);
Connect with us


Business

Fitness, Lift Yoga and How COVID-19 Has Evolved a Business [Podcast]

Published

on

Lift Yoga

Owner Lori Denton Shares her Journey

On this brand new episode of the Capitalist Sage, Karl Barham and Rico Figliolini sit down with Lori Denton, owner of Lift Yoga and Body to talk about what business looks like in this new world. Lori has been able to figure out ways to work through the current COVID climate, listen in to find out how.

Timestamp (where topics appear in the program):

[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:02:41] – About Lori and Lift Yoga
[00:03:51] – The First Year
[00:06:09] – Why Yoga?
[00:08:25] – Starting from Scratch vs. Buying a Business
[00:09:53] – Work Balance
[00:10:55] – First Impressions of COVID
[00:13:12] – Opinions on Local Leadership
[00:15:57] – New Implementations
[00:19:35] – Coming Back to the Studio
[00:21:31] – Virtual Class Launch
[00:26:07] – How to Keep Moving
[00:28:48] – Serving the Community
[00:30:27] – Learning Opportunity
[00:31:34] – What’s Going On at Lift Yoga
[00:33:12] – Closing

Resources:
Website: https://liftyogastudio.com

Recorded socially safe online and in the City of Peachtree Corners, Georgia

“I couldn’t ask for a better staff than I have here at Lift Yoga. Everybody from the people that we have cleaning the rooms to our instructors, to our social media and photography resources. They’re just an amazing group of people and I couldn’t do it without them. So when they say it takes a village, I fully believe in that and they have done just wonders to help me balance that corporate life with the small business world.”

Lori Denton

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, and my cohost is Rico Figliolini with Mighty Rockets, Digital Marketing, and the publisher of the Peachtree Corners magazine. Hey, Rico, how’re you doing today?

Rico: [00:00:49] Good Karl. Beautiful day outside. I can see it from my window.

Karl: [00:00:53] It is, we are in August and things are going along. School’s coming back soon, all the very various versions of it. But why don’t you tell us about our sponsors for our episode today?

Rico: [00:01:05] Sure. Our lead sponsor is Hargray Fiber. Hargray Fiber is a company located in the Southeast and across the Southeast they’re a fiber optics company. They work with a lot of small businesses, as well as enterprise size businesses. Bring in cable optics, optic fiber, specifically, to be able to bring that into that connection to your home, if you’re teleworking, or to your businesses. They’re working with a lot of different companies across the Southeast here. They have a special promotion going on right now. So if you’re connecting, if you connect with heartbreak fiber this month, they have a thousand dollars gift card that would come to you, Visa gift card. So check them out, go to HargrayFiber.com or Hargray.com/business. And you’ll find out more about them. You can even call them at (866) 407-0104. Find out more about their services.

Karl: [00:01:59] Oh, fabulous. Thank you very much Rico and thank you Hargray Fiber for being a great partner in the community and the Capitalist Sage Podcast. Well today, we are excited to have our guest today, Lori Denton. Who is the owner of Lift Yoga and Body based in Alpharetta, Georgia. And today we’re going to talk about, how businesses, small businesses are navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. Talk a little bit of what it’s like after we’ve reopened. And some of the things people are doing to innovate and to thrive through this global pandemic that we’re all experiencing. Lori, how are you doing today?

Lori: [00:02:39] I’m great, thanks. How are you?

Karl: [00:02:41] Great. Why don’t we start off by you telling us a little a bit about yourself and how you got into Lift Yoga.

Lori: [00:02:50] Sure. So, I’m fairly new to the Atlanta region, I come from the DC area. And I’ve moved all over the country. I’ve had a good, career in business development. I’ve had the fortune of living a little bit of everywhere. So when I moved to the Atlanta area, I realized that there was a good business opportunity to create more of the yoga environment that I was used to finding elsewhere around the country where I’ve lived. So, as soon as I moved here I kinda started dreaming about owning a yoga studio in this area. And again, bringing that style of yoga here, and I had the good fortune last year to purchase Lift Yoga and Body, which I am coming to
you from live here. And it’s been in business for about seven years. Took it on last year and it’s been an interesting year I have to say, not what I expected in my first year of ownership, but it’s been a good learning experience. I’m just thrilled to be able to take on such a wonderful location.

Karl: [00:03:41] Oh, that’s fabulous. Why don’t you tell us again where is Lift Yoga located?

Lori: [00:03:44] Lift Yoga is in Alpharetta, Georgia. Just down the street from downtown Alpharetta. Very great location.

Karl: [00:03:51] Great. Alpharetta is in North Georgia and got a great location and a beautiful studio, what a great history there. So you’re experiencing your first of couple years in business. I’m curious, how was it when you, before COVID-19, some of the highlights in your first year, but what were some of the things that you learned and experienced in that first year?

Lori: [00:04:15] It was, business was great. You know, I focused a lot, I’m a big numbers dork. So I tried to focus a lot on the numbers and what the data was telling me about what people were looking for, what classes they were gravitating towards, what times and days really tried to dig into the data as much as possible. I’m also a big fan of surveys and keeping tabs on what our main members were looking for. So I did a lot of surveys, tried to figure out what they were looking for. And from July to February, our first time visitors doubled over the prior year. And we were able to increase retention rates by about 25%. So things were going great. And again, I think that’s because I listened a lot to what our members were looking for. I think that’s very important and also listen to what my staff was asking for and what they were hearing from the community. So I tried to keep as close to that as possible. And we were seeing some really good results, positive changes in the business because of it.

Karl: [00:05:12] So, where did you learn to do that? Cause when we talk to a lot of small business owners, we don’t often hear them using data, getting surveys, from there. Where’d you get some of those ideas and how did you find applying it in a small business situation?

Lori: [00:05:27] Yeah. So, and it was funny because, I got a funny reaction from a lot of my members and the staff when I started to talk about statistics and numbers and put out these surveys, they were kind of surprised to see that in this environment. But my background is in big corporate business development and product marketing. And so throughout my career, I have relied very heavily on data. That’s where I start. And then I try to pull out insights from that and then get the real life, personal, feedback from consumers in order to match that with the data and then move forward. So a lot of it just comes from my personal experience and background in business. And tried to apply as much as the best practices that I learned from that as possible to the small business.

Karl: [00:06:09] So I’m curious, what made you chose a fitness industry in general and yoga specifically? What connected you to that?

Lori: [00:06:17] You know, I believe a lot in doing what you love and I’ve practiced yoga for about 20 years now. So I am a Yogi at heart. And so it was very easy for me to transition into owning the business because I had personally experienced it. You know, like a lot of people are very successful owning businesses that they don’t know a lot about and bringing in consultants, I felt like this was space that I knew a lot about. I could provide a lot of personal experience and best practices that I had seen myself. And so that’s really why I was looking for something in the fitness industry to get into a small business.

Karl: [00:06:52] What do you see as some of the benefits when folks, you know, join or get involved in this type of fitness in general and yoga specifically. How is it really helping your clients and the folks that support your business?

Lori: [00:07:07] So that’s one of the reasons why I firmly believe that yoga is absolutely for every body. And I mean that truly every body, every type of person, every age range, every body type, because it has so many benefits from physical to mental. So and one of the reasons that attracted me to lift yoga specifically is many other studios have a very specific focus and only, may appeal to a specific target market. The brilliance of Lift Yoga, and I can say that because, the previous owner built a lot of that, so I don’t feel like I’m being conceited by saying that, but you know, the brilliance of it is that there’s such a wide range of types of yoga that we provide. So depending on how you’re feeling on any given day, we have the services that will match that need. So if you’ve had a really rough day and you just need to sweat it out, we have a hot power yoga for you. If you’ve had a super stressful day and all you need is to sit back and relax. We have yoga nidra, which is actually a guided meditative sleep. So there’s no movement. You lie there and somebody guides you through a meditation and it’s the most relaxing thing ever. And we have everything in between. And I think that’s very important because on any given day and I know I want to unwind in a different way than I did the day before. And we have something to fit every need.

Karl: [00:08:25] Often we talk to a lot of folks and their dream is to own and start a business. Why did you choose to acquire versus kind of start one from scratch? What was some of the things you considered and what do you think now that you’ve done that?

Lori: [00:08:40] Yeah. You know, there are lots of pros and cons of each. I think if I hadn’t found a good fit in an existing studio, then I would have looked to open my own. And you know, I don’t see the, the positive in acquiring a business and then doing a total overhaul. I think it has to be a good fit. And so it took a little while to look around the area and see what may be a good fit for me. And I think, again, that’s what has made it a very successful is that it already fit a lot of my needs. But overall, I think the thing that led me to acquiring a business versus starting from scratch is I have a full time job in another life, in my business development world. And the startup costs to completely build out a facility and find the right staff and find the membership base. I was looking at about a three year ramp up period when I did the full marketing plan to get to the place where the business already was. And so for me, it was worth it in order to
purchase the business that already had that established membership base and already had a phenomenal staff that was up and running and knew the inner workings of the business. That’s really what made the difference for me

Rico: [00:09:53] I was going to say, I have a question as well. You worked in the corporate world as well, right? Before this?

Lori: [00:09:59] Correct. Currently. Yep.

Rico: [00:10:01] Well, currently, even still. So how is that? How do you, how does that work with, you know, not only your lifestyle, but the fact that you have a job somewhere else? How does all that work? What’s the, is there stress level? Is there, where do you go with that?

