Every business is looking for answers on how to survive the changes in the world right now. Luckily Lisa Proctor, CEO of Sanford Rose Associates Lake Lanier and founding member of the Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA), has some ideas and tips for businesses. In this episode of the Capitalist Sage, Karl Barham and Rico Figliolini video chat with Lisa to talk about all the ins-and-outs of handling business during this ever-changing time. Recorded socially safe in Peachtree Corners, GA
“We’re committed to be open and honest with each other. We’ll have open dialogue, but we’re finding other things for them to work on that will position us to be ready when the market comes back. So whether it’s doing something, you know, re-engaging with good candidates, reassuring other people, even if it means doing some sort of community service or doing something to keep the positivity going, but trying to make sure we’re positioning because we don’t know how long this is going to take.”
Lisa Proctor
Timestamp:
[00:00:30] – Intro [00:03:54] – About Lisa [00:04:22] – Essential Businesses [00:06:11] – Innovation in Remote Business [00:09:30] – Expenses and Cash Flow [00:12:59] – Loans and the CARES Act [00:22:52] – Using this Time [00:25:43] – Helping Your Employees [00:35:15] – Networking Amid COVID-19 [00:38:59] – Closing
Podcast Transcript
Karl: [00:00:30] Welcome to the Capitalist Sage Podcast. We’re here to bring you advice and tips from seasoned pros and experts to help you improve your business. I’m Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors. My co host is Rico Figliolini with Mighty Rockets, Digital Marketing, and the publisher of the Peachtree Corners Magazine. How are you doing today, Rico?
Rico: [00:00:50] Good. It’s great.
Karl: [00:00:52] Isn’t it fabulous that we have adapted our podcasts from our usual home in a podcast studio to virtual as this episode is being recorded and filmed from our homes as we are abiding by local ordinance for stay at home due to the coronavirus and COVID-19. So today, it’ll be a little bit different, but through this pandemic we’ll offer you tips and local insights on and helping you survive and thrive during the global pandemic. Rico, why don’t we talk a little bit about our sponsor before we get introduced to our guest?
Rico: [00:01:39] Sure. So like, we’re, we’re being socially responsible at distances, right. And one of the great effects of what we’re doing is, is being supplied by fiber and optic cable, right. Unless you’re on a wireless device. But one of our main sponsors is Hargray Fiber. They’re new to Peachtree Corners and into the Metro area. They’re a company that provides fiber services to businesses as well as homes for businesses, is really where they’re at. And they are actually the backbone of the 5G network. An enabled highway of Curiosity Labs at Peachtree Corners. So if you’re looking for a company that can get you working well with site teleworking, with turn three key operations and actually with free software that you can use during this time, reach out to HargrayFiber.com and you’ll find that that can help you. Great friends and good sponsor.
Karl: [00:02:34] Well. Thank you for that. Well, we’re going to jump right in today. On today’s Capitalist Sage Podcast, we are so honored and blessed to have Lisa Proctor, who is a local business owner. She’s the president and CEO of Sanford Rose Associated Lake Linear, a global recruiting firm that helps place people in the right positions all around, all around the world. She also is the president of the Peachtree Corners business association. And we’re here to talk today about how small businesses in our community can find the resources locally to help them, not only just survive through this, this global pandemic that’s impacting everyone, but also ways in which they can thrive and support local businesses. Well, thanks so much for joining us today and being flexible with the arrangements for this.
Lisa: [00:03:31] Hi Karl. Hi, Rico. I’m glad to be here. It should be a fun, fun afternoon.
Rico: [00:03:36] Yes, it’s going to be, yeah, it’s going to be good, hopefully if we don’t have some technical issues.
Karl: [00:03:41] Or bumps.
Rico: [00:03:42] And we’ll be just fine.
Karl: [00:03:44] Yup. I just wanted to start with you telling us a little bit about reintroducing yourself to folks a little bit. You’ve been a member of Peachtree…
Rico: [00:03:52] Member of Peachtree…
Karl: [00:03:53] Corners.
Lisa: [00:03:54] Sure. I am actually one of the founding members of the PCBA and I’m the current president, and I’ve had the privilege of also owning my own executive search firm. So I’m right in the trenches, getting everything that other small businesses are seeing. I’m living it, feeling it, and seeing exactly what’s going on in the job market and then the unemployment. So, the great thing is you see it all in the community.
Karl: [00:04:22] Absolutely. Well, first, just want to maybe start off with, what have you heard as far as what, local businesses should be doing? I know we had only non-essential businesses being shut down. Maybe you can give, just share with us, for folks that may not have heard all the details of that. Just give us a general idea of what types of businesses and how it’s impacting people today.
Lisa: [00:04:50] Well, the biggest challenge I think is, people are trying to figure out the definition of essential businesses or whether they can use like restaurants or how to use restaurants or, and whether they can go to you know, get their car fixed or different kinds of things. So the big thing about the essential businesses are the easy ones are healthcare and you know, things like that. But even what you realize is learning how to work with the city of Peachtree Corners, because they also are doing some of the stay at home and the distancing. So making sure you take advantage of the resources, making sure that you really think about things in a different way. And one of the things that we found that we started doing is kind of trying to figure out how we could support businesses cause we were getting a lot of phone calls and a lot of questions. And one of the things that, the city is doing is they actually sent us a form that we were able to send out to multiple businesses that they can actually tell us what kind of services they are able to offer and what kinds of change in time and everything is, we’re all trying to find one central place to get information. I think that’s the biggest challenge is people are going in a lot of places, but they can’t get the right answers.
Karl: [00:06:11] So I, I know that grocery stores and our community gas stations, restaurants that can do takeout or delivery services are, and medical facilities are still operating in the community. What if you have a business where you’re allowed to operate remotely? You’re so good, at least function. Mostly those continue to work. And is there anything that would be impacting those businesses?
Lisa: [00:06:39] The biggest thing that I found is, a perfect example is a business that’s able to work remotely that might be, I’ll use an example that might even be doing something like they provide cigarettes to the local, ma, co, QT or one of the markets or something like that. They’re not allowed to work, but yet they can still work remotely, take orders if somebody wanted to do. But now they’re going to have to use a delivery company. And or some other way to get their services delivered. And so what I, I think the biggest thing that I’ve been the most impressed with though is restaurants that have also come up with creative ideas. Like, I know Taqueria Del Mar has come up with like, pantry idea or lazy dog. Those are the ones that I think have found a way to take the situation and turn it around and, and I think that helped.
Karl: [00:07:36] That’s one of the great things. Innovating in times of crisis. And one thing we’re telling a lot of business owners is to think about finding new ways to play. You may not be able to reach you, you may not be able to offer the same thing, but if you could find either new customers that can use your services in this time, or you may be able to have access to your supply chains or resources to offer something else that could help families at home, whether it’s delivery submits, you might have a pro, you may have access to products that are in high demand. Figuring out ways to pivot your business quickly and do it. And I’ve been seeing that throughout with a lot of restaurants, coming up with great ideas to do that.
Lisa: [00:08:23] Well, in fact, who would have thought like, one of the best commodities is offering free toilet paper, or you know, something that all of a sudden I’m like, what? There’s toilet paper. Yeah, that’s where I’m going to order from, and I’m laughing going, who would have thought? You know, that’s the big commodity right there. But I think that’s, it also is so simple in the way of saying, yes. Think out of the box right now. People don’t need big ideas, little ideas and little ways to help each other go a long way right now.
Rico: [00:08:50] Yeah. I’ve noticed actually some, some of the restaurants. Different restaurants, right? The higher price restaurants aren’t able to actually compete with the takeout in the curves. Some of the chains are doing better. Some of them have closed for the temporary. So it really varies. Who’s out there and who’s doing, you know.
