Business RadioX ®

Austin Samuelson With Tacos 4 Life

by

Franchise Marketing Radio
Franchise Marketing Radio
Austin Samuelson With Tacos 4 Life
Loading
/

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.

AustinSamuelsonAustin Samuelson is the co-founder and CEO of Tacos 4 Life, a restaurant that donates one meal to starving children around the world for every meal purchased at its locations. Austin founded Tacos 4 Life in 2014 with his wife, Ashton because they were inspired and driven by the need to help eliminate world hunger.

Prior to opening Tacos 4 Life, Austin graduated from Ouachita Baptist University with a degree in Finance. After college, Austin moved to California and worked in commercial real estate before joining the restaurant industry.

With Austin’s leadership, drive and vision, Tacos 4 Life has grown to 16 locations in five states across the United States. In partnership with Feed My Starving Children, Tacos 4 Life has donated over 13 million meals to starving children in third world countries. Austin and his team know that their jobs do not end in the kitchen or the office and travel to third world countries to deliver the meals guests raise to children in need.

Connect with Austin on LinkedIn and follow Tacos 4 Life on Facebook and Twitter.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • About Tacos 4 Life and its mission
  • What makes this taco restaurant different from other restaurants?
  • What does the brand have planned for 2022?

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, 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. That’s SeoSamba.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show we have Austin Samuelsson and he is with tacos 4 life. Welcome.

Austin Samuelson: [00:00:44] Hey, Lee. Thanks for having me on.

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

Austin Samuelson: [00:00:52] Yeah. So tacos for life. We’re a restaurant. But really, what we are is we’re an organization that fights hunger. We we do that by serving really great tacos. We have over 14 chef inspired tacos on the menu. Everything from your traditional, you know, fajita chicken tacos, beef tacos, steak tacos, all those things to, you know, more fun and adventurous versions of tacos like a Korean barbecue, barbeque steak taco or a Hawaiian shrimp tacos. So we we sell great tacos, but we do that so that we can help be a part of fighting world hunger. Every taco salad rice bowl quesadilla that we sell, we donate a meal to a child in need to a third party organization called Feed My Starving Children. So that is that’s what we’re all about here at Tacos for life and what gets us excited every day.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:45] Now, how did that like? What’s the genesis of the idea of not only just selling great food, but also partnering where you can help other people in the manner that you do?

Austin Samuelson: [00:01:56] Yeah, absolutely. So really, it’s you know, if you if you rewound our story 12 years ago, my wife and I, Ashton, we we had 12 years ago, we had never worked in a restaurant, never, never had aspirations to own a restaurant, you know, just wasn’t on our radar. You know, we were living life. I was working in commercial real estate. She was teaching school, but we heard something one day back in two thousand nine. We heard a statistic then that 18000 children die every day from starvation. And you know, we knew hunger is a problem. We knew starvation as a problem. But for some reason when we heard that it just both struck a chord with us and we also heard. Rich Stearns was the CEO of World Vision, a very large organization. Does relief work all over the world? He was sharing these statistics at a church that we were attending. And he said two other things. He said, You know, our planet produces enough food to feed everyone. And then the third thing he said was this number of eighteen thousand children dying every day from starvation. It can be zero, but it’s going to take us doing something about it. And that’s really what started Ashton and I on this journey.

Austin Samuelson: [00:03:19] It didn’t happen immediately, but it started over the next couple of years, us really questioning, OK, how could we be a part of helping feed kids? How can we be a part of seeing a day when no child has to die from starvation? And it led us down this path to opening a restaurant? And really, it came about because at that time and still they’re very popular, but Toms shoes was was really taken off. We had a pair of shoes asking it to everybody, you know, seeing everybody’s talking about them, you know? And so here’s the funny part having never worked in a restaurant before we both we thought, Hey, if if a shoe company can donate a pair of shoes for every shoe they sell, how hard could it be for a restaurant to do that? You know, it can’t be that hard, right? And that’s that that whole question is what sparked this journey. We’ve since learned now, 10 years later, that it is a little bit hard to do, but it’s possible and and and it’s totally worth it. And we’re getting to be a part of helping feed kids all over the world. Take us for life now now.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:27] But what brought you to tacos like it could have been, you know, a fine dining and doing this like, well, how did you choose the kind of the the route you’ve chosen regarding this type of a restaurant and specifically tacos?

Austin Samuelson: [00:04:40] Yeah. So the the simplest answer is we love to eat tacos. We we we lived in Southern California for a time. We’re both from Arkansas. That’s where we’re based out of now. But we just love Mexican food. We love tacos. We love that with tacos. You can you can really. You can go any direction you want from a culinary flavor profile standpoint. You can do your traditional stuff, but then you can you can get pretty creative. And my wife, she’s a she’s a chef and she says, you know, hey, the tortilla is just a blank canvas, you know, and you can do a lot of fun things with it. And you know, we love tacos and tacos are popular. They’re a crowd pleaser, you know, so it’s worked really well. We did. Just to note, we did actually start with a pizza restaurant before tacos for life. That’s where we first tested the mission out and. And we transitioned over to tacos, really just trying to continue to tweak the model and see what would work, and we found that with with the taco concept, with tacos for life, there was just an excitement. It really met a need in Arkansas. There wasn’t a lot of taco concepts at the time when we first started in 2014 with tacos for life. And so those those kind of things all coming together is what brought us here.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:57] Now what was kind of the clue that you were on to something?

Austin Samuelson: [00:06:01] Oh my gosh. Well, you know, with the pizza restaurant, we had just a lot of a lot of support in the community and even around the state, people loving the idea of being able to donate a meal or being able to help participate in doing good, but that people talked about that. Ok, and we’re a restaurant, right? So the first day I remember after we opened tacos for life, we had a line out the door could just it never stopped all day. It poured as a thunderstorm, lightning and storms all day long, and the line just never went away and people were really raving about the food along with the mission. And I think that’s when we closed the doors that that night. I remember looking at Ashton and saying, OK, we can do something with this mission, and tacos for life is going to be it. And it just there’s just something about it. After that first day, just the response we got from the guest who was unlike anything we’d experienced at the pizza restaurant. And it was this great combination of just an excitement for the food just doing something unique there, along with a really tangible mission of getting to help other people.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:12] Now did you build this to franchise it? Was that always the the thing or did it start out of, Hey, we’ll start this one, maybe grow a little bit and see where it takes us? Or were you always did you always have your eye on being a franchise or no?

Austin Samuelson: [00:07:26] Yeah, franchising really came about after a few years in and and we really. So yeah, we started early. We didn’t have a big grand plan of what we were going to do. We just it’s kind of one day at a time and seeing how we could feed more kids and we knew if we opened more restaurants, we could feed more children. You know, every restaurant provides about a thousand meals a day. So. So there was a motivation to grow and open more restaurants. But I didn’t know anything about franchising. And, you know, opening more company restaurants was simple. You know, from that standpoint, franchising was this big thing. We just we didn’t really understand not having any experience with it. So. But after a couple of years, we we got to know some folks and some people that had a lot of experience with franchising. And we we kind of we did our first round of franchising and back in twenty seventeen and we got our PhD and got all the documents together. And we franchised three locations and in two of them went really well and one of them didn’t it? And we learned a whole lot and we really kind of pause there. We stop franchising. We, you know, we still had all the documents, still had everything together. We worked really hard with the two franchisees that remained and got great relationships with them.

Austin Samuelson: [00:08:43] They’re still on the team and talk to them multiple times a week. And they’re they’re great folks and great partners to the organization and the mission. But what we really did is we kept opening company restaurants and really what the mindset of like, OK, we really for this to work with this mission, we’ve got to get just we’ve got to get the model really locked in and we’ve got to get it nailed down for this to be something that that works from a franchising standpoint. So we continue to kind of watch our franchisees continue to talk to them, get feedback. We continue to improve the model as we get more efficient on the company restaurants and spent about three years doing that. And then last year, in 2020, right before this whole pandemic started, we decided, Hey, we’re ready to franchise. So obviously got had different plans then in that moment. But but that’s that’s kind of the full circle, the whole franchising. It was we started out and we we learned a lot of great things. And but now we’re all in and we’ve got eight franchise locations open and quite a few more on the in the pipeline. And it’s really the way that we see the mission being furthered, having kind of watched and learned from our first couple of franchisees.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:58] Now any advice for other emerging franchise owners when it comes to doing your due diligence, building the right systems and knowing when it’s the right time to pull the trigger to, you know, really put on a different hat, right? Because Tacos for Life operator is different than the Tacos for Life franchise or that’s training people to be successful in their market. It’s a little different kind of mission and objective from that standpoint.

Austin Samuelson: [00:10:25] Yeah, absolutely. I think you said it, you know, it’s it’s all about the systems and the processes. And it’s all about what what I had to learn as a founder was, OK, what what are the, you know, we call them strategic anchors, OK, but what are those like sacred cows? These are these are we don’t compromise in these areas. And what are the things that we’re going to be willing to move on? And then how do we also create a relationship so that we can learn from our franchisees? And that’s what I love most about franchising is this element of like, Hey, we’re we’re in this together and we’re a team that’s working to improve tacos for live together so that we can feed more kids so that they can bring more profit down to their restaurants. So it’s we’re fully aligned in that. And I think understanding that relationship on, Hey, what are we not going to compromise on and what are we willing to move and do? And then and then what’s the right format in relationship to to have a full cycle kind of feedback loop? You know, those three things I just have been incredibly important to us

Lee Kantor: [00:11:31] Now is the ideal franchisee different today than it was, you know, the first time he took a bite of this apple?

Austin Samuelson: [00:11:41] Yeah, absolutely. So the here’s what we say today. We say it’s a two part. It’s a two part formula for us with our franchisees or prospective franchisees. They have to be here because of the mission. They have to want to be with us for life because we have this, this, this opportunity to help and starvation, that’s got to be while they’re here. That’s going to be their motivating factor. But quite honestly, it can’t outweigh their desire to run a profitable, successful restaurant. So those have to match up fully. Where we’ve gotten ourselves in trouble or where we found there’s misalignment is when one outweighs the other. So, you know, obviously it’s easy to look at the profit side and say, Well, if someone is only concerned about, you know, bringing as much profit to the bottom line as possible, then the mission is going to get in the way of that right. So it’s easy to pick on that side of the equation. But we’ve also learned that it’s just as easy to pick on the other side. If if you’re all about the mission and you’re not, you’re not running your business as efficiently as possible. If you’re not constantly working every day to improve and to get better and to serve the guests better, then the mission will sputter as well. So for us, it’s a two part formula. You’ve got to be here because of the mission and you’ve got to be here because you want to run a really great restaurant.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:04] So but those are two equal like those aren’t one doesn’t take precedent over the other.

Austin Samuelson: [00:13:10] Yeah, exactly. Maybe when we first started, you know, we would say, OK, we’re going to tilt a little heavier towards the mission, you know? But the reality of it is so that we can feed kids. We have to be we have to run a very efficient business because that’s it’s taking a hit. When we donate a meal, every time we sell a taco, that’s coming right off the top line. We treat that as a cost of good. So, you know, you could say we’re operating a bit of a disadvantage compared to the competitors because of that extra cost in our in our P&L.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:40] And and now that you kind of the model is is more baked and it seems to be growing well. Is it easier to kind of identify people, though, when they when you have a mission at the top of, you know, as the true north or as part of the true north of the organization, do those people kind of present themselves to you in a little more efficient fashion than just somebody saying, Oh, I have a taco restaurant will take anybody that can, you know, fog a mirror and write a check, right?

Austin Samuelson: [00:14:11] Yeah. No, I actually think it does. I think, you know, I don’t know what the, you know, would be normal for everybody else, but we get a ton of applications in and we we talk to a lot of people. And the ratio of those that come in for an interview is there’s a lot of applications and very few people that come in. And it’s not because we’re being ultra picky, it’s just we’re able to both see and people select out when when they understand the impact of the mission, you know, and they say, you know, Oh, that sounds nice, but that’s that’s more than what I’m willing to invest, you know, to to make this mission thing possible. And then for us as well, we’re able to understand, hey, now this person’s motivation isn’t right. Or maybe they don’t have the skill set to run a restaurant and operate more competitively than they would a normal taco restaurant that doesn’t have, you know, a mission involved. So yeah, I think I think we have to talk to more people, perhaps. But I do think it makes it a little easier for us to see, OK, who is in it for the right reason and who’s not, you know, it’s not just who’s got the biggest checkbook in our, you know, where others might fill that way.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:19] So now we’ve talked a lot about the mission and how integral that is to the brand. But can you talk also about just the food part like you have to have good product and. Tacos that people like, so it seemed like you’re doing that as well.

Austin Samuelson: [00:15:34] Yeah, absolutely. And that was one of the big learnings we took out of our first our first restaurant in town. You know, the the mission is great. But if the food and the service isn’t equally as great, if we’re not the best in each community that we’re in, then the mission won’t. It’ll just be a nicety, you know? So yeah, we work very hard. We’re a. We make everything from scratch in our kitchens. We make everything to order. We put a ton of pride in that and we put a lot of effort into, you know, the doing the little things right when it comes to the food and really teaching, you know, young guys and girls how to come in and cook and do things that a lot of places don’t do. You know, we’re, as you know, maybe the guys down the street or cutting a plastic bag open and, you know, dumping it on a steam table where we’re making we’re making that beef from scratch. And it’s a long process. And it’s it’s the way you would, the way you’d want to do it at home, you know. We have a fried chicken taco, which is probably my favorite Taco Lee, and that is Ashton’s grandma’s fried chicken recipe, you know? And so that’s not just near and dear to our heart, and that’s not just special, but we cook it the way her grandma cooked it.

Austin Samuelson: [00:16:43] You know, we go that extra step and we we fry it the right way. And so that’s that is just so important. And then on the service side, too, we really pride ourselves and having that extra level, I think we get a leg up on the competition because of our mission. You know, there’s a kind of an extra something we get to talk with our guests about. We’re kind of, you know, we’re on the same side of the table. Our team members are with us because they’re excited about helping and starvation, our guests that understand the mission. You know, hopefully they get it right away. Hopefully, they know about it before they walk in the door. But if they don’t, you know, we’re working hard to tell them about it. And so there’s an extra level of connection that we get to have and and we talk about, Hey, how are we building relationships and providing really friendly service as opposed to just moving people through a line and making it transactional?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:30] So now what’s next for you? Obviously continued growth, but do you have any plans you can share for twenty twenty two?

Austin Samuelson: [00:17:39] Yeah. So, you know, like I mentioned earlier, we really kind of got geared back up on the franchising side of things in 2020 and then got a little bit distracted, as did everybody else. Did you know, for much of the year? But fortunately, we still had some success. We sold some franchise, brought some new partners in and opened a few locations, opened a couple more this year. And then we’ve really just been filling up the pipeline. So we’ll probably see 10 or so locations open next year. And we’ve got about 12 or so, I guess, on the books for twenty twenty three at this point. And we’re just we’re, you know, the thing for us, Lee, is we’re we still we still are taking it slow, you know, because we want we want each franchisee that we bring on board to. We want them to be successful and for them to this to be something that they’re proud of and that really makes sense for them and their families. So it’s a it’s a slower process, probably the most, but it’s a it’s a good process and and we work really hard to be intentional throughout. But yeah, for the next, we’re about to open location number 20 and then hopefully twenty four months from now, we’ve more than doubled that and we’re getting to feed a ton of kids every day. So this year will have provided a little over five million meals. So when you put that in perspective, it’s it’s just exciting to see every time we open a location, you know, every every three locations we open, we provide a million meals a year and that’s what that’s really what motivates us here.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:14] And have you kind of defined that ideal franchisee in terms of not only the mission, they have to obviously have a desire for the mission, but are they people who are transitioning out of a corporate job into this? Or are they, you know, owners of other complementary brands that are just adding tacos for life to their portfolio? Are you clear on who that ideal franchisee looks? You know what they look like?

Austin Samuelson: [00:19:41] Yeah, I think we’re we’re more of the folks that are transitioning in their careers into us. We don’t we don’t have a lot of other. We don’t have any franchisees or anybody that’s in the pipeline that has other concepts in their brand, in their portfolio, not because we’re not opposed to it, but because we’re we’re just a different animal than what you would get shopping on the franchise. You know, what else is out there franchising wise? So now our ideal person is someone that’s, you know, hey, they’re ready to either either they have been self-employed or they’re ready to take that leap and be their own boss and be in control of their future. But they also want to do something really meaningful with that through our mission and through the environment that they can create with. Their team, so we work hard on now we’re on the the SBA list for preferred partner with them, and so we work hard to, you know, if if someone needs some help on the funding side, but they have the the experience, they have the the passion. We work really hard to get them matched up from a banking and funding standpoint so that they can they can join and be part of this.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:55] And there are certain regions you’re targeting as you grow and kind of take over the world. Or are you? Is it kind of a free for all you’ll take anybody from wherever they are?

Austin Samuelson: [00:21:06] You know, right now we’re really focused on the southeast United States and a little bit into the lower Midwest. And what I mean by that is kind of Oklahoma to Kansas City, to St. Louis and then down throughout. We’re over in North Carolina and on down. So that’s that’s kind of our, of course, we’re in Arkansas here. So that’s kind of if you took a go across the United States from that standpoint, that’s that’s really where we’re focusing our efforts right now on growing

Lee Kantor: [00:21:35] Well, if somebody wants to learn more, is there a website for them to go and check you out?

Austin Samuelson: [00:21:40] Yeah, absolutely. So go to taco’s for life. We actually just updated the website a few months ago. It’s it is beautiful. A couple of fun things on there. You can learn all about our mission and understand really the dynamics of how it works. We work with a great organization called Feed My Starving Children. There’s they and us. We work really hard to provide really great transparency in how the giving works, so you can see all that there. You can track the milk counts per location. So all that is there. And then, of course, to learn about franchising. We have a great section there under the franchising tab, and you’re going to probably learn everything you need to know. And then we’re, of course, always available to talk so well.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:23] Thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Austin Samuelson: [00:22:29] Well, thanks for thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:31] All right, this is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Alinka Rutkowska With Leaders Press

by

LeadersPress
High Velocity Radio
Alinka Rutkowska With Leaders Press
Loading
/

AlinkaRutkowskaAlinka Rutkowska is the CEO of Leaders Press, a USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling press, where she creates books for entrepreneurs from scratch and launches them to best-seller with a 100% success rate. She runs a hybrid publishing house with traditional distribution (via Simon & Schuster) through which more than 500 entrepreneurs have been able to share their stories with the world. 172 of Leaders Press authors have become USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling authors.

Alinka has been featured by Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Entrepreneurs on Fire and numerous other outlets. Her mission is to help 10,000 entrepreneurs share their wisdom with the world by 2030.

Connect with Alinka on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Helping entrepreneurs write books
  • Business folks want books
  • The best way to get a book written and published
  • The most common mistakes new authors make when wanting to write a book
  • Leaders Press in helping people with their publishing dreams

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 high velocity radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] Lee Kantor here, another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Alinka Rutkowska and she is with leaders press. Welcome.

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:00:25] Thank you, Lee. Excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about leaders press. How are you serving, folks?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:00:32] Mm hmm. What we do is we help entrepreneurs get their books done, so we basically interview them, go write the book and launch it to the best seller list and get it into bookstores.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this kind of work?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:00:48] Well, I think that was my dream since I was a little girl because when I was in primary school, I created a school newspaper. So that was the editorial part, and I would also distribute it and sell it. So that was the business part. And now this is what I’m doing only, you know, real real life situation. So there was a school thing, then I did work at the at multinational company, so I had a corporate background, but I didn’t find that particular particularly fulfilling at a certain point. So I took a leap of faith left and created leaders press.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:27] So now the folks that you’re helping, are they primarily business folks that are trying to get a book out or do you do fiction as well?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:01:37] Primarily business folks. But we also are able to help with fiction that would be the launch. If we want to help an entrepreneur or a business person write the book or ghostwrite it for them, then that would be have that would have to be in the business area.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:53] So now for folks out there who are business folks that are, you know, maybe in the back of their mind, they’re like, you know, I always wanted to write a book. You know, I feel like I could help more people if they knew more about what I knew and what I went through. Is that something you think that every entrepreneur is that a must have at this point where you have to be able to have a book that kind of gives you that credibility and authority?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:02:20] Hmm. You know, it’s almost as if if you don’t have the book, you’re disadvantaged because let’s imagine a potential client considering working with two suppliers or consultants. And one of them is an author or a best selling author, and the other one doesn’t have a book. So if all the other factors are equal, they will. I’m pretty sure they will choose the author because of the authority that it brings. And there’s just so many other ways that a book is useful. It’s a it’s an enhanced business card, so imagine you’re talking to somebody that you’d like to do business with, and you can either leave them your business card or you can give them your book. Like how much more powerful will your introduction and presentation be when you’re able to give them your book 100 percent?

Lee Kantor: [00:03:12] Yeah, I’m a big fan of this strategy, and I agree with you 100 percent that this is something that if you’re serious about your business and growing your business, it becomes more of a must have than a nice to have. Hmm. Now let’s talk a little bit about the mechanics of this. You know, we’ve established that, OK, you’re a business person and you should have a book. So now how do you kind of know what is the right thing I should be writing about? What is the message that I should be trying to get across because of the goal of this is to give me authority and credibility. I can’t just write anything. I have to write something that is aligned with my values. It has to kind of align with my skill set and kind of bring out my superpower so that people understand why I’m different and why they should choose me.