Lori: [00:10:16] Yeah, so, and, you know, I’ll come back to the staff and again, that being a main reason why I look to acquire versus starting from scratch. I couldn’t ask for a better staff than I have here at Lift Yoga. Everybody from the people that we have cleaning the rooms to our instructors, to our social media and photography resources. They’re just an amazing group of people and I couldn’t do it without them. So when they say it takes a village, I fully believe in that and they have done just wonders to help me balance that corporate life with the small business world.

Karl: [00:10:55] You’re navigating that. So, I’m curious when, how did you first find out about COVID-19? What was the first place you heard about that? And what was your first impression as communication was coming out about it? That it was going to impact us back in probably February, March, early March timeframe. What were your first impressions?

Lori: [00:11:19] Yeah. Probably denial at first was my first reaction. As I think that was probably a lot of people’s reaction. And then I was just trying to stay on top of all the current news and it’s hard to know what resources to listen to. So I’d always try to go back to the main source, the CDC, you know, and try to sort through all the information that was being thrown at us during that time to try to figure out what was the best course of action. And it was interesting cause every day changed. And so, you know, somebody would ask me how I was doing today. I’m like, well, you know, it’s a whole new day. So we’ll see how today goes. We had to pivot quite quickly because as the days went on and as we got closer and closer to March 16th, which was when we ultimately closed the studio temporarily, more and more of the instructors were starting to feel more and more uncomfortable coming into the studio and being in large groups. And you know, in one of our spaces, we could have 30, 35 people in one class. Right now, the way it’s laid out with the size restrictions, we have 12 people. So that gives you an idea of how busy our studio was back in February. So as the days went on, I was trying to just treat every day as it came and make the best decisions that I could for that given day. And the day that we actually shut down, I didn’t plan on that happening, but I was trying to stay close to the business. I was here that day. It was a Monday. I remember it very well. We had two classes that morning and right before the second class, I turned to one of my instructors, Gail, and I said, Gail, I think
we’re going to have to close after this class. I don’t feel comfortable and I would never put somebody else in a position asking them to do something that I personally don’t feel comfortable doing. So, after that class, we announced that we were closing and we closed, March 16th and didn’t reopen until June 1st.

Karl: [00:13:12] How do you feel the reaction of the local leaders? Both the government, locally, city, state national, in those first few weeks and months to help guide your decision. What helped? What were, where did you get information and where do you feel was helpful? Where did you thought that we could have done better in helping the small business owner like yourself?

Lori: [00:13:35] That’s tough, you know? And that’s kind of a touchy topic, huh? You like to get straight to it? You know, I think it would have been really helpful if local government could have helped parse some of the data that was coming into small businesses. So there was just a flood of information from a whole bunch of different sources. So it would have been really helpful if they could have helped us kind of navigate who to listen to, what the best resources are and collect this is the majority of what people are saying. Cause it was very hard as a small business to both try to manage your business and sort through all that. So for sure that would have helped tremendously.

Rico: [00:14:16] Were you able to take advantage of some of the loans or things along those lines. Was any of that helpful to your business?

Lori: [00:14:24] Unfortunately not. And that was going to be the other thing that I said, you know, it would have been helpful if the loans were structured in a way that was more understanding of true small businesses, like, you know, a micro business such as mine just didn’t qualify for anything that was out there. The next tier up of small businesses probably did qualify, but the micro businesses, I think are most, much of what was hit the hardest by the closures. And so for us to not have gotten any support was really difficult and made me quite angry, honestly, at some of the things that were passed. You know, they were supposed to be in support of us small businesses, but they, I just didn’t qualify. You know, most of my, actually all of my employees are 1099 employees and that salary wasn’t considered in any of the loans.

Rico: [00:15:19] I’m sorry, was there anything else that you would have liked them to have done that would have helped the business?

Lori: [00:15:25] Yes. And so I think it was really important. It was all based around salaries. And I can understand why that may have been done, but if there could have been some funds that focused more on the fixed costs that small businesses have like rent, like electrical. And it was, those were all part of the staffing. So you had to have W2, basically employees in order to get any funding. And then you could use some of that for these other fixed costs. There was nothing that covered just the fixed costs for small businesses. So that’s what made it really difficult.

Karl: [00:15:57] You’re hitting on something that’s really important. so many small businesses are like, you know, some fewer employees, they may have 1099, those types of things. And when they pushed real fast, I don’t know that they were able to contemplate all the different types of small, especially if it’s a single, you know, one owner or one or two people, they started to figure it out later. I remember four weeks later you would start hearing, if you don’t have a payroll and you took draws and they started figuring it out after it, but you would think with so many really smart people and economists just separate them in a room and say, you know, a bunch of smart people over there, look at this group. Bunch of smart people over there and look at this group and help navigate through that. So that fell to the business owners like yourself to kind of help navigate. So after that initial shut down, when you had to start contemplating reopening. What were some of the things you implemented to make you feel comfortable in being able to open and stay open?

Lori: [00:17:05] Mostly, cleaning processes. And that is one of the things that I felt like again, I don’t, I think there’s so much still that we don’t know, but I have to go off of the data that’s available to me right now. So, before we reopened, I tried to research everything that was available that told me the best possible cleaning practices and what steps I could do to make it as safe of an environment as possible. There’s nothing that’s going to be 100% again, because there’s so much that’s unknown right now, but I tried to take every step that we could. So we increased our cleaning procedures, changed how we clean and when we clean. And I also acquired a UV yoga mat cleaner that mounts on the wall that is sort of touchless. So you just slide your yoga mat on and it goes through, and it has a UV light on each side that sanitizes the mats. So that was one thing extra that I specifically purchased just because of the environment. And again, who’s to say, who knows how effective that is or what it does. But my primary goal was, especially when it comes to a yoga studio. People come here to find a safe space, a place that they feel fully comfortable and welcome, and safe. And so that was what motivated me was to take every step that I possibly could to make sure that they feel that same way. And it ultimately, you know, just like the day that I closed, I had a feeling that said, you know what? I don’t feel safe here. And if I don’t feel safe, I wouldn’t ask anyone else to come into an environment that I feel unsafe. And so the processes that I put in place are well, what would make me feel comfortable coming into an environment like this? I know, with the fitness industry, it’s tough with all the spacing requirements. I’ve looked at the Legislation that was issued. And I’ve used the maximum amount of space that they’ve said is safe for fitness environments. And, you know, there’s a lot of yoga classes that don’t have a lot of heavy breathing. And so the philosophy in some of the yoga world is that you could probably pack in more people. Again, going back to what makes people feel safe and comfortable in this environment? I didn’t feel like that was the right way to go about it. So I have a full 10 feet in between each space that people set up in the studio. I have spots marked out on the floors so that everybody knows where they’re supposed to stay. And again, it’s every day. So as new information comes out, I’m always trying to stay on top of that and adjust however we possibly can.

Karl: [00:19:35] Well, I’ll say that, as I’ve been visiting business owners, especially in fitness, a lot of the small boutique gyms type that have reopened have been successful in keeping people safe. I mean, there’s nothing that’s foolproof or a hundred percent. But a lot of the great business owners have implemented safe. So people, I’m wondering if you’re seeing people come back more and more, the more time goes on from those first over the, probably the first ones that just needed to get out of the house. And now other people are probably getting more comfortable. Have you seen that pattern play out for you?

Lori: [00:20:11] Yeah, absolutely. And it’s been really interesting again, cause I’m a numbers dork. So I love to take a look at class sizes and numbers and how many people are registering and then how many people are showing up. All of our classes, we have 33 classes a week right now, all of our classes with the exception of two are also offered virtually. And that was the other thing that I felt was really important. Even after we opened the physical space back up, still having a way to make the people who don’t feel comfortable with coming into this space, still have a way to access, have some line to their previous lives. You know, like the way that they got their exercise or their, stress relief, before COVID so almost all with the exception of two of our classes are still offered virtually, but it’s been really interesting because June 1, when we opened, it was probably about 75, 25% of our people were joining virtually versus in studio. And now it’s the complete opposite. So as the weeks have gone on the majority of our members are coming into the studio and we have several classes where nobody even joins virtually any longer. Which is, it’s nice to see. Again, I plan on continuing those virtual classes just because I think that is important to have an offering for everybody, but it’s been interesting to see how people are slowly transitioning back into in-studio.

Karl: [00:21:31] I’m curious as you, I’m sorry. When you were saying about the virtual, how did you set that up so quickly and get that launched?