Lisa: [00:09:10] Well, and it varies even by day. Like all of a sudden you’ll say, Oh, this is a great resource and all, and that was one of the things that we discovered when we put together the resource guide in the community. We finally had to put a date on it and say, look, this was accurate as of X date, because as soon as we put it out, we already had to have three changes.
Karl: [00:09:30] So I’m wondering, so we go through and look at people’s expenses right. Because this is a time where all businesses really have to pay attention to cash flow in their business. Pretty consistently, most retail businesses, one of their largest expenses is going to be rent and the liter that they owed to their landlord. There’s no, there is no universal answer to the rent payment. April 1st just passed. A lot of people have to pay. Have you been seeing what, what have you been hearing of what landlords and longtime, tenants or landlords in the
community, commercial tenants. Are you seeing them helping or being proactive and helping there?
Lisa: [00:10:13] I have not seen, I think a lot depends on how large your landlord is. If your landlord is also a small business and they’ve got a big mortgage on the building, I’ve seen that to be a little bit tricky. But I’ve seen, one thing I really liked that the city even did is they set up a program, that they’re calling it community partners, where they’re trying to encourage landlords to consider even just deferring the rent. I don’t even if they don’t forgive it, if somebody would defer the rent for two months. While I have a chance to get possibly one of those other SBA type loans or one of the other funding options, that helps me with saying, okay, well I try and adapt to this. Can I just not worry about cutting big checks? And I think that that’s what, but I have not seen a lot of forgiveness recently. I’ve heard a lot of calls and I’ve had a lot of people reach out and say, Hey, are you seeing any landlords that have been? But I personally have not seen a lot of that.
Rico: [00:11:17] Yeah. I don’t think we’re going to see more.
Karl: [00:11:19] Of fines or communication. And I love the concept of community partners. The landlord isn’t served well if businesses aren’t, don’t survive this, and they act except a partnership. One of the things that, that, one of the things that folks can do is open up the dialogue with the landlord and not asking for forgiveness, but I think deferral when there is a time to renegotiate the agreement for this period of…
Rico: [00:11:51] For this period of time, I’m sure.
Karl: [00:11:53] Or be able to come up with creative ways. That they both can be successful.
Lisa: [00:11:59] Right. Well, one of the things that I did with my landlord is they also provide me some administrative service, but we’ve even talked about, look, I still need some of that work done. Can we figure out how that administrative work can also be done remotely? You still want to be able to pay those people. You still want me to, you know, don’t cut my services, don’t, you know, let’s figure this out. And so we’re working through that dialogue and we’ll see how that works. But rather than just assuming they’re going to forgive it, they’re not going to forgive it. But the deferment might be an option.
Rico: [00:12:37] Is that an office suite?
Lisa: [00:12:39] I am. I’m in an office suite. And the challenge is the building itself is available 24/7, but part of my office suite includes answering my phones and being there to do. But if those services aren’t being provided, that’s where it’s, it creates the start of those conversations. Karl: [00:12:59] Right. So negotiating and make sure you’re communicating and writing any agreement. And I think it serves everyone to figure out a way to work through this together. The
secondary, I know a lot of folks may have loans and the SBA, we won’t talk much about the federal response and all the differences between that here, but, but one of the things that I know people can do is talk to their local banks. The CARES act and the loans that are being offered through that are going to be administered or processed through banks that are approved by the SBA, those local banks in this community that a lot of the business owners, it’s time to have those conversations with them as they help you with paying for those loans. Some banks are going to do it, some banks may not. But can you talk about some of the partners in the community on banks, that people need to, to get in communication.
Lisa: [00:13:59] Definitely. That they like, I know I’ve talked to, BB&T I’ve talked to Iberia bank. Bank of America, are three of them. Them that I know that have been doing, they’re training their staff too. That’s one of the things that I have learned is the challenges. The news media is giving you a lot of information quicker than the individual banks actually have had a chance to go through the training even themselves. But the good news is they’re gearing up, from what I understand, tomorrow is supposed to be the day that the banks are going to be accepting them. And I really think that the biggest thing the businesses need to be able to do though is make sure that they are, they come with their information ready to go. I think the challenge that we’ve had is some people tried to jump out there immediately. And they don’t have enough information. And so, I know I’ve also been talking to people like, Bill McDermott with, McDermott financial solutions cause he’s been working with a lot of people and doing the SBA loans. And the number one thing I’ve consistently heard from BB&T from Bank of America, Iberia is making sure that you have your, you understand what information to pull and that you’re prepared to provide that information before you start the process.
Rico: [00:15:27] So the loans, after that the, if I understand correctly, that are going to be available or some of it can be forgivable loans.
Lisa: [00:15:35] So some of it is grants. I’ve really seen it broken down in three pieces. There’s a loan that’s a traditional loan that you need to pay back and you need to be prepared to pay it back. There’s a second loan that has a forgivable portion as long as you actually use those funds for what they were intended. So it’s intended for payroll and payroll taxes. And one of the things that I’ve even been telling people is talk to your landlord saying, look, I’m applying for this loan. And part of the hard part of this one will also go towards paying the rent and paying those things. But if you give me this deferment, you give me time to get that money. And so I think that’s been, you know, and then the third, the third option is a grant that you know is a forgivable grant. And, but one question even I found myself unclear about is, Hey, if I applied for, you know, one of the, the grant can I also still apply for the loan? And that’s where I’m still tracking down saying, I’m not sure you can do both.
Rico: [00:16:42] Yeah. I think I saw something in their disclaimer saying, you cannot borrow a second, a second loan during the period of 2020. So the light, but you can’t do it at the same time. There’s thresholds for some of this stuff, right? Also because some of it’s that basing it on income, like for example, the personal checks coming out through, it’s either based on 2018, fall
2019 based on 2019 or if you filed it already. But ultimately it’s going to be based on 2020. So we may have to pay it back anyway. You are in that threshold part. Right?
Lisa: [00:17:25] Right. And I think that’s the, when people are hearing all of those pieces, that’s what gets everybody in that analysis paralysis is they want to jump, they want to do, and then they’re like, Oh gosh, I did the wrong thing. And that’s what I found when I was talking to the banks. Even like talking to Iberia, talking to, you know, the different bankers. They were saying, look, we’re having to be trained too, because when people are asking us questions, we have to give the right answers.
Rico: [00:17:53] There’s also a choice that has to be made, right?
Lisa: [00:17:55] Small truest is the BB&T and the SunTrust. That’s right. I forgot about that.
Rico: [00:18:01] As far as making that decision to take the loan, you also, you know, you want to. Pay your employees, right? That’s part of it. But what if you don’t have the work. You, this is a tough decision part. You don’t work. You want to keep your employees because you don’t want to furlough them necessarily because then you, I mean, they’re going to find another job somewhere else maybe, and then you’ve got to find new employees. But what if there’s no work and they’re taking this loan on to do this?
