said, ones that are often kind of seemed to be underserved by the banks can be forgotten about in terms of the products that is offered to them. And so that’s the pain points that we’re really trying to solve. So again, no industry specifics. Any school business definitely welcome to apply.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:26] Now, is there an annual fee for this?

Zoe Newman: [00:15:30] No, no annual fees. No fees. So if you’re ever traveling abroad and you’ve been charged 3% by a lot of the other traditional banks, yet we do it as a 0% fee on any international spend, no fees for kind of adding supplementary cardholders. And we also don’t leave any hard inquiry on the individual’s credit report. So no harm in applying. So it has no impact on the individual that makes the application always worth. I would recommend to anyone to just fill in that one page application and see if you can get through that journey and hopefully you would be approved and it has no impact on your on your personal credit.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:15] And if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website or best way to connect with you?

Zoe Newman: [00:16:21] So our website is WW Capital On Tap and if you want to learn more, reach out. I’m on LinkedIn. My name is Zoe Newman and. Yeah. Come and come and come and learn more. Come and see more on our Twitter page or Instagram page. And hopefully we’ll be supporting many more small businesses in Atlanta over the coming months.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:44] Well, Zoe, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Zoe Newman: [00:16:49] Thanks so much, Neal.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:51] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Intro: [00:16:57] Today’s episode of Atlanta Business Radio is brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll in HR software anywhere. Get one month free add on paycom.

About Our Sponsor

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Abdoulaye Djire With FIND

August 1, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Abdoulaye Djire With FIND

00:00 /

Abdoulaye Djire is currently a graduate student at Georgia State University getting his Masters in Information Systems. His entrepreneurial journey began as he was walking down the graduation ceremony to get his first degree. At that moment he realized the career path he was about to enter he could no longer see himself doing long term.

This led him to think long and hard about what his next steps should be. He realized a pain point that not only he experienced but several other people did too. He then created a social media platform and business around this core problem and that was the birth of his company, FIND. This newfound path also resulted in him entering higher education once again this time with the goal of gaining knowledge to increase the chances of his business succeeding.

The journey has been full of twists and turns but he is grateful to say they have garnered 1,000 users, 2,400 followers on social media organically, and over 800 posts on the platform thus far through bootstrapping. He is excited to gain more resources in the near future to grow the company and platform the way he envisions to make a truly lasting and positive impact in the world.

Connect with Abdoulaye on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About FIND
The hardest challenges

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll and HR software anywhere. Get one month free at on pay. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor are here. A very special episode of GSU ENI radio. Today on the show we have Abdoulaye Djire with FIND. Welcome.

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:00:44] Hey, thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about find how you serving folks.

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:00:51] Yeah. So for the people who don’t already know what find is, it is a B2B social networking platform where through the use of pictures, videos, comments and ratings, we can all share our best one of a kind locations, what we like to call hidden gems.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:07] So what’s the had you had this idea come about? What was the genesis of the idea?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:01:12] Yeah. So there is there’s a couple of different stories that kind of weave together to make this story come alive. The most prominent one would be I have some relatives in Paris and I went to go see them one summer. And for me I was able to explore the city and stuff because I was there for a month while they’re at work and everything and I got to discover all these just very unique experiences and very hole in the wall of places. But the issue was when I wanted to show them my experience and have them go there too, there was no platform that had a solution like that, right? And when I came back home, there was I noticed so many people around me were living in Atlanta for years, but there are still struggling to figure out where to go and what to do to enjoy themselves. So once I saw these kind of two things happen, I was like, okay, well, I might be the one that needs to make something or do something about this. So yeah, that was kind of the start of fine.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:11] So when you’re kind of creating these kind of experiences for folks, how do you kind of vet them to make sure that just because you like them, other people will like them as well?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:02:23] Yeah. Great question. So best way I can answer that. It’s kind of like what you see on your Facebook or Instagram feed, right? So that content, Facebook is not creating themselves to give to you, right? Those are your friends on the platform making it what it is. So essentially here it’s the same exact concept. The places that you’re viewing are from the people who you’re friends with on the platform. So it’s to everybody is a value added that everybody posts great locations and great experiences.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:58] And the more that people do that, then kind of the app gets smarter and then you’re going to be able to find those hole in the wall gems.

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:03:06] Exactly. You got it? Yeah. It’ll get eventually. We’ll have some kind of algorithm that will even show you places that you didn’t even know you would love. And you end up loving those places just as the same as the ones you thought you would. So that’s what we’re gearing towards.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:21] Now, is this your first tech startup?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:03:24] Yes, it is. First, this is a quote unquote. Yeah, that’s the best way to put it. The first. Yep.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:31] Now, since you’ve never been a founder before, was this a kind of difficult is this how you saw kind of your career evolving or did you think, oh, I’m going to go to school and I’ll get a job? And that’ll be that and this I don’t know if this is I would assume in a positive way has at least derailed that a little bit.

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:03:52] Oh, absolutely. Completely derailed it completely. So for me, I got my exercise science degree and the plan was to get my doctor in physical therapy school. And so once I got some time after school, when I got finished, I realized that my passion ran out for the health care field. And so I was like, Man, I need to I need to think about something. I need to figure something out. So after praying on and brainstorming, a lot of this kind of entrepreneurial pathway was for me, something where I felt like I could dive all of my efforts into and still love what I’m doing in the process of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:35] Now, are you are you the technologist on the team or did you have to find one?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:04:40] I had to find one. And so as I was finding one, I became more and more tech savvy. Right. So. I kind of messed around with different bootcamps on Udemy, for example, and now I can know what code is and what’s going on, and then I can do a little bit of coding myself, but I’m also in my Master Information Systems program at State as well. So that ties in the business side to the technology side of things. So definitely not the expertise in the company as far as the technology piece, but I definitely have a very, very good understanding of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:23] Now, any advice for other founders out there when it comes to finding a technology partner on the team? How did you go about doing that? That seems like, you know, that’s kind of important, right? You’re building a tech startup.

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:05:35] Yeah. No, that’s a that’s a great point. It definitely is. Just like anything else, I think even outside of their knowledge and outside of what they’re capable of doing, it has to be more so that the person that you’re working with, if you can see that being a long term relationship. And what I mean by that is, you know, your partners become the people that you speak to more than anybody else, literally more than your friends family, more than your close friends. So it has to be somebody that you can not only see yourself in a professional setting with, but somebody that you can actually personally see yourself being around for long periods of time. Right. And second, to how does that person kind of go about adversity and how do you guys talk about conflicts are the most important things versus what they’re able to do for the company?

Lee Kantor: [00:06:29] So how did you find this person?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:06:32] Yeah. So at first for me, it was. Kind of figuring out the things we needed to in the journey eventually led to. I contacted a friend of mine from I’ve known him forever. We went to middle school and high school together actually, and he got me in contact with somebody else that he felt was capable of helping out with what I’m trying to do. And so that’s kind of what led us to meeting each other. And eventually that person in particular also has their own set of stuff going on in their place. So they did have to walk away from the company. But we’ve been able to fill in our technology gap through other developers and through other people.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:20] Wow. Exciting time. Congratulations. That’s a big milestone to be able to get that part right.