Lori: [00:21:41] Right. You know, it’s interesting cause a lot of my teachers have, instructors here have said how they were surprised how quickly we pivoted to the virtual world. And I think it’s one of those things and I probably, this is a characteristic of any small business owner is, it’s that fight or flight syndrome, you know, you learn a lot about yourself when faced with a crisis. And it was the first day we were closed. I said, alright, well, what can we do to keep things going? And the next day we had, almost the next day we had virtual classes up and running and it wasn’t easy. I don’t mean to make it sound easy at all. And I am so again, very thankful for my staff and their support in finding the right way to go about it. And our members for being so patient while we’ve worked through multiple iterations of it, not working in order to find a solution that does work. But they’re, you know, their support was what got me through that. And it’s been interesting. And this is one of those things that I’ve learned transitioning from the corporate world to the small business world is, at least my experience in the corporate world is that, you know, I’ve always been in leadership roles and if you’re a strong leader you dictate what needs to happen and you move it forward. And in the small business world, it’s been an interesting transition to really listening to my people and taking their feedback and their wisdom and their experience into account and trying to apply that. And so, you know, I firmly believe your staff
and your support group is everything and really the key to success. So, and I’ll mention Gail again, cause she’s just been incredible. Gail was my poor Guinea pig. So every time she’d come in for a class, I’d say, all right, we’re going to try something new. And we’d try something new and it would either work or it wouldn’t. And at the end, we’d sit down and I’d say, what worked for you? And I’d get her feedback and I’d say, okay, thank you. I’ll take that back. And we’ll try again tomorrow. And so, it was an interesting transition, but you know, it was again survival. And everybody said, you know, like, how are you doing? And I said, right now I’m in survival mode and this is how we’re operating and we’ll figure it out one way or another.

Rico: [00:23:43] You know, it’s amazing cause you’re one place versus a franchise, right. Franchise like, not in yoga, but like Crunch fitness, let’s say. I mean, they have a whole big corporate entity behind them to figure out what to do. There’s actually an app or a service out there that has zeroed down to the yoga business to be able to help a variety of yoga businesses, book classes online, for example. So there is a service like that. That’s out there. I don’t know if that’s still, I just saw a podcast on that, on how I built this. They just were doubling their business up until COVID and then all of a sudden things even got better for them in a way, right? But you were able to solve it on your own. I mean, were you able to, and it’s not like you’re shooting from your studio, so were you? Or were the individual instructors doing it from their homes? For example?

Lori: [00:24:34] Yeah, at the beginning and I certainly didn’t do it alone again. I owe a huge credit to my entire staff. So certainly didn’t do it alone there. That was also, we took it day by day. So for a while, the instructors still felt comfortable coming into the studio to shoot. And then there got to be a period where it got really kind of scary and we found solutions so that they could record from home. And for those that didn’t have the technology, they would still come into the studio and it would just be me and the instructor and I’d be the technical person. And they always joked that I was like the elf under the table. Cause I’d be sitting under the table with like two computers and I became like an AV expert. I never thought I would know anything about audio visual anything, but you know, I have the two computers and the microphone. We tried a different headset every time we came here. But it was just trial and error and Survival mode.

Rico: [00:25:26] So I know that, I mean, if you, if you, if we ended up going into a second wave, obviously, but you’ve set up, could be rolled back out again.

Lori: [00:25:34] Yep. And there’s lots of, you know, when we opened back up, that was my priority again, to make sure that this was a safe space. But one of my goals is to come back to the virtual classes and see how we can even expand on that further, because there is a big market there. It’s going to be a while before some people feel comfortable coming out into public and being in group gatherings again. So I want to be sure that we’re serving that part of the population. So there’s a whole lot of opportunity. It’s just a matter of, kind of biting off one bit at a time and kind of managing it as we go.

Karl: [00:26:07] I love how innovation comes kind of out of need and how small business owners are the ones that drive. Before there were the large Starbucks, there was a small, you know, individual place that started figuring out what to do and continue to grow their business. I’m curious now that we know that this will be around for awhile and I know, school’s coming back the fall. How are there ways you can innovate and change your business and do things differently to continue to prosper and try to, you know, just excel through this.

Lori: [00:26:43] Yeah. So, that’s a great question. And again, I always try to keep in touch and keep as close as possible with my members and what their needs are. And a lot, just because of where we are, the demographic of where we are. I do get a lot of stay-at-home parents that come here and I tried to listen to them. And, you know, as we come up on another year of homeschooling, how is that impacting you? Because, a lot of our day classes are filled primarily with stay at home parents. And so that was a concern for me. And it was a concern for them, you know, how are they going to get out and still get their, their yoga time and their me time, but also still deal with homeschooling. So actually we have a new program called om school, like, Om as in yoga. And homeschooling. So it’s called Omschool. And we have the fortune of having two distinct spaces here at Lift yoga and so the idea is that the parents get together with their neighborhood or their friends or their pod and bring the kids. We’ll have a tutor for the kids and they’ll stay in one room. And the, you know, have somebody taking care of them and answering any questions and helping them with their school studies while the parents come into the other room and do a yoga class. Or if they would like us to facilitate a book club for them, whatever it may be. We’ll take care of the parent’s needs while their kids are being taken care of in the other room. And so that was our way of addressing and continuing to try to innovate and meet our members needs.

Karl: [00:28:13] That’s fabulous. Can you imagine a big corporation, the malts of decision makers that would be involved and from your corporate career to try to do something? And one of the best things of being your own boss is, you know, you can get input from your customers and your team, and you could say, let’s try it. Let’s do it real really quickly,

Lori: [00:28:35] Being nimble and being that small business and being able to be nimble has been really great. And it’s a good to apply my learnings from my corporate world, but also be able to implement them in the way that I see best in my small business.

Karl: [00:28:48] I know, I know that. I see a lot of stuff that, that you and Lift yoga does in the community and connect people with that. Why don’t you share a little bit of how you, some of the things you get involved with that helps connect you with the greater community that you’re in.

Lori: [00:29:04] I’m so glad you asked that because, you know, this is again, coming back to how best can we serve our community and it going beyond just our physical space where people pay to come into here. I really think that every small business has a duty to represent and fill the needs of their community. So we’ve actually expanded the number of free community
classes that we offer to people who live in the area, both through the city of Johns Creek, as well as Alpharetta. We now have, six, I believe, free classes that we offer to the community in outdoor spaces. So there’s the big benefit that they’re in outdoor spaces. So, we can get larger gatherings. People can still have their yoga time and it also helps obviously to get the word out about Lift yoga and what we’re all about. We always offer free class cards to get people to come in and try the studio. But I do feel that it’s very important as a small business to support the community. And that’s a small way that we do it. It also helps our, we have a very successful teacher training program or yoga teacher training program. And it’s a great way to allow those new teachers and especially now that a lot of studios are closed and there’s limited teaching opportunities. Those community classes are a great way for them to get experience. So it serves the needs of the community, the needs of our new yoga teachers who are just coming out of training and a good way to get our name out in the community.

Karl: [00:30:27] So, I’m curious now that you got in this experience over acquiring a business, owning it, and running it and then dealing with a pandemic in the first year. What would you say is the biggest thing you learned about yourself in this part of your journey?

Lori: [00:30:47] Ooh, that’s a good question. Definitely just the ability to quickly pivot and do what it takes. I’m not the type of person who sits and considers something for an overly, or a long, long time. You know, like I weigh all the data that I have. Again, I rely very heavily on numbers. I also rely very heavily on my gut. And if those two things match up, I go for it. And I didn’t think that it was to the extreme that it has been over the past six months, but it has been interesting to reflect and say, okay, yeah, we changed it was on a daily basis. Every day we’d come in and have a new business plan. So that’s been interesting to see, again, how I’ve mirrored kind of my corporate life and my personal life and kinda brought those together to continue to expand the business.

Karl: [00:31:34] Well, that’s fabulous. Well, I’m curious, you know, as you go into, end of August and into September, do you have anything going on that you want to share with folks? What do you have going on over the next few weeks?

Lori: [00:31:46] Yeah, so obviously the Omschool is our big initiative. And I think, you know, it’s just a matter of parents figuring out what their, what the schedule is going to be with the kids being at home for virtual schooling for another semester, maybe another whole year. But we have the Omschooling. We’ve got a lot of interest in that. So I’m excited to get that up and running, and have a few groups come in for that. And then, we’re moving forward again with our teacher training program. We have the 200 and we’ll be launching a 300 hour program in the spring. So trying to keep yoga going, even in this new environment. And it’ll be interesting to see how we layer in sort of the current yoga teaching world into our next teacher training program. It’ll probably change things quite a bit.

Karl: [00:32:30] Absolutely. Well, all the people that are worked here from home for all the time, I think they’re going to need ways to relieve stress and to get more centered. So, definitely
encourage folks to check out a yoga studio and Lift Yoga in particular, whenever they have a chance. So, really appreciate that. How would folks get in contact, learn more about Lift Yoga and get in contact with you?

Lori: [00:32:52] Sure, so they can go to our website. Our schedule, both virtual and in-studio and as well as the free community classes are all on our website, LiftYogaStudio.com and that’s Lift not like the ride share community. LiftYogaStudio.com and they can reach me at info@LiftYogaStudio.com.

Karl: [00:33:12] Oh, fabulous. Great. Well, I want to thank you so much, Lori, for sharing some of your experience. I know folks are probably where you were thinking about what do they want to do next in their careers and want to look at owning a business. And you’re a great example of someone that’s been able to navigate that and do that successfully even with 2020, which is a year that had a little bit of everything thrown at it for the small business owner. So thank you, Lori.

Lori: [00:33:42] Thank you very much.

Karl: [00:33:46] The owner of Lift Yoga and Body located in Alpharetta. And again, thank you for sharing your insights and your experience in your first year, first couple of years of owning your business. We also want to thank the community that continue to support Capitalist Sage Podcast. We still get excited about talking to business owners like Lori, about what they’re doing here in the local community and be able to provide this service to the community to help just share the good things that people are doing. So for all those business owners out there that are you know still nervous about what the future holds with their business. I think we saw great examples of how to pivot, how to use data to run your business and help make good decisions, staying optimistic, engaging your staff and team. And if you take good care of your customers, they’ll continue to support you as you go through your business. So, really great advice that you shared with us today. I’m Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors of Atlanta Peachtree, our business is to help people become like Lori, their own business owners. We help people with selling and buying businesses. We’re available to consult with folks that might be thinking of selling or buying a business at any time. And you can reach us at www.TWorld.com/ AtlantaPeachtree. And Rico why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you’ve got going on.