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:04:04] Absolutely. You start by answering those questions, so you really want to make sure that your book fits in to a genre that readers are already interested and you want your book to stand out. So you want to give the reader a reason to pick your book and not the other ones on the bookshelf. That’s the way you start, and once you have that, you have your unique selling proposition. So you created that for your business. Now you need to create it for your book. And from that, from that place we can go and you can do your outline and then start writing your book or get interviewed to have it ghostwritten. But you start with imagining vividly where exactly the book will be on the bookshelf and why readers will pick yours now.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:52] You know, with the advent of online bookselling and e-books and audiobooks and things like that, ah, is it really a bookshelf that that people are going to put their book on or is it going to be, you know, in an online capacity where I got to have a cover that at least gets people to pay attention to it?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:05:11] Hmm. It’s a great question, and it depends. It depends on how you’re going to publish your book. You can go the traditional way and try to find an agent, pitch your manuscript and then the agent will try to sell the manuscript to a publisher. It’s a long, long process. There are several pros like you’ll get an advance, but there are also several cons, such as small royalties and just super slow. So if you have two years on your hands, then you can do that that will get your book into the bookstores. That’s their main advantage. Then you can also self-publish your book. You can do everything yourself. You go to CDP, which is Amazon’s dashboard, to publish any book and you put it on the virtual bookshelf. You have zero traditional distribution, but you do have that power to do it. You know, obviously, if you don’t know how to do it, it’s probably going to be a poor end result. But it’s good to know that you do have the power. And then the third option is the hybrid publishing model, which is what we do. We help entrepreneurs get the books out on Amazon and all the online platforms, and we make sure they are best sellers. And through our distribution partnership with Simon and Schuster, that is the one of the largest publishers in the U.S. We’re able to distribute books into physical bookstores, and there is some lead time because we need to respect the traditional publishing timelines. But it’s much, much shorter than what happens when you’re going through the traditional publishing process. So both.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:53] So like, what is it? If I raise my hand and say, you know what? This I want to work with leaders press. So what happens now?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:07:03] Right? So you’d probably go to our website and then you’ll end up talking to one of our team members who will see if we’re a good fit to work together because we won’t write, you know, just absolutely anything. We do have some, you know, ranges of topics and authors that we want to work with. But, you know, most probably most of the time we get serious, serious entrepreneurs and it is potentially is a good fit. Once we decide on what your goals are, what you want to achieve, you know, do you want to lead generation books to grow your business? Do you want to let us legacy book like we did for the co-founder of DHL International for DHL 50 50th Anniversary? Do you want a book to increase your authority? So depending on your goals on what type of bestseller list you want to hit? Amazon Bestseller. Wall Street Journal Bestseller. Usa Today bestseller. Whether you need help with the writing or not, how long you want your book to be, depending on all those things, we find the best solution for you. And then we get started. It starts with understanding what you want to achieve, and then it starts with that positioning that we described. So making sure your book fits and stands out. Then we do the outline, then the writing, then the editing. Then we publish it longitude bestseller. And then you can say you’re a best selling author. And use it to grow your business, to increase your authority, to give it away when you meet somebody and you want to make a really great impression and it’s now part of your toolbox.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:43] Now is it reasonable to think that the investment I make with leaders press I’m going to make back on the sales of the book? Or is it going to be more likely that I will make the money back on the sales of my service or just getting more business?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:09:02] Great question. Whenever you have a business and your book is tied to that business, the royalties will only be a fraction of the revenue that you’re going to get from the book. So it’s always the back end that will help you generate your ROI quickly. And that’s why we like to work with the entrepreneurial types because you’re, you know, it’s so tangible. You start using the book as a lead down. You put it on Amazon, so people are able to find you. We have our lead generation book called Outsource Your Book, and that’s how the co-founder of DHL International found us because it’s impossible to reach out to him. He has so many gatekeepers. So he found us through the book. Now our Legion book really works as a lead gen, and then we did the book for him. And as as a result, we were able to provide a great service for him. If you’re looking to do a Legion book, you know it’s not just Amazon that acts as a search engine, right? And people are able to find you. You can also use it on your website to get people to opt in and then have a conversation with them. It’s a great lead conversion tool as well, because imagine you have a person in front of you on a sales call and they’ve already read your book. You’re you’re already the authority in their eyes. Their only questions are about their specific situation. They won’t be asking any, you know, generic questions like, So what do you guys do? They already know they read the book and you’re the expert. So it’s much easier to convert a reader to a customer than somebody who hasn’t read the book.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:49] So now, if that is my objective, a lead generation book that’s going to help me close sales faster, are you do you have somebody on your team that with a marketing background that’s helping me strategically go through that process? Or is that on me as the author and the expert in my industry to know, OK, in order to move a person through my funnel, I got to answer these 12 questions. And so those become the chapters of the book. And then basically that that’s kind of my sales funnel is the book.

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:11:23] So that’s a joint creation. The entrepreneur comes with their brain full of ideas, and our job is to get the best parts out, structure them, make sure it’s attractive for the reader to read and then to leave their email, you know, click on the call to action, either an email to start working with the author. So we work together in order to make it the best book possible.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:50] And then is it something that you give me assignment to go, OK? Next week, I need, you know, 2000 words for chapters one through three? Or is it something that I just talked to your expert? And they’re kind of creative. You know, they have a facilitated conversation with me and they’re, you know, either recording it and transcribing it and writing it down and then writing the book on my behalf. Like, How does that work?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:12:17] Yeah. So it’s closer to the second option. Basically, you’re going to get a message saying next week we’ll be meeting and these are the 12 questions we’d like you to think about. So then you come to the meeting, you already know what the questions are. You’ve given them some thought and then you start answering them live. You’re talking to your interviewer and the interviewer asks, you follow up questions because you know, some things are so obvious to you as the expert, but not obvious at all to the reader. And the interviewer gives you a chance to to deliver a better product because they will ask questions that readers have. And you haven’t even thought of that. And once we have that interview, that’s all recorded and transcribed that then goes to the writer and the writer will write in your voice to produce a book that will be that you will be happy with, and that will sound extremely well. And no matter what your, you know, English writing skill is.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:22] And then what, like you mentioned that if I traditionally went to get an agent and get it published, like it could take two years plus, you know, what is the timeline from me raising my hand and saying leader’s press helped me to getting a book, you know, on the bestseller list?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:13:40] Mm hmm. So if it’s a super short book that’s meant to be a Legion book and we’ll only launch it on Amazon. We’re able to get you situated within three months, you know, so the moment you come sign on, then your book comes out in three months. If it’s a big fat industry standard book and we’re looking to launch it into bookstores and on the USA Today or Wall Street Journal bestseller lists, we’re looking at about 10 months here.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:10] Wow. So let’s it. It could be a fraction of the time a traditional, traditionally published book, and there’s no guarantee. Just because you write a book or have a pitch to an agent, you may never get a publisher to even go for it, right?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:14:25] Yeah, it’s very rare that you will get admitted and accept it. And when you do, you might not even get an advance like you’re hoping for. There are traditional publishers who will publish you. They don’t give you an advance and you know you still have to go through this long process. You don’t really have too much creative control, so you might not be able to have any say on your book cover, for example, or entire chapters will have to be rewritten. So you know you really want to evaluate what you want to do for your book in terms of what the benefits will be once it’s out. You know how fast you want it out. If you have a timely topic, you probably don’t want to wait two or three years looking for an agent. You probably want it out. If you’re a business person, I’m pretty sure you want to take things, you know, take matters in your own hands, in your own hands and get it done as quickly as productively as possible, so it’s important to know your options.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:26] So now, when people work with you, is there different levels of service like, say, I don’t want the ghostwriter, I want to try to write this myself and I only want certain services. Is it kind of an all or nothing thing? It has to be a turnkey or can I just buy services as I need them?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:15:45] Well, you have a couple packages when you go to leaders press, it’s all there. We don’t do menus like I want, you know, write me one chapter, edit the other and, you know, launch half of the book. We do things that are requested. So our main thing is from idea to bestseller. But if there’s a manuscript that’s already written and the author comes in with their manuscript pretty much done, then we evaluate it. So we send it to our editors. We get an evaluation and a score of what we think we can do with it. If it meets our criteria, then we will invite the author to work with us. Alternatively, you can come in with an idea. We’ll help you with the outline and then you’ll be doing the writer, the writing and checking in at specific time points. Like you mentioned earlier, the scenario, we can do that as well. So it’s, you know, our main offer. But if you already come in with the manuscript done, then we meet you where you are to help you deliver the best possible book.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:52] And if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, is there a website that explains you mentioned the website earlier? What is the kind of the the website URL?

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:17:06] The website is leaders press dot com. And if you’d like to find out what the best type of book for your goals is, we created a really neat quiz that you can do and it takes one minute and it’s at lieders press dot com slash discover. It will tell you whether you should write a short book or a long book, or, you know, launch online or launch in bookstores, all depending on your situation.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:32] And then so it’s leaders with an espresso presseye.com. Discover Great. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Alinka Rutkowska: [00:17:45] Thank you, Lee. So excited to be here today.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:48] All right, this is Lee Kantor Wassail next time on high velocity radio.

 

Estie Rand With Strand Consulting

by

EstieRand
Coach The Coach
Estie Rand With Strand Consulting
Loading
/

EstieRandEstie Rand from Stand Consulting, believes that every person can build a professional business doing what they love, earning buckets of money and having time for their life and family and proper marketing is the key that unlocks it all.

However, in today’s works, mastering is largely confusing and misunderstood. Join them as Estie breaks it down with clarity and direction so you never waste money on marketing again.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • More money less headache
  • Most money on marketing wasted
  • Branding
  • People need less social media than they think they do
  • How can people get more reliable returns on their marketing investment

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 Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one, so I hope you have a pencil and paper with you because you’re going to learn a lot today. Today we have Estie Rand and she is with Strand Consulting. Welcome Estie.

Estie Rand: [00:00:49] Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:51] Well, for folks who don’t know, can you share a little bit about Strand? How are you serving, folks?

Estie Rand: [00:00:57] Sure. So we will take pretty much any business and help it earn more money with less headache. That’s the essence of it. But it’s a full service consulting firm from microbusinesses. So anything you’d imagine that a Fortune 500 company gets from a Deloitte McKinsey. We do for a micro-business business strategy, expansion, marketing, specifically organic marketing strategy, staffing and hiring scalability. All the fun stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:25] So how do you define micro-business?

Estie Rand: [00:01:28] To me, a micro business is anywhere from a solopreneur. It’s like a 20 person company typically earning under a million dollars a year and very often under $100000 a year. But that’s we work typically with people who are from like getting started up to the million dollar mark.

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

Estie Rand: [00:01:51] So about 2011, beginning of what is now the small business revolution? In my opinion, I was working as the CIO of a multinational nonprofit. I love my boss. I loved my job. I had flex time, which was really important to me. I had three little kids at the time. I now have five, not as little kids and I had this dream, but I wasn’t going to leave my job to pursue it until they hired this super toxic middle manager. I made my life utterly miserable and I left and I tried to pursue my dream, and my dream was to create a consultancy for small businesses. And in those days, I’ll just remind anyone who doesn’t remember 2011. That was before everyone in their brothers, sisters, dog walkers, best friend ran their own business, and no one did business consulting for small businesses, only for big ones. But I followed my dream and we did it saying we work with clients on six continents, staff and seven time zones. It’s a full service consultancy. It’s everything I wanted it to be.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:59] Now, when you’re dealing with those size companies, there’s a lot more of them, obviously, than the larger companies. But a lot of times they don’t have the resources to afford this kind of service. How were you able to kind of thread the needle and create a business model that gives them what they need to get that escape velocity and also pays you enough to make it worth your time to do the work?

Estie Rand: [00:03:22] Such a good question and something that I struggled with a lot as we grew up. And for that reason, the company has gone through a number of stages. So when I was just starting out, it was simple because I had my hourly rate, a bunch of different freelancers that I brought in upsell them a little bit and I made it work. And then as we grew as a company, it became a challenge. So I launched my first group online program like strategy creation program in January of 2019. And that’s helped a lot for me to keep costs down, working with people one too many as opposed one to one. Also moving now more into certification and vetting other designers and practitioners so that all the costs stay down. But all the small business owners get a comprehensive solution at a price they can afford.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:13] Now, were you finding that these micro business owners are kind of making similar mistakes? Or maybe they’re not the same mistake, but maybe they rhyme?

Estie Rand: [00:04:22] Yeah, no. After 12 years in the industry, so I started the company in 2011. I was doing it from two years prior. After this long, I definitely see a pattern and there are some very common errors. One of the most common errors I see is the, I call it, the Red Fire Bell. Yeah. So imagine God goes to a town long, long ago, even before there were smartphones. He travels for business, gets to this town, and while he’s there, there’s a fire. So he starts running. He’s like, Where’s the river? Like, Where’s your buckets? And they’re like, No, no, I’ve got something much better. You know, Guy pulls a little bell out of his pocket and he goes, Ring, ring, ring and all the people. They’ve got this whole system and they get this giant like, you know, pipe thing and they run it to the river and they run it to the place and they start pumping this whole thing. And the fire is out within like ten minutes. And he’s like, Oh my gosh, I need this in my town. We have all these fires. Great. And so before he leaves, he swipes the little red fire bell. And within a couple of weeks in his town, the fire springs up. Everyone starts running for the river. He’s like, Guys, no, wait. I’ve got something much better. And he’s like, Ring Ring Ring. And nothing happened. And he goes Ring, Ring, Ring, and nothing happens and the House burns down. And that is my example for the most common mistake that most small business owners make, which is that they see something that works and they have no idea what’s going on behind the scenes or what went into making it work.

Estie Rand: [00:05:47] They see a logo or an ad or a website, and they see a guy who’s just, you know, killing it and they’re like, Oh, OK, I’m going to copy that. I’m going to copy the externals. I’m going to also get a logo or a website. Or now it’s super trendy, so I’m going to have an online program. Yeah, I’ve been in the online info program space for over five years. It’s not a friend of mine recently said she’s like online programs are like, you know, the cool kid, the cool girl of like what MLMs used to be like. Come on, make an online program, make a million dollars. Be amazing. And and so you just copy, but you’re missing all the behind the scenes. That’s the biggest mistake to me. You’ve got to learn how business and marketing actually work. And then it works. And there’s a system. It’s a science and an art, but there’s a strategy and there’s a science to this. There are things you can do that work, and you can’t do the same things that big business does. There’s a very big difference in marketing to sell more of something that everyone already knows and marketing to sell some of something that no one’s ever heard of.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:46] Big difference and a lot and a lot of times when a small business starts copying a big business, they don’t know if that big business is just having an experiment and they can afford for it to fail miserably and, you know, catastrophically. But for a small business, they could be out of business if they make a mistake of that magnitude.

Estie Rand: [00:07:09] Totally. And not just that, some strategies only work at scale. Right? You can’t get one park bench and get the same results for like a movie, right as they do when they plaster a city. It’s not the same. It’s not the same, right? One print ad you can’t. Certain strategies don’t work scaled down. You can copy the concept, but you can’t copy the action on a smaller scale. So one ad once for something that very likely will do nothing unless you got the language, the imagery absolutely perfect and the exact right space. And and and like a lot of ads, most likely they’ll do nothing.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:53] So how do you educate your clients about the difference between branding and marketing, where a lot of people use those terms interchangeably?

Estie Rand: [00:08:04] So branding to me, so I actually have a graphic organizer I created. It’s got kind of the 12 steps to an organic marketing strategy, which is how you earn money without having to spend it. And branding is like the seed. It’s underground. It’s got the DNA of everything in your business. It digs its roots. Deep marketing is the flower shines its face to the sunlight and they interface. They feed each other right. The flower couldn’t grow without the seed, but the seed would wither and die if there was no flower getting sunlight and feeding it back down. And so they feed each other. You do your marketing and that strengthens your brand and your brand guides all of your marketing, and they are not the same, but they interface.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:45] So now, if you were counseling a new business person, a lot of our listeners, our coaches are thinking about becoming coaches and maybe they have a corporate gig and they are ready to make the leap into being their own, you know, business. Is that something they should spend a lot of time and energy is, is this brand or is it should they be doing other activities in order to kind of prepare the ground for their upcoming adventure?

Estie Rand: [00:09:13] So you really you need three things, right? The way I teach it a framework called the marketing map, which is again, a map is just the way to get some more strategies and map to get to your goal. So math helps you get there. You want to have branding, marketing and sales. If you’re missing any of those pieces, it’s not going to work. All right. If marketing is not working for someone, it’s either just incomplete or misaligned. So you spend some time on your brand. But the most important part of your brand is what’s unique about your business. It’s not the logo itself, that’s just a representation. So you spend some time, maybe a little money, and then move along to the quote unquote marketing piece, which is much more than advertising. It’s everything that you do to create and communicate value. So it’s your pricing is part of your marketing, your offer is part of your marketing, your presence is part of your marketing and your promotion, which is how you get attention and then you need to have an actual sales path. How do you turn this unique message, this unique presence, this unique you that you’re bringing to the space, especially as a coach, you are the brand and don’t mistake that for the brand is all of you. That’s not the same thing, and you’ve got this offer now. You’ve got to sell it and close deals. You want to make sure you cover all of that and don’t get lost in any of them.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:29] So how do you move a person through that funnel of kind of educating number one, that first you exist to some sort of a compelling offer where they’re actually saying, OK, you know, here’s my credit card.

Estie Rand: [00:10:45] So I have people leverage their swan strengths. Right, that’s that’s the piece in terms of getting attention. And Swan, I spell it S.W. o.n because everyone that I’ve worked with in all my years and it’s hundreds, probably thousands by now has at least one of these, if not more, that they can leverage to get people’s attention right? Is speaking W writing Oh one on one and networking. So that’s how you get attention. Then to move people through this quote unquote funnel, a funnel does not have to be an online funnel. A funnel is just a path. Right. So from when you get their attention, then they need to be interested. They need to have a space to evaluate. That could be a website. It could be social media, it could be a phone call, could be an in-person meeting. And then you want to have a negotiation that makes it worth it for them and then close your deal. And so there is some experimentation, but there are also tried and true paths, right? So for a coach or a consultant, you use your sworn strength to get attention.

Estie Rand: [00:11:43] If you’re a good speaker, find places to speak. If you’re a good writer, find things to write for. If you’re good at one on one, you’re leveraging your evangelists, your inner network, and if you’re a networker, well, you know, that’s the that’s the skill that everyone thinks you need, right? You got to get out there, meet everybody. I mean, everyone just thinks you need, you know, a good website logo and social media and poof business. No. So you leverage your skill, you meet people, you get their interest based on what you’re communicating, how it solves their problem. You’ve got to make sure you’re getting in front of people with problems you can solve. This is the essence of business. Business is an exchange of value for value, right? We trade money for services in this case, and the service is solving someone’s problem whose problems you solve when you tell them that you solve their problem. Great. Now I got to make sure that the offer makes sense and the price is right and that we signed the deal.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:33] Now, how do you help the person kind of work through this? Like, what is this coaching that you’re doing? You mentioned that you do group coaching. So what is this like for the person that raises their hand and says, Yeah, I’m interested in doing that? Is it something I get to go in there and say, OK, this is my challenge and then the group together with you or helping me kind of define some of those terms and make sure that my brand is true and my pricing is right. And you know, I’m doing the right activities every day.

Estie Rand: [00:13:07] Yeah. So there’s there’s some trainings, right? Because there’s a bunch of information that most business owners are just missing. Most business owners never went to business school, especially those who are coming from the corporate world. It’s not the same. You don’t run a small business like you run a corporation, and so there’s a certain training or retraining for some people. So there’s some training materials which include online videos, audios and also physical materials. And we’re currently updating and upgrading the training materials, and they are insane, cool. Like I’m working with an adult education expert, an experience expert. Don’t ask what I’m doing. We’ve been in this space for this long and you’ve seen it all. So you know, I’ve got to make it better. And then we meet every single week and people can ask the question of, OK, so I understand this concept and you know, either how do I apply to my business or this is how I think I would apply to my business? Does this make sense or I applied it to my business in this way and I got stuck with this now? What do I do? And so there’s a lot of it’s almost like an incubator, you know, the name for the last one we ran, we called the incubator. Now it’s more of a membership and taking people on that journey to that stable $10000 profit. It’s a journey. You understand it, you implement it, apply it and then you have to become it and we work through it until they’re there.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:23] Now, what do you tell the person out there that thinks that all they have to do is run some Facebook ads or LinkedIn ads or Google ads? And then, you know, the clients are just going to flock to them.

Estie Rand: [00:14:36] I say, I’ll see you in about six months to a year.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:40] So you don’t think that’s an effective strategy.

Estie Rand: [00:14:43] It’s not effective at all. But I do sometimes encounter people who are very dead set on the way they think things need to be done. And typically I will see them between six months to a year. They come back like, OK, you were right. I tried it. It didn’t work at all. I’m back now, so that’s what I actually legitimately say to them. But for someone who is more open, I would say that’s just the Red Fire bell. You’re missing everything that goes behind it. And if you throw a huge amount of money at something like that, then you should get results of some sort. But you’ll, I would say, ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine percent not going to earn back your money and the only way to continue, you’re going to have to continue throwing money at it. So people do this right, they throw money. It’s like, Oh, look, it work, but they’re always throwing more money than they’re earning. And so when you build this properly from the foundation, you’ve got to build it properly. Foundation is your brand. What’s unique about you in the space? Why should someone work with you as opposed to anyone else and then go ahead and make the graphical representation of that? Create your name around that? It’s all good if you’re not using your actual name.

Estie Rand: [00:15:48] Now let’s develop our marketing, our offer, our price point, our positioning in the marketplace, our presence offline and online. What are our marketing materials going to be? Now let’s go get attention. Once we’ve got that in place now, let’s put them through a sales path and now let’s test and iterate an ROI. And now you’ve got a real business. Now you can rely on this thing. Again, I’m out here what I’m doing now. Our newest program is called 10K Months. Take your business from wherever you are to $10000 a month. Stable profit. I want to mint millionaires if they want to be, and if not, I’m happy to mint 100000 shares. All right. It’s got to work for your life. But like, make this thing real doesn’t have to be haphazard, so you run some Facebook ads. I’ll see you in six months to a year.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:36] Well, if if you don’t want them to run ads, do you want them to be doing some sort of activity on social media like LinkedIn? Is there something they should be doing every day on LinkedIn to help them with their marketing? Or is that that kind

Estie Rand: [00:16:50] Of if we’ve ascertained that LinkedIn makes sense for their strategy, then yes, you know, I actually have a program called LinkedIn 15 15 minutes a day for 15 days to leverage LinkedIn organically. For clients and customers, it’s like it’s like a toy of mine, right? Linkedin’s not the main thing I do. The main thing I do is the entire marketing business strategy and the journey. But if it made sense, if LinkedIn was a strategy, if you had your brand in place and you had your main marketing elements in place and you have a sales path in place, then LinkedIn is a great attention getting tool. It’s a great place to have your presence. It’s a great place to get new leads to put into your funnel. It’s a great place to build your name and reputation. There’s no one thing to do. There’s like five things to do every day on LinkedIn if you want to leverage it and really fully and properly, but you’ve got to make sure it’s the right tool and you’ve got to have in the context of a strategy. Does that make sense?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:48] Yeah, but I’m trying to get something actionable for somebody to do today or tomorrow.

Estie Rand: [00:17:53] I want to do today on LinkedIn or

Lee Kantor: [00:17:55] Just on anywhere like I’m just trying to get you to share something actionable that somebody could

Estie Rand: [00:18:00] Do. All actionable is leverage your sworn strength. That’s actionable and it’s not fluff. It means sit down and say, OK, you said there’s four. Which one am I the best in? Am I more of a speaker or writer, a one on one person or a networker? Great. So once I pick one of those now, how am I going to use that to get in front of people? If I like talking, where can I speak and don’t make your own event? Nobody knows you yet. Right? What event can I speak at? Where can I network? What conference can I speak at? What workshop can I speak on someone else’s social media channel they have in front of my audience? Can I do a live with somebody? Where can I speak that people will hear me speak and I could seed my services? If I’m a writer, where can I write? Not your own blog? Nobody knows you. It’s not two thousand one. No one’s finding your blog. Where can I write? Where can I write an article for? Can I write it for someone else’s blog who’s getting read? Can I write it on social media for a profile that already has watchers readers? Sorry, can I write for a magazine? Can write for a local publication again? How do I write to get in front of my people if I’m a one on one person? Can I call my top three friends and sit down with them for a nice dinner or conversation one on one each individually say, Hey, listen, this is what I’m doing now.

Estie Rand: [00:19:08] This is who I help. This is how I help them. This is what I’m going to do for them. Who do you know that either needs my help or could get me in front of or knows the people that need my help? And if you’re a networker, we’re back right. We’re back in person. There’s networking events online all the time. There are networking groups, get out there, meet people and start telling them your story of how you add value. That is the one thing I would have you do to day that will guarantee money in your pocket if you have the other things in place.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:38] So. What I’m hearing you say is not a build it and they will come strategy, but leverage others and let them know what you’re doing so that you can partner and work together and leverage their audience or their network.

Estie Rand: [00:19:53] That’s the superPAC. The superPAC in the beginning is piggybacking once you have an audience. Great. But when you don’t, right? How many people do you know? And I know and we both know who set up their own website and their own blog and their own event, and nobody comes. My first, when I first launched this again over 10 years ago, I put an ad in a local weekly was like workshop business building workshop. You know, so excited. I was sure, like the whole neighborhood was going to sign up because everyone was trying to run their own things. Two people signed up. All right. So, you know, we canceled it because that was pathetic. I was like, You know, yeah, sorry it be rescheduled. No one cared. Go where the people already are and tell them your offer. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:34] And then when people are working with you, you help them kind of identify, OK. These are the group of people you should be reaching out to. This is an offer you can make them. That would be compelling enough for them to, you know, trust you in front of their audience.