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:07:25] Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:27] Now, how did you find out about the Main Street program and and how has it been?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:07:34] Yeah, it’s been amazing. I’m very, very, very glad that we’re in it. I found out about it through Georgia State’s website soon after I graduated. And so I actually I applied for it last year for us to get in and we didn’t get in. So this year it felt like all the pieces were clicking together and that this is the year that God planned for us to be a part of it as part of this cohort. And it’s been great in the sense that any kind of plans that we want to execute, we can have feedback from the Main Street mentors and all the other businesses in the cohort that kind of, you know, get what they would think about the execution and then sit down and we think about ourselves and then we can adjust it accordingly and have even more successful way of going about it.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:24] So has there been any part of the process thus far that’s been most beneficial?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:08:30] I would definitely say our our sessions, right? So we through the six month program, we have different sessions where we’re talking legal or excuse me, where we’re getting legal advice, where we’re getting product market fit advice, accounting advice, just everything to really grow a business. So this for me, anything that I haven’t learned on my own or anything that I haven’t learned in the classroom is also plugging in those holes. So this is kind of to wrap things up as far as knowledge wise been very beneficial.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:08] So have you been enjoying the process? This is it’s a different kind of challenge, right?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:09:13] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And me, I grew up playing sports, so I kind of that competitive edge or that kind of man. I really don’t feel like doing this as far as like certain things when it comes to the business. But it’s like, no, I know the end goal and I know what I want to achieve. So then you you’re able to kind of push yourself to do the things you don’t want because when it comes time to do the things you actually do, as far as the business, those are a lot easier, you know?

Lee Kantor: [00:09:44] So what’s next and what do you need and how can we help?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:09:48] Yeah, absolutely. The next few kind of steps that we’re taking is we learned a lot from our MVP. We garnered 1000 users organically on the platform and more than 800 gems were posted. So through all that feedback and the things we learned and that MVP, we’re taking into the full version of the platform and we’re hoping to get that launched and out there in the next couple of months. And our biggest challenge thus far has been really raising funding. So with the Main Street program, we’re able to get a grant, which was our first external funding and has been a blessing. And we also got second place in our first pitch competition. So that added on to some of our grant money. So really we’re just looking for funding to really do what we want to do because we’ve done so much with so little. So only imagine when we get the right capital to, to get this thing really going.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:52] And if somebody wants to learn more about the app or maybe get a hold of you, what is the coordinates?

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:10:57] Yeah, absolutely. My email is Abdoulaye at the find out and that’s as an app will be as in boy Diaz in dog 0ulaye at the find out dot com to find the app. And then also our website, the find app.com is amazing. And then last night at least would be our Instagram defined app underscore.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:26] All right. Well, congratulations on all the momentum and thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Abdoulaye Djire: [00:11:35] Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:37] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on GSU. Any radio?

Intro: [00:11:44] Today’s episode of Atlanta Business Radio is brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta, on pay is the top rated payroll in HR software anywhere. Get one month free at paycom.

About Our Sponsor

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Amy Hager With Association Rockstars

August 1, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Association Leadership Radio

Amy Hager With Association Rockstars

00:00 /

Amy Hager, Co-Founder at Association Rockstar.

She is a true marketer at heart, uses her years of expertise and her go-getter personality to relate and apply business strategies across many businesses and industries. Her love of small businesses and the community is reflected in her work; driving revenues and new engagement tailored to a business’s strengths and breaking down weaknesses with strategy and tactics is Amy’s superpower.

Connect with Amy on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Build marketing and sales teams in non-profits and associations

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 Amy Hager with Association Rock Stars. Welcome, Amy.

Amy Hager: [00:00:31] Hey, thanks for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] I’m like, so I’m so excited to learn what you got going on. Tell us a little bit about association rock stars. How are you serving folks?

Amy Hager: [00:00:39] Yep. So Association Rock Stars is a online community where we’re really focused on singing the praises of those unsung heroes. There’s a lot of association professionals out there who are CEOs and working in different communities for different movements and missions. And we really think they all have a unique and different story to tell. And so we’ve brought them together and created a interview series that we do every single month, and we really just try to find these unique stories in the different communities of which we all live in.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:14] And then what drew you to associations? Why did you decide to focus in on that group?

Amy Hager: [00:01:19] Yeah. So my personal story of my association journey, because I feel like, again, they’re all so different, is I actually used to work for a publishing company as their PR director, and my main job was to belong to all of our local chambers and our local associations like Kitchen and Bath Association and everything along those lines. And so when I made the move out to Washington DC back in 2008 with my husband for a job change, I was moving to the Mecca of the association world. Everybody is in DC who’s an association. And so I started to work in the marketing and membership and events areas, and as I continued to grow my career and move into the executive director role, I was one of those executive directors that was out there just working so hard for my members and for my industry and didn’t really get a chance to connect with other executive directors who were working super hard for their industries. And so when I was presented with the opportunity to kind of create association rock stars with our co founder, Lowell Applebaum, it was just, again, this this chance to bring people together who are really champions for their association, because sometimes it is that alone feeling. You feel like you’re the only executive director of the organization and you’re going through a lot. So opening up the conversation so that they can collaborate and come up with solutions together because being a CEO sometimes is very, very lonely.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:53] Yeah. And I think that in today’s day and age, it’s much better to be investing in community than it is audience necessarily, which is kind of a slight departure for folks in in kind of marketing and the marketing world to invest in building a community where people can work together and collaborate and help each other. It’s it’s refreshing.

Amy Hager: [00:03:17] Well, and I think when you get a community of like minded professionals together, it is refreshing. You have the person to cheer you on when you need to be cheered on or to cheer with when you’re celebrating something. And I do think that through conversation, we become a lot more clear on what we should be communicating or how we could be communicating, or where we could be communicating a message. So I totally appreciate you nailing that on the. Headlee It is a different way that we think about marketing than what the traditional was communicating to an audience and broadcasting your message everywhere and instead focusing on building that collaboration, who’s really behind a movement. And sometimes the movement is the individual right. But a lot of times it really is that larger movement where we’re trying to better the lives of of the industry that we’re representing.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:14] Now on this show, we are talking to association leaders and we’re trying to share with them some best practices and maybe some tips and tricks that other association leaders have gleaned over the years. One of my I don’t want to say concerns, but it’s something that I’m trying to keep an eye on, is the attracting of young people into the association world. I think a lot of young people are cynical and aren’t embracing and leaning into associations and really taking advantage of the opportunities that they offer a young person, especially in a career. Do you have any advice for leaders of associations that want to kind of open the doors to younger people because they become the pipeline of of leaders, of future leaders, of the association? And if you ignore them for too long, you’re going to have a problem at some point.