Rico: [00:35:12] Sure. Lori, I want to thank you too, by the way. Lots of good work that you’re doing. I love the surveys you did with your clients and learned quite a bit from them. So that’s the only way a business can thrive, right? Knowing their customers just as well as themselves almost. Cause otherwise, especially in this world, you won’t know where you’re going. Right. But we are, hopefully you got this in the mailbox this week, Peachtree Corners Magazine. Right about there, I guess, gotten this in the mailbox hopefully. It just came out this past weekend. Lots of good stories in there we did a great article. Actually, we profiled even Karl in the article where there was seven different people, seven different profiles. It was kind of neat to be able to talk about diversity in the city of Peachtree Corners. So it was, we got a lot of great feedback
and continuing to get good feedback on this cover story. But also in the stories that are in it, I mean, there’s lot of stuff on rocketry on a plan, Natural Air and Space museum, on the opening of the schools and what that will look like. Although 24 hours after we went to press, Gwinnett County, decides they’re going back to school in about three weeks. So some, you know, you can’t help it, but things happen. So, you know, we updated our website articles at least. But there’s a lot of other good stuff in there. We’re already planning the next issue, which is, going to be a lot of good stories in there. I believe we’re going to have pets and their people, we’re going to have a surprise cover story, hopefully that we’re putting together at this point. And like every issue, there’s always a bunch of stuff in there. So hopefully you like it. You can come to LivingInPeachtreeCorners.com to find out more about the magazine and what’s going on in the city of Peachtree Corners. And also to click on the tab for Capitalist Sage, you’ll find our previous podcast there as well, or just go to iHeartRadio, Spotify, SoundCloud, and YouTube. Check you know, search Capitalist Sage Podcast and you’ll find that there. And Mighty Rockets is the company that pulls it all together. It’s going well. We’re doing a lot of social media work, a lot of video, a lot of brand management, besides publishing and podcasts, that’s been fun, been busy and, we’re always zooming or doing something like this, right?

Karl: [00:37:27] Yeah, Rico, just want to compliment you again of doing fabulous job with the magazine online. You know, staying relevant to topics, COVID-19, social justice, the work that you’re doing to just you know, talk to the community and it’s really a great job and a great service to community as well.

Rico: [00:37:49] It’s been fun. And having you working with me Karl, not that we’re patting each other on the back here but Karl’s magnificent, because I mean, Capitalist Sage. I mean, you do the heavy lifting to get the show going. So I’m happy you’re my cohost on this. You bring a lot of insight into this. Great guests like Lori, to be able to talk about the businesses. It’s all good. I think we’re all bringing something to the table that hopefully is helpful to the business community, the residents here and people that we know and love. So I hope that we’re giving something back.

Karl: [00:38:20] Oh, absolutely. So if you want to follow, like us on Facebook as well, and you’ll be updated with late breaking information that really impacts the local community here. And again, you can follow us on any one of the streaming platform, the Capitalist Sage. Next week we have another exciting business owner that’ll tell them about their journey through the pandemic and how they’ve pivoted their business. So we’re going to continue to give you relevant information to help you improve your business. And just want to thank everybody for all their support. Take care, everyone. Have a great day.

Rico: [00:38:51] Take care, Lori, Karl.

Continue Reading

Business

Expanding Horizons: How KGM Technologies Balances Defense, Medical, and Precision Manufacturing

Published

on

Kyle Grob on innovation, diversification, and the future of skilled trades

In this episode of UrbanEBB, host Rico Figliolini speaks with Kyle Grob, CEO and founder of Peachtree Corners-based KGM Technologies, a precision manufacturing company specializing in firearm suppressors and expanding into medical device production. Kyle shares insights on growing a business during COVID-19, navigating ATF regulations, and how Georgia fosters innovation in manufacturing.

The conversation also explores the future of skilled trades, the challenges of hiring motivated workers, and KGM’s commitment to workforce development through partnerships with vocational schools. Whether you’re interested in business growth, advanced manufacturing, or the evolving job market, this episode is packed with valuable insights.

Key Takeaways & Highlights:

  • Adapting to Change – How KGM transitioned from automotive and defense contracts to firearm suppressor manufacturing and medical devices.
  • The Impact of ATF Regulations – Digital processing has drastically reduced wait times for suppressor purchases.
  • Workforce Challenges – The decline of skilled trades and the difficulty of hiring motivated employees in manufacturing.
  • Medical Technology Expansion – KGM’s role in producing stroke rehabilitation devices and scaling medical manufacturing.
  • Networking & Diversification – The importance of industry connections in finding new opportunities.
  • The Value of Trade Schools – How partnerships with Maxwell High School and other vocational programs are shaping the next generation of skilled workers.
  • Patents & Innovation – KGM’s goal of filing at least one new patent every year.
  • The Role of Suppressors – Their use in law enforcement, hunting, and protecting hearing health.
Kyle Grob (Photo by Rannulf Media, George Hunter)

Transcript:

00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Urban Ebb here in the city of Peachtree Corners, just north of Atlanta. I appreciate you joining us. We have a great guest today, a Peachtree Corners-based business, very different and unique industry, Kyle Grob. Appreciate you being with me, Kyle.

00:00:18 – Kyle Grob

Oh, thank you for having me. Glad to be here.

00:00:19 – Rico Figliolini

It’s going to be a good discussion on a bit of company, a bit of work, and manpower, the lack of. But before we get into that, I just want to say thank you to two of our sponsors, EV Remodeling, Inc., and the owner, Eli, who lives here in Peachtree Corners also. His family does. And he does great work from design to build. Whole house renovation, or if you need an extension on the house, he’s the guy to look for. They’ve done over 260 such renovation work. So check them out, evremodelinginc.com. And then also Vox Pop Uli also family owned, also in Peachtree Corners. And they’re a company that if you have a brand and if you’re a business and you need to bring that brand to life, pretty much you can do it. 1,600 vehicle wraps I think this past year anything you can want, imprinted, embroidered, silk screen, whatever it is. If you have a logo and you want it on an object of any sort, challenge them. I can’t tell you how many different things they’ve put logos on. So all great stuff. Check them out, voxpopuli.com, where you can find them. So, now that I’ve taken care of the sponsors who support us for our journalism and podcasts. Kyle is the founder and currently CEO of KGM Technology. Yeah. So, based in Peachtree Corners, tell us just quickly a little bit about what the company is.

00:01:42 – Kyle Grob

So, the company started in 2012 as a kind of a fabrication, job shop, machining fabrication. And we kind of evolved out of the automotive space and got into the defense world and slowly grew over years. And then we moved into this building in 2019 and have been growing ever since.

00:02:03 – Rico Figliolini

2019, COVID.

00:02:05 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so COVID was actually very good for us. It was wide open, running multiple shifts. While many businesses were shut down, we couldn’t hire enough people, we couldn’t build enough products.

00:02:17 – Rico Figliolini

We’ll get into that because it may be a bit of what you’re going on now. So your business is military suppressors, which is the biggest part. You told me once at one point when I took a tour earlier, a week ago, you said we’re precision manufacturers.

00:02:34 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so the back end, the wholeness of the company is precision manufacturing. Our forward-facing product is suppressors. That’s mainly what we sell to commercial, law enforcement, military, overseas, all kinds of stuff like that. But we’re in all kinds of stuff. Contract manufacturing, medical device manufacturing and supply, all the way down to machining and research and development. And it’s just a little bit of everything. But again, forward facing is the product line, yes.

00:03:02 – Rico Figliolini

Sure. And you’ve done this since 2019, right? Actually before that.

00:03:07 – Kyle Grob

Well, no, no. Yeah. So we started suppressors in 2015, 2016. And then, but it was kind of a side product to what we were doing. Really grew in 2019. And then really kind of just kept growing through COVID. And this is kind of where we are now.

00:03:22 – Rico Figliolini

Interesting. So your family is steeped in military? In all branches, I guess?

00:03:25 – Kyle Grob

Yeah. Army and Navy.

00:03:27 – Rico Figliolini

Army and Navy. And you hire veterans?

00:03:29 – Kyle Grob

We hire a lot of veterans. We have a lot of veterans that work for us. I try to hire as many as we can. They make very good employees. But, you know, it could probably be a whole nother podcast in itself, what happens to veterans when they come back from service. And so we try to search them out and give people a chance.

00:03:34 – Rico Figliolini

Getting involved in this type of market since, you know, you started, has it changed in the way you do business?

00:04:03 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, because we are so highly regulated from, you know, the ATF regulates us pretty heavily. The ability for consumers to essentially purchase the product and all the paperwork and background check that goes in it has evolved since we started. It used to be nine months, 12, 15 months to get a product. So you buy it, wait for your paperwork for a year or more. You’d almost forget about the product. And then all of a sudden it’d pop up one day. Well, last year, everything went digital. And so now everything’s digital. You go from months or years wait time to days, hours, weeks.

00:04:38 – Rico Figliolini

So you can order this stuff online and get it shipped to you?