Estie Rand: [00:20:48] Correct. And then with

Lee Kantor: [00:20:49] The right price and the right offer

Estie Rand: [00:20:51] On it individually. Ok, wait. But I have the sales call and it didn’t work and the person never called me back. Now what do I do? All right, I’m building out, but it’s so individualized again, I think one of the biggest problems is that so much business advice is given out. I’m a generalist, but my advice is specialized. All right. Part of how I’m able to give such specialized advice is because I know all the different moving parts and all the different marketing tools and hacks out there, and I learn more every day. You can’t give generalized advice to an individual. I can tell you this generalized right. Pick your swan strength and go out there. I can tell you that, but there’s a point that it’s got to apply to you. You are unique. Your strengths are unique. Your offers unique. So you plug into a framework, right? But there is no such thing as LinkedIn’s for everyone. It’s not. There’s no such thing as Instagrams for everyone. There is no one tactic that is for everyone. It’s one of the biggest fallacies that makes me crazy.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:45] And you help them identify what is the most efficient, effective path to help them get the outcome they desire.

Estie Rand: [00:21:53] Correct.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:55] And if somebody wants to learn more, get on your calendar or have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website?

Estie Rand: [00:22:02] Go to SD Randox. Free gift. Yes. Ht i r a and free gift spelled free gift. What’s there is actually a three day marketing success challenge at the moment. We change it up every once in a while. So depending when you hear this, there may be a different present for you, but that’s the best way to learn more. Start your journey toward the business and marketing that works for you, and you’ll see how to get a hold of me in my team. Be happy to chat.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:32] Well, aState, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Estie Rand: [00:22:38] My pleasure, thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:40] All right, this is Lee Kantor, we will see you all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Josh Kim With 7a Accelerator

by

7a Accelerator
High Velocity Radio
Josh Kim With 7a Accelerator
Loading
/

Josh KimJosh Kim, Principal at 7a Accelerator

Starting from nothing, Joshua Kim had a desire to purchase a small business, even at a young age.He discovered the world of SBA financing and after much trial and error, was able to finance his first business purchase with an SBA loan of $1.2M at 19 without family money, connections, or an ‘insider’ at the bank approving the loan. Subsequently he was able to get 2 more loans totalling another $1.3M+ to purchase 2 more businesses.

Connect with Josh on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Overview about SBA financing
  • SBA loan, who can apply for it
  • About 7a Accelerator

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 high velocity radio

Lee Kantor: [00:00:13] Lee Kantor hear another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one today. On the show we have Josh Kim and he is with 7a accelerator. Welcome, Josh.

Josh Kim: [00:00:25] Afternoon, Lee. Great. Great to be on with you today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:28] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about 7:00 A.. How are you serving, folks?

Josh Kim: [00:00:33] Yeah. So we we specialize in helping business owners navigating what is otherwise a confusing process of seeking SBA financing. I’ve got a bit of a back story myself with leveraging these SBA loans for a couple of my own business ventures in the past, and I have found that a lot of people are just not aware of what you can actually get done with an SBA loan. So we help business owners by consulting them through the process and helping make sure they get paired up with a good bank that’s going to be able to help them get the financing needs that they have.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:09] So why don’t we share with the listeners kind of a primer on how to go about getting an SBA loan? Because there’s a lot of misconceptions that the SBA loan isn’t really a loan from the SBA, right? You have to partner with the bank and the government backs it, but the loan is through a bank, right?

Josh Kim: [00:01:28] Correct, that’s that’s one of the biggest points of confusion that most people have is that they think, Oh, well, am I not getting a loan from the SBA? And there’s more confusion around that right now. Just because we do have like the idle loans and some of these other disaster loans that are out there. And so that that does sometimes create confusion. But the loans that I help people with with seven accelerator are ones that are directly from banks and they are just guaranteed by the SBA.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:02] So now who is eligible for an SBA loan?

Josh Kim: [00:02:07] Any for-profit business here in the United States is going to be eligible for an SBA loan. So a lot of people, you know, a lot of people have questions about that. What kind of business is going to qualify you anything special? And you know, the answer is no, not really. So long as you’re a for profit company based in the United States, you will be eligible for an escape.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:29] Now, do you have to have a business that has something that’s tangibly collateral, realizable like real estate or equipment or things like that? Or can service industries take advantage of SBA loans as well?

Josh Kim: [00:02:43] Service businesses are just as capable of just as able to take advantage of SBA loans as as others. Obviously, if you have collateral in your business, it does make the process a little bit easier. But it is not. A hard and fast rule is not an absolute requirement. And the reason that SBA loans are often used and they’re very popular is because the SBA, the way it works is that the SBA guarantee seventy five percent of the loan. And so what that allows is for a business owner who doesn’t have collateral, who typically might have difficulties in getting this kind of financing. It allows them to still be able to get a loan because the SBA, because the government is guaranteeing that’s that’s effectively how the program works and why a lot of business owners are able to in fact, get financing by utilizing the SBA process.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:39] Now what are some things that a business owner has to have in order to get the or have a, you know, the best chance of getting the SBA loan? And what are some things that if you don’t have it, then don’t even bother.

Josh Kim: [00:03:54] So what I would generally tell people is that if you don’t have any like if you don’t have any historical cash flow or profits in your business, SBA financing is probably not going to be a good option for you. The main thing that lenders are looking at is historical profits of the business by looking at a tax return. And so if you don’t have that, it’s it’s still possible in some situations to get an SBA loan, but it obviously makes a lot more difficult. Right? I would also tell people that if you need to work on your credit first, going for an SBA loan is not going to be a fruitful effort. They do have credit score minimums that are set by the SBA. And if you don’t fall in those, if you don’t fall within those parameters, it’s going to be difficult to qualify for financing. So can you get an SBA loan if you don’t have good credit? It’s it’s it’s actually cut off by the SBA, so I would encourage you to go work on your credit score first before trying to apply for financing. That’s that’s really the only other qualifier we give people.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:54] And then for business owners who have an existing business, they think they might have been kind of being smart by not showing any profit, right? By just putting their salary or the money that they’re taking out of the business and kind of not hiding the profit, but maybe just reallocating it in a

Josh Kim: [00:05:13] Different but yeah, writing it all off, right? That’s that’s honestly, that’s the most common problem that I see with people is that they do just that. And it makes a lot of sense from a tax perspective, because why would you why would you report any more profit than you absolutely have to get taxed on it? That’s that’s how most people think. And while that is the correct way to think about things most of the time, you know, unfortunately for the for the purposes of getting an SBA loan, that is that is not how it works and you will actually be disadvantaged by that. So.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:51] And that’s one of those things where if you’re thinking about this, you better start planning for this because it’s hard to kind of make a rapid change, right? Like if all of a sudden you want to get the loan and you could have shown, put this profit, you know, for the last two years, the would have probably helped you get it or maybe even a bigger loan than you needed. But now you don’t. You didn’t do that. You’re going to have to kind of do it at some point, right?

Josh Kim: [00:06:23] Yeah, I mean it it makes it more difficult if you don’t have cash. I have seen some people like we had a client recently, he went back and actually amended a prior tax return as most prior year’s tax return to not be as aggressive with some of the write offs. And you know what I mean by that is he, you know, he didn’t write everything off, right? And he went back to his tax returns so he could do that. I’ve seen situations where that’s done, but that’s really kind of the only way you would otherwise get around it. You know, you would have to go in and and make an adjustment to your tax return to show. You know, the profits that your your business had, so, you know, it’s doable, that’s really the only way you can kind of get around it.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:07] So now SBA loans right now are available, right? Like if you have the qualifications, they’re not. These aren’t difficult to get if you know what you’re doing, but they are available. This isn’t a time when it’s difficult to really get them right.

Josh Kim: [00:07:24] Yeah, no. I mean, now it’s it’s arguably the easiest it’s ever been because the the SBA has. It’s kind of they’ve provided frameworks and guidance for lenders to say like, Hey, you know, we want to make it easier for businesses to access this money. And they’ve they’ve adjust some of the rules and regs that it is easier for businesses to get money just, for example. Last year, one of the main things that they were doing throughout COVID was they were they were reducing the they increase the guarantee. So right now, the guarantee of seventy five percent, that’s that’s how much of a loan is guaranteed by the SBA. They had actually adjusted it during COVID so that it was even higher than that. The the the the percentage of the loan guarantee is 90 percent. So the SBA has done different things such as that to make it easier for businesses to actually get this money because, you know, at the end of the day, they want businesses to be able to obtain this financing. They want them to be able to do this because it will make it easier for us to collectively economically recover if businesses have the money to be lending. Volume went from 30 billion to forty five billion last year on account of, you know, just on the main SBA lending programs, not the Idol and PPP that disaster programs just the main lending programs. It increased by a significant amount.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:51] And with historic low interest rates, there’s it’s a good time that even if you don’t kind of urgently need the money, it’s a nice time to have the money.

Josh Kim: [00:09:03] Correct, correct. Now is the best time to borrow money. And a lot of people are like, Oh, why would I pay six percent interest on money that I’m not using? Well, the reason is because inflation right now is over six percent. So if you’re able to borrow money at or equal to the inflation rate, you’re effectively borrowing the money for free. Right, right. So I’ve made that case to a couple of business owners, but they don’t they don’t think that way. Well, I, you know, I don’t want to pay more than two percent. It’s wild because if you have a business where you, you’re not making enough money. If you can borrow an infinite amount of money at two percent and still not make money, you have a bad business model. It’s not about how much money can you borrow. You fix your business loan.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:47] So now let’s talk about how seven a accelerator helps their clients. What? What is kind of your ideal client profile?

Josh Kim: [00:09:57] So our ideal client profile is someone who is and we don’t necessarily based on revenue. It’s more based on the cash flow that this cash flow is what’s going to determine how much you qualify for. Our ideal client avatar is someone who is netting over five hundred thousand dollars a year and once Capital Capital to scale their business, whether it be for a business acquisition or real estate purchase, whatever the case might be. That is our ideal client avatar and kind of like who is easiest for us to work with? We work with business owners by helping them navigate the loan process of banks so we can still help smaller businesses that aren’t at those revenue and profit numbers. It’s just obviously a lot easier if they’re if they’re bigger.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:46] So, so like, let’s assume that this this prospect is at that exact level. What is the process look like? So they come to you and they say, Hey, Josh, I’m thinking of getting a loan. Where do you come in and how do you help them? Like, why can’t they just go to their bank and say, Hey, I want an SBA loan?

Josh Kim: [00:11:07] Yeah, so that’s actually probably the most common question we get, and it’s and it’s a logical question, why would you go to someone else if you can just go to your bank? Unfortunately for for most business owners, most banks are not good at executing on SBA loans. They might advertise it. They might claim to do it. But when you dig into the weeds of what they’re really able to do, most SBA lenders are just flat out awful at doing loans. If you look at the loan data from the SBA, for example, Bank of America, most people are a lot of people bank with Bank of America. You might think, OK, well, they’re a big thing. They’re obviously going to do a lot of loans. If you look at the actual data on how many loans they actually do in the year, it’s a very low amount. Same thing with Chase and Wells Fargo. If you look at the actual dollar amounts are proving to, it’s all very low dollar amounts. If you need a million dollars, good luck getting it from Wells Fargo unless you have just as much collateral to pledge personally, right? So that’s really the main reason is that, you know, I have a unique network of lenders that really understand how the SBA loan program was designed to work right, not not requiring all this collateral and this and that. And so that’s that’s the main benefit that I can demonstrate that we bring people is that, hey, we work with banks that are not going to be difficult with you in getting the financing you need. They’re going to be able to help you actually get get the money you want from an SBA. So that’s how we help. We work with banks to understand the program and are not crazy sticklers like some of the other, some of the other banks out there might be.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:45] And so those banks may not be in the, you know, close proximity of the client, right? They could be anywhere in the country.

Josh Kim: [00:12:52] Yeah, most most banks that are good at doing SBA loans are actually not going to have any sort of physical proximity to the client. And that’s that’s one of the one of the biggest things that confuses people. They’re like, Oh, well, you know, my neighborhood bank advertises SBA loans, they might advertise it, but it doesn’t mean they’re any good at it. That’s that’s a dichotomy that a lot of people have a hard time reconciling that just because, hey, they claim they do, it doesn’t mean they’re any good at it.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:17] Now, are you actually helping them with the forms or is it something like, you’re like, Look, here’s the form, fill it out, and then I will get it to the right bank. Like, where? Where does your service begin and end?

Josh Kim: [00:13:30] Yeah. So we do help answer questions about how to fill out the forms of such. That’s really not the core of where our value add is because the forms are the forms are actually pretty self-explanatory. One of the biggest myths that I tell people is that SBA loans are not complicated. They don’t require, you know, they don’t require you to have a CFA license to be able to fill out the forms, right? They’re actually pretty, pretty straightforward so we can help answer questions as they come up. But really, we’re more of we’re at where we are. Adding value is by making sure that the business owner is getting paired up with the best bank for their business.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:13] Now is there a ratio based on profits or revenue, gross revenue that tells you how big of a loan you should go for? Like, what’s the kind of the the formula of deciding what’s the appropriate amount to to get a loan for?

Josh Kim: [00:14:31] Yeah, that’s that’s actually a pretty good question. And one I one we get often. Hey, how much how much money can I qualify for? I tell people that a good rule of thumb is going to be three times your your annual net income. That’s kind of a good ballpark range of how much you can qualify for based on a 10 year term loan at five and a half percent, which is where most of these SBA loans are coming, right? They’re panning out to be right now. So it also depends on what you need. If you don’t need that much money, there’s really not much of a point to to go apply for that much, right? You only need one hundred thousand dollars, but you can qualify for three hundred and you can only justify spending one hundred thousand dollars with what you need. You could try applying for three hundred thousand, but you might have a hard time justifying it to the bank as to why you need that full amount. And that’s that’s one of the things that I tell people is that you have to be able to justify the loan amount, not just show that you can cash flow it with the profits of your business, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:15:34] And then the way that you’re kind of going to justify it is you’re going to explain how you’re going to use the money or is it something that you have to be in the process of buying something?

Josh Kim: [00:15:46] No, no, no, no. Most of the loans that we help business owners out with are actually not loans for business acquisitions. I mean, we do business acquisitions, real estate, you know, real estate purchases. But a lot of the loans that we do are just for expansion capital like, Hey, I have a business that does X amount per year. I’m interested in getting financing to help expand the business here. So I’m. Money I need. So we run into a lot of situations like that, and so it’s not an absolute requirement that you per say, have a purchase or something you have to do. Know we do plenty of loans for people who do not have a business acquisition or something like that that they’re working on.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:28] So if somebody out there wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website?

Josh Kim: [00:16:37] Best way to reach us is to the website at seven accelerators. And again, that’s seven the number seven accelerator. We have a we have a link there where you can just click Schedule Call. If you’d like to have a conversation, see if an SBA loan would be a good fit for you. Got a team of guys who take the calls and be happy to chat with you to see if it might be a good fit?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:00] And before we wrap, is there a story you can share? Maybe a success story about somebody you were able to help, you know without naming their name or anything?

Josh Kim: [00:17:08] Yeah. Well, we won one of the more recent success stories that we have that I was glad we were able to get done was for a it was a husband wife combo there. There they were trying to buy the accounting firm from their dad. And so they had gone to a bank for two before who turned them down. The dad was retiring. They needed about a million dollars to purchase the accounting firm from him, and we were able to get one of the lenders that we work with to to approve the deal for them. So they were able to take the keys and, you know, buy the business that they had been working at for multiple years. And so they were obviously very excited about that. Glad we were able to get it done for them. But that’s just one of the recent success stories that I can I can point out for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:57] And then also one of the benefits is not only the ability to match the right lender with the right client, but it’s also maybe you help with the speed of getting these deals done.

Josh Kim: [00:18:09] Right, and that’s that’s that’s why we refer to the business as an accelerator, a big, a big component of what we’re doing is helping the business owners get it done in a quicker fashion than they would otherwise. Because, you know, a lot of these business owners, could they have gotten the SBA loan on their own? Probably. But they just didn’t want to have to wait multiple months of back and forth and talking to multiple banks to figure out who’s actually going to be able to help them and who’s just kind of blowing smoke. So that’s that’s that’s a big aspect of what we do is helping them navigate who’s who’s legit, who’s going to help them and who’s not right.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:48] What’s your personal best in terms of getting a deal done?

Josh Kim: [00:18:53] I mean, my personal best is probably one of the deals that I did myself. I mean, I used SBA loans to buy some businesses when I was quite young, 19, 20 years old. And so one of the businesses that I bought was doing $3 million in revenue a year. I think that was probably my best deal because it was when I was able to get done on my own. But, you know, for a client, I think that that accounting firm purchase was definitely one of one of the more challenging ones that we’ve had to overcome. There was a lot of different issues with it that we had to work through. There was some financial issues with the historical performance of the business, and the buyers didn’t have perfect credit, but we were still able to get a lender on board and get the deal done. And really, that’s all that matters. So.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:40] Well, Josh, congratulations on all the success one more time.

Josh Kim: [00:19:43] The Website seven accelerator number seven accelerator cap.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:49] Good stuff. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work. We appreciate you.

Josh Kim: [00:19:54] Awesome. Good. Good talking with you guys and looking forward to talking again in the future.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:59] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll sale next time on high velocity radio.

Brian K Haney With Brian K Haney, LLC

by

Brian K Haney
Coach The Coach
Brian K Haney With Brian K Haney, LLC
Loading
/

Brian K HaneyBrian K Haney, Team Effectiveness Coach at Brian K Haney, LLC

Brian is a recovering Google engineer with a passion for empowering people. He has transitioned from “Empowering people with Google technology” to simply empowering people to “Make Work Better.”

Now Brian is bringing what he learned at Google to the rest of the world. He coaches teams and their leaders to explore better ways of working together.

Connect with Brian on LinkedIn and Twitter  and follow him on Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • Google SRE practice psychology safety even in the midst of serious failures
  • The primary drivers of performance and worker engagement
  • People don’t need managers

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 Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and you’re in for a treat with this one today on the show, we have Brian K. Haney, who is a team effectiveness coach. Welcome, Brian. Hi, Lee. I am so excited to be chatting with you today. Before we get too far into things. Tell us about your practice, how you serve serving folks, and the journey you’ve been on to get to where you are today.

Brian K Haney: [00:00:59] Well, my practice right now is in the middle of a pivot. So let’s see, where do I start my story? Up until last December. December 20 20, I was a I worked at Google and there I was doing internal coaching. I did a little bit of external coaching too, just on the side. But when I was doing career and leadership coaching at Google until I left Google a year ago and I’ve been taking twenty twenty one as a sabbatical year, I am now at the point where I need to reboot my side business to become my primary occupation.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:37] So how’s the how’s the transition?

Brian K Haney: [00:01:40] Well, I’m experimenting with different brands and different branding ideas like you introduced me as a team, as a team effectiveness coach, that’s one of the emphases in my practice. I’m considering being a little more of a. Well, I I used to I was familiar with the pirate coach or a rebel coach. But what I really want to do is I want to focus on team leaders who want to kind of take their team to the next level of and do things in a way that might be a little unorthodox in the traditional organizational perspective.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:28] Now, in your past, you’ve worked a lot with self-managed teams at some.

Brian K Haney: [00:02:34] So that’s where he got started. I back in 2016, when I was at Google, my cloud support team of about 75 engineers and program managers. We started practicing Holacracy and we did that for a few months until until we had a larger reorganization that our and our new directors who are assigned to our to our team said. We don’t understand this. We don’t know why you’re doing it. We don’t want to do it anymore. So that was kind of my introduction to the culture was in that context because I was basically the became the in-house expert and I was I was coaching my peers and other leaders on the larger team to basically. Redefined their role because if they couldn’t be managers, what could they be? Well, there had to be leaders or they could be leaders. And so I was helping them transition from being managers to leaders.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:34] Now for those, can you explain a little bit about ocracy because I know a little bit about it and I’m kind of fascinated by it and especially to be talking to somebody who implemented or at least attempted to implement it. Can you talk about what you like about it, what you don’t like about it and kind of the the theory behind it?

Brian K Haney: [00:03:52] Well, what I like the most fun things I like most about it were it was a sense of autonomy, the sense of agency in my roles and every role in my opinion, should have a purpose that wasn’t acquired. But but if every role had a well-defined purpose that kind of gave focus for for what you would do to energize that role and that sense of of a clear direction and an agency, I found that rather intoxicating. It reminded me of when I first joined Google back in two thousand six and how I felt empowered and know that was in a corporate environment. I didn’t expect that.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:37] And then the basis of it is a very flat organization, right?

Brian K Haney: [00:04:41] Not necessarily. Not really. So it’s there’s still a hierarchy there, but it’s not a hierarchy of managers. It’s a hierarchy of circles. So there is a. There’s still a structure and the structure can’t it can’t be deep, but that that creates a what I would call latency in the organization, so it makes the organization respond slower or more slowly, I should say. But there’s no there’s still it’s not I wouldn’t really call it flat.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:15] But but the autonomy is really you’re empowering the your participant to be a leader rather than a manager because most of them are working on some sort of projects. So it’s a different structure from that standpoint, isn’t it?

Brian K Haney: [00:05:33] Yes. So in the sense that. There’s there are still, you know. Collections of people working together to accomplish a shared shared objective, and that is

Lee Kantor: [00:05:51] That’s like the true north of the organization, right? Like everybody’s clear on this is the big mission we’re trying to accomplish. But how we get that done? There’s a lot about autonomy.

Brian K Haney: [00:06:03] To do that well. So there’s the organization as a whole has a purpose, and then each circle inside the organization has a purpose in support of the higher purpose. So, for example, the support engineers might have a purpose to. Well, I make the customers successfully using Google Cloud platform, but the the support organization as a whole might phrase that a little differently to have a larger perspective.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:41] So now as you kind of get into your practice moving forward into twenty twenty two. How do you see yourself kind of identifying who is the right fit ideal client for you?

Brian K Haney: [00:06:55] My ideal client is a a tech team, a technical leader who has a either I.T. team or a software development team or some other team. Because being a recovering engineer myself, I know how to speak geek and they they want to engage more of their the whole person that’s coming to work. They want to have a shared sense of purpose, a shared values. They want to do more inviting of the team instead of pushing the team. And they want their team to be more engaged to have a greater sense of of of ownership and a greater stake in how how effective the team as a whole is. So that’s my ideal client. And then they I’ll come along, come alongside those those team leaders and help them to show them ways they can make that happen. Or if they want me to engage me as a consultant to to actually work with the team directly, I can do that, too.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:16] So now is some of the frustration that they might be having is that they’re not satisfied with the level of performance or the amount of worker engagement or those some of the issues that they’re struggling with right now that where you can help.

Brian K Haney: [00:08:32] Definitely. I’m sure people have seen the the reports in Inked Magazine and The Wall Street Journal about how the worker engagement is a fraction of what it should be. I can’t remember the numbers, but it’s something like twenty five percent or less of of workers around the world are engaged in the work the rest are, or I’m really looking for another job and to be able to. The key there, in my opinion, is to at least from the leaders perspective, is to help them to reinvent the work or for them to to to co-create a work environment that is more inviting and more engaging, and it has more intrinsic motivation. So work shouldn’t be just a job where it should be. You going to spend the vast majority of your waking hours doing work or at least, you know, be a part of it. So it shouldn’t be this thing where you’re just coasting and getting by and waiting for your paycheck.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:43] So how do you help them? Kind of. Repositioned in the mind of the worker, that is more than a job, like what are some of the things that you can be doing to to kind of instill more meaning?