Lisa: [00:18:34] Well, in fact, the reason I’m slapping is you must have heard the conversations I’ve had with my staff this week because as we saw companies pulling their searches, you know, for us, if companies are pulling the jobs, that means they’re pulling the, the work right out from under us. And we walked into this two months ago thinking we were going to have the best year ever in 2020 and Hi-Fi in and being so excited and all of a sudden I was like, we have two feet on a banana peel and are sliding down the hill and didn’t even know what hit us. And trying to deal with that. And so what we’ve also been doing is I’ve made some commitments to my team saying, look, I’m committed to get some of these loans. I’m committed to keep you. We’re committed to be open and honest with each other. We’ll have open dialogue, but we’re finding other things for them to work on that will position us to be ready when the market comes back. So whether it’s doing something, you know, re-engaging with good candidates, reassuring other people, even if it means doing some sort of community service or doing something to keep the positivity going, but trying to make sure we’re positioning because we don’t know how long this is going to take. And it could, and you know, anybody who went through the 2008 recession, I literally opened my practice, my recruiting firm, like the two weeks before 2008 fell apart. So, you know, learning that and going through it, you realize you’ve got to think out of the box. And we all may have a 16 ounce glass with 8 ounces of water in it, but if you can find the positives and focus on the things you can do. My, it’s really helped my staff, but it’s also, I think it’s good to be honest with people. If you’re afraid you’re going to cut, it’s okay to say, look, we’re in it together and we’re going to try not to, but if we have to, you need to be prepared.
Rico: [00:20:36] And communications is best just because. I mean, you don’t have to, just, companies don’t have to let their employees totally come. They can do part time. They can adjust their pay. I mean, there’s options. It’s not just all or nothing.
Lisa: [00:20:50] Well, one of the things that I found that’s part of the CARES act and it was one I found, I was, probably a week ahead cause I tend to be pretty analytical. I jump out and start researching it. But probably one of the things that is part of the CARES act is the fact also, you don’t necessarily want people to be taking money out of their retirement. But if people have a 401k, some of the changes from the CARES act is where they took the threshold from, if your plan allows it, you can take your loan. You can take out a, from a $50,000 loan up to a hundred thousand dollar loan, but it’s based on 50%. You know, there’s thresholds. You have to have money in your plan, 401k but have employers. One of the things that I was talking to my staff is, look, if this is something, basically you’re borrowing, be prepared. You need to pay us back because you’re borrowing the money from your own retirement, but the interest you pay is your interest. So instead of getting the interest from the market, you’re getting that interest, and it might be some of that, that money that can help you get that. It’s real, and right now, as long as you pay it back, you’re not withdrawing it. You’re not taking it out of your long term future. But it’s a simple way to get some cash flow.
Rico: [00:22:12] I think also there’s an option there, and I’m not sure what the details of it are that you’ve, that they are waiving the 10% penalty.
Lisa: [00:22:20] They are. If you’re withdrawn, they are. If you’re not, if you’re not over the 59 and a half, they are waving that penalty. But you know, one of the things I was encouraging my team too is if you don’t have to, and the loan is allowed, do the loan, if you know you’re going to pay it back because then the money’s still there and you haven’t, you haven’t taken your, your long term future. You haven’t been into your retirement, but if people need to, at least they are waiving that.
Karl: [00:22:52] So there were some other things, and you highlighted something that was really powerful is this is a time for successful business owners to get to work. When, when times were busy and your customers were coming at you left and right, you didn’t have enough time to train in, have time to market prospects enough. You didn’t have time to think about your business plan. And investments and things you’re doing in the future. This pause that a lot of small business owners may give you an opportunity to work on the things that never got to the top of the list cause you were so busy. And we’ve been really promoting that. Let’s all business owners, most people that have been successful have lived through one or two of these cycles. And we’re what, what stands out from the ones that are successful? They actually work harder during the time they’re working on the things that are on the business versus in their business. So we advise folks, you know, if your business is now closed, there is not enough marketing prospecting. There are investments that you could be making in people training. You can conduct a Zoom training meeting. Well on different things, and even when you get back, when things open up again, we’re in a world that might’ve changed a little bit. Your
safety practices might have to change because now it used to be safety glasses and steel toe shoes. In some jobs we may have to be more, address viruses and, and contact with people. So what does that look like? What are the true, how do you retrain your staff to be safer in that now’s the time to execute those plans and train?
Lisa: [00:24:41] Well, and what I’m finding with my staff is rather than them just having to come to me with ideas, what I’m saying is, look, let’s put it together, our Santa Claus list. Let’s put up together some of our big ideas. What are things that maybe you think. That we can do, and I find just having that dialogue, number one, they’re coming up with some good ideas and they’re coming up with markets of, look, if we know that this is going to be, what are markets that maybe we don’t currently work in, or what are markets that we need to do the research we need to do the heavy lifting now, but because they think they’re part of the solution, I’m finding it also keeps them from thinking about what they’re not doing and what’s not there. And we’ve done a lot more of those kinds of things. And I think you make a good point is we want to be positioned to come out of it. And this is, instead of looking at it as a negative thing, we’re actually able to do some things that we haven’t, we haven’t been able to do.
Karl: [00:25:43] How have you, I know one of the things that, that’s a real practical thing is what if one of your employees and what should be business owners be thinking about, and helping both the employees and following… have you heard or ahead of any advice or thoughts on that?
Lisa: [00:26:07] Karl, I didn’t hear part of your question. Would you mind repeating it?
Karl: [00:26:12] Yeah. what if an employee got where to where to get tested for COVID-19 and one of our small businesses in our community. What are some of the things that a business owner can do to help support that? Or what would be some of the right things they should be thinking about doing? If an employee were to test positive.
Lisa: [00:26:31] I, in fact, what a great question. I think that, we’re even experiencing some of that, not directly, with my business, but we’re experiencing some of that with my husband’s and being able to do simple things like, you know what, it’s reaching out to the family, reaching out to the, to the employee, seeing if is their meals. Maybe you could deliver to the family or some just little things. I’m finding it doesn’t have to be big things. But also making sure people feel like they’re doing good things, but also giving the other employees who haven’t tested positive, giving them a platform to kind of talk about, do you have any concerns or, you know, are there some things, because if it was an employee that tested positive. And they had been in close proximity or they had not been working remotely. Working through some of those fears and making sure some of those resources are being addressed in that direction is critical because it creates quite a buzz. When all of a sudden somebody hears, especially with HIPAA, you know, you hear from HR, Oh, you know, there’s a person in our department that has it, but you know, we can’t tell you who it is. And everybody’s looking around going, well, I can tell you who’s not here today. And so you kind of can figure it out, but
everybody’s kind of being careful with privacy, but at the same time want to be there for really supporting each other.
Karl: [00:27:58] Yeah. I think you’re making a good point. I mean, I would definitely consult with both HR professionals and so on. So you’re following that along with many of the acts. There’s the HR 62 Oh one that has included COVID-19, related illnesses and, the family medical leave act and some of those other policies. So some of the protections as well as some of the benefits of that. Also, if you check out a lot of the costs that might be associated with, employees that suffer or going to, there’ll be some tax advantages and, and credits that are due, you can consult with your tax professionals and advisors on some of those, but the main point that the government, the federal government is they’re building the support structure to allow on earth to make good sound decisions, to protect the safety of the individual employees and everyone else there. So one of the things is to create a culture where people disclose. If you create a culture where people are afraid or have fear of telling the truth, they’re not in cause they’re fearful for their job, they might put more people at risk. But this is a time for business leaders to step up and display leadership and communicate with the people what your policy is, how you respect their privacy yet protect them and support them as they navigate through this and those that are successful and new that might have employees for life.
Lisa: [00:29:33] Right. Well, and you brought up such a great point with that. And what I’m also finding is. Reach out, you know, to your healthcare insurance provider as the employer, if you have it, now’s the time to reach out to them to understand too. Are there any other things that we don’t know about with a particular insurance policy that we need to be aware of? Are there benefits that might kick in that they’re aware of that we just haven’t had time to research? Because there’s so much information I’m finding you know, being able to reach out to the CPA, being able to reach out to those people. They are experts in their niche. And then we as small business owners don’t have to try and be an expert at everything. We can leverage their resources.