00:04:41 – Kyle Grob

No, so you can’t really ship it to your house. So you still have to go to a dealer or go like that. You’re still submitting fingerprints. You’re still submitting your photos. But the process is now all digitized. There’s no manual entry on the ATF side. Everything goes through much faster. And again, we’ve seen, you know, three hour wait times. Where you fill out your paperwork, go to a long lunch and all of a sudden your suppressor is approved.

00:05:04 – Rico Figliolini

So if you have a gun permit or a carry permit, does that make it easy?

00:05:08 – Kyle Grob

It doesn’t really because it’s a completely separate background check. So this, every suppressor you purchase is its own background check. So you treat it like a firearm purchase every single time, except it goes through a kind of a different, it goes through the FBI on the NIC side, which is their background check service. But it goes through separate checking on the ATF side as well. So it is a little bit more involved process than buying a handgun or a rifle or something like that. But similar agencies touch it, I guess.

00:05:38 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. This being the state of Georgia, other states have different ways of doing things. You’ve been to trade shows. You’re involved in the industry a bit. Do you see Georgia being a good place to do business here in this market?

00:05:52 – Kyle Grob

Georgia is a very friendly state. And even just manufacturing in general, you’ve seen all the companies that have moved here. You have, you know, most major automotive companies are either building or about to build here. You got SK batteries. You have some big companies that are moving to Georgia. And then film. I mean, film is massive here now with all the tax breaks. And so you see a lot of stuff coming to Georgia from an industry standpoint, but it’s also very firearms friendly. There’s a lot of big companies here in Georgia. You have Glock here in Georgia. You have Daniel Defense. You have a lot of really big companies. I think Remington’s got a place here. So it is very, you know, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina. There’s a lot of very friendly states when it comes to manufacturing and firearms.

00:06:35 – Rico Figliolini

So how do you go about selling your product then? I mean, if you go to trade shows, RFPs?

00:06:40 – Kyle Grob

So on the military side, it’s more RFPs, it’s more contract basis. We partner with a lot of firearms companies because a lot of submissions for weapons systems require, you know, we’re viewed as kind of an add-on to a weapon system. Yeah, it’s an accessory. And then on the law enforcement side, we go demos, we have dealers. And then on the commercial side, we have distributors that distribute to dealers. And then we have dealers that essentially are walk-in brick and mortar stores. And we sell directly to them as well.

00:07:07 – Rico Figliolini

So for most people that may not know, why would someone want a suppressor on the gun? Why would a police officer, let’s say a SWAT team, want to suppress it? What makes it?

00:07:17 – Kyle Grob

Really the biggest one is health and safety. It’s the biggest one. So from an officer-involved shooting, or say if he shoots without ear protection, every shot is permanent hearing damage. So if he shoots one in his entire career, he’s permanent hearing damage, he’s on disability from an auditory standpoint. You look at, you know, what you could do, and then you look at, you know, God forbid all the school shootings we’ve had and school resource. When you shoot inside of a building, it’s even magnified. So it’s very, very loud in general, and then you put it inside of a building and it gets worse. So there’s been cases where you’ve seen lawsuits where, you know, a SWAT team or someone’s gone into a house or a building and essentially, you know, saved someone, but they discharged their short barrel rifle inside the house. And then everyone that’s not wearing ear protection, i.e. the family, they’re all deaf or hearing damage, and they end up suing the city. And we see it a lot. And so from a health and safety standpoint, there’s that. You could look at accuracy. And then you look at, on the hunting side of being more courteous to neighbors. It allows you to hunt closer to, you know, other people and stuff like that. Yeah, so there’s so many things that add to it. And then you add, you know, on the military side, it helps with being able to, you know, hide your location and just be more effective. Suppress flash and stuff like that. So a myriad of uses, but really the bigger one is the health and safety side of things.

00:08:40 – Rico Figliolini

I was speaking to a person today that on his old farm he used to shoot his rifle and stuff. And he told me he said, this ear? Pretty much gone. He says now hearing aid. Because he didn’t think that he needed a, you know plugs or anything. A suppressor probably would have helped him. Well at least the plugs might have helped a little bit. But no one thinks about that.

00:08:59 – Kyle Grob

You don’t, you don’t. And you look at the law enforcement side and kind of the heat of moment, you don’t think about it. It’s not something, you’re either fighting for your life or, you know, your split moment decision. Like you don’t think about putting your plug on or throwing a plug in or something like that. It’s a split second decision. So with suppressors, you can really mitigate a lot of that risk. Now, does it make it the Hollywood movie side? No. The only thing that gets even close to that is 22. And it’s because the subsonic is very quiet like that. Any centerfire rifle cartridge you’re never going to get away from supersonic crack. It’s only so quiet you can get it. It is a suppressor, not a silencer. And that’s a probably a very heated topic. It’s a movie thing, yes. But in practical application they do a lot of work for the size of the product and what you use it for.

00:09:50 – Rico Figliolini

So now going from suppressors to the medical industry. You know when you showed me around and you talked to me about mechanical therapeutic systems for a company you’re doing work for inside the perimeter. That you almost had to double the size of your floor space, essentially.

00:10:07 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so it’s kind of an interesting story. We go back to, we’re a precision manufacturing company. We make contract stuff. We do defense. We do a little bit of everything. And it was kind of a friend of a friend. Their business was scaling and really needed help scaling the manufacturing side of their product. And it was really a right place, right time. It kind of fit in our warehouse. While it’s not exactly what we make, precision assembly, scaling, manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, all that stuff. That’s what we do every day. So I’m just building something a little different versus what I have been building. So it was a great opportunity. Again, the right side of the perimeter is Atlanta company. And it was just a really good right place, right time. Good fit for what they were looking for. Good fit for us on the diversification side. So it’s just it really worked and we’re growing weekly. Yeah, we’re blowing walls down and yeah we’ve tripled the space twice now since we yarded in like October of last year. So it’s very very quick.

00:11:07 – Rico Figliolini

When I walked through and you gave me the tour, I mean there were quite a few people just in that place doing the assemblage. I think you even told me, you said well, how far down can you? Millionth of an inch? Precision?

00:11:21 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so it’s like our EDMs and some of our stuff, we calculate microns, millionth of an inch.

00:11:27 – Rico Figliolini

So that’s an industry, obviously, you want to get more into.

00:11:30 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, it is. It was interesting. I had kind of heard about the medical manufacturing side, and the more we dug into it, the more I realized how many companies like the company we’re helping are out there. And they have a great idea, a great concept, but they’re either doctors or they’re pcs or biomedical. You know they’ve developed great product but they don’t know the manufacturing side or they don’t know how to scale the logistics. Yes, scaling. So it’s, there’s so many good ideas that maybe never ever come to market or never could reach the potential they could because they don’t know the back end. They don’t know the manufacturing, they don’t know how to. Make five of something is very different than making 500, is very different than making 5,000. And it’s just a different skill set. It’s a different knowledge base. And we’re very good at it. And it was a really, really good fit. And it’s something we believe in. We believe in the medical stuff as much as we believe in the defense. Every day we’re building something to help someone else.

00:12:29 – Rico Figliolini

And to get people to understand a little bit, this particular thing was a therapeutic.

00:12:34 – Kyle Grob

Yeah it’s a, without going into too much detail, it’s a stroke therapy device. It’s used for rehab of stroke patients so that they can actually rehab at home versus having to go into a therapy office. And so it’s just grown immensely and that’s, the product’s done well.

00:12:50 – Rico Figliolini

So how do you go after that market? You know, so if another business person, you know, when you, when you diversify, it’s not easy, right? You’re all set in one way. You have 100% of the direction going one way. How do you do that? If another company was listening to this, how would they be able to diversify? So what challenges did you see?

00:13:10 – Kyle Grob

The challenges, like I said, we very much stumbled into this one. Not saying we weren’t looking, and that’s kind of how we did it, but honestly, it was network. And the guy that owns this company, owns another company and he’s an investment group with another other. So a lot of it is networking and being open and willing to take on a challenge that you may not. Be like, oh I have no business in that, well if you’re good at what you do over here and you can see you can cross the lines you can compare, you’d be surprised what you can do. And then you go to the trade shows. Like there are medical device trade shows. Go to those and walk around and say, hey I’m a manufacturer, or I’m this, I’m looking at getting into this market. Do you have a need for X, what I do? Putting yourself out there and going like, look, this is out of my market, but I’m good at this. I would like to try this and just be open and willing to, A, to fail because you’re going to fail more than you succeed, but be willing to try. And that’s the big thing was the leap. Like we took a leap to do this. I had a good feeling that we could do it. But at the end of the day, like you still have to take the leap.

00:14:17 – Rico Figliolini

You’re a CEO now and you were a founder, but you were on the board. You were chairman of the board?

00:14:22 – Kyle Grob

No, no, not chair on the board. I was more on the technical side. So as we were growing the business, I was CTO. And so we were heading kind of down a different path and it was just a the board kind of wanted to see a different change in the way the company was run. And again, my background, why I said, I wasn’t running the day to day, most more on the manufacturing side and technology and patents and stuff like that. And so, board made a shift and I took back over the company. You know, I go from running it many years ago, to running again. Which happens a lot in small companies. And it was a, we wanted to head down the manufacturing path and that’s what I know. So we made a change and I stepped back in last year and been riding the train ever since.