Brian K Haney: [00:09:58] The first thing to do is to cultivate an environment of psychological safety. This is something that Google does internal research on and what makes for an effective team, and psychological safety came out far and away the most important characteristic of effective teams. And without that, hardly anything else matters, because if it’s not a safe place for me to let down my mask or to be authentic and genuine with my with my teammates, then. Nothing else is really going to. You’re not going to make any other practice or any other advances in creating a great work culture.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:40] But it’s psychological safety. Something is that in the eye of the beholder, is my psychological safety different than yours?

Brian K Haney: [00:10:48] Psychological safety is definitely a perception, but it’s something that it’s cultivated among people. So it’s it’s fundamentally do I feel safe enough that I could take reasonable risks? Um, and if if if my if I if I fail at a project, you know, as long as I’ve made a good faith effort is is that going to reflect poorly on my standing in the organization? Or can I can I make a mistake and feel like I can own up to it? Or can I? Can I push back on something that leadership says is is a way to a way to do it? And I say, can I say, wait a minute, did you consider this or I’m not sure you have all the facts, and so can I or I. The team’s plate is overloaded, but what do we need to let go of so we can take on this, this new project that you’re asking us to take on? So do they feel safe enough to do that? That that sort of thing, that’s that’s something is probably going to be shared among all the team members, at least all the team members that have been there for at least a few weeks now.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:14] When you’re doing something like that, how do you kind of. Create an environment that allows that to happen, but still not really, I don’t know if you want to, I don’t know if it encourages the right word, but you don’t want to have a room full of people second guessing every single call because they have an opinion. Also, I mean, you want to hear everybody, I guess, but you you can’t act on everybody’s vision of what is the next right move?

Brian K Haney: [00:12:48] Certainly. And that’s why in particular, is not a democracy. While people are empowered to take actions to fulfill their role and they could, they can object to a proposal to the extent that it detracts from their ability to to to energize the purpose of their own role or the purpose of the team. But just because they might have an opinion about about a proposal if they don’t have, if it doesn’t, it’s not going to affect any roles that they feel. They don’t have a voice.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:32] And but that’s that’s under the hypocrisy model, right? I mean, there is. So most companies aren’t practicing Holacracy.

Brian K Haney: [00:13:42] That’s true. That’s true. And so I’m kind of conflating things in psychological safety. The general tendency is that that unless people feel. A. Deeply impacted by something, but probably not going to speak up. There’s a built in tendency in the human psyche to let things ride without making waves. And it’s it’s not

Lee Kantor: [00:14:14] Just human behavior.

Brian K Haney: [00:14:16] Yeah, it is. It is. And. And so the the the the problem you propose that you’re proposing that everybody has a voice. We can’t act on all the voices. Well, those voices are generally very small. So, so it’s usually not an issue, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:14:35] Ok, now you mentioned also risk. Most organizations give lip service to wanting being OK with taking risks, but you can only fail so many times before they’re going to start going. Maybe you’re not the right person for the job.

Brian K Haney: [00:14:54] So there’s two things there. One is yes, organizations will have posters in the wall that encourage you to to

Lee Kantor: [00:15:03] Push the envelope, right? But think outside the box all of that stuff that they want you to do. But sometimes when you’re doing that, you’re going to fail miserably and dramatically. And it’s not going to work and don’t. Don’t you think that people are a little gun shy that they don’t want to be the one that keeps coming up with harebrained ideas that never work? But the only way you’re going to find those breakthroughs are, you know, when you are taking those kind of big swings.

Brian K Haney: [00:15:34] Probably the best way to illustrate a way of of managing risk is what what Google does, and Google is very they have the blameless postmortem. I wouldn’t call a protocol, but it’s a a system of handling large failures. So in a blameless postmortem after a failure has happened and if somebody pushed the wrong button, we’ll uncover that later on. But after the failure, there’s a. an analysis to see what were the events that led up to the failure and what was the sequence and how did how did we respond to the failure and how did we get things back to a stable state? And usually that or very often that that postmortem might be led by a. A team leader or might be led by the person who was on call at the time and had the most impact on making the failure a failure. So once they’ve collected all information, the whole idea there is first assume benign intent. Nobody on the team is trying to make the system fail. They’ll make that assumption. And because it’s not true, you have bigger problems, right? That means you have a saboteur.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:09] Yeah, that’s obvious. Good point.

Brian K Haney: [00:17:13] So let’s assume that nobody wants to make the system failure. So the only other reason the only the only two reasons to let somebody go is if they’re they’re malicious, which would be the saboteur or the completely incompetent. And that cannot be fixed. It cannot be reassigned to another job. They can’t trained. The vast majority of problems are systemic. Either the the tools to do the monitoring and detecting a of a situation and do a situational awareness were inadequate or the. Uh, were or the tools to to rectify the situation weren’t adequate or the documentation was poor or the metric the metrics were were poor or the training was poor or communication among the team or with other teams that were that had to be part of the scenario were poor. So these are all systemic problems, not personal problems. And so the question is what can we do now to tune our system to be to avoid or better respond to this kind of a failure in the future? So that’s something that that your organization can do or the team can do that really cultivates a sense of psychological safety is now we’re going to assume the best of intent and unless we’re proven, unless proven otherwise, we’re going to, we’re going to go with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:53] So now if there’s a company out there that wants to have a conversation with you or somebody on your team to improve their performance and maybe, you know, just drive better and more engaged workforce, what is the best way to get a hold of you? Is there a website?

Brian K Haney: [00:19:14] Probably the best way to reach out to me is on LinkedIn. My handle there is Brian Kahaani. My website is Brian K. Hanekom and my email address is I’m going to say this out loud at Brian K. Hanekom,

Lee Kantor: [00:19:30] And that’s Brian K. Haney is spelled BRACA and K. H. A and why?

Brian K Haney: [00:19:38] That’s it.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:39] Well, Brian, thank you so much for sharing your story today. It is an exciting journey for you and a lot of fun adventures ahead.

Brian K Haney: [00:19:47] I’m sure I’m looking forward to it.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:50] All right. Well, we appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Brian K Haney: [00:19:56] It’s been a great conversation.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:57] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach radio.

 

Scott Anderson With Doubledare Executive Coaching & Consulting

by

ScottAnderson
Coach The Coach
Scott Anderson With Doubledare Executive Coaching & Consulting
Loading
/

DoubleDare-Blue-01-e1418929932810

ScottAndersonScott Anderson, CEO of Doubledare Executive Coaching & Consulting

Scott Anderson was born into an entrepreneurial family who understood the value of hard work, perseverance, and grit. Scott’s entry into business started when he was tasked with turning around a 3rd generation family group of construction equipment and industrial engine companies, which he was able to scale and sell at a premium.

Following this, Scott built 3 for-profit businesses, including an agency that he ran for over 25 years and later sold to his employees. Scott also combined his business acumen with his experience as a licensed mental health therapist to establish the not-for-profit, AtEaseUSA.org, which develops and deploys leading-edge PTSD treatment technology in partnership with Tel Aviv University and the Israeli government.

Scott’s experience in business is matched by his premier training in coaching and therapy. He trained at the preeminent Coaches Training Institute and is certified by the International Coaching Federation (IFC).

He also graduated summa cum laude with a Master’s degree from the University of Nebraska School of Clinical Counseling.

Connect with Scott on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

  • How Entrepreneurs Can Prevent (and Recover from) Burnout

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 Coach the Coach radio brought to you by the Business RadioX Ambassador Program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Scott Anderson and his with doubledare executive coaching and consulting. Welcome, Scott.

Scott Anderson: [00:00:44] Lee, thank you. Great to be here.

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

Scott Anderson: [00:00:51] Well, I coach mainly entrepreneurs. I’m a serial entrepreneur myself. I’ve started and sold. I’ve started nine businesses and sold eight businesses. And so I’m let’s see. I think that’s right. And so I coached mainly entrepreneurs, people who are growing businesses and especially people who have grown businesses to a point where they want. They’ve reached sort of a plateau and they really need to take it to the next level.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:18] Now what can you explain a little bit about the journey? I’ve talked to quite a few serial entrepreneurs, but I’ve never really dug into what is it about starting and selling businesses that is so attractive to you for to have done it so many times?

Scott Anderson: [00:01:34] You know, that’s a really good question. I really think it’s in the genes going back four generations. I just come from a long line of risk takers and, you know, people who have started, you know, starting with folks who immigrated to the United States, taking risks in farming and ranching and starting various different businesses getting involved in politics. But but just generally, folks who felt felt like it was less risky to run your own thing than it was to depend on somebody else to run their business that you’re an employee of.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:12] But how do you know when it’s time? Like, Are you? Are you starting these businesses to say, OK, in three years I’m selling this? Or are you starting it? And then you get kind of bored or burnt out with it? And then you say, OK, let me sell it and do something else, or I have this other opportunity. Let me exit from this one. Like, what does that look like?

Scott Anderson: [00:02:29] You know, I think you’ve covered it all really well. You know, I wish I could say that that I have always been opportunistic that is growing a business to a certain size with a certain liquidity number in mind. But in my case, and in the case of a lot of entrepreneurs, boredom is a big part of it. And a lot of the thrill is in the ideation and in the launching and in the growing. And unfortunately, entrepreneurs tend to have very short attention spans. I do anyway. And and very little patience. And so, you know, I don’t I’m not comparing myself at all to Elon Musk, but I totally understand wanting to get into a space program or get into a generator program or a solar panel program just because of boredom and and having really diverse interests.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:21] Now how can you counsel an entrepreneur who is maybe getting bored or, you know, has that shiny object syndrome where that other thing looks really attractive right now? And and instead kind of reevaluate, maybe I should, you know, focus on on my business a little bit and kind of see where this is going to play out rather than kind of be a little ad about what the next move is.

Scott Anderson: [00:03:46] Boy, that’s exactly right. And I spend a lot of time with my clients doing that. A lot of times clients will express frustration or burnout or boredom, pure boredom. When they first talked to me and just as a business is beginning to really bear fruit. I know I’ve been guilty of this sometimes, and you’re right, it is the shiny object syndrome for sure, and there is an addictive quality to this. There’s no question about that that that there is there is a kind of a predictable cycle of obsession, and then the obsession cools off and the entrepreneur loses interest. You know, what I found personally is that it’s been really important to try to break that, that sort of obsessive cycle and and see things through to completion. The key almost always, however, is in trying to recruit great people who are better at sustaining businesses and taking businesses to the next level surrounding yourself with those kinds of people. I’ve been incredibly fortunate over time to attract or recruit people that were just way better business people for that stage of growth than I was who had the patience. And and a lot of ways, the maturity to see things through to completion in a way that I didn’t have. But there’s also sort of this I’d call it almost a spiritual journey for entrepreneurs to hopefully over time begin to channel that impatience and that passion really in a more positive direction. And I found that over time and. Think has something to do with it, but I’ve become a lot more patient and less obsessive, let’s say. But yeah, it’s it’s the constant battle of the entrepreneur against that kind of an almost addictive cycle.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:46] Now is it part of the challenge in that it takes different types of skills to create something from nothing than it does to manage something that something?

Scott Anderson: [00:05:58] Exactly. Yeah, that’s exactly it. You know, they’re there. I mean, if the genes I’m grateful for having inherited from my, my father, my grandfathers, et cetera, et cetera, is is that ability to see something and nothing and to be really intrigued to the point of wanting to get it started? And that, I think, is sort of, by definition, the entrepreneurial either gift or or curse. I’m not sure, but you’re exactly right. It’s a very rare person that has both that entrepreneurial vision and also the ability to scale businesses beyond that plateau I described earlier. It’s at that plateau when growth may slow down, where the nuance of what you’re doing may dissipate, where entrepreneurs tend to lose interest and also tend to leave a lot of money on the table and a lot of value on the table by losing interest, by maybe micromanaging at that point and not seeing what you just said, the the need to bring in both the systems and the people that can take you to the next level.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:12] So how do you cancel your clients to do that? How do you identify who is the right person to take this baby of yours into adulthood and to, you know, exit in a way that you’re fairly compensated for the risk you took?

Scott Anderson: [00:07:29] Exactly. You know, the main thing is, and this is where I spend 90 percent of my time is to try to get it into the hearts and the minds of my entrepreneur clients to understand what they really, really want. And again, sometimes this almost obsessive hunger for new challenge and new adventure is is again a blessing and a curse, and something that in in your younger days can be a tremendous competitive advantage, can turn out to be a competitive threat going forward. So a lot of what we talk about is what I try to get my clients to focus on is what their values are beyond today and tomorrow. But but really what they want their legacy to be and and how they the commitment they want to make in terms of how they show up and live every day, which helps to transcend the the siren song sometimes of, you know, I’ve got to have something new every day anyway. So that’s how I work with my entrepreneur clients. And you know, it’s absolutely true that there is a different personality set in a different skill set of people that that take entrepreneurial companies and grow them into and scale them into bonafide businesses that transcend the personality and the whims and even the potential genius of the entrepreneur and turn them into a business that’s that’s bigger than any one personality or any one individual. And it’s a different skill set, but it’s also a different personality type. And we use a lot of assessments, in fact, to try to determine whether or not the the next generation of leadership that I typically help my clients recruit is, in fact, that kind of individual. But typically, they’re they are more patient than the entrepreneur. They can see through the end of of long term processes with more vigilance and patience and with maintained interest. Yeah, it’s a very different profile than the entrepreneurial profile.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:40] And I would think that because of that, it’s difficult without help. Like your firm to for an individual to find the right fit because they might have this inherent bias that they’re looking for someone like them. And that’s probably the last person they want is someone like that. They need the opposite of them.

Scott Anderson: [00:09:59] Exactly. Yeah, and you know, I mean that to the extent that I’ve been lucky and I really have been blessed to work with partners that are just so much better than I am at almost everything, that’s really true. I mean, you want people that are very different than you are as an entrepreneur because the again, that that entrepreneurial the shiny object syndrome can really torpedo really solid, healthy businesses left to its own devices. And you almost have to, as the entrepreneur with without a coach or a mentor or guide or some kind. Unfortunately, your gifts can really be can turn to destruction. You know, without that kind of without the perspective, it’s really hard to see that. So that’s yeah, that’s a very good point.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:51] Now, when you’re working with your clients, what is typically the pain that they’re having, where they’re like, Hey, I got a call, Scott and his team.

Scott Anderson: [00:11:01] Well, you know, typically, as I said, it’s it’s that the the the growth ambition. Well, it’s a couple of things, but the growth ambition of the founder is being frustrated, so they reach a point where they they have plateaued in some way or another. And often its sales growth or profit growth or market share growth has plateaued. Those are the most obvious signs, and those are, to an entrepreneur, deeply frustrating because growth and expansion and nuance are the lifeblood. Another thing, though, that happens a lot, is that the at least a somewhat enlightened entrepreneur will begin to see that they are the problem, or, in other words, that that their entrepreneurial zeal is in fact driving people away who they really, really need people who can see things through to a longer horizon. People who have who can sort of see the forest for the trees more clearly. And and so what often happens one of the symptoms is that there is a retention problem. This is we notice this, especially in the first quarter of this year, what’s been called the great resignation of of people leaving in droves. And the problem sometimes for the entrepreneur is that they tend to be somewhat egocentric, sometimes really egocentric. I know I’ve had that problem and and are not as conscious as they should be in terms of the the fulfillment of the rest of their team. In any case, for whatever reason, one of the symptoms that a lot of people come to me with is that they’re not able to retain the people that they know they secretly need the the people that can scale the business and take it beyond the plateau.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:54] Now, when they get to this level of frustration, is that something that they’re contemplating? Hey, this is the end. I’m over this. This is not working for me. I got to pull the rip cord. How do I exit? Or is it something where they’re just like, I just, this is my life. I’m just going to power through to the best of my ability and see where it goes.

Scott Anderson: [00:13:16] Well, you know, I certainly want to talk to people before the the first statement that you made before people reached the end of their rope. Sometimes they feel that way, though, that there that there really frustration that what them, what got them passed the back of a napkin idea for a business to a successful business that’s now plateaued. All of that energy is is now working against them. What got them to that point, they kind of know intuitively won’t get them past this plateau, you know, and I sometimes do talk to people that are really pretty desperate or exhausted or particularly today burned out. And so that sometimes happens. Other times there are, you know, and obviously there’s a continuum of entrepreneurship. Some people aren’t as extreme as others and can kind of see that that they’ve either taken the company as far as they can in and in one of two ways, either that that growth has plateaued or that they they sort of realize that their skill set is tapped out, that the entrepreneurial zeal can only take them as far as they are. And that would be a bit more conservative entrepreneur who realizes that if there is such a thing as a conservative entrepreneur. But yeah, somewhere in that continuum, I certainly want to talk to people before they reach the point of of wanting to shut it down. But sometimes that happens and particularly today with burnout.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:51] Now is there anything you can share with our listeners? Any tips or maybe low hanging fruit that an entrepreneur can be doing actively to prevent or even recover from burnout?

Scott Anderson: [00:15:03] Yeah. You know, we’ve spent because this is so common today in all kinds of companies and in well over 50 percent of employees nationwide, according to Gallup report that they feel burned out most of the time. So it’s really reached an epidemic point. And the great resignation that so many employers saw this spring this past spring of twenty one is a reflection of that. So as a result, we’ve created a specific program a process to both prevent and help people recover from burnout because it is such a unfortunately such a common phenomenon, and particularly in companies that are growing fast and that are run by entrepreneurs that insist on fast growth. So we’ve discovered a couple of things. I should probably mention that in addition to being an entrepreneur and a coach, I’m also a licensed therapist. And over the last we started about four years ago, actually pre-COVID, to identify best practices that have clinical proof of counteracting or reversing burnout. And fortunately, there are a lot of steps that people can take and and we’ve kind of codified this these steps into a program, a system that we make available to our clients. And you know, basically what what we’ve discovered is that and actually the World Health Organization in naming burnout a bona fide illness has listed three primary symptoms of burnout. The first is exhaustion, not just physical exhaustion, but psychological exhaustion. And it’s the kind of thing where our clients will report that even if they do get a good night’s sleep, which is usually not often they wake up in the morning still feeling tired and if not physically tired, emotionally tired, exhausted, depleted or done. Sometimes they, they say, and obviously it’s very, very difficult to to conquer the world.

Scott Anderson: [00:17:12] If you’re feeling done, if you’re feeling burned out or tapped out, and there are some specific techniques that we’ve developed that can really, really help with that exhaustion. And very simple, very practical techniques that that really, really help. There are a couple of specifically, there are some mindfulness techniques that are simple and easy, even for people who hate meditation or think they can’t meditate that only take five or 10 seconds to use. That, if used frequently, can really, really help not only help people recover from from burnout, but also help them prevent it from happening in the first place. One of the things we’re discovering is that burnout really is preventable, and we’re our contention is that that company is in the same way that they bring flu shots into the office every fall that the prudent employer should also be bringing in burnout prevention skills into the company. Obviously, you know, burnout has a lot to do with company culture, so employers have to really look themselves in the eyes and ask themselves, How are we contributing to burnout? You know, are we unreasonable or unrealistic? Do we have a culture that promotes fear, for example, which is which is one of the. And stress, you know, if we do, we’re going to have burnout. So the employer has to look themselves in the eye first and foremost because there is definitely a lot of burnout that comes as a result of company culture. But having said that, the there are a number of steps that individuals can take to prevent it because it’s burnout is really in the air. In that sense, it’s akin to COVID.

Scott Anderson: [00:19:03] It’s the social media that we read, the news that we see. It’s in the conversations that we have and actually in our experience, it predates COVID. It may go all the way back to the 2008 Great Recession and maybe even before that, maybe back to the 1998 tech bubble bursting. But COVID was really been the sort of the straw that crushed the camel’s back. But what we have found is that there are a number of skills that people can use to not only recover from burnout but prevent it. And so what we’re preaching to our to our clients is there are some simple programs that we’ve developed that have empirical data of success that you can bring into your companies, much like a flu shot. And if you can get your folks to practice even some of these techniques, they will. Their chances of of preventing burnout are actually quite good. Now this is again not to say that employers can shirk. Responsibility if they have a culture of micromanagement, of fear, of unrealistic expectations, et cetera. You know, they have to look themselves in the mirror and kind of go through a checklist we provide to ensure that their their culture isn’t itself causing the burnout. But we have found that burnout is more of a cultural epidemic than it is a individual business problem. And there are some specific steps that you can that you can take. In fact, if anybody would like to e-mail me afterwards, you know or reach out to my website, I’d be happy to share. We have a a burnout health checklist that I’d be happy to send them a PDF.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:46] All right. Well, what’s the website in case somebody wants to have a, you know, contact you and have a more substantive conversation about your practice and get a hold of these great resources?

Scott Anderson: [00:20:56] Sure. One thing they can do is just to get a to watch a a master class on burnout prevention. They can go to burnout. Breakthrough Burnout Breakthrough has a short webinar that explains the the issues involved with burnout and the steps that you can take to prevent it. And there are there are five shifts that that we’ve discovered that really will turn burnout around. We’ve proven this in hundreds and hundreds of cases. The other thing they can do is to reach me at my coaching website, which is double dare you accuse double dare y0u us? And there’s a link there to a program called Extinguishing Burnout. And there’s lots of information there about the process that we use, the science behind it and concrete steps that people can take right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:58] Good stuff. Well, Scott, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Scott Anderson: [00:22:03] My pleasure. Lee, thanks so much for having me on the show.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:06] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on Coach the Coach radio.

Monica Parkin With Invis Pacific View Mortgages

by

MonicaParkinLogo
Austin Business Radio
Monica Parkin With Invis Pacific View Mortgages
Loading
/

MonicaParkinMonica Parkin is an award winning international speaker and the Author of “Overcoming Awkward, the Introvert’s Guide to Networking, Marketing and Sales,”.

She is also an entrepreneur and she first started out in business, she found herself struggling with how to build authentic connections with a fear of attending large events and no understanding of how to build relationships. She has since evolved into a master relationship builder and is here to share insights that will help you feel more successful, confident, and valued.

Connect with Monico on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:08] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for workplace wisdom sharing, insight, perspective and best practices for creating the planet’s best workplaces. Now here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:31] Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Workplace Wisdom Stone Payton here with you this afternoon, and you guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast speaker, author, podcast host and someone who has just recently released the book Overcoming Awkward The Introverts Guide to Networking, Marketing and Sales, Miss Monica Parkin and How Are You?

Monica Parkin: [00:00:58] I’m great. Thank you, Stone. I’m excited to be here.

Stone Payton: [00:01:01] Well, we are delighted to have you on the show. There’s so much that you write about that you speak about and that you have some, some some perspective, some unique perspective on that applies to so many people in the workplace. What what did compel you to write this book in the first place? So what is my wife? What were you thinking?

Monica Parkin: [00:01:26] Yeah, really? What was I thinking? It was a couple of things. One is, as as you mentioned in your intro, I’m a speaker, and after I would do a speech, I was be like, This would make a great book chapter sometimes, right? And I always had this idea in the back of my head that I’d like to do that, but I could never get the the momentum going. And I was kind of just laying in bed on a Saturday morning when scrolling Facebook and I see this 30 day writing challenge pop up and I was like, You know, if I had like that challenge like like I knew I had to get it done in a certain amount of time, maybe I could do it. And so I signed up for it. It was like a hundred bucks and I thought, you know, a hundred dollars isn’t much to spend, but it’s just enough that I don’t want to throw it away either. And that’s actually how this started was with a 30 day writing challenge.

Stone Payton: [00:02:10] So is this the product of you observing what you people that you might characterize as introverts and finding them a little bit awkward and kind of observing patterns? Or is this born of some personal experience or a little bit of both?