Amy Hager: [00:05:07] Yeah, no, I think one thing that I’ve really honed in on as a leader of an association and as a leader of a team and staff and those. New generations coming in to the workforce. You know, I really feel that as an association leader, I have been asked to be a jack of all trades all the time. I need to be good at writing. I need to be good at speaking. I need to be good at video. You know, I need to be good at graphic design and putting together events and all the things. And I think what we’ve really unfortunately done by becoming a jack of all trades and trying to be really good at all these things is we’re spreading ourselves just way too thin. And so as this new generation is coming in and what I think current leaders need to really look at is what is the strength of that individual that’s sitting in front of you? What do they what do they bring to the table? Because a lot of young people are bringing amazing experiences, great new thought leadership to the table, but they’re just not being asked, what is your strength? Where do you rock at? What do you rock at? How do you want to create content? Do you want to create an audio file or a video, or do you want to write or do you want to do graphic design? And so instead of having these job requirements where they’re so spread thin with every single task, doing all the things, if we can micro task and we do this with our volunteers, a lot of times now I don’t know why we haven’t thought to really implement this one with our staff, especially newer staff. But I do think that that’s really a different approach to look at bringing on the newer generation is allowing them to thrive in their strengths and not telling them to be the jack of all trades that we were forced to be in.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:00] So what is your superpower? What is it that you bring to the table that really can help another organization get to a new level?

Amy Hager: [00:07:09] I would definitely say that the approach that I’ve been focusing on to help organizations market to the community and the like, I didn’t know you were going to mention how strong and how important communities are in marketing, but really to be able to attract those who can get behind a vision and a mission and actually repel the ones who aren’t the right ones, who aren’t going to be on that mission or vision with you. And once we really look at the attraction and the repel type marketing, tapping into your team and allowing them to especially market an organization market and sell an organization based off of their strengths and really shifting that narrative. That’s where I’m seeing the most success with the associations that I’ve been working with in adjusting their marketing implementation strategy. When you look at your staff and what you’re actually trying to achieve.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:09] And when you do get clarity of a true north or what the ideal person looks like, it is easier to say no to things and to recognize when you’re kind of stretching in areas, maybe you shouldn’t be stretching and you’re kind of compromising in places you maybe you shouldn’t be. I think that’s a key point to know not only what the person looks like, but also what they don’t look like and to to avoid those people.

Amy Hager: [00:08:37] Well, and I think, too, that there is an association for literally everything out there. Right? There’s a nonprofit association for everything. And so if that person sitting in front of you isn’t the right member for you, they will find support somewhere else. There’s plenty of people out there who need to belong to a community of like mindedness and who need to belong to a mission and a vision of how we’re going to move forward and whatever the industry is. Right. And so I think as leaders, again, we tried to not only ourselves be jack of all trades, but a lot of times the associations started to become the jack of all trades. And so if we really focus our niche on what our organization does really, really well and how we make that positive impact on the member’s lives, and we focus on the thing we do well and we help those who need that thing. That is your ideal member right there. And that’s who you need to be marketing to.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:35] Right. And those are the people that you have to be investing in and leaning into rather than trying to to fix somebody or to, you know, kind of force a square peg into a round hole.

Amy Hager: [00:09:47] Yeah, most definitely.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:49] Now, in your career, I’m sure there’s been ups and downs. Do you mind kind of sharing a challenge that you went through or maybe a mistake that you made that you were able to overcome and maybe got you going in the direction that you are now?

Amy Hager: [00:10:02] So I would say one of the mistakes that I made is when I was at an association where I was the only staff member and really did a great job of talking to. The members and talking to prospective members and figuring out their biggest pain point in their need because the association was spread way too thin. We are doing lobbying, we are focusing on marketing, we’re doing inspections and making sure that there were these industry standards that were being held. And when it really boiled down to what the actual member wanted, they really wanted help marketing. They really wanted help getting foot traffic into their businesses. And so when we switched the organization to focus on that, it was a great micro niche. I think the mistake that was made and this was a mistake on my part and by the board is we really structured the offer and the benefit of being a member based off of the benefit of my marketing strengths. And so when I left the organization and they couldn’t find a marketer who was a like minded marketer that I was, it really left the organization into a pinch of do they hire that square peg to fit in this round hole and try to make this person be what the organization needs them to be? Or does the organization have to shift and go back to spreading itself then being in all these different places? And so the one thing that really turned my perspective is making sure that we do have other professionals in, I guess, entering the workforce who see this new way of creating a association and making it sustainable by niching down.

Amy Hager: [00:11:52] Who agreed to that? Because it’s kind of hard to come across, but I think it’s slowly making a shift and I’m seeing this a lot better. And this was back in 2015, 2016. So we’re quite a few years away from there and also have experienced a lot different experiences. But it really did show me that we’ve got to make sure that we’re starting to get a shift of the leadership, either thinking differently of how to run the organizations who are currently in those positions or attracting future leadership who see it that way as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:27] Now, in your career and where you’re at today, when you made the shift to this community oriented marketing style, when did you start seeing kind of the breadcrumbs of, Hey, we might be on to something here? This is starting to resonate. This is I feel better about it. The people we’re serving feel better about it. When did you kind of get the hint that you were on to something?

Amy Hager: [00:12:51] I would say. Pretty instantly with the current members, with those really active ones who are going to tell you what they think no matter if it’s good or bad. It was very instant with them, with the potentials and with the people who have left the organization. It took about a year. It was an overnight success, and it took a lot of breaking down barriers that were not that old organization that was doing too much and trying to do too many things, and that we’re really focused on helping this piece. So I would say instantly with the members who were super involved, but it did take about a year and it did take a lot of one on one meetings for them to really gain the trust of the organization again, because they felt that they had been burned or they felt that the organization didn’t meet what they needed. And so building that one on one trust and building then those champions within the organization to help spread that message was super key. Because if I tried to do it again as the staff of one all on my own, we would have never achieved it. So it really was making sure that those who truly believed in the mission really saw the vision, were also equipped with the tools to then talk about that and really enroll other people into this new vision, into this new movement, into this new way of thinking, and get them to join onto that movement with us in when we built the movement, of course we had their input before, so it was kind of easy because that’s what they said they wanted. But it was getting them focused on that one pain point within business that an organization or an association can really help them do.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:45] Now, can you share a story? Obviously don’t know the name, but maybe share the challenge that the association you were working with had and then how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Amy Hager: [00:14:58] So I think again, when it comes to recruiting members and getting members behind that movement, if if it’s too widespread, it’s it’s too hard for everyone to buy on. And so when I’m working with organizations now, we really want to hone in on, on, on that process and on the results that you’re going to get from interacting with us. And a lot of times we focus too much on the oh, we have a conference. Oh, you can come network. Oh, you can come do this. You can do that. If we really scale back on the I call it the boat. So we’re selling the boat like the peanuts of the boat, the captain at the boat, the music that we’re going to listen to on the boat. And if we really talk about the results from being in the organization, the results from working within community, the results of how we’re moving this mission or this vision forward when we’re able to really have those higher level conversations and get out of the weeds of the how to and get into the result conversation, that’s where you really see the turn of the members who want to be there because they’re on that vision with you. They’re not there because they want to go to networking events or they’re not there because they want to have that trip to Orlando to your national conference.