00:15:11 – Rico Figliolini

Good, good. It’s great to have a company expanding and doing well in Peachtree Corners.

00:15:13 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, yeah. Happy to be here.

00:15:17 – Rico Figliolini

Being an employer of veterans, being steeped in family military and stuff, you do outreach, you do community fundraising in that field, in that area.

00:15:29 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, we do, again, more in the defense space, but we do some charity work with several organizations. And again, we donate product. We do stuff for raffles and fundraisers, and we do a lot of stuff like that. Because I really do believe in giving back to the market and giving back to those people. So it’s something we do a decent amount of. I would like to do more this year. That’s kind of what we’re trying to find some other organizations that do stuff with. But we try to do as much as we can. There’s one group, and I’ll be happy to say the name, but Guardian Group. And it’s Guardian Long Range. And they have a precision rifle series. It’s a shooting competition, but it’s for fun. And they have four or five stops all around the U.S. And we outfitted all their rifles that they let people use for trials and stuff like that. We outfitted all the suppressors. So maybe their first competition experience is with a suppressed rifle. So we do stuff with them every year. A guy named Gary is the one that founded that. So great group. But he has a lot of, most of his stuff is for foster kids. He’s a foster kid himself, and he does, every single dime of that goes right into helping foster kids, helping place foster kids, and stuff like that.

00:16:41 – Rico Figliolini

Wow, that is neat. That is cool. I didn’t think about that. So, you know, leadership, company, what comes to mind when you’re, you know, when you’re looking ahead for the next few years?

00:16:55 – Kyle Grob

Really, my biggest push is diversification. Is trying to grow the medical side for sure, grow my contract manufacturing, and really try to build some stable streams around. Everyone knows the firearms industry goes up and down. It’s always cyclical. And so trying to build a larger company where I can have some overlying pathways and diversify and stuff like that so that I can clip the waves and be able to grow the business without relying as much on a very cyclical market. So that’s really the big try. We’re pushing a lot of technology. We’re trying for a patent a year, or a patent every two years. Yeah, we’re four deep already, with two more applied. So we do a lot on the patent side, a lot on the testing and development side. But yeah, growing the medical is really the big one I’m focusing on in the next year or so.

00:17:45 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, one of the things you have in the house is a firearm range. You told me, and you can put a .50 caliber?

00:17:52 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so we shoot up to .50 caliber indoors. Yeah, so we have a, it’s a lab as much as it is a range where we can do all of our instrumentation and we develop based on data. So we use it. We shoot it in almost every single day. We’re doing testing and development. We do, you know, demos for customers and stuff like that. But yeah, we’ve, pretty extensive room back there. 

00:17:54 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, it’s amazing. Small. Smaller than this conference room.

00:17:58 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, yeah. It’s not, it’s not very big. It’s not a big long range, but it’s heavily instrumented.

00:18:22 – Rico Figliolini

I can’t even imagine shooting a 50 caliber in there, how that would sound.

00:18:25 – Kyle Grob

Oh it, unsuppressed it’ll lift the ceiling tiles. It’ll pressurize the room, yeah so.

00:18:31 – Rico Figliolini

So lots of work yeah expanding you’re looking towards the future and stuff. One of the biggest problems I guess, and we’re going to go right into that is finding employees. Finding skilled employees or motivated employees. Maybe not even skilled, maybe motivated. How does that?

00:18:49 – Kyle Grob

I’ll trade motivation for skill. I’ll trade because what we do is kind of unique. Even on the manufacturing side, we have very nice machines. We do things to a very, very high tolerance. And even with machining background, we’ve found that some people have either preconceived notions or bad habits or stuff like that. We’re getting to the point now where I would rather have someone that has a little bit of mechanical aptitude, some basic knowledge, or someone out of trade school, and I’d rather just teach them. And finding someone that’s willing, even on the medical side, I’d rather have someone come in that wants to just come in and work every single day, take pride in the product they put out. You don’t have to even be that knowledgeable about what we do. I’ll train you and do whatever we need to do, but someone to actually come in and do it is one of the biggest struggles we find. We’ve had you know, multiple staffing agencies and all stuff like that. And we have people, we had some people the other day that came in for four hours, just left during lunch, never came back. And yeah, just it’s, the workforce is, it’s been disappointing, I guess. And seeing, especially on the technical side, I mean, the craves, the trades, the crafts, like a lot of that stuff is dying. Like people are not, you look in the like tool and dye. Oh, that’s enough. That’s no, so most people don’t know how injection mold stuff works and like that. The craftsmen that build those tools, that is a dying art. There’s only one or two schools in the U.S. that do it. I don’t know any of those guys that make less than six figures. None of them. And, you know, you look at plumbers and electricians and welders. I come from a welding background. I knew plenty of welders in the nuclear field that have multiple houses in multiple states. They never wanted for money. They always had plenty of money because it’s such a very small niche thing and there’s not many people that go into it. And so what we found with the growing, we’ve had to do a lot of automation because we cannot get the people. So we’re putting robotics in, we’re putting automation system in just because I have a certain number of parts that I have to make a day and we’re not hitting the numbers with the people we have. And it’s really hard to find people that want to come in and work. And we have a climate control facility, the nicest machines, our oldest machine, CNC machine is from 2018. It’s the oldest machine we have in the whole building. Most stuff is within two years old. So we work highest machines, highest quality product this, and just having someone come in every single day and want to work. It’s been very difficult to find. And that’s it. It’s been. I guess upsetting a little bit of how hard it’s been.

00:21:25 – Rico Figliolini

I think we talked a little bit about that when I was here last time. And you’re on the board of Maxwell High School Technical, I think?

00:21:33 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, so Maxwell High School, it’s a vocational high school, essentially. It’s a trade high school. They’re over in Lawrenceville, I think. So high school kids in Gwinnett County, if they want to go to that program, I want to say it’s junior and senior year. If they are heading down that path, they essentially will get bused to Maxwell for half their day and come back. And they have machining and welding, hvac, nursing, culinary, carpentry, all kinds of stuff. And you can get some vocational certificates in high school over there. And so I sit on the board over there and I help advise of curriculum of what do kids need to learn if they want to head down this path? They want to head down, I don’t care if it’s machining or engineering or anything like that. Like what are basic skills. I mean we have people that come in their 20s that don’t know what a screwdriver is. I mean, it’s like, that sounds crazy, but until you meet people and you know, I don’t think the school systems are doing people favors. And so I’ve been really trying to help where I can and you know, try to like, look, let’s try to teach people young. I didn’t have that when I was in school. Like I had to learn everything the hard way.

00:22:42 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. And you were talking about this. You started at 15, I think.

00:22:46 – Kyle Grob

Yeah. So I started machining in, you know, high school. I started welding at 12. I grew up on a farm.

00:22:51 – Rico Figliolini

12.

00:22:52 – Kyle Grob

And so it’s one of those that, you know, I had a very good upbringing. Like I was shown, my great grandfather was a master carpenter. Great uncle was a master machinist. Like I grew up in a trade family. And so like, I got exposed to that stuff very, very young. I was very lucky. A lot of people aren’t like that. Most of their parents are maybe in IT or finance, and they want to go be a machinist or be a welder or something like that. So there’s no, you know, maybe the parents don’t know how to get into that. And so the kids find out at a later date. Well, what if they could start finding out in high school? They start learning, you know, your STEM schools, your vocational schools, that kind of stuff.

00:23:31 – Rico Figliolini

I think like Paul Duke STEM, for example, they’re a hybrid school, right? So it’s, you have kids that are technically STEM kids, but then you also have other kids who are learning CAD and 3D printing and stuff like that. So more of technical stuff that they can actually leave the high school knowing that stuff and then find the job doing it. So that’s the only place I know that’s like that, short of the Gwinnett Science and Technology High School. I forget where that is now. But when I grew up, I mean, granted this, you know, my high school was 50 years ago. Half a century. That’s horrible. Okay. But when I grew up, we had shop classes. So metal class, printing class. In fact, I took printing. I should have taken the auto class because that really works now. But I took printing. And when I was going to college, I worked at the print shop right around the corner. So I made good cash because there weren’t that many people that knew it. And I literally could run two or three presses at the same time. They were small presses. But there were even people back then that would be like, well, what are you in a rush for? Why are you doing what you’re doing? And I’m like, because I’m getting bored running this long run in this one press. I could do this other one while this is going. So it is to some degree motivation, some degree technical knowledge.

00:24:50 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, but a lot of it still drive. Strive.

00:24:53 – Rico Figliolini

Yes. For sure. To be able to make that money. I mean, most parents think, well, I don’t know about most parents. What I think is people got into this four-year college degree thing. Which is way more expensive now than it used to be. And you’re looking at people, who was it, the head of OpenAI, was essentially saying you don’t have to go, the head of NVIDIA was. It was like you used to want to be able to send your kid to do computer programming. And he’s essentially saying, you know, you don’t need to be doing that anymore because it can be done in plain english on OpenAI, essentially. So where are they going?

00:25:36 – Kyle Grob

Good question.

00:25:37 – Rico Figliolini

I see signing bonuses for 10 grand on HVAC here in the metro area sometimes. How do you solve that? I mean, you’re on the board of the high school, but how do you?