Monica Parkin: [00:02:28] Definitely born of personal experience. So definitely a total total complete introvert here. Or at least I used to be. I guess I still am at my core, but you just wouldn’t know it to to talk to me now. But yeah, definitely some workplace career experiences that that caused me to have to get out of my shell, to have to push myself and challenge myself and find new ways of of interacting with people. And out of those experiences came came stories and analogies, and out of all of that came a book.

Stone Payton: [00:03:02] Now in your line of work, as I understand it, or at least this is how it is a little old Woodstock, Georgia, where I run one of our Business RadioX studios. You’re a lot of work. You’re in the mortgage arena, right? And for some time, there are several people here in the local community in Woodstock. And I suspect this is probably true in most communities and they need to get out. They need to build relationships with with real estate professionals. They need to build relationships with business owners. They need to be recognized and known in the community. So I would think that that networking and hanging out at community events and all that kind of stuff would be a really typically a very important part of their job. And if they struggle with that, it could really impact their impact, their success, right?

Monica Parkin: [00:03:48] It is. But here’s the funny part of it. Like, I never got the memo about that. So when I was feeling I didn’t write, I had no idea when I dealt with the mortgage broker that I dealt with. We did everything by phone and email. I never talked to her on the phone. I had a great experience. I thought, This is great. This is a great career, would be perfect for me. I can just stay home, hang out with my dog. I don’t have to get to know people. I can do this all online. It’ll be great. So, you know, I go to school, I sign up, I get, you know, I spent eight months getting my license. I go to a brokerage and they’re like, So when are you? When are you going to bring some clients in? I’m like, What am I going to bring some clients? And you’re going to you’re going to give me clients right? And I and they’re like, No, you got to get out there and network and get to know people and get yourself known in the community. None of this stuff is going to be handed to you. And I was I almost quit on the spot. I was like, What? Like, How did I miss? How did I not know this, you know? And it was just a huge shock to my system, and we can talk more about this. But basically, that was the moment after I’d done all the work when I found out that there was actually a lot more work to do.

Stone Payton: [00:04:53] So I mean, my business partner who incidentally, is the the founder and CEO of the entire Business RadioX network, I’ve been working with him for 15 years. We’ve had some success. We’ve really enjoyed this business marriage of ours. He will be the first to tell you that that he’s an introvert and we often will approach conversations very differently. And he’s perfectly happy. You know, for me to be the guy that you know, goes and does the million cups presentation or, you know, it shows the deck to somebody, but he’s he’s quite effective, quite successful. So I guess he’s begun to find his way. And you clearly have found some some strategies, some ways to to approach this if you are an introvert. But a lot of your counsel, at least when I was when I was looking through it seemed kind of counterintuitive. It wasn’t what I was expecting.

Monica Parkin: [00:05:47] Yeah. Funny thing, you know, so that very first networking event that I went to, you know, the office said, we’re going to make it easy for you. There’s a Chamber of Commerce dinner. You can come along, you know, we’ll have a great time. You can meet some people. And I got to that thing and there was no one there that I knew, and I literally I turn around and I went out to my car because I just had a panic attack and I just sat out my car and went, I can’t do this, I can’t do this like this is too hard. And then one of my colleagues drove up. And of course, I, you know, I couldn’t bail at that point. So I walked in with her and I got through that event and I I did all the things I was told to do right. I shook people’s hands, I handed out cards, I did all that stuff, sold them on myself, told them I could get them the best rate, the best mortgage. I was like in everybody’s face. And then I got home at the end of the night and I’m looking at this handful of cards and I’m like, like, what am I even going to do with these things? You know, and I ended up throwing them out, and then I had this moment where I was like, Oh, my goodness, if I’m throwing out their cards, what like, what are they doing to my cards? And that’s when I realized, like that kind of networking. Maybe it works for some people, but it wasn’t going to work for me. It wasn’t the way to build an authentic relationship with somebody.

Stone Payton: [00:06:54] So you made the transition, or probably a more accurate word is probably transformation based on you, you tell me so far. So I mean, did this take

Monica Parkin: [00:07:03] Months, years? Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s kind of like, you know, I guess it’s like watching your kids grow up one day. They’re a little kid, and the next day they’re growing up and you don’t know when it happened. It’s kind of how I feel about it. Like one day I was just total reclusive introvert, and one day I woke up and here I am, you know, speaking to people and showing up early at these events that I used to be afraid of. Because actually, that’s where the best conversations are right when you get there early and there’s people to talk to and. But I shifted my perspective from what can I tell you about me to what can I learn about you, to being curious about other people and connecting other people with each other? So instead of let me sell you a mortgage or let me sell you a product? Oh, that’s interesting, Jill, you’re a blogger and you blog about food. Well, Susie over there owns a winery. Have you guys met yet and then connect them? And then this beautiful reciprocity starts to happen, right? They remember who connected them. Not like, you’re expecting a favor back, but but you’re growing your own humanity when you grow other people’s communities. And it’s that authentic connections, those subtle, little authentic connections that really grow relationships.

Stone Payton: [00:08:09] I so appreciate and genuinely resonate with what you’re describing and the antithesis of that which fortunately, here in Woodstock, in our little community, this is not the case at all, but I have been to those meetings where there’s maybe me and another person, maybe me and two other people, and the person has asked me a question, and I’m trying to answer it as best I can. Their objective is trade the cards and I can. I often can see them, but I can almost always feel them looking over my shoulder and like their next target, like they’re not having a real conversation with me. It sounds like part of the part of part of the the formula here, and the the best approach is just to have a real conversation. And the other piece I think I heard and that was take on the role of helping to other people. Other people connect with each other.

Monica Parkin: [00:09:02] Yeah, yeah, it’s someone told me once it’s Susan Thomas, someone I actually interviewed one time, she said, You’ve got two years on one most, so use it ear to mouth ratio, right? Use your ears twice as much as your mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk, and that is how you create authentic connections, right? But those those people you’re talking about that are looking over your shoulder for the next one. I call those hunters, right? So they’re out hunting today. They’re going to eat today. They’re going to catch their prey. But the thing is, if you keep hunting and hunting and hunting, you run out of food supply, right? If you’re a fox and you raid every chicken coop in the neighborhood, eventually you run out of chicken coops and that’s what happens to those people. But if you’re a farmer and you go out and plant seeds build relationships, you might not eat that night. But long term you will have crops that you harvest over and over and over again.

Stone Payton: [00:09:53] Did you really write this thing in 30 days?

Monica Parkin: [00:09:56] I did. I did. But I kind of like, I kind of cheated, not cheated. But some of it was old speeches that I’d done, and I didn’t write on a typewriter. So what I did is when I’m driving my kids to school because we’ve got a long ride to school. I would just record myself on my phone just like I’m talking to you. I have an idea pop into my head. I would record it. I’d go home, run it through transcription software and then edit it for an hour. And then, OK, boom, there’s one chapter let’s do the next one.

Stone Payton: [00:10:21] That’s actually it doesn’t. Does it come across as cheating at all? To me, in fact, it’s not a formal, you know, published revenue stream for our studio. Partners, you know, we’re in several markets and we talk about teaming up with us and all that, but we’ve had several of our studio partners do what you’re describing for people. They’ll come in the studio and just kind of just kind of wrap, right? You know, just get kind of get there. We call it first draft and they’ll just sort of get their thoughts out and then we’ll have it transcribed from forum. And in some of them will go from there to writing, and some of them will get somebody that’s really can write, I think. Well, I mean, I guess I’m a little biased. I’m a big fan of audio. I just think there’s so much you can do with it, what you have it. But I think I think that’s brilliant.

Monica Parkin: [00:11:01] Thanks. Yeah. And I’m an audible learner more than I am a reader. Like, even when I go through books, I prefer to listen to books and to type out books. So but that let me just get through like get my ideas out and then I still have a lot of editing to do in print. But I could I could spend, you know, half an hour on my drive banging out a chapter, talking about what I want to talk about and then come home and spend an hour putting in punctuation and cutting this and moving this and moving it around and making it pretty. But I got the ideas out without being impeded by because otherwise I see, Oh, this should change. This is spelled wrong. And then I forget what I was talking about. But if I can get it out, then it’s easier.

Stone Payton: [00:11:36] Yeah, I think so, too. Now you enjoy this, this platform, you have your own show.

Monica Parkin: [00:11:42] Yes, I do. Yes, yes.

Stone Payton: [00:11:45] And is it an interview show? Is is it you sharing ideas? Yeah. Tell us a little

Monica Parkin: [00:11:50] Bit about your show. Yeah, it’s called. It’s called juggling without balls. So it’s about women that juggle multiple responsibilities that that whole kind of like me, a mortgage broker. I have a business at a veterinary hospital, you know, I homeschool a kid and it got all these things going on. So it’s for women that that are really struggling with trying to juggle all those different responsibilities. And it is in interviews and interview style, you know, someone that’s overcome a big obstacle or how they manage those difficulties or that’s done a big career change later in life, talking about how they did that pivot right and what the silver lining was and what they do differently, all that kind of stuff that we all want to know about these people

Stone Payton: [00:12:28] And what a great show concept. That’s a fascinating listen that I absolutely will. We have a show here in the Woodstock studio. It’s just called women in business. I think your title is way cooler. It maybe we ought to have a different, a different person producing it. But I will tell you, I am just over. I just can’t believe the women that come here and talk about their personal lives and their business lives and what they’ve accomplished. You just and the other thing in all of our media properties, I’m sure your experience in this, you really do get to build some great relationships and have really good conversations and genuinely get to know somebody when you just have a real conversation, you know, kind of like we’re having, right? You know, it’s X.

Monica Parkin: [00:13:15] Yeah, exactly. Just like we’re having right now, I’ve had so many relationships come out of those podcast interviews, and that was one of the reasons I started is there’s just so many women that I just want to get to know better. And I have daughters, so I kind of wanted to leave them this legacy of wisdom. Someday, when I’m not here, there’s this whole bank of podcasts that they can go back and listen to. But yeah, you’re creating a new relationship actually with every interview, aren’t you?

Stone Payton: [00:13:38] At least that’s been our experience. Well, congratulations on on your success and doing that. And again, I’m sure you’ve seen this and had this happen. I mean, it’s such a great way to serve other people, right? To give them a chance to share their story and talk about their work and you get to know them. And as it turns out, you know, serving folks is a pretty good business model.

Monica Parkin: [00:13:58] And you you nailed it. Exactly stone like that is the business model is just how can I be of service to you today, right? How can I use this analogy in my book where I talk about like, even if we live in a beautiful house, right? We built the most beautiful house. We keep the lawn immaculate. Everything’s amazing about it. If we look across the street and like our neighbor’s house is falling down or our town is falling down, then our property value goes down, right? So if our business is our house, if we don’t support the other businesses in our community, if we don’t support our own industry, then the value of our own business goes down too, right? And so because I’m in real estate, that’s the analogy that I use. But that’s why it’s so important that we don’t just look, how are we going to sell things? How are we going to make money? But how can we serve our community? How can we serve our industry even as a mortgage broker? Like, how can I help out my fellow brokers? How can I help out my mortgage industry? Because when it’s strong, my own business is strong in turn, and I don’t have to be an extrovert to do that. Just I just need to be me a man.

Stone Payton: [00:14:58] Well, speaking of analogies, you use a neighborhood analogy to that. You relate to networking and cultivating community. Can you speak to that a little bit more?

Monica Parkin: [00:15:10] Yeah, that’s actually the one that I was sort of just speaking about. But yeah, that same idea that you’re only as as strong as your neighborhood, right? So if you’re not, you know, if my neighbor across the street is broken his leg and he needs snow shovel, then I’m going to go over there and shovel the show. So I shovel, shovel snow. And then maybe next year when my car won’t start. Maybe he’ll come over and jump my battery, it’s the same thing with my business. If I reach out and help someone else in my community, I leave a great review. I share their post. I talk about the event that they have happening. It creates this feeling of reciprocity. There’s no expectation that they’re going to do something for me in return. But the reality is that, you know, people remember people who remember them and people like people who like them. So when you genuinely go out and do those things with no expectation in return, you are sort of growing your fictitious metaphorical neighborhood.

Stone Payton: [00:16:06] Well, and it does come back to you, but I’d say more than that. I think it comes back to you, you know, tenfold. Or it just seems like whatever your spiritual inclination is, that there’s there is something to this just getting out there and just doing some good out in the world. It comes back, doesn’t it?

Monica Parkin: [00:16:26] Yeah. And you know, you can feel it when someone’s doing something with an expectation as opposed to when someone isn’t like, Hey, if you do this thing for me, I’ll do this thing for you feels a lot different than just how can I help you today with no expectation, right? It feels different to you.

Stone Payton: [00:16:43] I call that and it probably came from my dad going tit for tat. Yeah, I don’t like that. I don’t, you know, I don’t either. Yeah, no. Just do it if you want to and thank you. And, you know, but no. Absolutely. Which, you know, here’s some very practical counsel that I don’t know if I if I saw it in the book or on your website or where. But you know, we could all benefit. Just don’t be a jerk.

Monica Parkin: [00:17:06] Right, right. Yeah, I heard this phrase once that if you meet three jerks in a day, you are actually the jerk. And it’s I think it’s true. You know, I used to be that person everywhere I went. Well, that drive thru person was really slow and that lady was rude. And but when I actually switched my own attitude off, like when I start extending people more grace and more kindness and more patience, all those jerks went away. Those people stop being jerks to me because the way that I responded was different. And you know, I my other business is in a large veterinary hospital. And when the staff wants to find a real estate agent or a new accountant or whatever, right, they start looking at the clientele that come in the door and they’ll say, Well, what about what about Bob? And someone will say, Nah, he is so mean to the receptionist. Last time we got his prescription wrong, he practically threw it in her face. Well, what about Bill? You know what? He’s so nice and he brings us cookies at Christmas. And yeah, you should use him. Like, you don’t realize the effect that your actions and your attitude actually have on your business that you think that you’re yelling at that poor kid in the drive thru isn’t going to affect your business, but they’re actually going to go home and tell their parents or tell their coworkers, and they’re going to make a purchasing decision based on how you behave that day.

Stone Payton: [00:18:22] And you are so right about that, and we see it over and over again. If you don’t mind, I’d like to shift the frame a little bit and this is incredibly helpful for me personally and I really think for for so many of our listeners who are out there and who need and want to. They are probably of our stripe, if you will, like they genuinely want to serve and all that. And you know, tomorrow night’s networking thing is a little intimidating and you know, they’re trying to figure that out. But I’d like to switch the frame on you a little bit and see if we if we can help a couple of other constituencies. One is the person who maybe doesn’t have to get out there and do a lot of networking out in the world for their business, but they do have to be productive, effective, efficient and get along with folks at their workplace. At the at the office. I got to believe so much of what you describe in this book and so much of your work. I bet it applies in that environment every bit as much, you know?

Monica Parkin: [00:19:18] For sure. Yeah, yeah. A couple of things come to mind. One is that listening piece, right? Listen more than you talk. Hear what your coworkers are saying to you to own your mistakes, right? Like, I have so much more respect for someone that says I made a mistake. I’m sorry. How can I fix it? Then the person that just tries to, well, it’s not my fault. It’s so-and-so’s fault, blah blah blah, right? Like that. That authenticity and that willingness to just hear another person’s side of things and then the communication piece right the the getting back to people right away, they’re responding and the setting expectations because you treat people how to treat you. So if you consistently, you know, maybe you allow people to text you at midnight on a Saturday night, if you respond every time, it’s not their fault that they’re doing it, you’ve taught them to do it and the same thing in the workplace. And then in terms of networking in the workplace and forming relationships, it’s it’s asking questions, you know? And more than you talk, you know, how how was your week? What was your family like? How can I be of service to you? Whether you’re a salaried employee or you’re self-employed, that is ultimately always the question How can I be of service to you? And that’s like you say, that comes back to you tenfold.

Stone Payton: [00:20:36] And then one other group I’d like to try to get a little bit of perspective on or four, and I think you’re the ideal person to do it, not only being the person with the expertize on the content, but you’re also living in all of these roles. If I’m trying to build a culture, if I, you know, I think you mentioned you’ve got a business, a veterinary hospital, what can or should we as people who run companies, what should or could we be doing to create an environment that will allow an introvert and everybody to flourish with regard to some of these topics we’re talking about?

Monica Parkin: [00:21:15] Yeah, I would say celebrating people’s authentic self. You know, there’s this belief that you come and you show up and you have to be a certain person and allowing people to be who they are. For years, I didn’t show who I really was because I thought I would be judged for that. And when I finally got to a place where it was safe to be me, like quirky little weird me who happens to also love goats and chickens and like to embrace my quirkiness. And and when you embrace your quirkiness and you get vulnerable, it gives all the people around you the freedom to do the same. And so really, it’s that leading by example when you embrace your inner quirky or your inner nerd or whoever you are. It gives all the people in your workplace the safety to do that. And you know, when you get vulnerable, it gives them freedom to get vulnerable to. And often someone hears something in your story that that they wouldn’t have heard if you didn’t if you didn’t share it. And it creates this, this workplace that feels safe and where people are welcome to be whoever they are.

Stone Payton: [00:22:14] Well, I’m so, I’m so glad I asked in creating an environment where everybody feels like they can embrace and celebrate their quirkiness. But but I think the key to what you’re describing is the mechanism the to do that you’ve got to lead by example. You can’t just say we are a place that does this right. You can’t just put it on. You got to be the one that that embraces and celebrates your own quirkiness. So they’ve got a living, breathing model of that.

Monica Parkin: [00:22:37] Exactly. I remember when I first started out and I was buying leads and I was advertising and I was doing all this stuff and nothing was working. And we have this forum in. It’s called women in the mortgage industry, where you can go to other women that have, you know, been in your role before and ask for advice and. And so I called up the first one. I’m like, So what do I do? And they’re like, Just just be you like, just be your authentic self. And I didn’t like that answer, right? So. So then I found the next one. Same answer. I phone the next one. Just be you. And I’m like, This is a load of crap. Like, they obviously want all my business. Like why like people have been telling me this all my life. This is what they tell kids in school. Be yourself. But then I sat with it for a while and I and I thought, You know what? Like, what is it going to cost me just to try it? And so I started to just be me, like not to hide those parts of me, like my little inner nerd that loves these little computer programs or buy me out in the barn with my goats, like all the parts of me that I thought were not appropriate for business. We’re actually the time that my business took off when I started to share those things because people could then relate to me in a way that they hadn’t been able to relate to me before.

Stone Payton: [00:23:39] You were so upbeat and you have such genuine, authentic answers to these questions that I’m asking that have real depth. And so I see that you probably are quite accustomed to to being inspired and sharing things that are inspiring to other people. So you are inspirational? Yeah, that’s a word, OK? But sometimes, I mean, you’ve got to run out of gas sometimes. And when you do, where do you go? You know, how do you refresh? How do you kind of get get charged your batteries? And where do you go to get inspired?

Monica Parkin: [00:24:15] Yeah, well, that’s the beauty of it. I used to just go hibernate, like, sit under the covers with a book. Nobody talked to me, take the phone off the hook. But now I reach out to all those connections I’ve built, right? That’s where I get inspired now is is in those connections and those conversations. All the things that I used to avoid are now. The things that actually bring me energy and inspiration and joy is those connections and an opportunities like, I don’t actually think I’m going to do this and I’m going to do this anymore. I just sit back and I wait for an opportunity to come by and I go, Wow, that looks really exciting. I’m going to give that a try, and I just keep an open mind and and keep those keep those lines of communications open with with those people I’ve connected to because that’s actually where I despite being an introvert, that’s actually now where I get my energy from is from the people around me.

Stone Payton: [00:25:02] After 20 minutes on the phone with you, I should have anticipated that answer and it makes all the sense in the world. After getting to know you a little bit of it talking with you, you actually are getting your energy now from what at one time was maybe a little awkward, intimidating and all that. That’s wow. That’s fantastic. So what’s next? Is there another book in you? You’re going to do? You’re going to keep speaking and yeah, what’s on the horizon?

Monica Parkin: [00:25:27] Yeah, I don’t think I have another book. I mean, but my editor says there’s five more in my head somewhere. So I guess I just need to maybe sit still for long enough and see if they come. Give me your turn on the recorder on the drive to school and see what comes out, but at this time, I’m just really enjoying getting out and talking about the book and doing some speaking engagements, talking to businesses about how they can help those introverted employees, how they can improve their culture, how people can be more authentic and be of service to the people around them. And, you know, reap the rewards from that, not with an expectation of reward, but to just enjoy, enjoy the reciprocity that comes from from being of service to others.

Stone Payton: [00:26:04] Yeah. All right. Before we wrap, let’s make sure that our listeners may know where to get their hands on this book and then whatever you feel like is appropriate in terms of if they’d like to have a conversation or learn more about your other work, whether it’s a LinkedIn or a website or an email. But let’s leave them with some points of contact.

Monica Parkin: [00:26:23] Yeah, for sure. And I’m sure some of these things will be in the show notes. But the book is called Overcoming Awkward and Introverts Guide to Networking, Marketing and Sales. You can find it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. It’s in Kindle paperback, and the Audible version is going to be out in about two weeks. I recorded that myself, so it took a little longer to get it together and then the easiest way to reach me is just at my website, which is Monica Park and Dossier, and you’ll find all my contact info in there. I’m also on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. I won’t give you those full handles, but I’m easy to find Monica Perkin. Look for the crazy lady. I’m not hard to miss.

Stone Payton: [00:27:00] Well, Monica Parken, author of Overcoming Awkward The Introverts Guide to Networking, Marketing and Sales. It has been an absolute delight having you on the show this afternoon. Thank you so much.

Monica Parkin: [00:27:13] Likewise, Stone, I’ve actually gotten a lot out of this as well and your conversation, and I’m grateful for the opportunity and I appreciate your your little stories that you’ve woven into this interview. Also, thank you for that.

Stone Payton: [00:27:25] Absolutely my pleasure. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for our guests today, Monica Park and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you next time on workplace wisdom.

Bug McBride With The Blue Ghost Arcade And Ryne Murphy With Hawk’s Nest Gaming

by

featuredbugmcbride
Cherokee Business Radio
Bug McBride With The Blue Ghost Arcade And Ryne Murphy With Hawk's Nest Gaming
Loading
/

This Episode was brought to you by

LFG NEXUS

 

Bug McbrideBug McBride, Owner of The Blue Ghost

The Blue Ghost is an arcade and bar featuring over 40 retro arcade games, pinball machines, and gaming consoles. Their full bar serves beer, wine, spirits, mocktails, and other non-alcoholic beverages. Their concessions stand includes a wide selection of candies, chips, and other sweet and savory snacks. Their mission is to connect an old generation of games with a new generation of players.

Their mission is to connect an old generation of games with a new generation of players. Unlimited play included in admission. It is located at 164 Towne Lake Parkway, Woodstock, GA 30188.

Follow The Blue Ghost on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Ryne MurphyRyne Murphy, Managing Partner at Hawk’s Nest Gaming

Ryne is an experienced team leader with a recognized ability to motivate associates to raise overall performance and enable them to better understand and deliver on company goals and metrics. He is an award-winning customer service professional with a unique passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences in a wide range of venues. He has a strong and compassionate team leader with experience overseeing more than 50 associates.

He is a hard worker accustomed and comfortable in a fast-paced environment, an individual contributor with broad leadership experience, and a strong communicator and marketer with recognized results. He is a creative problem solver with the ability to work at all levels of an organization.

Hawk's Nest GamingFollow Hawk’s Nest Gaming on Facebook and Instagram.