Amy Hager: [00:16:24] Right. You see the turn in your membership becoming quality and more invested in investing more of their time and their business into the organization because of that overall movement. And so how I’ve seen this work out, organizations now, again, it’s a different way of thinking. You really have to reprogram the conversation and you have to reprogram the person who is sitting in front of you of how they see the organization. And it’s it’s definitely, I would say, like an educational type campaign, right? Letting them kind of build that like love and trust factor with the organization and and see that their business is going to benefit or their individual professional development or whatever the certification might be, will benefit from being in that organization. But I think shifting the conversations leave from instead of all the little the little cool, fun things that you get with membership and you know, you have a three page long list of all of these things. If we talk about the results you get by being involved in this community, being involved as a member and being a part of this organization, you will see the up level of that membership.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:42] Yeah, I think it’s funny that a lot of associations, they forget to ask what the outcome that the member desires is and they’re adding all these features in and what they. Membership perks, and they’re not really having conversations with the members to see what they’re really trying to get out of this.

Amy Hager: [00:18:02] Exactly. Very true.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:05] Now for you, what is the ideal association for you to work with? What what’s the profile of a good fit client for you?

Amy Hager: [00:18:14] I would say really the organizations who are working on serving their business, usually business based organizations. Even though I’m a certified association executive SCA and I also hold my IOM Institute of Organizational Management designation, and I believe that those trainings and those professional, professional development opportunities have really helped me in my career. I know that my strength lies within organizations who are really supporting businesses. So I really love working with local chambers, working with travel and tourism industry businesses and hospitality organizations, and really helping them connect that larger business community of how do they help those members? How do they help the members grow with foot traffic? How do they build the the economic developments that need to be built within a community to support business? So that’s really kind of where I thrive.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:19] Now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what is the coordinates website, LinkedIn, things like that.

Amy Hager: [00:19:27] Yeah. So if you literally just look up Amy Hager it’s a y, h, a g e are either on LinkedIn, Facebook or if you Google. I do have a website. Amy Hager Solutions to get to the Association Rockstars. You’re definitely going to find us on Facebook. That’s where our major group lives. And then we also have association rock stars dot com, which you can read about our rock stars. You can listen to our interviews on our podcast. So if you got iTunes or Google Play, we’re there. And then also on YouTube, we’ve got all the interviews housed there as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:05] Well, Amy, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Amy Hager: [00:20:10] Thanks for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:12] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on the Association Leadership Radio.

Chris Williams With VPPPA

August 1, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Association Leadership Radio

Chris Williams With VPPPA

00:00 /

Chris Williams, CAE serves as the Executive Director of the Voluntary Protection Program Participants’ Association (VPPPA), a 501[c](3) association representing participants and stakeholders in OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program. Chris has served as an association leader for more than 20 years, leading membership growth, program development, and safety & health for a variety of organizations.

Connect with Chris on Linked and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Association leadership
Membership growth
Governance, safety & health
Program development
Emerging leaders

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: [00:00:19] Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Chris Williams with the VPPPA, which is the Voluntary Protection Program Participants Association. Welcome, Chris.

Chris Williams: [00:00:36] Thank you for the welcome. I appreciate that. And I apologize for the mouthful there. It was a VPPPA.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:42] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about the association, how you serving folks?

Chris Williams: [00:00:47] So VPPPA has been around now since around 1984 or thereabouts, going on 40 years here we serve. The best way to put it is we were started as the Association for OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program participants. What that is, it’s a compliance assistance program for all industries that companies are involved in basically the best of the best in terms of safety and health programs. And as we’ve evolved over the years, the association has focused more on all companies. What we mean by that is there are other safety associations out there that represent the safety and health professionals and the companies that that really are striving for that VPP star designation. And also to be the best of the best, the world-class companies, we bring them into the fold as well instead of focusing just on that VPP program. So that’s as I’ve mentioned previously to a number of folks that are listeners here that I’ve worked with directly. We like our name Voluntary Protection Program Association, love it. It’s a mouthful. So we go by VPPPA because we represent, as I said, the best of the best in terms of safety and health.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:47] Now, when you have safety and health as the forefront of the mission, do you spend a lot of your time kind of in education mode where you’re just trying to share these kind of best practices?

Chris Williams: [00:02:00] Oh, certainly. In fact, our main focus as a5c3 is the education, not just of our members in terms of evolving their safety and health programs, but also industries as a whole. That’s construction, manufacturing, industrial, petrochem, everyone down the line from companies like Amazon all the way to Honeywell and some of the energy generation companies into the construction field as well. The education, it really starts with our safety convention, our symposium. That’s usually every August this year it’s in Washington, D.C. So coming up here soon and we focus on, as I said, not just educating the industries that we focus on, but helping them to connect and helping them to share their best practices. The popular saying from a safety and health perspective and I’m a safety and health person by trade. Previous experience with associated builders and contractors as director of Safety and Health, my father’s been a construction forever. We talk about until we get to zero incidents worldwide, we’re never going to have the very, very, very best program we can have. We need to keep evolving that program to continue to focus on helping all industries and all workers go home at the same or better condition in which they arrived. And that’s our primary goal.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:04] Now, how are we doing? Like what is the kind of state of the industry right now, in your opinion?

Chris Williams: [00:03:10] State of the industry, safety and health? We are better than we have ever been. I can tell that. I can say that with absolute certainty. You know, I’m old enough to remember back back in the nineties, safety culture was give a great example in terms of fall protection in construction. It was wear body belt. Well before that it was well, if you feel bad things are going to happen, you’re most likely going to perish. Then it was Wear Body Belt and if you fell, well, okay, you might be paralyzed from the waist down from the nineties. Oh, we evolved in that piece of equipment, evolved into a full body harness, which protects the wearer from serious injury. And so as we evolve safety in health, we’ve reached a point now that, especially with EPA members, are lagging indicators for our members, or at least 52% better than industry averages across the board. And while that’s great, as I said, one of the things that we as an association focus on, we continuously try to educate and share those best practices with our members to get that number to absolute zero. In terms of incidence every hour, our primary resource, our best resource we could possibly have are our employees, our workers out there. And our goal is to make sure that every one of them goes home safe.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:17] Now, do you find that the the companies you work with, a lot of companies, obviously, people are our most important asset and they there’s a lot of lip service towards that. But practically, you know, when the rubber hits the road, are you seeing them as maybe motivated and inclined to take action when it comes to safety and health as you’d like? Or is this something is it getting better? Like, where are we at from that standpoint?