Karl: [00:30:18] One of the things that, you know, will, may, become a new norm that everyone locally, we haven’t seen, but, I know Rico and I are from New York and I have a lot of family up there and when I hear what’s going on there from friends that are in the medical profession, are there, it’s serious what’s happening there. They’re taking it seriously. They’re under an awful onslaught. But what they advise to places that are going through that is following the recommendation. So when we say social distancing, I think at the beginning there was a perception. There was some ticket that kind of meant more like a spring break approach. Also distancing versus really hard conscious decision to keep the six foot, recommended, distance from people, all of those things. But now we’re hearing things like masks starting to appear. I’m not an expert and I don’t know the medical opinion on whether it’s good or bad, but what I think we can do in the community is if we see people. Wearing masks in the grocery stores or checkout, we could, we could not react to it as if there’s something wrong with that person, I think. I think the mask is, the strategy around masks is actually a base assumption where you have it and don’t know it and you’re protecting from passing it to someone else. And so if people
are doing that, it’s almost a sign of respect to the other person. That you’re trying to protect them cause you don’t know. We don’t have the testing at the volumes that we need yet to, to distinguish that. So I could see that starting to ship most places you go a few gloves, a few masks, but in the next couple of weeks, if we start seeing masks or we still could nod, but that might become a new norm for a while.
Lisa: [00:32:08] Well, and I think that you make a good point because I actually happened to be somebody that has an autoimmune disease. I have asthma. And so I have actually been working from home, for the last three weeks, and I’ve been very aware of. You know, wait a minute, this is, I’m used to being out there, you know, right in front of people jumping out there, you know, being on the front line and so is my husband, and all of a sudden we’re saying it’s okay. Not because we don’t know, because he’s been going to Emory every day and he’s totally around all of that. With all of those things. Emory’s a test center, and they’re doing the trials. So there’s every opportunity. And so even if we just have said, we’re not wearing the mask because we’re afraid of somebody else, we’re wearing it to protect each other or to be that protective. And I think that once people kind of shift to go, wow, it’s, I’m doing it because I care, not because it’s some strange germaphobe or something. I think when people start realizing it’s because we care about each other or why we’re starting to think that way.
Rico: [00:33:16] Isn’t that funny how, you know, we look at the Asian society, China and South Korea in those areas, they are always wearing mass to a degree or another for pollutants in the air or for you. Mainly for that, actually, I know I’ve had a couple of people that I know that went, that lived and all back from South Korea. Half the time they had to wear the mask because of yellow minutes. If you went to China, I mean, it was just as bad in Shanghai and even Beijing, not so, not that much better I bet. But here, it’s almost like you’re Americans are afraid to, where we’re almost like John Wayne, that we know we don’t need to wear it. We’re good. I can already see the guys in New York, Brooklyn say, well, me, forget about it. We don’t need to do that. And that’s bad. You know? It’s a behavior shift as a society and as we all can pick apart in how we respond to it. So you know, if you feel that you should feel you need to wear a mask or, or as policies change or recommendations change, just, you know, realize just for the time being, it’s still being neighborly to, to wear a mask. And until we can get this on the control and get the numbers down and start to turn the corner on it.
Lisa: [00:34:36] No, I think it’s, I think it’s really critical and I even find that because of why I have asthma, I even have to wear a mask just regularly. Sometimes when I work in my suburban office, because even though it’s an executive suite, if somebody is using paint in the office or somebody is doing a trigger for me there are strong smells and so paints and stuff, so I wear it as much for my own protection. So I’m not doing that. But the first time I did it, I had that feeling of, Oh my gosh, why am I doing this? This is so strange. But once you realize it’s really for the right reasons, I think people get much more comfortable with them.
Karl: [00:35:15] There’s one more thing I wanted to ask you about the many businesses here that, networking was a big component of how they built relationships and built their business.
And now that we can’t physically meet in places, what are some of the things the future corner business association and other groups are doing to allow people to still connect with others even though we’re socially distancing?
Lisa: [00:35:42] Well, in fact, we are actually rolling out a whole PCBA resource center. And then the second thing that we did is we created an expanded area for our members where they’re able to now post, if they’re doing their own webinars, their own. You know, everybody’s doing a lot of, you know, whether they’re zoom info meetings or WebExes or whatever, and what we’re doing is making sure that people can put out what’s relevant to them. You know, we have people to do, so we’ve got that up on our site. We’re, we’re definitely going to be doing, some informational type, webinars and things. we’re trying to find creative ways because let’s face it, we’re all so used to being able to get together face to face. And so we’re, we’re definitely working on that. And then the third thing that we really have said is, if somebody is not able to do it face to face, if somebody says, Hmm. We’re trying to encourage people to do some like member blogs or information blogs that we can share out, whether it’s in, in different ways, through, you know, member directories or different things so that people know like, Hey, there’s resources right here. They can help you with setting up maybe your employees working from home. I know you mentioned Hargray Fiber can help people. And so there’s just a lot of great resources and tools. There’s some technology companies. And making sure that people are taking the time to update their, like their membership directory listings, making sure that people really know what people do and, you know, take the time to reach out and have coffee. Just have coffee over Zoom instead of having coffee at you know, one of our local restaurants and get to know each other. Take that. It’s that same idea of, Hey, you’ve got the time set up. You don’t need us necessarily to set up formal things. We’ll make it easy for you guys to jump in and talk, but talk to each other and, and make those face to face connections.
Rico: [00:37:46] You know what’s funny, I was talking to Pastor Jay Hackett the other day we did a podcast together and all the churches and talking about the ultimate, not networking, but the ultimate people gathering, right? A church is no, no better example. And they’re thriving. They’re doing Sunday services, even though that’s prerecorded on Monday, but they’re doing a lot of the, One-on-one or group 20-30 people in a group that’s zooming it. They’re all out there doing all sorts of, you know, fellowship things and outreach and stuff. So it can be done.
Lisa: [00:38:21] It can be done. In fact, our March business after hours, one of the things that we did is we were supposed to do a business after hours networking at Marla’s. And so we’d talk to Marla and we said, look, we all know that we’re going to have to just order our food, and we will just walk past each other as we’re walking to pick up. But Marla gave us discount, and we all, during 5:30 to 7:30 people could go pick up food and we could wave to each other in the parking lot, but we just couldn’t, couldn’t touch and couldn’t shake. And, you know, but I think those are the kind of things people want that interaction. And I think that’s, we got to have some fun with it.
Karl: [00:38:59] Well, I want to thank you so much for coming on. We’re going to continue to do more on keeping, connecting with people, making sure that they’re able to connect. But, we
want to thank Lisa Proctor, President of the PCBA, the CEO of Sanford Rose Associates Lake Lanier for just coming out and giving encouragement to the local business community. And I think you, you said it great. Even though for now we have to do this social distancing, that doesn’t mean we have to stay distant. We could still communicate, just use technology and do it a little different ways, to stay connected. So if you need help, what are some of the places that they can reach you?
Lisa: [00:39:52] Definitely check out on, on our website, we’re going to be, we’re about to launch. It should be live by the end of today, but we’re going to have a business COVID-19 resources center. We’re also going to have a tab out there for webinars and different things. Our members are doing different hot deals, different. We’ve got restaurant guides out there. We’ve gotten just lots of good tips and tricks, but also, guess what? The telephone works great. Our phone numbers are still there. Even if we’re not able to catch the limelight we can call people back. We’re happy to answer questions. We’re still doing emails. And so I think the good thing is just hearing each other’s voices is probably as critical as everything else. And we’re still there and we’re there for each other in different ways.