00:25:48 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, but it’s one high school. And it’s one high school in a state. And I know there’s other vocational schools in other states. A lot of it just seems to be the state has to look at it holistically in the whole state. And go like, look, this is worth putting money into. This is not football. This is not baseball. This is not your support sports like that. It is an alternative path that is not your commonplace. So it really has to come. And I’ll give the state of Georgia and even Gwinnett County very, very good accolades of, you know, taking the leap on that school and funding that program and pushing it and keeping to push it and grow it. And so, but it has to start at a state level. The state has to be able to go,this is worth putting money into to future. Because you have to do it now for the kids that are coming up. You know if you want to get, if you want that kid that’s in elementary school right now to look at that that program, it already has to be in place so that he will know about he or she will know about it by the time they get into middle school and then by the time they get in high school they can apply for it.

00:26:50 – Rico Figliolini

I think the stigma, but the stigma needs to go away also, right? Because there’s a stigma of like, you’re not going to college?

00:26:57 – Kyle Grob

Yeah. You’re not going to amount to anything if you don’t go to get a four-year degree.

00:27:02 – Rico Figliolini

And it used to be okay if you knew computer engineering and programming. You’d come out of school. Some people, some leaders in that industry would say, don’t waste the four years. We’ll train you during the four years.

00:27:13 – Kyle Grob

Come work for me now.

00:27:15 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, yeah. I mean, Google used to do that. Some of these other companies started doing away with four-year degree minimums to be able to do that because they weren’t finding what they needed. But now they’re finding it in a different way. But I agree with you. Funding that type of stuff makes a whole lot of sense but it’s taking that stigma away to say, you know.

00:27:33 – Kyle Grob

It’s okay to be a plumber. It’s okay to be a carpenter. It’s okay to, you know wash cars. Because I have a friend of mine who started washing cars then he managed a car wash. Now he owns six of them.

00:27:46 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah again, it’s a bit of drive.

00:27:50 – Kyle Grob

Yeah, but he had the drive and he knew that he had to start somewhere. And I think a lot of people are scared of starting at the bottom of something. And but, it’s one of those that like they’re all these crafts all these trades are very inviting they want people. They’re begging for people to come work.

00:28:06 – Rico Figliolini

You know what? You don’t you don’t need to drive as much. You need to be able to, I think take pride in what you do. You don’t need to go into something and say, well, I want to start my own business because some people don’t want to. They want to do a nine-to-five. That’s fine. They can make lots of money doing nine-to-five. 

00:28:22 – Kyle Grob

They can make good money doing nine-to-five, yeah.

00:28:25 – Rico Figliolini

Check out the company. Alright, so we’ve sort of come to the end of our interview. Is there anything I’ve left out that we haven’t talked about that do you think you should mention?

00:28:37 – Kyle Grob

No, I said I can go on for days about the labor and trade schools and stuff like that. But no, I said this. It’s kind of a little bit of my story and kind of where we’ve come from, where we’re heading and what I’m passionate about individually and what I want to do for the community. 

00:28:52 – Rico Figliolini

Excellent. So if you all want to find out about the company, check out the website. I’ll have the, actually, what is the website?

00:28:58 – Kyle Grob

It’s kgm-tech.com.

00:29:01 – Rico Figliolini

I’ll have the link in the show notes as well. If you have any questions for Kyle, just email him off the website. Or leave your comments in the, you know, depending if you’re watching this on Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, or if you’re watching this on audio podcast, just send the comments to me and I’ll forward it to Kyle. So, but thank you everyone. Thank you to our sponsors as well, to Vox Pop Uli and to EV Remodeling Inc. Appreciate you all being with us. Share this UrbanEbb podcast with your friends. And if you look, if you know anyone that’s looking to get into the technical field, Kyle could be a good mentor probably. I would think.  Thank you Kyle.

00:29:41 – Kyle Grob

Yeah. Thank you sir.

00:29:41 – Rico Figliolini

I appreciate it. Thank you guys

Continue Reading

Business

Why Patient Experience Matters: A Conversation with Dr. Aristo Shyn

Published

on

On this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini sits down with Dr. Aristo Shyn, owner of Link Dental Care, to discuss his journey from corporate dentistry to running a thriving private practice. Dr. Shyn shares insights on the challenges of entrepreneurship, how he built a patient-centric practice, and how technology is transforming modern dentistry.

They also dive into Link Dental Care’s community involvement, the role of social media in business growth, and the importance of creating an exceptional patient experience. Whether you’re interested in dentistry, business ownership, or local community impact, this conversation offers valuable takeaways.

Key Takeaways & Highlights:

  • From Corporate to Private Practice – Why Dr. Shyn left corporate dentistry to build his own patient-focused practice.
  • The Power of Technology in Dentistry – How 3D imaging, digital scans, and upcoming Botox treatments improve patient care.
  • Growing a Business – The challenges of launching and expanding a dental office without prior business experience.
  • Community Involvement – Supporting local schools, charities, and offering free dental makeovers.
  • Navigating Insurance & Patient Care – Why transparency in billing is crucial in healthcare.
  • The Role of Social Media – How Link Dental Care’s Instagram skits helped grow their brand and even go viral.
  • Balancing Work & Family – Juggling a growing business while raising two kids.
  • Future Plans – Potential expansion, but always staying patient-centered under one roof.

Listen in to learn how Dr. Shyn built a thriving dental practice while prioritizing technology, patient experience, and community engagement!

Transcript:

00:00:32 – Rico Figliolini

Hey, everyone. This is Rico of Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life here in the city of Peachtree Corners, Gwinnett County, just north of Atlanta. We have a great guest here today, Dr. Aristo Shyn, who owns Link Dental Care. Thank you for allowing us to do the podcast with you today.

00:00:48 – Aristo Shyn

Thank you for having us. I’ve been calling you our very own Joe Rogan for years now, so it’s an honor.

00:00:54 – Rico Figliolini

I’ve done over 250 episodes. I feel like I could be Joe Rogan. I get the head for it. Before we get into the show, though, let me say thanks to our sponsors. We have two. EV Remodeling, Inc., and Eli, who owns it, that lives here in Peachtree Corners. Great family. They do great work. They do design to build, whole house renovation, or your bathroom, your kitchen, or an addition to the house, whatever you need. They’ve done over 260 homes throughout the metro area. I think you should check them out. EVRemodelingInc.com is where you can find that. Vox Pop Uli, our second sponsor, is also here in Peachtree Corners, also family owned. So they take your brand and they bring it to life. So think about it. You have a brand, you have a car, vehicle. They do, I think this past year, they did over 1,600 vehicle wraps alone. You go to trade shows, they’ll put up a whole setup for you. You need shirts, they’ll do that for you. You need just one or you need 1,000, they’ll do all that for you. If you have a logo and you want to imprint it on an object, bring it to them. Challenge them. It’s amazing what they’ve done. So check them out. Vox Pop Uli is the company, and we appreciate the sponsorship of these podcasts, the magazines, and our journalism. Now that we’ve done the sponsors, I appreciate the conversation we’re going to have today. Aristo’s been, Dr. Shyn has been our family dentist for quite a while for all my kids and my wife and myself. So seeing you guys grow from a very small office that was probably big enough for you when you started.

00:03:06 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, you’ve been with us since the beginning. Yeah, very humble beginnings.

00:03:09 – Rico Figliolini

So just moving from that, I saw you know you guys were getting more and more patients. The place was getting filled and now you’re in a larger location, a very beautiful place here right on Jimmy Carter Boulevard, Holcomb Bridge Road here. So tell us a little bit about your origins, where you started.

00:03:28 – Aristo Shyn

How far back do you want me to go?

00:03:30 – Rico Figliolini

Where were you born?

00:03:33 – Aristo Shyn

So I was born in Kansas City, Missouri, next to UMKC, which is where my dad went to dental school. And then moved to Alaska afterwards. Stayed in Alaska from ages 2 to 14. And then I moved to Florida, pursued a golf career, and then naturally transitioned to dentistry after that.

00:03:57 – Rico Figliolini

Naturally.

00:03:58 – Aristo Shyn

Yes. And then I’ve been in Georgia since 2012.

00:04:01 – Rico Figliolini

That’s amazing. You went from Missouri, where I’ve never been. I’m a Brooklyn kid. Kid. No longer a kid, but from Brooklyn. So I don’t know that place. Alaska, which is, for me, you know, grizzly bears is what I think of. So you went, right? From grizzly bears, snowstorms, to Florida, alligators, rocks, and hurricanes. And now Atlanta, of which you find almost none of that, actually.

00:04:25 – Aristo Shyn

It’s nice.

00:04:27 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, it must be different, right? But you went to start with a golf career. When did that even take hold?

00:04:40 – Aristo Shyn

In Alaska, of all places. Yeah, I was pretty good at it. Again, we moved to Florida to pursue that, but I think dentistry was my true calling, and I think I made the right choice.

00:04:55 – Rico Figliolini

Well, and you were kind of young too, I think, when you got your dental degree?

00:05:00 – Aristo Shyn

Yes. I try not to talk about that too much, but I was 23 when I graduated.

00:05:07 – Rico Figliolini

I saw that. I was like, that’s amazing. And so you’ve been practicing since then, obviously.

00:05:10 – Aristo Shyn

Mm-hmm.

00:05:13 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. So you’re in Atlanta. You moved here in 2012. You decided to start your business in less than a year of moving here.

00:05:23 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, I think my first job in Atlanta was a corporate job. It wasn’t for me, to say the least. I think I lasted about seven months before saying, I got to do this. I got to do something else. I got to do this on my own. And that’s how I came to Peachtree Corners.