Chris Williams: [00:04:45] That’s that’s a great question with VPA members. Our members, as I said, are always striving to be the very best. The best, and that’s what we look for. But as as we’ve expanded as an association and evolved our mission, some of those companies, sadly, there are companies out there. We see them in the news all the time that that they pay that lip service to. Yes, we safety is our priority. And yet you look at their their safety performance, it’s simply not there. And as we’ve evolved our association, our focus is to bring those companies in. We want those company. Used to join us. We want those companies to be a part of VPA so that they can learn and apply those lessons and get better. You know, we see them anytime I see a company and this is personal opinion, not a VP. Again, my safety backgrounds come into play here whenever I see a company or a person talk about safety as a priority. I always question that because priorities change. My priority for the longest time, every every January 1st, is I’m going to lose weight. And every March 1st, that priorities got. It’s changed. There’s something else to put out there. Safety to our members and our association. It’s a core value. It’s what we are. Our businesses, our members build their business on, their model on. And when I worked in construction, there are a number of companies that you talk about lip service say that their statement is essentially we will not perform any task if it is not completely safe. But those companies walk the walk. And our goal as an association of VPAS to bring members on board, to get them to where it’s walking the walk, in addition to talking the talk and to raise that boat with you, we talk about rising tide lifts all boats. That’s our association’s mission now and then.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:20] So, you know, you’ve been doing this for a minute and it sounds like it’s trending in the right direction. And do you think that just by kind of holding up the examples of the people that are doing it well and then I don’t want to say shaming, but just making the public aware of the people that aren’t doing it as well or could improve. Is that kind of the lever that you need to get more people prioritizing safety and health? Like, what are the levers you have to pull to, you know, encourage more companies to really walk the walk?

Chris Williams: [00:06:53] So it’s interesting to say that when we talk about shaming companies and that’s certainly been been something that that is an industry. And in terms of other agencies as well, they’ve worked towards, you know, it’s we bring attention to the company that’s not performing well. The reality is what we found in safety and health is that for the longest time I said the culture change is really started back in the nineties. I use the fall protection example, but the reality is safety is a culture. As the cultures of cultures evolved from the nineties, we realized that the culture of the generational leadership style of tell somebody to do something and let them do it, make sure they do it and come down on them hard. If they don’t do it the right way, it’s changed instead of shaming. Now it’s we work with not just employees but companies and say, listen, we understand these are things that are happening and we have the solutions for you. We can get you to where you need to be. Let’s work on that together and bring you up to speed so that you’re not going to be in the news for all the wrong reasons. You’re going to have employees who want to stay. You’re going to have employees that are working safe and understand the importance of safety because it is a cultural issue.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:00] So you’re finding that by bringing attention in a positive manner to the people that are doing it well and holding them up and spotlighting them and using them as an example, that brings more people into the fold.

Chris Williams: [00:08:13] Absolutely. Absolutely. And I’ll say this, our safety symposium we have every year, we have a large portion of our sessions dedicated, like I said, to sharing best practices and sharing our award winners, success stories, the best, the best. Again, showing how they’ve done it. That said, we also, from a safety health standpoint, know that we need to the best way to put this is most people their safety. Why why they do what they do, why they work safe. It stems from a catastrophic incident, a tragedy beyond explanation. And people that have gone through that loss, that have gone through either a death penalty on the job site or a serious injury with one of their employees. You can see the change there. And so what we also attempt to do is, is we bring in speakers that have have gone through that safety. Why? Because the last thing we want a company or one of our members to have to go through is that catastrophic incident to finally realize. So we try to duplicate that condition as much as possible and then promote the best practices after that and say, listen, this is something you never want to have to go through. Here’s how you never have to go through it.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:20] Yeah, because the people have lived through it. They, they know the importance, but they had to experience that devastation in order to really have it kind of sink in and probably make that cultural change. I mean it sadly. But you want to learn from their pain, really, so that you can eliminate the pain going forward for others.

Chris Williams: [00:09:41] Absolutely. I had a great conversation with one of our closing session speakers yesterday about this very topic, and she used to work at NASA during the Columbia disaster and said that NASCAR, and rightfully so, USA, has an exceptional safety culture. But unfortunately it was the Columbia incident and Challenger before that that there were slips. And in our profession, when there slips, it’s catastrophic. And so our mission is to avoid help companies avoid those slips.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:10] Yeah. I mean, it’s one of those things where, I mean, you’re dealing with human beings. So mistakes. You know, humans make mistakes. But if you can, you know, get to the heart of the systems and make sure that you’re catching some of these potential mistakes before they can happen systemically, then you can really make an impact and then you can prevent some of this.

Chris Williams: [00:10:33] Absolutely. And incident prevention in any industry is always a tremendous asset. And it’s something that we preach incessantly and for good cause. And it’s it also comes down to when we talk about culture as we’ve seen this this cultural evolution in safety and health. As I said, it went from. Do the job, get it done back it back up until OSHA was created back in the early seventies that it was all right. You work safe. But that was it. You were responsible for your own safety and you are still responsible for your own safety and the jobsite you’re on. But the cultural evolution we’ve now started to focus on in the early 2000s, and it’s been tremendous in terms of helping us get this message across, that it’s not just about you working safe, it’s about you watching out for the people around you to make sure that they’re working safe. And we’ve accomplished this. And in a way that I don’t think anybody, if you’d asked them 25 years ago, would have said this is possible, but we’ve accomplished it by. By having family days, by especially in construction, shutting down the job site and having families commit so that I, as an employee of the company, I as a steelworker, I as a carpenter, I as a laborer can see that the person working next to me has got got a wife and kids, got a husband and a child.

Chris Williams: [00:11:44] They’ve got parents. Those are the people that they’re working for. And so what we’re doing from a cultural standpoint is reinforcing that you’re not just responsible for your own safety, but you need to make sure that the person next to you continues to work it because they’re going to go home to a family. And if there’s that catastrophic loss, that safety, why that happens and we never want to see it, that’s where the loss is going to be felt. And I can this is a topic that I’m very passionate about because in my previous career with ABC as director of safety there, I had a member who shared a story with me from back. Back in the early 2000s on one of their job sites, a crane collapse killed a young man. Unfortunately, it was their safety. Why? And on a Facebook every year, we unfortunately have the parents of that young man. They post every year how much they miss them. And we’re now 20 years on from that. And it never we never want to have to see somebody go through that. And that’s why we do what we do.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:36] Right. And by including the families you are, you know, you’re kind of demonstrating the stakes like it is in Bob. There’s Bob and his kid and his wife and his, you know, grandkid like Bob’s more than Bob. So, I mean, the stakes are high. And everybody, it sounds like it’s very holistic. And I mean, I remember when I was in school and we’d read books about what it was like a hundred years ago. I mean, it seems like we’ve come such a long way because of, you know, organizations like yours that are really kind of giving people the tools to be better. And it sounds like that we are making progress. This isn’t a dream that can’t come true. I mean, with people kind of can learn from your association and the members and really can make a difference. And it sounds like it is.