Karl: [00:40:45] And I just want to say, thank you so much for that. And the one thing that I’ll challenge everyone out there in the community that’s out there, we’ve taken a practice of eating out, an extra day a week. And we try to rotate it as best we can through the restaurants that are served, but continue to support the communities. If you think about it, when you’re hanging out to lunch or going out to dinner with colleagues in the community, you’d be spending. And so for, for us, we’re going to try to continue to support that. And if everyone did a little bit of that, that would really help a lot of those local restaurant businesses. But also some of the other businesses that may be able to get gift certificates for the future, if it’s massage or hair or some of these other locations. So there’s lots of ways that we could all pitch in and support the small business community that really drives our economy. I’m Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors of Atlanta Peachtree, and just want to tell everyone, please be safe and hang in there. Rico?
Rico: [00:41:52] I want to, you know, hopefully everyone can stay safe out there over the next few weeks, through until the end of April almost. I guess that’s where we’re going. We’re still publishing Peachtree Corners Magazine. We’ll actually hit the post office next week. So all 18,800 households in the city of Peachtree Corners and beyond will get a copy of the magazine. We are covering how the school system is handling COVID-19 and digital learning days and weeks, cause spring breaks almost offer, and they’re going to be going back to digital learning next week. So that hasn’t stopped. We’re also talking, there’s a story about doing good and homegrown nonprofits. We’ve done some stories that were in the planning stage about youth baseball and middle school soccer. So we’ve gotten some of that in there. And we have an article in there about how the city is working through this crisis and how some of the businesses are going through that. And I want to thank Lisa for helping to provide some background information on that. So that magazine will be out there. We’ll be publishing this stuff online, and we are doing between the Capitalist Sage and Peachtree Corners Life. We’re going
to be doing more podcasts. I just did one, like I said with Jay Hackett, we talked about Peachtree Corners Baptist, and how faith institutions are working in this COVID-19 environment. So a lot of stuff coming up.
Lisa: [00:43:17] Great. So thank you.
Karl: [00:43:22] And thank you Lisa for joining us today. Take care.
Join UrbanEBB host Rico Figliolini for a conversation with Gabrielle Mills, co-founder and CEO of Sourced, a full-service back-office firm supporting small to mid-market businesses. She shares how she and her mother built a company that provides accounting, marketing, HR, staffing, and administrative support—all under one brand.
Learn about the challenges entrepreneurs face with business operations and how outsourcing can provide the help they need. Gabrielle also discusses:
A $12M business that never checked its financials
The importance of trust in outsourcing key business functions
The balance between people, technology, and business success
Sourced’s commitment to giving back to local charities
Timestamp: 00:02:20 – Sourcing Solutions for Entrepreneurs 00:07:26 – Building Trust and Expertise to Serve Clients 00:14:53 – Fixing Broken Books for Business Owners 00:18:18 – Encouraging Diversity in Talent Acquisition 00:19:57 – Embracing Mistakes and Developing Processes 00:23:12 – Giving Back to Local Charities 00:25:34 – Leveraging Technology to Enhance People-Centric Services
Podcast Transcript:
00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini
Hey, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of UrbanEbb here based in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. I appreciate you joining us. We’re a little smart city just north of Atlanta. I have a great guest here, Gabrielle Mills. She’s the founder and CEO of Sourced. Hey, Gabrielle. Thanks for joining us.
00:00:20 – Gabrielle Mills
Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me.
00:00:22 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, no, I appreciate you being here. We’re going to learn a lot from you, I’m sure, this morning. And this is one of those freezing mornings here in Georgia that really never happens, like down to 20.
00:00:32 – Gabrielle Mills
It is so cold. I’m very cranky about it.
00:00:36 – Rico Figliolini
Yes, it’s amazing. But it’ll warm up in a week. But before we get to our interview, I just want to say thank you to two sponsors we have that have been with us. Appreciate the support of our journalism, these podcasts, of the magazines as well. One of them is EV Remodeling, Inc. They’re a company that has done work from design to build. whole house renovation, as well as just redoing your kitchen, your bathrooms and such. They’ve worked with over 260 families. They’re based in Peachtree Corners. Eli, the owner of the company, is a really great guy. I think you should check out their website. You could do a virtual consultation with them as well and check out their portfolio. So go to evremodelinginc.com and find out a little bit more about them. Also, our second sponsor is Vox Pop Uli, also based here at Peachtree Corners. They’re a company that takes your brand and brings it to life, essentially. They’re a family business, father, son, other family members in there, another daughter in there handling marketing. And even members of their employees are considered part of the family. It’s just a great, well-run company. We just did a podcast with them recently. You should check that out. But they try to bring your brand awareness out there. They can do anything from truck wraps to print on any object, just come to them, give them a challenge, and they will actually step up to that challenge. You might think they can’t print on it, but God knows they’ll find a way to do what you need to bring to that trade show and to make your business stand out as a retail operation or whatever. So check them out, vox-pop-uli.com, and it’s V-O-X-P-O-P-U-L-I.com. So now that we’ve gotten our sponsorships out of the way, Gabrielle, appreciate you staying with me like that. So tell us a little bit about how you started the business, why you chose the word sourced, and what the business is.
00:02:39 – Gabrielle Mills
Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. So I can’t tell you the answer to that question without acknowledging my business partner, Chrissy Strohmeyer, who is also my mother. So we are a mom and daughter team. We have just enjoyed the heck out of building this company together, but really my stories are her stories and vice versa. We started the business because we wanted to be entrepreneurs and we wanted to help other businesses grow and be successful. We think entrepreneurs are the salt of the earth people. They’re the reason for our economy. They create jobs. They’ve got so many great ideas. And they are the last people that get a helping hand because they don’t always have enough cash, right? That’s why we started Sourced. We actually went to business owners and asked them, because we didn’t have this idea. We asked business owners what they need, where they were underserved and how, if they were to do it all over again, kind of what they would do. And we put all of their answers up on a whiteboard that’s currently in our office. In fact, you saw it when you came over to our office the other day. If that whiteboard could talk, man. And we looked at all of their problems, all of their suggestions, all of the things they were struggling with. And our services came out of that. So Sourced is a back office services company serving small to mid-market companies. And the easiest way to describe what it is that we do is we basically have five businesses under one brand name. So on the fractional side of our business, we are a full accounting firm, full service accounting firm, a full service marketing agency, outsourced HR, administrative support. And then not fractionally, we do direct hire full time placement. So all of those ideas came from entrepreneurs that we spoke to that they needed help. And we said, we’ll do it.
00:04:38 – Rico Figliolini
It’s amazing. All under one roof.
00:04:42 – Gabrielle Mills
Well, we didn’t mean exactly to create five businesses at the same time. That was more of God’s plan. But, you know, here we are.
00:04:51 – Rico Figliolini
No, no, I can appreciate that. I’ve come across a lot of people in different businesses doing different things. So you do look at where your services can expand into. So it makes sense for where you guys are coming from.
00:05:04 – Gabrielle Mills
So you asked me where the name comes from. And I don’t get that question a lot. And it’s actually a really funny story. When I was working my big girl corporate job at IHG, Intercontinental Hotels Group, I had a relative that worked in the company. And she was the only person that knew that I was thinking about leaving and starting my own thing. So I floated the concept to her. And she loved the concept. At this time, we didn’t have talent acquisition. We only had a fractional client or fractional services. And our name was the Atlanta Assistance Group. And we were going to go by TAAG, T-A-A-G. And she was in branding for IHG. And she goes, I have to tell you, that name isn’t scalable. It’s easily forgettable. And you also have TAG, the Technology Association.