 

 

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Stone Payton: [00:00:23] Well, welcome to this very special broadcast of Cherokee Business RadioX Stone Payton here with you, it is our LFG Nexis series brought to you by LFG Nexis for gamers, by gamers, by gamers, for gamers. What’s the tagline?

Adam Gerstin: [00:00:38] It is for gamers, by gamers, but I guess it works the other way.

Stone Payton: [00:00:41] But because it is by gamers, I mean, you have been immersed in this world for some time. So we’re so delighted to have you on board as a sponsor and the co-host. I know why I do this because it beats the heck out of working. But what were you thinking, man? Why? Why did you want to put this series together?

Adam Gerstin: [00:01:00] You know, to me, I think gaming is an incredible and important part of just just being alive in society and stuff like that. I think that gaming tends to bring out the best in people, and sometimes it can, you know, be difficult. And, you know, just it’s it’s a great way to meet other people, to expand your thinking, to change, you know, potentially change how you think about things and adjust. And just, I think, you know, a lot more people should do gaming and kind of consider it as another way to kind of reach a higher level intellectually.

Stone Payton: [00:01:34] So what is the state of the Union for LFG Nexus? Because this is a relatively new birth for for you and the company. Where are we, man? What’s going on?

Adam Gerstin: [00:01:44] We’re actually making like quite an incredible headway. We’ve reached out to some new local influencers that we’re going to be working with. We’ve actually reached out to a long time older influencer in the magic gathering industry that’s going to be working with us. Just new places all across Atlanta and in the country that will be working with us for tournaments, all different types of gaming and just a lot of different types of fun. So, you know, we’ve got a lot of stuff coming up, coming out for 2022, and we’re excited.

Bug Mcbride: [00:02:16] Can you kind of give us a rundown on exactly what the Nexus is?

Adam Gerstin: [00:02:21] Sure. Well, so the Nexus is a social media platform built for gamers. What we do is we help gamers connect. We are web based and we also do have an app with the intention of helping people find other people to play games that they’re into. So it could be video games, it could be Dungeons and Dragons magic. The gathering could be, you know, cosplay, laughing, all different types of games, the whole spectrum. And so that’s kind of where we’re different from other companies that are only into just video games and e-sports. So we have different features that you’re not going to find anywhere else.

Stone Payton: [00:02:56] So I anticipated that you were going to tell me things were going well because you’ve got the branded sweatshirt. And our first guest has the brand new hoodie and I don’t know Reiner. Our next guest, we oh, look at that. He’s got a T-shirt. He’s got the T-shirt.

Ryne Murphy: [00:03:10] I haven’t gotten up to hoodie level yet, but we’re getting there.

Stone Payton: [00:03:13] All right, fantastic. Well, first up on today’s special edition, please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Blue Ghost, the owner, Mr. Bug McBride. How are you doing, man? Good yourself. I am doing well. We’re so thrilled to have you in the community. As many of our listeners know. We have this, this studio turkey Business RadioX studio right down our old mill. I live right on the edge of town. I know every bartender in town. And you know, my cigar bar is down there and I love walking down. We’re so thrilled to have you there. Mission purpose. Tell us a little bit about what you’re up to and what you’re trying to do for folks, man.

Bug Mcbride: [00:03:54] It’s bringing these old games to a new generation more or less. I mean, you can play games at home and stuff, but there are some of these experiences you just cannot find anywhere else except in arcade. I mean, like, you cannot reproduce the Tron, for example, or, you know, we’ve got to have a couple of hydro thunder racing boats, but you know, they have that force feedback and you’re actually sitting beside your buddy, you know, racing stuff. So, you know, it is, you know, trying to bring people together. You know, not only do we have arcade games, we’ve got pinball machines and, you know, we’ve got like over 80 board games. You know, there’s nothing funner than watching, you know, people, you know, having a couple of beers and playing the headbands game. You know, it’s a kid’s game. But you know, if you’re sitting there drinking and you got this card on top of your head and another person is

Speaker6: [00:04:41] Trying to guess what what you are.

Bug Mcbride: [00:04:44] It’s pretty fun to watch nonetheless, you know, also play so.

Adam Gerstin: [00:04:47] So for me, one of the games you guys have the Street Fighter two Championship Edition. Yeah, I grew up on that. In fact, one of my business partners, we met by playing that game in the arcade, like he went to the other high school than I did. And but we just were at the arcade, constantly playing each other, and it was games like that that really brought us together as friends.

Stone Payton: [00:05:05] So it’s one thing to be an avid gamer, but you actually built a whole business around it. What compelled you to do that?

Bug Mcbride: [00:05:12] So I actually grew up in this area. You know, I went to at all high school in everything, but then I’m actually moved up to Chicago and I lived up there for about 15 years. And when I lived up there, there was a place called the Galloping Ghost, actually, and it’s the largest arcade in the world. And I think they’ve got last time I counted like over 700 games. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it’s crazy. And there was also a local board game shop. I used to go to The Wandering Dragon. And, you know, when I moved back here, you know, there was really nothing like that, so you know, me and my wife would, you know, go have a couple of beers at the truck and tap and my kids would be like, What do you

Speaker6: [00:05:52] What are we supposed to do?

Bug Mcbride: [00:05:54] So, you know, and when we move back, you know, me and my wife both kept our jobs. We work remotely. And this was years before COVID hit. But I knew that it was only a matter of time before, you know, I just needed to do something more local. And I was like, If we’re going to do it, let’s do it. So I’m not getting any younger.

Stone Payton: [00:06:13] So what’s the setup? What’s the what’s it like? What’s what’s the space like? What can we expect?

Bug Mcbride: [00:06:18] So we’ve got about 4000 square feet. So why is he so? We’ve got a little over 40 arcade and pinball machines. We have lots of consoles as well. So your PS5, Xbox Series X tons of switches, then you get some more of your classic games like, you know, you’re in super slipperiness. Sega Saturn tend end of sixty four and you know, we’ve got several TVs throughout the place as well. So you actually can set the bar and play Mario or, you know, Sonic the Hedgehog or Rocket League or Smash Brothers, you know,

Stone Payton: [00:06:56] In these games. And I’m not a gamer, but these games are from way back, right? Right? Oh, yeah, oh yeah.

Ryne Murphy: [00:07:01] I was actually going to ask. I heard a rumor that you had House of the Dead.

Bug Mcbride: [00:07:04] I do. I have a house. I have House of the Dead.

Ryne Murphy: [00:07:06] Two dead. That is amazing.

Speaker6: [00:07:09] Ok.

Ryne Murphy: [00:07:09] I grew up on that game. I played with my dad every single week. We’d go to the arcade when I was like 12 or 13 and I was I was really good at that game.

Bug Mcbride: [00:07:19] I mean, that’s another thing, too. I mean, right? I mean, it’s almost like a good song. You know, when you hear that song, it brings that memory. You know, a lot of times when you see some of these old arcade games, it triggers a memory like I don’t want to. Talking about how he met his, his partner was through Street Fighter. You know, you don’t see these games that often out in the wild.

Stone Payton: [00:07:35] And so you’ve got all these people who are enjoying themselves. And did I hear you say you have a beer, so you can you can.

Bug Mcbride: [00:07:41] We have a we have a full bar. I also just as an FYI. So, you know, we don’t do quarters or anything. So it’s a $15 entry fee for everybody, OK? And then everything is free to play. So all the board games, all the pinball machines, all the arcade games, so no quarters or any of that stuff which is

Adam Gerstin: [00:07:58] Required and you could stay there all day.

Bug Mcbride: [00:08:00] Yep. So we give you a wristband, you can leave and come back as long as you still have that same wristband on, you can bring in outside food. Yeah. Adam had one of his buddies come in and you guys spent that one that one day I think, are you there for like 12 hours? It feels like.

Speaker6: [00:08:14] Yeah.

Adam Gerstin: [00:08:14] So that was actually my my business partner. Yeah, it was. He was leaving. He just moved to Florida. And so that was his going away party. And so he was the one that I would play Street Fighter with. So he made sure to play. But yeah, so he basically had a bit of a party there.

Bug Mcbride: [00:08:27] So that was a fun day.

Adam Gerstin: [00:08:29] It was

Stone Payton: [00:08:29] Absolutely. So what’s the demographic so far? Who is showing up

Bug Mcbride: [00:08:34] A little bit of everybody? So, you know, we have a tendency to, you know, we don’t open this one every day. But you know, you know, earlier in the day, you know, we’ll get the mom trying to find something to do with other kids, you know, so you know, and sometimes she’ll sit there and have a beer or, you know, drink wine while the kids go off and play right, right? Well, sometimes they’ll play, you know, you know, you’ll get a lot of these moms say, Well, I’m not going to play anything, and then you turn around and she’s got that Miss Pac-Man joystick going crazy. So, but you know, and then as the day progresses, you know, the younger people leave and then you get the older people, you know, your 20s, then your 30s, sometimes, you know, and older and older, you know, because. It takes, you know, as soon as they hear about it, you know, they’re like, Oh man, I’ve not seen one of these in forever. And I mean daily, you know, we get three or four people that were just, I just want to come and pick because, you know, they don’t want to play anything yet because they’re busy. But they saw the sign and they just want to see exactly what I have to offer.

Stone Payton: [00:09:30] I bet. So it sounds to me like it’d be a neat place to have like a corporate event or like or any group that a group event.

Bug Mcbride: [00:09:38] So I mean, we do private events. We also do birthday parties. So all that information can be found on our website. The blue gold star.

Stone Payton: [00:09:45] Nicely done. What do you do these things every

Speaker6: [00:09:49] Week or

Bug Mcbride: [00:09:52] So in you? You know, especially Saturday mornings, you know, that’s usually tons of kids birthday parties. You know, now that Christmas is approaching, you know, we are quite quite a few private events coming. I think we’re going to be closed Tuesday night, you know, because we’re doing a private event for some people. So our Pathfinder group is not very happy because we do play Pathfinder there every Tuesday night, so.

Stone Payton: [00:10:14] Very cool. So I’m trying to envision the conversation of having like a real job, which I haven’t had in some time. I’ve been doing this for a while, going home to my wife. And so, you know, I know we got this, you know, this real job thing going. But you know, let’s open up. Let’s let’s start a business. Well, tell us a little bit about that journey of actually launching a business man.

Bug Mcbride: [00:10:35] So it kind of started when my mother passed away several years ago. And, you know, it was one of those, you know, she was only four. Kind of hit me like all of a sudden just, you know, no warning whatsoever not to bring everyone down.

Stone Payton: [00:10:50] But no, it’s important. Sometimes things like that can really have you rethink the whole equation.

Bug Mcbride: [00:10:55] Yeah. So, you know, you know, when that happened, I was like, You know, I need to start living a little bit more, start stepping out of my comfort zone. So I actually took a class down here at Elm Street only, so I’ll never do it again.

Speaker6: [00:11:13] So, but yeah, I

Bug Mcbride: [00:11:14] Stepped outside of my comfort zone. You know what I was doing, and you know, I did. It was an extra on stand versus evil. So, you know, I was constantly, you know, what can I experience that, you know, I’ve not done before that I’ve always wanted to, but was too scared to do.

Adam Gerstin: [00:11:30] And it’s like a bucket list sort of thing,

Bug Mcbride: [00:11:32] Almost like a bucket list. You know, it was like, how can I step out of my comfort zone and just live a little bit more, you know, instead of doing the same corporate job day after day after day? So and then, you know? Again, we have talked about, you know, possibly opening up. It was actually originally it was going to be a pizza restaurant. I mean, this was years and years ago because that’s my background is pizza. You know, I’ve been in some form or other, you know, running a pizza restaurant or, you know, I did the point of sales for Domino’s and Pizza Hut, you know, in Chicago. So and point of sales for McDonald’s as well. But that’s not pizza.

Ryne Murphy: [00:12:05] So what were you going to call your pizza place?

Bug Mcbride: [00:12:08] Actually, kung fu pizza,

Speaker6: [00:12:12] I like it.

Bug Mcbride: [00:12:14] And so, but anyway, so once I moved back to here, originally we were just going to do a board game thing and somehow or another, you know, I bought my first arcade machine and it just kind of snowballed. It was like, Man, you know, so and you know, a lot of the I love working with my hands and a lot of these machines, you know, they don’t work or the cosmetics are just so bad in it. So and you know, it’s a fun journey just trying to bring these things back to life.

Stone Payton: [00:12:40] So. So has it been a pleasant surprise or is it falling right along the spreadsheet that you guys laid out because you’re getting tremendous response? Or at least it looks like that from. Well, we

Bug Mcbride: [00:12:51] Are getting, you know, very, very positive responses, you know? Five star reviews on Google. All that, so but, you know, I think with any business and you know, me and Ryan, we’re talking about this before the show actually started. We’re going to have those days where, you know, you’re slow and you’re like, Oh, my gosh, what did I get myself into?

Speaker6: [00:13:12] Oh yeah. So because I mean, opening up a business is

Bug Mcbride: [00:13:15] A huge step. I mean, it really is. So, but so far, so good. So, you know, I’ve got a fantastic staff. You know, we also do memberships. So, you know, instead of paying the $15, yeah, to get in, you know, you can pay a $60 and come in as much as you want for the month. So we have a lot of regulars who do that. So we’ve got some people who are in there five days a week.

Stone Payton: [00:13:39] Wow, that sounds like a great idea because this

Bug Mcbride: [00:13:41] Count, I mean, you can come in four times and you’ve paid for it.

Stone Payton: [00:13:46] So wow. And these are folks that would come in four plus times anyway. No, that’s a marvelous idea that gives you some predictable, some predictable revenue. What do you enjoy the most? Man, what do you like the best?

Bug Mcbride: [00:13:57] Actually, it’s playing games with people. So, you know, when I first opened, it was really hard for me to actually, you know, enjoy it. You know, after we opened, you know, I would tell my wife, I was like, I so wish I was on the other side of this, you know, because I built this out of stuff that I love to do, right? But considering I was running it at the time, it was hard for me to sit back and enjoy it.

Ryne Murphy: [00:14:18] So you got like all the toys, but like no time, no time to play with them.

Bug Mcbride: [00:14:22] Exactly. You know, you know, well, there is, you know, fixing something or, you know, because I mean, some of these machines, you know, have not been played this hard in 30 years. And, you know, so they’re taking a beating and like Miss Piggy Miss Pack, for example, like I said, you know, the ladies love to get on there and I’ve had to fix that joystick since I’ve opened. I’ve been open for six months and I fixed that joystick probably five or six times now already just because they I mean, boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, they’re rough with it.

Adam Gerstin: [00:14:49] So I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but that’s all the thing. When you go to other arcades and stuff like that, a lot of things are kind of broken and there’s a lot of maintenance. Obviously, that’s requires for us and it’s I’m sure it’s tough and time-consuming.

Bug Mcbride: [00:15:01] It’s very time consuming.

Ryne Murphy: [00:15:03] I’m sure they’re not exactly pumping out like Miss Pac-Man parts anymore, either. So like, I’m sure that’s a nightmare. I mean,

Bug Mcbride: [00:15:08] I mean, the House of the Dead is a prime example. So, you know, that had one of the guns go down on that. And, you know, I couldn’t find the part in the U.S. I had to order it from China. So, yeah, yeah. So, you know, instead of

Ryne Murphy: [00:15:20] It being, keep going, just keep it going

Bug Mcbride: [00:15:21] Instead of it being down for a couple of days, you know, it was down for, you know, a couple of weeks, which, you know, I hate doing that. But I mean, what choice do you have?

Ryne Murphy: [00:15:29] Nothing. There’s literally nothing you can do about it.

Bug Mcbride: [00:15:31] Yeah. So but you know, once we started getting into our groove and everything, you know, we started making the regulars and stuff, you know, yeah, I started having some of the regulars go, Hey, you know, you want to play a game with me? And I’m like, What?

Speaker6: [00:15:44] Yeah, I would love. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would love to do that.

Bug Mcbride: [00:15:47] So, you know, we’ve got a, you know, a great group of guys that you know, we’re constantly, you know, competing on the Avengers pinball machine. You know, we’ve got a

Stone Payton: [00:15:54] You’ve got a pinball machine.

Bug Mcbride: [00:15:56] We’ve got we’ve got six pinball machines.

Stone Payton: [00:15:59] Oh man. Color me there. Well, because that’s what I remember. For those of you who, you know, aren’t seeing this, you’re just listening to this at this point. You know, I’ve got a little well, I don’t know, Adam, you got some gray hair, too. I’m a little older than the rest of the crowd. But but I can remember fondly, as you described, you know, like when you listen to a song or go into the little arcade at the mall. And I mean, there were a couple of pinball machines that we just fell in and we just played for hours. Yeah.

Bug Mcbride: [00:16:27] Wow. So so then we’ve got some other regulars who are really big into the golden tee and classic.

Bug Mcbride: [00:16:35] I think

Bug Mcbride: [00:16:36] So. One of them actually hit. He actually hit to hold on one Shuggie. Wow. That’s like amazing. Yeah, I know. I mean, it took me years to hit my first, so I was hitting, you know, two or three cents, you know, way back when. So but kind of is a homage, you know, little joke. I actually printed up this picture and put it on the wall and put a hole in one club.

Speaker6: [00:16:58] Oh, absolutely. Yeah, you should do something.

Ryne Murphy: [00:16:59] It’s like you and one other guys.

Bug Mcbride: [00:17:01] Yeah. So so it was by a pitcher in his pitcher, and he’s got a group of friends that come in. And so one of the guys is Barry has tried to be tried and tried to hit a hole in one. And yeah, can I?

Ryne Murphy: [00:17:11] Is there a little ball like, hard to replace also, because I feel like that thing?

Bug Mcbride: [00:17:14] Oh, those things, they take a beating.

Ryne Murphy: [00:17:16] I had a feeling, yes, so I was not gentle with that game when I used to play.

Bug Mcbride: [00:17:20] Yeah, but poor Barry, he’s been trying to get a hole in one now for, you know, months. And then they brought in another one of his friends for the first time, and he hit a hole in one like, Well, then like, you know, three or four holes. All Barry Barry was not happy for Barry.

Ryne Murphy: [00:17:33] You can look like the trying really hard glove to get a homerun just as picture on a second tier.

Bug Mcbride: [00:17:39] Yeah, so so anytime Barry comes in now, he sees Barry and his other friend and me on the wall. This is holding one club.

Stone Payton: [00:17:46] So what was what has recruiting employees and helping like that been like? Or is that all you running the whole thing?

Bug Mcbride: [00:17:52] So, I mean, it’s mostly me. I mean, I do have a fantastic bar manager who. Runs the day to day bar staff. We’ve had no turnover. I mean, when I first,

Stone Payton: [00:18:03] That’s

Bug Mcbride: [00:18:04] What we try to do. Our employees are very well. We really do. You know, again, I come from a restaurant background. Yeah, I’ve been on the other end. Yeah. So. So, yeah, but Shelly, our bar manager, she’s fantastic. You know, when we first, you know, before we even opened, you know, we put out, you know, hey, we’re hiring, you know, bartenders. I think we got 10 applications for what we call arcade attendants. We’ve got over 200 applicants. Yeah, wow. Yeah. So that was a tough choice. Doing it all down. But I think we made the right decisions because like I said, you know, six months in, we’ve had no turnover. Everyone seems to be happy.

Ryne Murphy: [00:18:42] Wow, that is fantastic, actually. That is well, I mean, in sort of like the restaurant bar industry, that is especially nowadays that is very difficult. Like, that’s really impressive, says a lot about your your company.

Bug Mcbride: [00:18:54] Oh, thank you.

Stone Payton: [00:18:55] So how does the whole marketing thing work in your space or does it just you have to let it evolve?

Bug Mcbride: [00:19:01] Well, it’s a mixture of both. I mean, marketing is, you know, hard, especially now in the digital age. You know, you have to do your Facebook, your Instagram. Excuse me. So, you know, that’s a job in itself. I mean, it really is. I’ll bet. So, you know, not only do you have to, you know, post constantly, but you know, as soon as someone sends a message, you have to, you know, respond in a timely manner.

Stone Payton: [00:19:26] And then when does that stop right on the social media? Thank you. No thank you. Oh, you know, you’re the best.

Adam Gerstin: [00:19:32] Yeah, but it’s not just that you also want to be forward thinking for other holidays and events that are going to be coming up. So you could kind of try and capitalize on on that.

Bug Mcbride: [00:19:42] We do so when we threw a Halloween party this past year, which, you know, turned out fantastic. You know, everyone came in costume, you know, we had prizes. We had a ton of stuff that we gave away. You know, all of our, you know, beer and liquor distributors, you know, contributed stuff. Reformation, you know, gave us a ton of stuff to give away as well. So and we are going to be doing a New Year’s party as well this year. So it’s going to be BioShock themed, which have anyone. It’s a video

Ryne Murphy: [00:20:10] Game that,

Speaker6: [00:20:11] Yes,

Stone Payton: [00:20:14] I could have done both interviews he needs. He knows every one of these games

Speaker6: [00:20:19] Look had

Ryne Murphy: [00:20:19] A lot of like free time for a while. So it’s just games. Games are a huge part of my life as well, so I love it. Like, I just love it.

Bug Mcbride: [00:20:27] So, so, so BioShock, you know, it takes place during a New Year’s masquerade more or less, right? And so, you know, you know, it’s a video game or an arcade. So, you know, that’s the reason we’re doing the whole, you know, arcade. I’m trying to think of the tagline my wife actually came up with was a mask arcade or something like that, because that way you you’re wearing a mask and it’s wearing arcades instead of masquerade mask arcade. I was like, That’s pretty clever, Honey

Stone Payton: [00:20:51] Man, you guys are so creative.

Bug Mcbride: [00:20:54] That one was all my wife. I’ll give her credit where credit’s due.

Stone Payton: [00:20:57] But I mean, clearly, you’re very focused on the experience.

Bug Mcbride: [00:21:00] I am. So I mean, and I get that a lot. It was, you know, you know, I get that, you know, coming in, I was like, you know, the atmosphere, you know? You know, besides just the games and stuff like, you know, on the walls, I have my old skateboard decks, I have old LP covers, you know, each table has a different theme. You know, I got one table that has like magic, the gathering cards printed on it and another one table that has a collage of

Adam Gerstin: [00:21:28] Covers

Bug Mcbride: [00:21:29] And covers. I have one that has a Sears catalog, toys from the 80s suite. There’s so many that people that come in there and they go, Wow, I’ve not seen one of these. This is pre-internet. You know, this is how we used to do our Christmas shopping.

Stone Payton: [00:21:43] So, so a lot of our listeners are aspiring entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs, and so I’d like to leave them with a little bit of insight counsel. I have one specific question and then anything you might have to offer that group that is, you know, thinking about being in business or early in business would be, I’m sure, would be very well received. But my question is when things aren’t going so well, when things are, you know, a little stale, a little. Where do you go for inspiration? How do you get recharged? How do you how do you try to manage the, you know, you got your peaks and valleys? How do you manage the valleys, man?

Bug Mcbride: [00:22:21] It’s a couple of tiers. First and foremost, is my wife. My wife is just she’s my rock. I mean, there’s no way around it. You know, we’ve been together now for. Twenty two years.

Stone Payton: [00:22:32] Congratulations. Thank you.

Bug Mcbride: [00:22:35] So, you know, any time you know, I’m feeling down or, you know, worried about it, you know, she is a numbers person by heart that’s, you know. You know, she’s the one. Very nice to have that. Yeah. I would not be where I’m at without her because, I mean, you know, she knows her stuff. So, you know, and then it comes to, you know, our regulars, you know, I may be having a down day and stuff, but you know, the regulars will come in and you know, Hey, let’s play some games. I’m like, OK, you know that? Cheers me up. So, you know. You know, I even got a couple of regulars that we have a group text going now that, you know, we’re always sitting as funny memes or, you know, something like that. You know, there’s regulars that, you know, play Pathfinder with, you know, pretty much weekly now as well. So which everyone’s invited to that, by the way?