Chris Williams: [00:13:25] Oh, absolutely. I pinpoint back and you can’t pinpoint a date, but when we when we realized that we could throw all the money and all of the best practices in terms of technical knowledge, in terms of personal protective equipment prevention to design, we could throw all of that technical knowledge into safety and health, but still not reach our goal. Once we figure it out, we need to include the human component. That’s when it really started to click across all industries that once we got the human component in there, realized that behavior really does have an effect on how somebody works. Not only that, the conditions they face off the job and we started to focus on employee wellness outside of the outside of the job, the workplace. That’s when it really started to shift. To get us to the point we’re at now. There’s still a long way to go, don’t get me wrong, in terms of any any any injury on any job site or any plant, any manufacturing facility is one too many. And as we still need to focus on that improvement, but we’ve come so far in the past 25, 30 years just from that. And then even before that, the famous photo of the New York skyline, the steel work is sitting on a steel beam. There’s I see that photo today. And I still my heart stops because, number one, I’m afraid of heights. Number two, there’s I can’t even fathom having someone at that height with absolutely no fall protection. And we’ve come so far and we’re so safe that I think workers from that day and age would be astounded to see where we are at from a safety and health standpoint. Again, there’s still some we still have to get to that zero.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:00] Now, are you finding that today’s generation of workers, you know, they’re elevating maybe mental health as high as physical health when it comes to their workplace experience?

Chris Williams: [00:15:14] Oh, absolutely. And we’ve started to see our members, VHP members are at the forefront of recognizing that employee wellness is critical to not just working safe, but the employees long term success in health. And we focused on, especially with our association. In fact, when I started I’ve been here about a month now. Like I said, my background is in safety and health. But it was amazing to see how proactive not just our members have been, but also the association itself in terms of focusing on that, you know, we have members that that will have mental health days for their workforce that say the force them to take the day off. And we do that as an association as well. We tell our employees, my team, listen, once a day or once a quarter, you’re going to take the day off and we’re going to pay you to take the day off. And we want you to go do anything that’s not work related. Because if you’re not mentally sharp and this is not just from the association standpoint, from a workforce standpoint in general, if you’re not mentally sharp and ready to go, that’s a mistakes happen. And again, in our in our industry, in safety and health, one mistake is catastrophic, can have catastrophic consequences, not just for you as an individual, but for those working around you.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:23] Now, is there an example you can share? I know that this is kind of new for you in this role, but maybe an example you can share that illustrates the change that can happen when a company leans into safety and health in terms of just better results and better maybe retention and better just, you know, you’re just a better organization when you lean into and elevate safety and health, not from lip service, but to actual action where you are kind of watching the back of your people.

Chris Williams: [00:16:56] Absolutely. And I can show you a recent example. I came over to the EPA from the Association of the Wall Ceiling Industry and Administering the Safety Awards there at a company when I started about five years ago that I talked to you guys, you’ve got a pretty good program. Why don’t you apply for a safety awards? And they said, well, you know, we’re still working on our culture and we still have some issues and some of our some of our officers, we want to make sure that we’ve got them on the right path. And so we brought them aboard the safety committee. And this is now three years ago, they applied for the first safety award they want for one of their offices. And they said, why don’t you apply as a whole company? They said, Well, we still have work to do. And that recognition, we haven’t earned it. The sea change from them when they applied last year and won our highest award at WCI was phenomenal from when I had started working with them. It wasn’t just the tangibles of employee retention, and the employees absolutely raved about their involvement in the safety and health program. It wasn’t just the increase, the better performance in terms of their lagging indicators. It was the fact that safety and health have become an absolute obsession with the company, whereas before it was, as I said, a priority. Now it was something that they strove for 24 seven. It was something that was at the forefront as a core value in everything the company did.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:17] Now, any advice for maybe other association leaders out there that are like you? You’ve been in this space for a while, but now you’re taking over a new association, how you can kind of, you know, maybe your first hundred days, how you kind of went about joining this association and kind of making a plan to make the largest impact you can.

Chris Williams: [00:18:42] That’s a loaded question, Lee. It’s like I said, I started here about a month ago, but in reality. Started when I was announced that I’d accepted the positions that was back in May. And so some of my advice is that when the opportunity arises, seize it for those out there looking to take that that top seat, that CEO, that executive director position, but start laying the groundwork for success even before you start that. That’s engaging with the executive committee and the board, getting to know what their goals are for the association, getting to know what the rules are, speaking with staff when the opportunity arises. Being able to really explore that relationship and build that relationship from a foundational standpoint with them from the outset. Because I can tell you when I started, I started July 1st and it was a half day and then July 4th was a monday. So all right, I’m in the office for 3 hours and that’s it.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:31] You eased into it?

Chris Williams: [00:19:32] Yeah, I remember. I won’t remember any any faces or names the next week because there’s there’s three and a half, four days in between. But because I had gotten to know everyone, because I’d had those conversations with both volunteer leaders and staff, it really sets you up for success and what you’re looking at, especially in the first 100 days. One of the things I’d recommend for anyone that’s interviewing for a position like this, the question always comes from the interview committee, the nominee, the committee, it’s what would you do in your first 30 days or 60 days or 90 days? No, it’s the first six months minimum, because the first 90 days in this position are spent learning. It’s that that old that old adage of children should be seen and not heard. Well, executive directors and CEOs, in the instances where they can they should be seen heard only on occasion, but absorbing as much information as they can. Because if you go into it with why I’m going to change X, Y and Z immediately, that’s that’s not possible in associations. I think we we all know the pace that associations move and on change, it’s it’s not quick and that’s fine. But we also when you go into it with that mindset, I’m going to make these changes immediately. In my first 90 days, you start to lose staff the buy it in. It’s critical to earn the respect of your staff, your team from the outset and also their buy into your vision for the association. That’s a more long term goal. So never, never go with that first 90 days. So it’s the first six months because it takes six months to build those relationships up.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:03] And you have to manage the expectations of the board in that regard as well, I’m sure.

Chris Williams: [00:21:08] Absolutely. It’s unfortunate. Vpas is in a really good position. Obviously with the pandemic coming out of this, there’s still uncertainty around many associations or is included in terms of attendance at our upcoming safety plus event, in terms of how things will look when we’re fully out of the pandemic, knock on wood. And so keeping that in mind, it’s it becomes one of those challenges of you don’t want to say, oh, we’re going to have 3000 people at this event realizing that the market conditions simply won’t support it. Or, again, coming out of a pandemic, there’s still uncertainty and there’s still travel restrictions. So it’s it’s not necessarily the old under-promise, overdeliver, but be realistic in your expectations. Don’t. My advice is don’t don’t go into it as I know I can make these changes and we’re going to do tremendous work and we’re going to succeed right off the bat. No expect that. As I said, you’re learning as you come into it and especially that first six months, make sure that the board understands that. Yeah, you need to take that six months to really be integrated into the association. And that’s not just the operations but the history of the associations, what the association has done before, and then laying out that vision in conjunction with your board of where you want to take the association, what you see the opportunities as being.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:22] Well, Chris, if if there’s people out there that want to learn more about the association, what is the coordinates or the best way to connect with you and your team?

Chris Williams: [00:22:31] Absolutely. I can always go to our website VP dot org. It’s got all of our contact information and if any, any aspiring leaders want to reach out to me. I’ve been on this journey now for 22 years and it’ll never stop because I love associations and also safety and health and they like advice and in this position they can always reach me. My email address is C Williams at VP dot org.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:52] Well Chris.