00:05:57 – Rico Figliolini
That’s right.
00:05:58 – Gabrielle Mills
And she’s like, I really think that you need to rethink your name. This was seven days before I was going to quit my job and do this and tell them I was going out. In which case they would want to know what the company is, what our name is, all the things. And so the next seven days, Chrissy and I were just on fire trying to think of everything. The amount of hours we spent digging through the thesaurus was crazy. And one day we were, I was driving and I was playing around with the word outsourced, resource, I was trying to come up with a play on words there and Sourced just came about and I called her and I was like, what do you think of this? And she’s like, I love it. And I think we came up with it two days before I quit.
00:06:48 – Rico Figliolini
Wow. And I love the website name though, getsourced.com. I mean, it just like makes sense to be able to do that. So, you know, you’ve been dealing with a lot of businesses, helping them and stuff. Sourcing is an issue sometimes, especially if you’re doing financial fractional work like that. And small business owners, maybe the larger ones like 10 million plus different, or even let’s say 5 million plus different, right? And I’m not sure what your sweet spot is, but the trust process to get a business to trust you to do their work because they’re sourcing it out to you. You’re not in the office. How do you do that? How do you gain traction with that? How do you gain their confidence to be able to provide the services that will make their business better?
00:07:37 – Gabrielle Mills
I think there’s a lot of ways that we do that naturally. First and most importantly, we have an amazing, amazing team of people and they really do the selling for us. Most of our business comes from word of mouth and referral because the people that work with us have such a great experience with our team and our people that that trust is kind of transferred already over because the referrer has had a great experience. That helps. Chrissy and I are involved in every single sale at this point before we pass it off to our team. We obviously have been through the entrepreneurial journey. We’re in our ninth year. We’ve done all the bumps and bruises, made all the mistakes. We’ve seen a lot of other people’s mistakes. We can kind of provide a lot of guidance during the sales process. So I think that builds trust. And not to be understated, the processes and the standards that we’ve built over time, we know how to fall back to the level of our training, regardless of the situation at hand. So we really lean into that when we’re talking to clients or prospects because they want to know how things are going to go. You can have a really good person who’s really friendly, but they may not know what they’re doing. That’s where the processes and our training comes in. We don’t have to do a lot of training because our people are already very experienced. But the way that we do things, we want that to be standardized. So we train on how the Sourced way is. So the client is experiencing something consistent.
00:09:14 – Rico Figliolini
So when you’re training, obviously, that’s an internal thing that you’re doing. There’s always industry trends, right? I mean, taxes is one thing where there’s always an update every year, different things going on. God knows probably this year will be a lot of things going on, accounting and stuff. But how do you keep ahead of some of the trends then or adapting to the needs of the entrepreneurs that you’re reaching out to? Because I’m sure that changes and evolves too.
00:09:42 – Gabrielle Mills
It does. I mean, you keep up with current events. We listen to our clients. Our clients know a lot. Our clients are very, very smart and we’re industry agnostic. So we get the benefit of seeing lots of different things from lots of different people and lots of different industries. So we just kind of like by osmosis learn things. But I think any good leader, regardless of if you own the business or you’re just working in the business or you have some kind of your stakeholder somewhere, I think anybody that is worth their salt is kind of always keeping up with. What’s going on and how does the business need to adapt and how does my department need to adapt and how do we grow and how do we improve? And I think just by having a regular practice like that, where you’re always kind of investigating it and looking at ways of improving, it’s more natural than it is forced to grow and change as the world changes.
00:10:37 – Rico Figliolini
Do you find going through the things you’re going through that, I mean, obviously, The day-to-day work is never-ending, right? It’s a process. Some days, some weeks, it’ll be the same as other weeks. But every once in a while, you get a challenge. You find something that you have to overcome within a business maybe, within your own business. Do you have any success stories that you can share that relates to that?
00:11:06 – Gabrielle Mills
Yes, I’ll tell you my favorite one. And it’s one of the more recent ones too. In our nine years of business, we have seen a lot come through our doors. We always tell people, especially those coming in for accounting. Accounting and talent acquisition are our two most popular services. And we started in accounting. That’s kind of our bread and butter. And people are always very vulnerable about like, oh, my books are bad. I had a bad accountant. I don’t know what I’m doing. We always tell them we’re like doctors. We just want to, give us the real, real, we’ll fix it. Like accounting is not a human body. So like we can actually fix it because it’s just numbers. But we’ve seen a lot of horror stories. You cannot scare us. You cannot surprise us. We’ve seen a lot in nine years. Recently, I think this client came on board early last year. And it was a $12 million construction client. And they have been in business for like 20 years or something. And when we were working on, we got referred into this client and we went and we talked to them and they were having an issue with their accountant that was internal. And they wanted to let that person go, but she knew way too much in the business. So they were like, we need somebody that can fix the craziness that’s happening in the books. And you can imagine they’re large books, $12 million company. We need to create some kind of redundancy in a situation where we need to let somebody go and we can’t, we’re beholden to them. And we just don’t know anything about our books. We’ve never seen them. And the best part of that meeting was that Chrissy asked, or she was talking about the financials, the financial reports. And the client stops her and she goes, wait, why do I need to look at my financial reports? And our jaws just dropped because this is a $12 million company. They’ve been in business for like 20 years. They have done a phenomenal job building their company. They had no idea the importance of their numbers. They didn’t know what their, like how their money was transacting. They, I don’t know how they were running it. And so that was a lot to overcome. It was probably one of our longer onboarding processes, but we got that client off of QuickBooks desktop and onto QuickBooks online so they could see their numbers, right. Their books were done and I’m not blaming this person that ended up leaving. There was reasons why this was, but the books were entirely backwards. So where there were things that should have been a positive, they were showing a negative and a negative should have been a positive. So all their numbers were backwards and then nothing was set up properly. So we had to do a whole setup. We had to clean the whole thing and we just had a meeting with them yesterday just talking about our usual check-in, how things are going. We’re constantly looking at improving this account. And they were just saying they have never felt more secure in an accounting firm. They said, regardless of how our team changes, you guys are our people. You’ve taught us, you’ve changed everything, you’ve done everything. And we just, they were showering us with lovely things and it just warmed our hearts so much because this was one heck of a undertaking. But I also, give them a lot of credit too, because that one, it was not a cheap project. And two, that took a lot of trust in them too, to be like, I don’t know you guys and you have to fix all of these problems at once. And it was a lot of work that they had to do and we had to do. And so they put a lot into the relationship as well. And it was, they’re probably one of my favorite clients now. And it’s, will probably be my biggest success story for a while, just from the scale.
00:15:01 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I have a friend, Karl Barham, who owns Transworld Business. He consults, he buys and sells business for people. And it’s constantly amazing how many, not just half a million dollar companies, but $10 million companies, sometimes their books are so bad that they have to like step away and say, you know what, let’s fix this up. You may have to wait a year before you can sell this business just because the books are so bad. You know, it’s just like, there’s that.
00:15:31 – Gabrielle Mills
We don’t like to see it. Obviously it breaks our hearts and we can, we can fix it. We have the, we can fix anything at this point. But it’s unfortunate because they didn’t get bad because of that person. They got bad because that person didn’t have the support that they needed. Likely that the entrepreneur was not an accountant. They shouldn’t be. They should be building their business, doing whatever it is that they’re doing. Accounting is important, but this is why we went into businesses. You need to go do your dream. We’ve got the stuff that, yes, you need to keep up with, but you don’t need to know how to do it. We can show you, but you don’t need to know how to do this. You just need to know what your numbers look like.