Stone Payton: [00:23:15] I guess it it began to come to light for me as I got to know Adam a little bit and what he’s building to give people an opportunity to kind of create community around all this. It really never occurred to me the the community aspect of the gaming, I guess, as a gaming community. But even even though I would call it the gaming community, it always seemed to me like like an individual, almost like an individual thing. But there’s a great deal of camaraderie and community.

Bug Mcbride: [00:23:42] And there is I mean, so not only do you have your, you know, arcade enthusiasts, you know, we’ll have people come in, they go, you know, Oh, I’ve got, you know, a miss Pac-Man in my basement, you know, or I’ve got to miss Pac-Man in my basement. That’s not working. Can you come fix it?

Speaker6: [00:23:54] Right? There you go.

Stone Payton: [00:23:56] And you’re like, No, but I’ll buy your part.

Speaker6: [00:24:00] So, yeah,

Bug Mcbride: [00:24:02] You know, then you have your board game enthusiasts and then you have, you know, your roleplaying enthusiast. So, you know, but you know, they make some angle, you know, usually if you do one, you’re probably going to be mixed in with, you know, one of the other ones, magic. The gathering is another one, you know, nine times out of ten. If you play Magic, the gathering, you’re into video games or all playing games

Adam Gerstin: [00:24:20] Right or both, which is kind of why we did this thing of the nexus.

Speaker6: [00:24:24] And that’s where,

Adam Gerstin: [00:24:25] You know, that’s why our symbol kind of is this kind of hub and spokes where there’s different people on different areas where, you know, and it just brings everybody together. That’s, you know, really what we want to do.

Stone Payton: [00:24:35] Interesting. Well, I am so looking forward to learning more about this, this whole area. And man, I can’t wait to get down to your shop with my Christmas crowd.

Bug Mcbride: [00:24:44] Well, we can’t. I mean, again, you know, we’re really wanting to be part of that community. So not only just the gaming community, but, you know, our local Woodstock community.

Stone Payton: [00:24:53] So I’m going to be that guy, right? We’re going to walk down. I got lots of family coming for Christmas. We’re going to walk down and I’m gonna say, Oh, I’m going to go over to Maxwells and I’m going to have a cigar. Y’all enjoy and then I’m going to walk over there and then you’re going to see me playing pinball for like hours. I’m going to be like that, that mom you were talking about, and then I’ll be hooked. Well, you know,

Bug Mcbride: [00:25:09] There is one dad that will come and drop off his boys at my place and then go next door to Maxwell’s. So I mean, because it’s a win win, you know?

Stone Payton: [00:25:17] Oh, absolutely. No, I love it. All right. Let’s leave our listeners with some points of contact, whatever you think is appropriate. We definitely want him to know where the place is. So an email website, whatever, whatever you feel like as appropriate, so they can, you know, just reach out, learn more. Yeah.

Bug Mcbride: [00:25:33] So we’re right on the edge of downtown Woodstock. We are part of the entertainment district, which I’m not sure if you guys are familiar with that. But the entertainment district still allows open carry so you can actually bring in alcohol as long as the nuclear club from another restaurant. Or you can leave my place in the club. So but we’re located at one sixty four town Lake Parkway. We’re right between the Scuba Place and the tattoo parlor, and our phone number is four oh four four eight zero zero seven two three. And our email is info at the Blue Ghost Arcade.

Stone Payton: [00:26:10] Well, welcome to the community, man. So thrilled to have you here and so, so delighted to have you on the show. And let’s don’t make this a one time thing to come in periodically and check in with us. Let us know about events and stuff that’s that’s going on.

Bug Mcbride: [00:26:22] Well, since you said events.

Speaker6: [00:26:24] Ok, there we go. Here we go.

Bug Mcbride: [00:26:26] So, yeah,

Stone Payton: [00:26:27] I’m a pro, Ryan. You see how I did that. I just walked it in there.

Bug Mcbride: [00:26:30] So yeah, every Monday we do have trivia which with lights up entertainment, you know, Josh comes in which, you know, if you live in the Woodstock area nine times out of ten, you probably do know Josh because he’s just such a great character. So but he does trivia for us every Monday, Tuesday as we do Pathfinder. We’re hoping starting in January to do magic. The gathering tournaments on Wednesday nights Thursday. We’re currently rotating between Smash Brothers tournaments and Mario Kart tournaments, which have been fantastic. We get good turnouts for that. So and then the rest of the week, you know, the weekend. So there’s not much we can do.

Ryne Murphy: [00:27:07] Can’t can’t wait to come in on Thursday and just clean up on Smash. I’m really looking forward to that.

Stone Payton: [00:27:12] Oh, my goodness.

Bug Mcbride: [00:27:12] Ok. You talk a big game, but you

Speaker6: [00:27:16] Oh, it’s going to be horrible.

Stone Payton: [00:27:18] No, there’s been a lot of fun bug. This bug McBride blue ghosts right there on the edge of town that address one more time.

Bug Mcbride: [00:27:24] One six four Town Lake Parkway.

Stone Payton: [00:27:26] All right. Hey, don’t go away, man, while we visit with our next guest and sounds good. We’ll keep chatting about this, this is a fun conversation. Adam, you’re really good at putting folks together. You should like start a business. Oh yeah, you’re doing that, aren’t you?

Adam Gerstin: [00:27:38] Absolutely. That’s what it’s all about.

Stone Payton: [00:27:40] You are really good, right? You see how that work. All right. Our next guest, you all have been very patient. Are you ready for the headliner? How do you like that? Not me. Well, with Hawk’s Nest Gaming, Mr. Ryan Murphy, how are you, man?

Ryne Murphy: [00:27:55] I mean, I’m good. Thank you so much for having us on here. And Adam, thank you for putting this all together and everything. We really appreciate it, honestly. So, yeah, we are with Hawk’s Nest Gaming. We’re a local trading card game shop in Woodstock. We’re relocated right there next to the right down Bells Ferry, where the goodwill is. There’s the Goodwill Dollar General. We are on the other side of that shopping center. So the address is a sixty seven point twenty one Bells Ferry Road, but we actually open back up in June also, and we’d actually been wanting to meet up with a bug in the Blue Ghost guys because honestly, we felt like our demographics for sure would cross paths. And it just so happened that this meeting happened and really happy it did, to say the least.

Stone Payton: [00:28:36] Like, so I got here at the studio late. My sponsor got here at the studio late. These two guys were just having their own party when we got here.

Ryne Murphy: [00:28:44] We’re like professional,

Stone Payton: [00:28:45] You know, so it’s just so, yeah. So tell us about the story. And I know that I realize there are probably a lot of folks in the community who know exactly you know what story is what it does. But there’s many of us that don’t. What are you providing for folks and

Ryne Murphy: [00:29:01] Helping, you know, what do you know what a Pokémon is? Yes, sir, I do. Ok. Awesome. Awesome. Okay, great. All right. That’s it. That’s it. Actually, all we do with Pokémon game over. All right. No. So we what we do is we do like trading card games. In other words, so we do like magic, the gathering, Yukio Digimon Pokémon. We’re getting into the Dungeons Dragons market, actually, because that is just popping off right now. I mean, as Bug or Adam could tell you, it is huge right now. So we’re getting into that. Basically, though, we host tournaments, we do events. We actually just did a Christmas party this past weekend. We had Santa came to see us and everything. It was awesome. It was great.

Stone Payton: [00:29:39] So how’d you get in the business, man? You’ve always been an avid gamer.

Ryne Murphy: [00:29:43] So I’ve been a video game for a long time card gamer collector since I was like 12 13. There was a whole shop. Actually, a lot of people might remember in Woodstock that was called batter up. A lot of us used to go there, hang out, and it was just I always remembered as a place I really enjoyed being because it was with a lot of good people and you just got a lot of people that seem to care about one another could play these games, have fun, hang out afterwards. It was great. And it’s always been something I’ve just loved. And me and my partner, Cameron, actually my partners, by the way, are named Cameron and Rachel. They obviously could not make it today, but they are also a huge part of what we do. But we just kind of decided like, Woodstock needs a place like this. There is no card shop in Woodstock. There hasn’t been for a few years, and it’s just something that we’ve wanted to do for a very long time. And so we just. Doug, our elbows in and got to it, if that’s even the phrase, I don’t know.

Stone Payton: [00:30:37] So so my understanding, my knowledge, my frame of reference for Pokemon. All these things, it’s very limited. So forgive me if some of these questions are a little bit pedestrian. No, you’re fine. But let’s say I’m in search of a certain one or two or three. Sure, but I come to you. And if you don’t have it, you know somebody that does maybe or you’re on the lookout for it, or

Ryne Murphy: [00:30:55] There’s a good chance that if you’re looking for some, there’s a chance I might be able to find it. And there’s also a chance that I do already have it. I do make it a point to try and find kind of like the high value stuff because I want to have stuff that people are looking for for lack of a better term. Right? Pokemon Market’s really good right now. It’s just it’s a lot of fun. You get a lot of new kids that are now playing the game. I think COVID for a while slowed it down as far as like players. Yeah. And now that we’re at a better place, people are getting together, playing. We get got a really big group that comes in on Wednesday now just to trade and poke them, like just poke them on that. That’s it.

Stone Payton: [00:31:30] So they trade with each other. They’re not always trading, buying with you.

Ryne Murphy: [00:31:34] They will. Absolutely, yeah, you know, because that’s that’s part of the community. You want that like, you want these people hanging out with each other, not just talking to me, you know, like, we want to grow that community. We want it to be bigger. Same with you, magic you. It’s so funny the amount of times you have two people that did not know each other that day, and then a week later, they’re texting one another to meet up at the shop to be able to play and stuff. So it’s just it feels really cool bringing people together like that.

Stone Payton: [00:31:59] One of it’s so important, right, to have to have a place instead of, you know, accidentally meeting someone at the Waffle House or. Exactly, exactly. That’s where I would meet somebody, because that’s where I spend my downtime.

Adam Gerstin: [00:32:10] That’s all fun. I spent many an hour playing magic at the Waffle

Stone Payton: [00:32:13] House, did you right? Oh, definitely, man. We’ve got to send him an invoice that’s just like a free plug there.

Ryne Murphy: [00:32:20] Yeah, we used to actually play at Starbucks a long time ago. That’s where I used to play a lot. And then I was like, But I need my own thing and we just did it. We made it happen, and it’s been a lot of fun so far.

Stone Payton: [00:32:30] Well, you’ve already mentioned your business partners and we will we’ll have them come in sometime and we’ll do like roundtables. Absolutely. This is fun stuff, but tell us a little bit about getting this thing off the ground. And then it sounds like maybe you had a little bit of a of a time when you didn’t do much, maybe because of it. But what was it like getting it off the ground?

Ryne Murphy: [00:32:47] So luckily, we kind of got in. We started the process back in about November, December of last year. Ok, but it took a while, you know, to get all the everything finalized, get into the building, that kind of thing. Once we were in there, we just got to work. We immediately started cleaning everything, painting everything. The building had never been rented out before, so we just within a month and a half, basically, we had the we had it basically ready to go at that point getting product and obviously was, you know, just start. But it was it was really nice getting started in about June because we really hit a good spot around there.

Stone Payton: [00:33:21] So was it a little bit of a chicken and an egg thing for your business if you’ve got to have the product, but you’ve got to have the stuff? So did you have to go out and buy a bunch of stuff?

Ryne Murphy: [00:33:30] That’s like a really good analogy. Yeah, a little bit, actually. Like, yeah, because in order for them to like to to get stuff, you have to have stuff know it’s it’s one of those like, yeah, but luckily we were able to find a good balance and find some good people to help us out with it. So everything’s kind of come to come to fruition, if you will.

Stone Payton: [00:33:47] And what is finding commercial real estate like to buy or lease? I’ve never done that. Often we don’t pay rent for spaces we’re in because we work out a deal. And but anyway, yeah, what’s that like?

Ryne Murphy: [00:33:58] I mean, a lot of it’s just, I think a lot of it just depends on the area and what the availability is a place is, you know, you’ve got to be able to get in touch with people on stuff. I’m sure Bug will tell you it’s picking the spot also that you feel like is the right

Bug Mcbride: [00:34:09] Spot, right? Yeah, I mean, we’re trying to be as close to downtown as possible, and it took us over three years to find also. And, you know, we actually had signed the lease in January 2020 and then COVID hit. Oh, so luckily, though, we actually had a clause in our lease to get out of it. So. So we didn’t have to sit there and pay for that that whole year or so, and we worked with the landlord the whole time. Sorry, I didn’t mean to.

Stone Payton: [00:34:34] That’s that’s back to you, bug. Yeah, no. But it was trying by.

Ryne Murphy: [00:34:39] It was it was really trying to find light, like you said, trying to find the right space that you knew was going to be good for what you were doing. And if we looked at a few places, but we definitely found the one that we felt like was was correct for us.

Stone Payton: [00:34:51] All right. So let’s talk about partnerships. Sure. I have a business partner and I’m very blessed that I do. Sounds like you’ve got a marvelous situation. What do you think are some of the things that that make a partnership work and maybe some things to try to avoid when you’re working with folks?

Ryne Murphy: [00:35:07] A big part of it is you got to you got to have trust in whoever you’re working with when it comes down and stuff like that. If it’s business, if it’s life, you’ve got to make sure that you got the right person and Cameron and Rachel or two of the best people. I know they’re two of my best friends and have been for many years. And if anything like doing this together, you know, there’s been some like, you know, it’s been hard.

Bug Mcbride: [00:35:26] Sometimes it’s kind of a give and take. I mean, it was like a marriage, almost.

Ryne Murphy: [00:35:30] It really is. Well, they’re actually married.

Bug Mcbride: [00:35:32] Oh. I mean, right.

Ryne Murphy: [00:35:35] But yeah, I don’t think they want to get married to another person.

Stone Payton: [00:35:39] But like but they have basically they’re pretty fresh, right? Absolutely.

Ryne Murphy: [00:35:44] But I love them to death and honestly having people like that and having us all work together the way we do has made that place so much better and just made it made me happy for lack of a better term.

Stone Payton: [00:35:54] I’ll bet. So did you guys go into it or did you evolve to a kind of very distinct roles

Ryne Murphy: [00:36:00] In the business? Like, we kind of knew what we were doing beforehand? You know, like I’m going to be I operate mostly all the day to day, for the most part. Cameron obviously helps me out a lot with that. But for the most part, I’m the one that always runs day to day. Rachel Anders, all she handles a lot of are like accounting and stuff like that because I’m bad at that. So like, you know, let Rachel’s got it under control. But again,

Stone Payton: [00:36:22] The numbers we were talking about this, we were in bug segment, right? I mean that you got to be on top of one hundred percent. It sounds like it’s not your superpower. Oh, it’s not mine either, but

Ryne Murphy: [00:36:31] I’m good at it. It’s just one of those. If I had to pick it as a strike, I would say it’s it’s not necessarily a weakness, either. It’s just one of those like Rachel, really good on its own shoulder. And like, she’s really good at it. Like, so

Stone Payton: [00:36:45] It’s actually a weakness for me. I look at the bank, and if there’s money in the bank, OK, guess everything’s OK and everything’s fine, right? And we’re good. Lights are still on in the studio, so

Ryne Murphy: [00:36:56] Now, but it really helps having us. Each kind of have our own skill sets as as for what what we do. So like, you know, I’m there all day. I, you know, I like to think I’m a people person for the most part. So like,

Stone Payton: [00:37:08] No, you clearly are. You check that box that much I could sign off on. Absolutely. For everyone.

Bug Mcbride: [00:37:14] No, it’s

Speaker6: [00:37:16] My evil plan.

Ryne Murphy: [00:37:17] It’s a it’s a lot of fun, though it really is. And like, like I said, working with them, working together the way we have for as long as we have now, it’s it’s really good. You know, there’s always going to be bumps in the road, but we’ve easily gotten through them and we’re still moving kind of deal.

Stone Payton: [00:37:32] So what’s the biggest challenge so far?

Ryne Murphy: [00:37:35] Honestly, it’s like Bugg was saying earlier making you have some days where you’re just like, Oh my God, what did I get myself into? It can be really scary sometimes, but honestly, it’s being able to get a good clientele that cares about you, that you care about building that community because you want, you know, you want new people. You also want people that want to be there and want to come back kind of deal. And I think we’ve done a really good job of doing that.

Stone Payton: [00:38:01] Well, you have this morning. Yeah, I got an old guy here who used to play pinball. You know, my thing is hunting and fishing. And now I’m thinking, Well, no, I need to go down there and play pinball, you know, or maybe just try to do this court.

Ryne Murphy: [00:38:12] We can teach you how to play magic, that’s for sure, but apparently plays a lot of magic Lee Kantor we can definitely teach you.

Stone Payton: [00:38:18] But again, what? I’m what is getting impressed upon me is just how important community is in this arena. And I guess it just took me a while to see it in that frame.

Ryne Murphy: [00:38:30] I really think Woodstock and Cherokee in general has always had a really good community, and that’s one reason I am happy I live here and have lived here for the last twenty seven years.

Stone Payton: [00:38:39] All right. Well, we ought to talk a little bit about that because that’s been my experience. I’ve been here since April. We moved here, living here since April. I have found the business community and the community leaders just to be so supportive and I don’t mean polite, you know, come over and have some sweet tea sometimes, you know, supportive. I mean, what can I do to help you with your business? Who do you need? You need some interviewers. You need some spark. I mean, such an embracing, supportive business community here.

Ryne Murphy: [00:39:07] We’ve had experience. Yeah, we’ve actually had we have a neighbor that’s at a shop, a couple of doors down from us. And when we were first building stuff and we actually put together like a closet, he gave us all the shelving that we have now. It was just little stuff like that, though, like little things that don’t seem like they’re big, right, that were that really like impress upon you and that it was it was a big deal, you know, like, it made me feel like, wow, like this guy wants to help us out. And it just was a little step that helped us a lot like, yeah,

Stone Payton: [00:39:37] So the marketing for you. And I asked Pug the same question earlier, but is it? Is it more like just viral and it just sort of builds on itself? Or do you go out and do billboards and like, buy it? How does it

Ryne Murphy: [00:39:48] Work for you? It’s a lot of Instagram, Facebook, social media, social media, big time platform. Oh, it’s it’s absolutely, probably the biggest one now, at least to me, that’s how it feels. We are going to be doing like some advertisements and stuff like that. But for now, social media has definitely been the way.

Stone Payton: [00:40:05] Yeah, I’ll bet.

Adam Gerstin: [00:40:07] And that’s what we’re trying to come in and create that social media platform specifically for gamers so that they could find people like Bowie and Ryan’s business is easier.

Bug Mcbride: [00:40:15] Yeah, I mean, there’s been other, you know, ways we’ve advertised as well. Like, you know, we sponsored the Southern Fried Gaming Expo app this past year, which I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but it’s a I am now.

Stone Payton: [00:40:26] No, I wasn’t.

Adam Gerstin: [00:40:28] So we were actually at the show as well. Yes.

Stone Payton: [00:40:30] But if it’s got southern and fried in it, I’m probably there, you know?

Bug Mcbride: [00:40:34] If you’re a gamer, it’s just a huge convention for, you know, gamers. You know, they have arcade machines, pinball machines, tons of board games. They had a fantastic museum this year. Only if you saw that or not.

Adam Gerstin: [00:40:47] Yeah, absolutely.

Bug Mcbride: [00:40:48] So they had like, you know, all the old consoles and computer games and things like that. And then, you know, with any convention, you know, they’ll have speakers and things like that. But yeah, so we sponsor that. So, you know, our logo and name were all over the place there as well. So it was a lot of fun like. Absolutely.

Adam Gerstin: [00:41:04] Yeah, I mean, you know, we were exhibitors and we got a bunch of people that were just walking through and got shown more about the platform, got a bunch of people to sign up. As you mentioned, there was a whole like giant room full of pinball games, video games. You know, I think there was a magic tournaments and stuff as well. I mean, so

Bug Mcbride: [00:41:22] They have roleplaying rooms as well. Mm hmm.

Adam Gerstin: [00:41:24] So some people selling some stuff. It was a really good experience.

Bug Mcbride: [00:41:28] Oh yeah. I think they actually have like live wrestling to do.

Speaker6: [00:41:32] Yes.

Adam Gerstin: [00:41:33] Yeah, it was one of them. I don’t watch wrestling in the wild, but they definitely had one of the brands and we were looking at possibly sponsoring something to do with that. Or actually, we were a little too late.

Ryne Murphy: [00:41:42] I think one of the wrestling guys like slam somebody through the magic, the gathering cable or anything.

Speaker6: [00:41:47] There you’re tap now.

Stone Payton: [00:41:49] Well, it might be fun.

Speaker6: [00:41:50] Sometimes it’s a good joke.

Ryne Murphy: [00:41:53] That’s a good joke. If you play magic, that’s a good one.

Stone Payton: [00:41:58] No, it might be fun to take the gaming series to some of these events like that. They’re local, you know, like take a remote, take a remote kid out there and do just some live and maybe set some interviews up. And then maybe also just get people out of the crowd and talk about why they love gaming and stuff.

Bug Mcbride: [00:42:11] Yeah. Well, from pre-COVID, you know, reformation down here in Woodstock, you know, they would have a monthly board game night. So I would go to all the time, you know, Brad NEX, one of the founders of every formation, is a huge board gamer. Oh, OK. So, you know, that was a lot of fun. So hopefully they’ll start that back up again.

Adam Gerstin: [00:42:29] So actually, that was one of the reasons that we actually started LG Nexus was because we saw that Reformation Brewery was doing these like impromptu things where you can play D and D as a one shot game for Arnault’s. Whatever amount of dollars and you got like two drinks and like some food.

Bug Mcbride: [00:42:45] Yeah, I think that thing was like twenty twenty five dollars. So, yeah, Josh really ran that.

Adam Gerstin: [00:42:49] Mm hmm. And so it wasn’t very expensive, and it was a great way to meet other people and you got some beer and some food and get played at the same time. And so that was kind of part of where we originally started, where we were looking to create a kid or D&D game for people and then kind of shifted into this whole social media.

Stone Payton: [00:43:05] So that was the genesis of the idea, or it kind of helps to

Adam Gerstin: [00:43:07] Help spark it. It was absolutely.

Bug Mcbride: [00:43:09] Oh, nice.

Stone Payton: [00:43:10] Yeah. So Ryan, what’s next for you? You guys got big plans. You just trying to get stable? What’s what’s where are you going to be putting your energy over there?

Ryne Murphy: [00:43:17] We’re just we’re just trying to get bigger for lack of a better. Are you really just, you know, like we want to do more events, more things, you know, we’re we’re just kind of getting a feel for some of the stuff trying to figure out what schedules work for people, what what’s going to be the most popular format. What what do people want to play for lack of a better term? And we want to just make sure that we are on the front end of that. Get out in front of it, if you will. Yeah, it’s a you know, it’s it’s a lot, you know, it’s a lot to you got to make sure you’re listening to people got to pay attention to what even if you don’t carry a thing. Pay attention to what other people are asking about. And if enough people ask about it, it makes sense to get in on it kind of deal. So we are going to be having more magic tournaments. We’re going to start doing Digimon here soon. Pokémon tournaments, everything. It’s going to be a blast tonight. Actually, we have our weekly Ukiyo tournament going on tonight at seven o’clock. So I think that’s going to be a lot of fun.