Chris Williams: [00:22:53] Remember three.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:53] Ps three PS V three PS in an A. Exactly. Well, Chris, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Chris Williams: [00:23:02] We appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much.

Lee Kantor: [00:23:05] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see y’all next time on the Association Leadership Radio.

Aarti Sahgal With Synergies Work

July 29, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Aarti Sahgal With Synergies Work

00:00 /

Aarti Sahgal is the Founder & CEO of Synergies Work – the only nonprofit in the U.S. that enables entrepreneurs with disabilities to build sustainable businesses. We do so by providing end-to-end business solutions and bridging the opportunity gaps between the disability and the business community.

Synergies Work is a personal mission that stems from the life experiences of Aarti Sahgal. As a parent of a child with Down syndrome, she is constantly challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations that excludes people with disabilities from living their true potential. Aarti has been working for more than 17 years on building inclusive communities and workforce strategies for individuals with disabilities.

Aarti is the President of GA APSE(Association of People Supporting Employment First) and is on the board of the state Rehabilitation Council.

In her previous avatar, she worked for 14 years in advertising & marketing. She has a Master’s in business Management from one of the top management schools in India.

Connect with Aarti on LinkedIn and follow Synergies Work on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About Synergies Work
The Ideato Incubation (i2i) program
The mission behind Synergies Work so important
The ImpactGrants

About Our Sponsor

Follow OnPay on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter

Joe Delatte With Home Clean Heroes

July 29, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Franchise Marketing Radio

Joe Delatte With Home Clean Heroes

00:00 /

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

Joe Delatte, President at Home Clean Heroes

Whether it’s business ownership, management or sports, a coach’s main job is helping individuals and the team reach their full potential.

Joe spent his entire career building and sharpening skills in business management, leadership, strategic marketing, sales, product development, process improvement and creative thinking. Along the way, he held key marketing positions for several large communications players, including Landmark and Cox Communications.

He also owned and operated a home services franchise that quickly became one of the area’s highest quality and well-known home services companies.

Now as the President of Home Clean Heroes, he gets to put it all to work coaching their franchisees and corporate team to help them each reach their full potential and their personal dreams.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

About Home Clean Heroes
The brand’s summer signing event

John Howard With Use Slingshot

July 29, 2022 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

John Howard With Use Slingshot

00:00 /

John Howard, Founder at Use Slingshot LLC

John talks about bootstrapping and getting to profitability in your business. He runs a swag company.

Connect with John on Linkedin and Twitter.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: [00:00:31] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have John Howard with Use Slingshot. Welcome, John.

John Howard: [00:00:50] Hey, how’s it going?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] It is going well. Before we get too far into things, tell us about you. Slingshot, how are you serving folks?

John Howard: [00:00:58] Yes. So basically we work with startups and agencies and companies like Adobe and help them give swag to their people and make that super effortless.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:07] So swag, can you explain what it is and why it’s important?

John Howard: [00:01:12] Yeah. So apparel, gifts, little knickknacks, but things that make your people feel good, that’s either internal your employees or external being the people you’re trying to serve as customers or leads. And it’s important because they want to feel love, they want to feel heard. And showing this kind of admiration for them during a deal or doing an onboarding for a customer or employee is very important.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] So this would be different than than what I would see at a trade show where they have, you know, a jar of pens or flash drives.

John Howard: [00:01:47] Yeah. So those things we consider a little bit kitschy, but they do work, so we try to actually make sure the experience that means the package, the handwritten note, how it feels, what it’s paired with is an experience that they feel not just something they pick up and throw in the bag and forget about. So it’s all delivered directly to their doorstep. And so trade shows can actually send this from the trade show just through a QR code without having to worry about how that gets lugged around and thrown in the trash later.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:14] So you are trying to elevate kind of this industry a bit?

John Howard: [00:02:18] Yeah, it’s it’s not that it’s antiquated, but usually people are going for quantity, not quality. So customers come to us for that higher experience because you’re competing with their closet, you’re competing with their wardrobe. And so you want them to pull out the thing that really means something to them. So instead of sending just a bunch of things out into the wild with no tracking, we help you elevate not just the items themselves, but the experience when it’s opened and the follow up behind that to make sure they’re onboarded or go to that next step. You want them to.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:47] Now, how do you help your clients kind of determine if it’s even possible, like an ROI for something? Because I’ve been to a million trade shows and some of this stuff, I’m like, how can they, you know, what’s the ROI of, you know, a pen or a flash drive.

John Howard: [00:03:05] Right? They already have marketing budget for this, which is funny. But the baseline for years and years and years historically has been brand awareness. Basically. I hope they really have my shirt on. I hope they pull my pen out to use that and remember us. That’s the baseline. What we do is create a funnel, just like a marketing funnel, and when someone goes to redeem your gift at the end of that, they’re asked for an action that could be jump on a call with me. Schedule a Zoom call, download a PDF about our sales products. Or it could be somewhat internal, like go to the next step of onboarding. So we really measure that and measure those click through rates so we can actually put real numbers to the impact, not of the item itself, but of the emotional transaction that just took place.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:46] So this really are the item, really isn’t the important part. It’s the relationship that’s the important part. And these are just a means to an end to build and nurture existing or new relationships.

John Howard: [00:04:00] Right. Yeah. And then we the high end stuff allows it more to be more shareable, naturally. So we try to create that organic sheer ability. But yes, it is not the item itself inherently. It is that whole experience. And then being able to track that in some kind of way, that relationship is there in and out of our forms in 15 seconds. So it’s a really quick transaction and then they’re asked to do something optionally. So those click through right through those conversion rates that more traditional marketers would measure can actually put to real dollar spend and really measured that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:30] So what’s your back story? How did you get into this line of work?

John Howard: [00:04:34] Yes, my last company was Black Airplane. It was a design agency in Atlanta. And so I sold that to two people back in 2017. I stayed on for two years and I saw that our customer swag, we just didn’t slap our logo on it. We tried to make it real experience internally. People love that. And so I wanted to go back into building another project or another business. And so once I left there in March of 2020, historically a bad month to leave, but had no idea. We started this new company and it’s been great because everybody’s been distributed. A lot of people are trying to reach people they could not normally reach, and we shipped to 88 countries last year. So it’s not just here locally in the United States, the world has been impacted with distributed teams both in a good way and of course, historically otherwise. You all heard about.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:19] Now when you kind of made the leap into this industry, did you have kind of some breadcrumbs or some clues? It’s like, Hey, this is something that could work out. We’re starting to get traction. What were some of the earliest kind of hints that you were on to something?