00:16:19 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, I’m surprised that when their accountant did their work at the end of the year, I can’t imagine it was the same person doing it. It had to be someone else doing it. And no one figured it out.
00:16:33 – Gabrielle Mills
Well, with this particular client, there was a couple migrations in systems that caused that reversal. So they started on one system and moved to QuickBooks Desktop. which reversed everything. And then the person that was working in the office, she would do a lot of things right. But there’s a lot of different ways to do accounting right, quote unquote. But she continued the backwardness because that’s how it had to be done. It was very complicated.
00:17:02 – Rico Figliolini
And I’m sure. And sometimes you’re down a path and you don’t want to leave that path. You just keep going and just figure it’ll work itself out at some point.
00:17:11 – Gabrielle Mills
That happens in accounting of like, we just start fresh. Like right now we’re getting a lot of clients that need cleanups and we only have to go back a month and a half because it’s the 21st today. When we’re in July, we’re like, okay, how far back do you want to go? Or not July, but more like October. They’re like, we can clean up from January or we can just hold off and start fresh in the next January.
00:17:36 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s a tough decision. You said before you’re agnostic business-wise a little bit, but are there types of businesses that may benefit most from what you all do or that you target or that you’d prefer working with? Or have strength in those industries.
00:17:53 – Gabrielle Mills
We have developed patterns of clients that tend to come to us. So on the accounting side, we do a lot of construction. That’s the example that I gave. We have a couple of YouTube clients, which is kind of neat. We do a lot of work for attorneys. Accounting for law is very specialized. So we do that. On the marketing side, they’re completely across the board. There is no consistency whatsoever. Same with administrative support. HR gets thrown into any monthly recurring service that we have. So again, there’s no consistency. On the talent acquisition side, we have quite a bit of consistency. Although there’s randomness throughout. We do a lot in, we still do a lot in law. We get a lot of financial roles. So we do anything from accountants, tax managers, tax seniors. We do a lot in IT, particularly in the cybersecurity market. A lot in finance, some in construction, not really all that much. Did I say finance? Property management in talent acquisition. Yeah, those are about the consistent ones in talent acquisition. But again, we kind of see it all. At this point in our business, we actually get really excited when we see a business or an industry that we’ve never worked in before. So for marketing, I was just pitching a client yesterday who’s opening a shooting sports facility and gun range. I have never done that before. And I was like, oh, this is different. This is unique. We’ve got research. Same with anything in our talent acquisition department. If it’s different, we’re like, okay, this is exciting. Because usually, I mean, we just see a lot of businesses come through here.
00:19:48 – Rico Figliolini
Well, that’s cool. Yeah, especially when you see a lot of different businesses like that. We talked about success stories. As a business person, I think any business person, if they’re honest with themselves, will say, yes, we make mistakes every once in a while. New situations arise that they’ve never seen before and it’s a problem that they have to overcome. Have there been any mistakes in your business journey or that you’ve seen in other businesses besides, obviously, the accounting issue? But anything that you’ve overcome as an entrepreneur, as a business person?
00:20:27 – Gabrielle Mills
No, Rico, we’re absolutely perfect. We’ve never made a mistake.
00:20:30 – Rico Figliolini
I could see that.
00:20:34 – Gabrielle Mills
Oh gosh no. I tell people, people ask me about our journey a lot. They’re just curious about our story and how we came to be. And we love telling it. I always tell people, Chrissy and I didn’t have experience in any of these things before we started. We just had a dream and wanted to be, help businesses and build a business ourselves. All of this we have learned from the ground up, having no experience with the exception of like general business acumen and general sales acumen. But we’re not accountants. We are not recruiters. I did start in marketing, but not tactically. So I always say that I went to the school of hard knocks, got a couple of degrees from there. And that’s how I got to where I’m at because we’ve made every mistake in the book. We’ve had clients that have trusted us and loved us through some mistakes that we’ve made to get us to where we are. I would say the biggest piece of advice or mistake that I made that I learned from was Chrissy came into the business from day one. And she was telling me and our director of account management, Maureen, she was like, we’ve got to focus on our processes. We’ve got to focus on our processes. Maureen and I were focused on the people and just serving the people. And in year three, which was our hardest year yet, we got so many different challenges and scenarios that were really, really difficult. And what Chrissy was telling us from day one finally got through to Maureen and I of like, oh, this is why we need processes and standards. This makes sense now. So it took a lot of heartache to really understand why those are important. But now it has been the secret sauce to our business because we know how to hire off of them. So if people aren’t already operating or have experience with that certain frame of mind, we know that they’re likely not a fit or they have to be at least willing to be coached into that direction. We’ve developed consistency because our process is our standard. We’re always making our processes better. We’re always looking to make them beefier. We never would have gotten there if we didn’t learn that lesson.
00:22:53 – Rico Figliolini
And sometimes you do. I mean, you have to learn your lesson. It’s like bringing up kids. They want to do their own mistakes. They don’t want to be told to watch out for that step. And they’ll do their own mistakes.
00:23:04 – Gabrielle Mills
She was a broken record there for a few years. And then the light bulb finally went off. And Maureen and I were like, oh, okay. Now it took us some tears to learn it. But we got there. Now we’re on there.
00:23:19 – Rico Figliolini
I’m sure. So you’re a local business. Obviously, coming out to meet with you and your mom and the rest of the team was nice to take a tour and find out what you’re doing there. You do give back. I know you’re good people. You’re giving back to the community. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about some of the local charities that you’ve given back to?
00:23:45 – Gabrielle Mills
So early in our business, we decided that we’re not in business, we’re in business for the joy of being in business. We’re not in business to make a gazillion dollars and cash out. While that would be lovely, we would totally not turn our noses up at that. We wanted to at least serve our clients and then serve people that never really came into contact with Sourced and use the business as an opportunity to give back because we believe that if we’re successful, we have been giving blessings and so we should be giving blessings out. So we committed from day one that we were going to donate 10% of our monthly profits to charity. And those charities would be selected by our team of people. So every year, in December, we put out a survey to our team. And our team can nominate a charity that is important to them. And we decided in January, up to three charities that we’re going to give to that year, and every quarter we look at each month that we’ve made profit, take that pool of money, cut it by, divide it out equally across however many charities we have that year and give them out. We have served, some of those have been large organizations, but our favorite ones are the ones that are smaller and local. We started the first couple of years working with an organization called Connections Homes, which is out of Suwanee. They help kids who are aging out of foster care really like with support to become adults, but also they’re not really adults. They’re 17, 18, 19, and they still don’t know how to do the world. That’s an organization that we’ve supported. We’ve supported an organization called Ignite Hope, which is another foster care association. We’ve done neighborhood cooperative ministries, which is a, for those who are local, you guys know that it’s a very large nominal nonprofit here in Norcross. And this year we’re partnering with an organization called Because One Matters, which ironically is another foster care organization. I just realized that there seems to be a pattern. So we tend to give to the kids.
00:26:08 – Rico Figliolini
No, I like that. I like the fact that you’re giving locally and it’s 10% of your profit each month is what you split up, which is great. It’s almost like tithing in a way.
00:26:18 – Gabrielle Mills
Yeah. And that’s how it came about. We wanted to tithe using the business. We give once a quarter based on the months because what we didn’t want to do is we would have one month go to one charity and that was a particularly good month. But then the next month maybe wasn’t that good of a month. So we wanted to balance it out. So we look at all the profits that come in from the quarter and then equally disperse it.