Stone Payton: [00:44:08] Yeah. All right. So where is this? Let’s make sure our listeners know how they can get to you.

Ryne Murphy: [00:44:12] So one more time it is sixty seven twenty one Bells Ferry Road. It is right on Bells Ferry, where the goodwill and the Dollar General are just in the shopping center opposite that really easy to get to, especially if you know the Woodstock area you know exactly where I’m talking about.

Stone Payton: [00:44:27] Yeah, neat. Well, thanks so much for coming and hanging out.

Ryne Murphy: [00:44:31] I’m really glad y’all had me. Thank you

Stone Payton: [00:44:32] Again. Yeah, sorry. It’s our pleasure. And I think we got to do this on a more consistent basis. And just and you know, you guys know the other folks in the community who are out there trying to serve in this way. You know, let’s get them together and give them a chance to talk about their business, but also just to talk about gaming in general. You know, maybe getting them together like this is a great way for them to share best practices. I don’t know. That’s fun. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So what can our listeners be doing? What can Business RadioX be doing? What can we? I’m going to ask all three of you this before we wrap. What can we be doing to help? Man, what’s the best way for us to support you guys going forward?

Ryne Murphy: [00:45:11] Honestly, it just help us get the word out like you are right now. We really appreciate just having kind of a platform to speak on. I know I don’t necessarily speak for them, but I think we we can all agree on that, that we just are appreciative of having another platform to get ourselves out there.

Stone Payton: [00:45:25] Absolutely. Is there some card that we should all be on the lookout for? Like any, just any

Ryne Murphy: [00:45:31] Charges are

Bug Mcbride: [00:45:32] Just like some of. His cards go for some math.

Stone Payton: [00:45:35] They really

Ryne Murphy: [00:45:35] Do. Anybody just just get it down. Yeah, like and everybody in home probably knows what I’m talking about, even if you don’t know Pokemon. You probably heard of Charles art at some point.

Stone Payton: [00:45:45] Go to your attic right now. See if Uncle Joe has a cardboard box.

Ryne Murphy: [00:45:50] It’s going to be in that box your mom was going to throw away. I promise.

Adam Gerstin: [00:45:53] Like quick story. About three months ago, my father said we were throwing some stuff away. We found a thing of some magic cards and like I played like early in magic. Yeah. And so I was like, Oh, this could be really good.

Ryne Murphy: [00:46:05] So I would absolutely could bring it by. Let know I got you. I got you.

Adam Gerstin: [00:46:10] I look through it. There wasn’t.

Stone Payton: [00:46:12] That’s what that’s your in the future. You could be like the porn star guy, right? And have like the reality series, you know, people bring in stuff. I got 100 of those. I don’t want that. And then you go get it appraised and stuff.

Ryne Murphy: [00:46:22] It does happen sometimes where I have

Stone Payton: [00:46:24] To like, find somebody

Ryne Murphy: [00:46:26] Else. I got to break people’s hearts sometimes. Oh no. It’s one of those like, they’ll be like, I have this really valuable thing. Here’s this card. And I’m like, It’s it’s like twelve dollars.

Bug Mcbride: [00:46:35] I know that feels because, you know, I’m constantly looking for these arcade machines and every arcade machine someone thinks is worth $4000, right? I’m sorry. You know, it’s not, you know, this is not the very sought after machine and you know, you might get, you know, three or four hundred. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some machines out there that will go for $4000, right? You know,

Speaker6: [00:46:55] But

Ryne Murphy: [00:46:56] It’s just it’ll it’ll happen. Sometimes you’ll people will think, you know, it’s like and sometimes you’re like, Oh, actually, this thing you have that you thought wasn’t valuable is actually very valuable. And you know, I let people know that. But sometimes you have to break their heart a little bit and it stinks. But it’s it’s part of,

Bug Mcbride: [00:47:12] You know, you have to be able to buy the product to make a profit yourself.

Stone Payton: [00:47:16] Correct. That’s what the porn star guy always tells. I don’t know if y’all know that show or not, but his pawn shop in Vegas

Adam Gerstin: [00:47:22] And I’ve watched most of the episodes

Stone Payton: [00:47:23] And he’ll he’ll he’ll like, call on his gun guy or his, you know, whatever it is, whatever sort of stuff. Yeah, but what can we be doing to help you, man?

Bug Mcbride: [00:47:32] Besides just getting the word out, come visit us. I mean, you’d be surprised, you know, as soon as you walk through that door, you know, it’s very nostalgic and you know you’re going to want to stay. It’s a time warp. It is. It really is.

Ryne Murphy: [00:47:44] Just if I’m there, don’t touch the house, the dead game because I’ll already be doing it.

Stone Payton: [00:47:48] Like, Do you go in there early and just tie off a ribbon? And I put that orange cone on the joystick when you

Ryne Murphy: [00:47:53] Guys open at noon right now,

Bug Mcbride: [00:47:55] Everyone. So but I mean, I mean, there are groups of people who have certain games, you know, there, if they walk in and see that someone has taken their name off the highest score, I mean, they’re just like, OK, I know what I’m doing today.

Stone Payton: [00:48:05] Oh my god. Oh, that’s so that happens. I get competitive. That’s fallen down and not, yeah, that’s hilarious.

Bug Mcbride: [00:48:12] So pole position is a popular one for that right now. Really? Yeah. Ok, which one pole position? I don’t know what that is. Oh wow. You must be really young.

Stone Payton: [00:48:22] I probably do when I see it.

Bug Mcbride: [00:48:24] Yeah, I guarantee you once you saw you be like, Oh yeah, I know it’s because I like driving. This is a racing game from, like, early 80s.

Ryne Murphy: [00:48:32] Gotcha. Gotcha is one of the like, sit down in the car, so you

Bug Mcbride: [00:48:34] Actually end up on this

Adam Gerstin: [00:48:35] One. This is really old.

Stone Payton: [00:48:37] It’s old school.

Ryne Murphy: [00:48:37] Yeah, yeah, it’s stand up and drive. It’s really dangerous.

Stone Payton: [00:48:42] I’ve used in in business, sometimes in the consulting world. The analogy I’m actually got this from just now occurred to me. I talk about having the bird’s eye view because on on some games you can switch the view of whether you’re sitting in the car or if you’re watching all the cars, including yours. And I think sometimes it’s important as people who run businesses to get out of the cockpit and get the bird’s eye view of what’s going on. And it just now occurred to me. That’s where that came from.

Adam Gerstin: [00:49:08] Absolutely. Yeah, just that first person versus third person perspective. Yeah, you just kind of take it a step back from your business to be like, OK, how’s it going? What am I doing? And kind of assess what’s going on?

Stone Payton: [00:49:17] Yeah. All right. What can we be doing to support you over there at LFG next?

Adam Gerstin: [00:49:21] This man again, you know, it’s really just about getting the word out, just letting people know that we’re around and you know, we’re trying to, you know, help people. We’re trying to help, you know, especially, you know, Bug and Ryan to people put their vents out there like a one stop shop place where they can, you know, see everything that’s going on locally so that, you know, they can, you know, set up their calendars in advance and make sure that they could attend these different types of events and get involved in the local community.

Bug Mcbride: [00:49:43] And it’s free to sign up for your platform. So I mean, go sign up.

Stone Payton: [00:49:47] That’s a good price. Yeah, I can swing that.

Bug Mcbride: [00:49:50] Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t hurt to try, right?

Adam Gerstin: [00:49:53] Try. There’s so many other features that we offer. I think you guys really like it. We’re really trying to build this for gamers. And if you guys have any suggestions, please let us know you can email us. And we’re really attentive. We do want to build this place for gamers.

Stone Payton: [00:50:07] All right, so let’s go back around one more time before we wrap and let’s leave contact info or where to go so people know how to get. We would start with you and Ryan, where’s your replacement?

Ryne Murphy: [00:50:15] Sure. Yeah. So once again, sixty seven twenty one Bells Ferry Road, Suite 104, right next to goodwill in the Dollar General. Like I said, if you’re in the Cherokee area, you know about it. Instagram you can follow us at a hawk’s Nest TCG. That’s Hawk’s Nest TCG. Or to tease back to back there, it’s not like hawks, nest egg stocks, nest egg and then also you can add us on Facebook at a Hawks Nest Gaming.

Stone Payton: [00:50:42] Fantastic bug.

Bug Mcbride: [00:50:44] We’re the Blue Goose starrcade at one sixty four Town Lake Parkway in downtown Woodstock. Our phone number is four four four eight zero zero seven two three. If you just type in the Blue Ghost Arcade, you’ll find us on Facebook and Instagram. I mean, it’s a. Pretty easy, pretty easy name.

Stone Payton: [00:51:05] Oh yeah, I know I love it, I think I love both of your names, the Hawks, Nest and the Blue Ghost. It’s great. And all right, LFG Next is where can we go? Find out more, man.

Adam Gerstin: [00:51:14] You can find us at WWE Next. You can also find us on the App Store and the Play Store. So, you know, if he has like mobile gaming a little bit better, that works as well. You can also email us at Info at LVG Nexus Dot Com

Stone Payton: [00:51:28] And Stones here to support We’re actually Business RadioX is actually a sponsor of LG Nexus, and we’re actually going to publish the episode, so I’m going to do that for you. I’m going to get in the attic, and I’m going to ask Max and Kat to get neurotic. They’re younger, and I’m definitely going to come have a beer. Okay, so I’m here for you guys.

Bug Mcbride: [00:51:46] We have a huge

Speaker6: [00:51:47] Selection, so.

Stone Payton: [00:51:48] All right. Well, until next time, this is Stone Payton for our sponsor today, LFC Nexus, our guest and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you next time on Cherokee Business RadioX.

Morven Groves with 10 Point Capital

by

Morven-Groves-10-Point-Capital
Franchise Marketing Radio
Morven Groves with 10 Point Capital
Loading
/

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.

10-Point-Capital-logo

Morven-Groves-10-Point-CapitalMorven Groves has spent over 15 years investing and advising in travel and hospitality businesses, with 10 years focused on franchising. She is passionate about growing brands, in the right markets, with the right partners. She works closely with the management teams of 10 Point Capital’s portfolio companies, to help them set strategy, and execute on growth goals.

Prior to joining 10 Point Capital, Morven was a franchisee herself for a spa franchise, and was a Vice President on Franchise Development and Finance teams for InterContinental Hotels Group, where she had responsibility for the Americas Region’s market strategy.

Additionally, Morven spent over 7 years with McKinsey & Company, working extensively in Europe, Asia and the US.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

  • How can emerging franchise concepts can gain traction?
  • What do brand’s need to have in place before considering to grow?
  • How can brand’s grow their concept quickly with the right franchisees?
  • Other than WOM, what are some other recommended tactics to drive leads?

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, 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 that’s SeoSamba.com.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one today on the show, we have Morven Groves and she is with 10 Point Capital. Welcome.

Morven Groves: [00:00:44] Thanks very much for having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about 10. capital. How are you serving, folks?

Morven Groves: [00:00:51] Absolutely. So at Ten Point Capital, we focus on investing in franchise. We’re looking for brands the potential to become dominant nationally. So oftentimes we’re investing with brands. Their founder leads. They’ve proven themselves in their home state. They’ve probably gone to a few adjacent states. And now really, it’s just a question of scaling. So that’s the kind of businesses that we work with as a team where we like to think of ourselves as fairly holistic in our understanding of the franchise world. So we’ve invested in over 40 franchise transactions. We’ve been franchisees or seven concepts, and we’ve even worked for four franchise owners. So we really feel like we have an understanding of what it takes to both be a successful franchise or what franchisees need, and then ultimately what it takes to make a franchise or a good investment for private equity group such as ourselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:49] Now do you work primarily with franchises that are B, the C B to be a mixture?

Morven Groves: [00:01:56] We are mostly mostly B to C, not for any. Particular preference, and in a sense, it depends how you define that, so we currently have two restaurant chains in our portfolio and slim chickens, which is a better chicken QSR. There are about a hundred and thirty five locations. We have walk on sports bistro. That’s another restaurant chain. They just opened their 60th location and then we have Phenix Salon Suites, which is essentially we work for beauty professionals. So if you’re a franchisee, you’re really a landlord and you’re renting space to beauty professionals. So to be to be clear on whether it’s B to C, B to to B, it really is a slightly complicated question in the board.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:44] And then so you’re just are you looking at franchise doors of a certain size before you get involved? Like, do they have to have some sort of escape velocity or are you kind of launching brand new brands?

Morven Groves: [00:02:57] Typically not launching brand new brands, probably the sweet spot for us is a brand that’s cash flow positive or on the verge of it, where they’ve got significant number of locations enough that, you know, the concept works. It might still need some tweaks, but you can see that it’s not just the the the local Arkansas concept. It’s, you know, in the case of a brand like slim chickens, that it really does have national national appeal. So we’re we’re coming in at that point where the proven the brand, but it’s about scaling.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:30] So what are some kind of elements you’re looking for when you see a brand that you go, Hey, this is going to be a good fit for ten point capital?

Morven Groves: [00:03:38] Absolutely. So for us, we believe it starts with strong unit economics. It’s quite possible to sell franchises, but they have to work, and that’s the only thing that is going to make a franchise or endure. And so we really need to understand the franchise economics. We spent a ton of time up front as we look at investments, understanding the units that work, the units that don’t work, why they don’t work and what really the model is. And so that’s that is the first thing for us. The second piece is really understanding how they they think about their relationships with franchisees. Growing a franchise is a partnership, and so you want franchisees who are supportive of your brand to talk well about your brand to future franchisees. And so we really want to see franchise owners who understand that. A key to success here is putting in place a support that your franchisees need to to grow in and survive. So that’s that’s a huge piece for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:47] Now regarding unit economics, are there are certain metrics you’re looking for the guy to hit a certain percentage of sales or recurring or year over year. Like what are kind of the metrics that matter to you?

Morven Groves: [00:05:00] We look a lot at the investment costs of what’s the out of pocket cost for the franchisee. And then we’re looking at. The returns they can get, so how long does it take them to get their money back? I agree investment for us is one with a three to one investment ratio. That’s that’s kind of where we look. But I mean, that’s that’s a fantastic investment that probably puts you in the top five to 10 percent of of franchise brands. So that’s a that’s a pretty high bar.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:29] Now, as part of you know, when you’re working with brands, is is part of your relationship, obviously is investing money, capital, things like that. But you know, for a a person who has talked to a lot of VCs and investment, they’re smart money and dumb money like money just for the sake of money is OK, but money with connections and skills and and tools that help me grow or better is that more along the lines of what Ten point Capital offers?

Morven Groves: [00:06:04] That’s definitely our approach. We we probably do one deal every 12 to 18 months, and that’s very deliberate. We want to have the time to partner with the brands that we invest in and to really help them grow. It would be rare that we’re not talking to our our franchise or brand partners. Daily might even be multiple times a day. We like to think of ourselves as alongside them, helping them to scale and grow, helping them figure out who they need to add to the team. What areas of the the organization perhaps needs some some additional investments or some additional partners to help them to find the right vendor or or the right third party to help in that area. So we spend an awful lot of time working with our with our companies, and I think that’s where our background really helps because we have been there. You I’ve I’ve been there trying to get permits from the city. I understand that pain and I understand that only so much of that is under your control. But I also understand that once you have those in hand, you can be very systematic about how long it takes to then open your unit so. And I’m, you know, set yourself milestones along the way, and so that that really is where we can get into the details in a way that perhaps someone who’s not as familiar with the franchise space might struggle.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:31] Now, if you don’t mind, do you mind sharing some advice for these emerging brands that are out there that maybe they’re not ready for you, but maybe they will be if they implement some of this advice? What are some of the kind of I mean, this is the beauty of your organization and your team is you. You’ve seen a lot of case studies in real life and not hypotheticals. You’ve got scar tissue and you’ve have successes and failures, so you have a lot of key learnings that you can share. So do you mind sharing some of this with emerging brands, just general brand growth conversation? A little bit.

Morven Groves: [00:08:10] So what? And oftentimes we we start talking to the brands we invest in several years before we actually invest. We love that we will love forming the relationships early on and watching the brand grow. Walk ons is a great example of that. We probably started talking to the team there two years before we invested. At the time, they might have been 15 units. As I said, they’ve just opened their 60th. So we like to follow them along that journey. What what we like to understand is how does the leadership team think about the brand and growing it? And that’s along a few dimensions. So what what is the brand’s differentiation from competition? What is the culture they’re trying to build that’s ultimately going to be what differentiates you? And we want to understand how you’re distinctive. I think the other piece that’s good to see is when brands are investing with the understanding of what it takes to be a great franchisor, so they might be putting in place some senior people before before they have enough franchisees, that that’s truly justified. They might be putting in place really good operations manuals, very clear brand standards. They’re just. Thinking of where they will be. 18 months down the line from where they are at that point in time. And that’s because that’s what differentiates great franchise laws from from many others that they’ve really thought about. I am now going to be supporting my franchisees in growth so I can sell franchises. But once those guys open, I need them to be truly successful, so. I think just really understanding what it’s going to take to be successful over time is is a critical part for a smaller, smaller franchisor.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:02] Yeah, I think that transition can be difficult for some folks going from the mentality of, you know, I’ve got to make one more chicken sandwich, how do I do that and turn into this kind of sales and training company? It’s a different or different business, really completely.

Morven Groves: [00:10:18] And that’s why a lot of brands aren’t suited to franchising. It’s a very different skill sets and mindset to. Supports others in running your brand and also to attract franchisees, so to to sell versus owning and operating units. Totally different skill set. Obviously, there’s there’s things to learn from both, but you need to be prepared to step back and be in that support and guidance role as a franchisor.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:51] Now is your role sometimes to install kind of a new CEO of the organization in terms of, OK, they’re in charge of really the franchise. You know, somebody founded it and got it off the ground, but now you need more of a CEO, manager type person to run the this new enterprise.

Morven Groves: [00:11:11] It really depends on on the concept. So I’ll take a few, for example, so Tropical Smoothie Cafe was one of our investments. We extended that last fall to live in Lincoln Capital Partners, where we are. In fact, the founder of Tropical Smoothie Cafe is an operating partner with 10. Capital Forever. After our investment, he was ready to take a role on the board rather than running the company. And so they added a CEO and Charles Watson is the current CEO there at Slim Chickens, another one of our investments. One of the founders, Tim Garden, is still the CEO and walk ons. Brendan Landry is the CEO. But we have a president that he brought in before we invested, who takes on a lot of the day to day operational. Pieces as well. And then Phenix on suites is is a little bit of a mix on that front, the founders Gina and Jason are still very involved. But we also have Brian Kelly there as our our CEO. So it really depends on what the founder wants to do. We don’t have any preconceived notions on what that would would typically amount to. And I think that’s that’s just typical of how we approach investments. It’s it’s a partnership. And so we spend a lot of time talking before investing with the with the founders about what they want and what they want over time.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:48] Well, that’s great, because it is a partnership, and that’s important for the the founder in the organ and the organization to decide, OK, what what outcome do I desire? And then in certain cases, you know, that way you’re both getting what you want out of this and it’s eyes wide open. Exactly. Now any advice for that emerging franchise or to help them attract the right franchisee because there just seems to be so many tactics when it comes to growing your franchise brand and getting leads in there and just you want to get the right folks, especially at the beginning, I would imagine that’s like critical because they’re the ones that are going to be telling the story to the next folks.

Morven Groves: [00:13:34] Absolutely, and figuring out who the right franchisee is for your concept can be a journey for a new franchise laws. So there’s some basics that I would say most people understand the financial qualifications relative its investments. There’s probably also just the mindset or the cultural fits. There there’s this kind of open question of what experience does the franchisee need to have? So take Phenix and Suites, for example. Should the owners be hairstylists who want to to own a bigger business? We find over time that that’s probably not the best profile of franchisee for or that brand that is typically a business professional. They may even have another another job. And so there’s it’s defining that really, really matters. As you think about how to grow.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:33] So now what is kind of that white boarding meeting look like when you’re discussing this with your clients? How are you determining, OK, this works. This is obvious. Maybe they’re not. Maybe this person is the right fit and it isn’t obvious. How do you kind of like, do you have any exercises that you work through to identify that ideal franchisee?

Morven Groves: [00:14:58] Typically, we look at historical units, so that’s part of why I say we when we invest, they tend to be brands that are proven in a few different markets and then we sit down with the management team and go unit by units and we understand the quality of the location. The the weather, the market is a good fit for that brand. And when I say location, it’s the market, but it’s also things like ingress and egress. It can be very specific. We’re also looking at who are the franchisee partners who. What was their? What was their history beforehand in the case of some chickens, for example? We find that QSR. But franchisees have sought concepts for other brands, make really good. Franchises for some chickens, but initially we had some casual dining franchises and they weren’t necessarily as good a fit. And so we’ve we’ve changed who we’re looking for in that profile over time.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:02] And that’s just part of I mean, that’s just good business, right? That’s just as you evolved, you become clearer on who’s the right fit and who’s the wrong fit and then you can, you know, react accordingly.

Morven Groves: [00:16:14] Absolutely. It’s course correcting as you go.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:17] Now for you, what’s the most rewarding part of the job? Haven’t been in franchising for so long and then being on this side of the table. The winds may feel different.

Morven Groves: [00:16:29] I think it’s some level. For me, it’s always the relationships. So I love seeing. Brands grew I love seeing the teams grow, the people on the teams advance in their positions and their responsibilities, and that’s that’s the super thing about working with fast growing brands the way that we do. You really see them transforming people’s lives. It can be a restaurant server who becomes a training manager who ultimately takes on the responsibility for a section of the operations team. So it’s really exciting to see that, and that’s very rewarding for me.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:10] Now is part of the council. You’re offering your clients or your partners help when it comes to employees because this seems to be a really challenging time for a lot of folks when it comes to attracting the right folks or maybe moving to some automation where they hadn’t had it before. Is this part of kind of the the things you bring to the table?

Morven Groves: [00:17:38] We’re probably less involved. And that made we certainly have all the conversations about labor and hiring. That said, our franchise or partners are running the business day to day, and they’ve all built really strong cultures within their company. And I think are doing a great job of translating that down to their franchisees. So truthfully, they’re they’re better at doing that than we will ever be.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:06] So you’re you’re giving them resources and advice as they needed, but ultimately you’re partnering with brands that probably are already doing a pretty good job in this area. Absolutely. So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Morven Groves: [00:18:24] We just love hearing from people who are building great concepts and looking to grow. That’s as I said, we’re happy to talk a long time before you’re even considering. Speaking on a financial partner, we love to see the brands grow and we love to build those relationships and to start learning how you think and. For us to start that, that kind of dating relationship in a sense. But that’s that’s really where we. We love to partner.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:55] Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the success you’re doing. Important work and we appreciate you. Thank you so much. Now, if somebody wants to learn more about Ten point capital, what’s the website

Morven Groves: [00:19:08] At 10. Capital dot com?

Lee Kantor: [00:19:10] And that’s the number.

Morven Groves: [00:19:11] That’s the number

Lee Kantor: [00:19:11] 10, right? One zero point pointy capital capital. Yes. Well, thank you again for sharing your story.

Morven Groves: [00:19:23] Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:24] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Our Mission

We help local business leaders get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, their community, and their profession.

We support and celebrate business by sharing positive business stories that traditional media ignores. Some media leans left. Some media leans right. We lean business.

Sponsor a Show

Build Relationships and Grow Your Business. Click here for more details.

Partner With Us

Discover More Here

Terms and Conditions
Privacy Policy

Connect with us

Want to keep up with the latest in pro-business news across the network? Follow us on social media for the latest stories!

Business RadioX® Headquarters
1000 Abernathy Rd. NE
Building 400, Suite L-10
Sandy Springs, GA 30328