John Howard: [00:05:37] Yes. So I’m a big believer. Again, I sold an agency I’m big believer in like UX and research and discovery before you actually start something. So I went and met with a lot of companies here in Atlanta just to say, Hey, let me buy you coffee, just not pick your brain, but just sit with you and find out what your industry does currently with this. And so there was obviously an incessant need that nobody had a full time job doing that. It was pretty much the number one identifier that people were being asked to do this job and hand out swag and put together these packages and run to the post office, deal with the customer service, all of that kind of stuff, and gathering the stuff in spreadsheets. And they weren’t paid to do that full time. They were paid normally to be people ops, meaning focus on my people and make them happy. This was a small subset of the job, but it took out an enormous amount of time. So it was a really easy win for us to say, Hey, what if we relieve that part of the process for you?

Lee Kantor: [00:06:23] And then once they kind of raise their hand and say, sure, we’ll give that a shot. What were some of kind of the the earliest iterations of what swag could be for like an early customer?

John Howard: [00:06:36] Yes. So actually one of our first companies luckily was Adobe. And so they’re a big company like Photoshop and Illustrator and XD. I had met them when I had my agency at a at a conference. They took us they flew us all out there, a few of us designers to LA to do a new product demo. And so while I was there, I had already been working on this, conceptualizing it. So I said, Hey, who’s your people ops person? Are they here? I just I don’t need to meet them, but just to know who they are. And somebody said, No, no, no, let’s actually go up there and meet them. And so they took me up front to meet this person. So I guess it was serendipity in a way, but basically got to talk to them and six months later we finally won them and we kicked off our major product that we have now. So it was kind of easily validated, but we had spent a lot of time to get all that prepped, a lot of research to build the product. I mean, that first version was built in and done with no automation, but the customer didn’t know. It was built in a weekend through web flow and WordPress, a few other products.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:34] Now, when you’re working with a client that maybe hasn’t invested in swag in the way that you deliver the experience, like what is that kind of onboarding? Or what are some of the questions you’re asking them and they’re asking you about what it could be and what it’s going to look like.

John Howard: [00:07:50] Yes. So we ask people like, what’s your audience? Who are you trying to reach? If they’re asking us, hey, we’re trying to make our employees feel more love. Well, of course, that’s the baseline. You want them to feel great, but we’re trying to push them into that next step. Well, the next step is I’d love them to tell other people about this company how awesome it is so we can build on those call to actions for that. If it was an external person like, Hey, we’re a sales team, we’re trying to drive more sales, like, how could you help us? Well, of course you could just buy swag and give it away, but let’s actually set up a funnel to get those people to jump on calls. They’re already interested in you. They’ll get some really nice swags for free, and then you can have them jump on a call and then maybe they’ll they’ll give you 15 minutes to talk about that. Since our click through rates are really high, that works out well. So we really try to discover what your audience, what’s your end goal, not just brand awareness. They’re holding your gift in their hand, but what are they actually trying to achieve with this and that? That really helps them elevate that. That’s why we charge for that’s why we’re different services, because we really try to position the swag to do something and to be meaningful.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:46] And so what do you need more of? How can we help you?

John Howard: [00:08:50] Yes. So always leads relationships. We are we’re we’re pretty much humming now at this point. But it’s been a long road. So anybody else has been in this industry or that is just interested in what we do. It’s always fun to have a conversation. I love meeting new people. I love trying to discover better ways that we could use our swag and maybe help other companies elevate this or just talk to other marketers. People that understand the business of marketing, that want to talk about how we could get better about that and more efficient in the way that we use swag to do the same things they’ve done traditionally for years now.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:24] Swag, it sounds like swag could be pretty much anything, right? This is just a means to an end of kind of serving somebody and building a relationship, nurturing a relationship. So what are some of the crazy swag items that you’ve seen out there have used for clients?

John Howard: [00:09:41] Yeah, we’re a lot different than our competitors and the fact that our stuff is much more high quality and you can print in different locations. We don’t do the low quality printing. There’s different types of ways to print on materials, but we do everything. There’s like 1500 items that we’ve done historically, but even stuff is crazy. As last month we had a company called Loops, and so they’re a marketing company. They have nothing to do with the word loops or Froot Loops. We said, Hey, what if we did something crazy and created a viral marketing cereal box for y’all? And so we actually went out and got the cereal. We got the boxes printed and procured. We got a 3D printed. What do you call those things? They are decoder ring and had it solve a mystery so you could pull up this prize and solve a mystery. And through that, you got another prize, which is a hoodie. So it made it an adventure, it made it go viral, and it really helped that company do well. And they actually trended top ten on product hunt last month when they launched this product with us.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:32] Now, when you’re working with your customer, is this something that they’re, you know, getting 1000 of these products, 100 of these products, like what is kind of what what’s kind of the number they’re getting from you? Is is it in mass or is it really kind of targeted like a sniper for a specific group or the type of person?

John Howard: [00:10:56] We’d recommend never over buying. So we really tried to position it based on the audience or the event you’re trying to attend or reach out to. Like in the case of loops, we have them order 100. It was a micro release, so basically only 100 of them were out there and it created more buzz because of that. So we do that or we could do large campaigns for camps or tradeshows, etc. So it really doesn’t matter. It’s kind of based on the item first. Like most of our items start out at minimum order quantities of 25 and there are certain items like pins like you mentioned that that could be like 1000 you have to buy because they’re so cheap. That’s just the minimum order quantity. So it really depends on the item and it depends on the audience and thing you’re trying to reach.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:34] So this this second venture for you to go from a design firm to this, this is still you know, you’re still kind of scratching that creativity itch. You’re still using your skills in just a slightly different way. Congratulations.

John Howard: [00:11:49] Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. So basically I love SAS businesses, but I love something about the brick and mortar and the agency consultative business. So this is a good blend of both. We actually have a physical space in Acworth, Georgia, so about 30, 35 minutes north of Atlanta. But we also were able to build software around that. So our platform on top of it is amazing, it’s magical and it’s a subscription platform. But the swag itself and all that is still the old school physical way of doing that. We’re just really good at that part of the process.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:17] So who is your ideal client?

John Howard: [00:12:20] We love Adobe’s. I mean companies like that, we have agencies that are small, it really doesn’t matter as long as we’re seeing value from you giving away the swag and it’s measurable, it’s a great client. But somebody like Adobe, we basically started with one account and we’ve spread to 13 different business units. So that’s all about word of mouth. So again, it’s fun to go into one company and kind of spread a different departments when they have 18,000 employees. That’s a big deal. So we’ve we’ve done that really, really well. It’s all been by word of mouth, but also we have lots of small companies work, work we work with. We mentioned before that just have cool ideas that are willing to take chances and move the needle a little faster than some of the monoliths. And so it’s been a lot of fun. There’s a lot of there’s a good wide spread of people. Everybody needs swag and everybody wants to give it away more effectively and not do the work.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:04] And if somebody wants to learn more, have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s a website?

John Howard: [00:13:10] Yeah use so USD slingshot dot com good stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:16] Well John thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

John Howard: [00:13:20] Awesome. Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:22] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Intro: [00:13:28] Today’s episode of Atlanta Business Radio is brought to you by on pay. Built in Atlanta. On Pay is the top rated payroll in HR software anywhere. Get one month free add on paycom.