00:26:39 – Rico Figliolini
That is cool. Alright. We’ve gotten sort of to the end of our interview time, but I’m sure that there’s things that we could talk a lot more about. Is there anything that I’ve left out? Anything you’d like to share? Maybe services that you may be looking at expanding into the coming year or anything along those lines?
00:27:00 – Gabrielle Mills
So we’re likely not expanding into other services because we have five already and that’s enough. We are finding that there’s a lot of growth to be had in our talent acquisition department. So we’re eager to see what that ends up looking like through the year. What we really want to focus on in terms of like diversification or innovation, which I think is really where your question comes from, is how we utilize technology to make our services more streamlined and more advanced. We will never not have the support of our people. We are a people business. We will go under before computers take over our jobs. However, there’s a lot of really great technology that if you use it right and smartly, we can make profit margins better, save our clients money, be able to reach more people. So we’re going to try to figure out how we can lean into that a little bit.
00:28:02 – Rico Figliolini
So that’s a great path to go down for a quick minute, maybe. Because AI technology is something that everyone, every business is tackling and using in a variety of ways, right? ChatGPT, Grok3, there’s a bunch of them. Claude, I mean, there’s a whole bunch. DeepSeek, I mean, you could just go on and on with these things. And every business, every industry is trying to figure out how they can use that, right? And some use it badly and others use it better. Sometimes it’s used for support or for research versus making decisions. So are you finding that you have to also look at that to augment or to add a complexity to the service you provide?
00:28:52 – Gabrielle Mills
So what stands out in your question to me is the have to. I think that nobody really has to, but I’m in an industry that if I don’t look at it, my industry will die because it is based on people. And if you don’t lean into the technology, you run the risk of the world thinking they don’t need people anymore. And then you’re obsolete. So we don’t have to do anything. But if we want to stay in business, we should be looking at how to utilize it better. The beauty of our business is these are things that people are always going to need. And computers can’t replace entirely. You always need a person overseeing or creating or some version of managing what the computer does. So we always have a people element to it. What we’re looking at with technology is how do we make ourselves and our processes and how we do things better and faster using technology and use the human brain where the human brain needs to interject.
00:30:01 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Okay. Great explanation. Well, we’ve reached the end of our time together. Where can people find out more about your company? Of course, we’ll have it in the show notes as well, but how can they reach out to you?
00:30:14 – Gabrielle Mills
Yeah. So if you’re local, just come and see us. We are off of Scientific Drive in Technology Park, down by the Forum. If you want to check us out online, we are at getsourced.com. We’re on all the socials under SourcedATL, or you can always just look at my name, Gabrielle Mills. Unfortunately, very easy to find out on the web.
00:30:39 – Rico Figliolini
I’m sure. Check her out on LinkedIn. It’d be easy to find her there. I want to say thank you again to EV Remodeling and to Vox Pop Uli for supporting us. Everyone else, you have comments, leave them in the comment section below, depending where you’re watching this, whether it’s Facebook, YouTube. If you’re listening to this on Apple or any of the audio podcast places, Spotify, leave a review, like, share. We’d love if you would support us that way. Gabrielle, thank you for being with us. Appreciate it.
The Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) celebrated the opening of Fifth Third Bank’s new branch in Peachtree Corners with a ribbon cutting on February 20.
Located at 3210 Holcomb Bridge Road, the new location features lobby and drive-thru hours, regular banking, investment services, loans and more.
“We are growing [and] proud to open up our new financial center at Peachtree Corners,” said Randy Koporc, EVP, regional president GA/AL Fifth Third Bank. “Congratulations to Financial Center Manager Jasmine Youngblood and her team, Retail Executive Dewayne King and all involved in getting us to this day.”
photo credit: Keri Zampano; courtesy of Peachtree Corners Business Association
“Thank you, Lisa Proctor of the Peachtree Corners Business Association, for helping us celebrate at our ribbon cutting,” Koporc continued.
Fifth Third plans to build more than 60 financial centers in Georgia and Alabama over the next five years and looks forward to strengthening the communities that they join.
“We love welcoming new businesses into Peachtree Corners,” said Lisa Proctor, president of the Peachtree Corners Business Association. “Fifth Third Bank will be a great addition to our banking community. We can’t wait to watch them grow.”
photos: Keri Zampano; courtesy of Peachtree Corners Business Association
About Peachtree Corners Business Association
The Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) is a business membership organization that focuses on innovative approaches, programs, shared resources, community outreach and opportunities for member businesses and professionals to connect, develop, grow, and prosper.
The PCBA is made up of businesses of all sizes and types who want to expand their reach and grow their business within Peachtree Corners and the greater metro-Atlanta area.
Sequel Coffee Co., a new specialty coffee brand, is set to open its flagship location in Peachtree Corners in the summer of 2025.
The new coffee shop will open alongside shared workspace provider, Roam, at Town Center and will feature a convenient drive-thru complemented by an inviting in-shop experience.
Premium coffee and locally sourced offerings
Committed to delivering an elevated coffee experience, Sequel Coffee Co. will serve freshly brewed coffee and handcrafted espresso beverages with responsibly sourced beans from Valor, a local metro Atlanta roaster.
Interior rendering courtesy of Sequel Coffee Co.
The food menu will feature a curated selection of locally sourced café favorites and convenient grab-and-go options from local vendors Two Chefs and A Seasonal Affair.
Guests can expect a variety of delicious offerings, including breakfast sandwiches, quiche and freshly baked pastries, as well as yogurt parfaits, homemade granola bars and protein-packed power bites for on-the-go fuel.
In addition, rotating seasonal flavors and limited-time menu items will offer new and exciting food and beverage options throughout the year.
Strengthening community connections in Peachtree Corners
A concept created by Roam, the hospitality-focused work and meeting space, Sequel Coffee Co. is built on the belief that coffee is more than just a morning ritual — it’s a catalyst for creativity, productivity, community and connection.
Image courtesy of Sequel Coffee Co.
Sequel’s tagline, “start your story strong,” reflects its mission to inspire the potential in every day by championing stories, embracing moments and thoughtfully crafting coffee.
Sequel seeks to become an integral part of the Peachtree Corners community by fostering meaningful interactions through hospitality-driven experiences. With a brand philosophy centered on people, purpose and belonging, the company aims to inspire customers through delicious coffee and intentional service.
Bringing Sequel Coffee Co. to you
Ahead of its brick-and-mortar opening this summer, Sequel Coffee Co. is currently serving the community through its mobile coffee cart, offering a full-service espresso bar and trained baristas for offsite events.
Ideal for corporate offices, networking events, school functions and private gatherings, the mobile cart provides an opportunity to enjoy Sequel’s signature coffee experience in any setting — before the shop even opens its doors.
Sequel is also currently hiring a Shop Manager to lead daily operations and cultivate an inviting experience for customers. Interested applicants can learn more about the position and apply at sequelcoffeeco.com/shop-manager-job-listing.
About Sequel Coffee Co.
Sequel Coffee Co. is dedicated to inspiring potential in every day through thoughtfully crafted coffee and warm hospitality.
Offering handcrafted espresso beverages, freshly brewed coffee and a curated menu of café favorites — along with a convenient drive-thru and cozy café space — Sequel aims to create a welcoming spot for guests to fuel their day and transform the daily coffee routine.
Roam is a comprehensive workplace solution offering co-working memberships, private offices and meeting space for professionals and businesses of sizes.
Opening in Peachtree Corners at 3847 Medlock Bridge Road in summer 2025, Roam provides flexible and inspiring environments to help individuals and teams accomplish their best work. Now leasing private offices and pre-booking meetings and events.
Food & Drink21 hours ago