00:05:45 – Rico Figliolini

So just to be clear for people to know, it’s corporate dentistry is what you were working at. So corporate environment with multiple offices and stuff is a whole different business model, I think. Isn’t it?

00:06:02 – Aristo Shyn

Yes, to say the least.

00:06:08 – Rico Figliolini

Yes. You might not want to say it, but I’ll say it. Corporate dentistry is not that great. When you don’t have an owner that owns the business and doing the work that’s passionate about his patients and his community, it’s way different than dealing with someone that’s billing out of Texas let’s say or they have multiple 20, 30, or 90 offices throughout the country. And they sound like they’re local because they sort of keep the name of the place so they sound local but they’re really not. And so they’re driven by money because they have a big nut to pay.

00:06:36 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, you’re just trying to get me into trouble right now.

00:06:39 – No, no, I’m saying it so it’s okay.

00:06:42 – Aristo Shyn

Listen, I would, in general, and this is from my own experience and what my colleagues have experienced as well, it’s just a lot of, and I think there are good dentists there, but unfortunately they don’t have the autonomy or the control over the whole operation. So I would say a lot of corporate offices, a lot of chain offices, are profit and production driven versus being patient-centric.

00:07:02 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I can’t argue with that.

00:07:05 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, I mean, for example, and this you’ll find often in the industry, when you have your morning huddles, a lot of times at those offices, you’re looking at the schedule for that day. And if there’s not enough production on the schedule, you have to find crowns or implants somehow. And I’ll let our audience use their own imagination for that one. But when we have our meetings, we don’t really talk about that. And we talk about how to streamline logistics and how to improve the patient experience. And these days, fortunately or unfortunately, we’ve been doing some Instagram skits. I’ve been putting my staff through a whole other level of stress.

00:07:58 – Rico Figliolini

You all have to visit the Instagram channel that he has. He comes up with all the skits himself. Some of them are really cool. They’re all pretty good. I mean, some of them are hilarious.

00:08:09 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah, we really, you would expect, you know, before and after photos or us selling something. But I think we’re just trying to have fun there. I really don’t know what we’re selling, but it’s fun. I think it still gives us exposure in a different way. We have a live follower counter there. We’re trying to get that up right now. So follow us, please.

00:08:27 – Rico Figliolini

What is the Instagram? It’s Link Dental Care.

00:08:30 – Aristo Shyn

It’s @LinkDentalCare.

00:08:32 – There you go. So follow them. They want to hit 1,000, like, you know, soon. But no, I think that’s a great team building to be able to do that. There’s a lot of pressure sometimes in doing work and such, and every day is different. I think we would talk before a little bit about how you, you know, you go from one patient speaking English, let’s say, to another patient and speaking Spanish or maybe Korean. So multiple languages here in the office, and multiple challenges, dental challenges, right?

00:09:06 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah. I mean, due to the range of services that we offer from fillings, crowns, to root canals, implant surgeries, sinus surgeries, we get quite the variety of cases here. And then there are days where in one room I’m speaking obviously English, and then next room, I’m speaking Spanish. The other room, I’m speaking Korean. And I think we did a count earlier. We speak a total of nine different languages in this office.

00:09:38 – Rico Figliolini

It’s amazing that you speak three languages, at least.

00:09:43 – Aristo Shyn

Two and a half. We’ll call it three.

00:09:43 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. You get by on it. That’s good. So busy, busy work. Technology, though, drives a lot of dental practices now, too. So tell us a little bit about some of the technological improvements you’ve made here. Some of the technology you’ve brought in.

00:10:01 – Aristo Shyn

Well, everything’s new here. So it’s all digital. All new x-ray units, we have our 3D cone beam imaging machine, we have a 3D scanner, we’re doing really cool stuff with digital photography not just for before and after cases but also to communicate with our lab. We’re doing botox and dermal fillers soon. Busy.

00:10:29 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, that’s amazing. Botox. How does that work in dental?

00:10:34 – Aristo Shyn

I think it’s been requested quite a bit. We haven’t started it yet. We will very soon. It’s not just for, I don’t think it’s just for cosmetics, but it can do a lot with TMJ and related issues.

00:10:51 – Rico Figliolini

Now, when you started on Peachtree Park, it was just you. I think your mom was helping at the front desk.

00:10:55 – Aristo Shyn

No, she wasn’t there at the time.

00:10:57 – Rico Figliolini

She wasn’t there. She came later, maybe.

00:11:01 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah. It was, I think it was a thousand square feet. I don’t think anything was digital at the time. And I had, it was me, one and a half hygienists, one assistant, and one person in the front. Yeah, I still remember I could actually stand in the middle of the office, and if I did a 360, I could see everything. The front office, the four chairs, the lab.

00:11:23 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, I was just thinking the same thing. That’s how small this place was. How many square feet is this place?

00:11:33 – Aristo Shyn

I think it’s just over 3,000.

00:11:38 – Rico Figliolini

And you took on a new, also an additional practitioner with you as well?

00:11:41 – Aristo Shyn

Oh, yeah. New staff, front offices, expanded assistants, hygienists. Another doctor. I mean, she’s been terrific.

00:11:42 – Rico Figliolini

Dr. K?.

00:11:51 – Aristo Shyn

Yep. Dr. K.

00:11:52 – Rico Figliolini

So business has been going well. So that’s good, no?

00:11:54 – Aristo Shyn

It’s been busy. It’s been busy.

00:12:00 – Rico Figliolini

Can’t complain. And there are challenges, right? So let’s go back a little bit. Challenges of opening a business. What would you say to an entrepreneur, to another dentist that wanted to do the same thing? What challenges did you have to overcome when you did that?

00:12:16 – Aristo Shyn

When we first started everything I mean, I was still learning. I had no business experience, I had no HR experience. I mean, I was still learning dentistry at the time so you know the normal course for I’d say acquiring a dental office is, you know you’re usually out in the field for a few years and then you kind of pick up on things and you know slowly transition. But everything happened at once for me so I don’t recommend you do that because it’s quite the learning curve. But going back to everyday challenges, though, I would say half of my stress is just due to my staff, which I love very much, who I love very much. I think we have the best staff ever right now, but you’ve got to deal with staff every single day. So there’s always something. And then beyond that, it’s insurance. Insurance is an issue for, I think, everyone involved in the insurance game. And then after that, it’s just dealing with a wide range of patients and cases that we have coming in, which is also fun for me. But there’s also some focus and stress, and we’re always on our toes. So there’s that aspect to it.

00:13:35 – Rico Figliolini

I think part of that stress probably is because you’re, of your concern for your patients and stuff. I mean you’re sharing that stress with them right? Because some of them, because like you said insurance can be an issue. You know they come in they have to do certain things insurance may or may not cover it or you know, yeah. I mean so, has that changed in the state of Georgia a lot over the past decade?

00:14:01 – Aristo Shyn

I don’t know, insurance is kind of like a foreign language to me. We try our very best to be transparent with everything, I mean not just in my communication with our patients but also you know with our front desk communicating you know regarding finances and numbers. But you know, we try our best, that’s all I can say.

00:14:19 – Rico Figliolini

No that’s good. That you know, I mean that’s the toughest part I think when it comes to medical.

00:14:23 – Aristo Shyn

And our front desk goes to bat for patients if there’s any issues with insurance we don’t just give up and you know tell them that it’s on them so yeah. I know my front desk works very hard.

00:14:36 – Rico Figliolini

Okay cool. You know, the care that you show into the community as well, right? You’re involved with the community. So let’s cover that a little bit as well. What do you like doing in the community? What have you done? Where has Link Dental Care been involved in when it comes to community organizations, events and stuff?

00:14:55 – Aristo Shyn

Well, it’s very different now than when I first started. And I’m very happy and proud of where we are today. For example, I mean, even last year we were able to sponsor the Norcross High School Marching Band, local photography club. I’ve worked closely with Norcross Co-op for quite some years. And it’s, you know, when we interview for dental school, you know, one thing that we’re always saying is we want to be part of the community. We want to be involved in the community. And, you know, that wasn’t the case when we first started. Now that we’re here. Yeah, I plan on staying here and being more involved as time goes on.

00:15:37 – Rico Figliolini

That’s cool. You know, I mean, the biggest thing that we do at the magazine and stuff is that we like to be a cheerleader for businesses that are giving back to the community, doing things with the community, especially if you’re pulling from this community. You know, your patients, your customers, and all that. So being involved makes sense.

00:15:57 – Aristo Shyn

Yeah. And I think we’ve done quite a bit of charity over the years. We don’t advertise it or we don’t really post a whole lot of it on social media. But outside of working at volunteer clinics, we try to take on at least one patient a year and give them a makeover, which they wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise. That’s something I’ve been doing.

00:16:21 – Rico Figliolini

That’s cool. That’s great that you’re able to do that. When the business gets to a certain point, and you’re facing these everyday challenges, right? At the end of the day, what do you do to release that stress, that pressure? I mean, what do you do outside of the office? You’re not playing golf anymore. 

00:16:53 – Aristo Shyn

No, it takes too much time.

00:16:54 – Rico Figliolini

Do you get out of the office? What time do you close up?

00:16:57 – Aristo Shyn

Well, it’s a good thing I still like what I’m doing. But yeah, life’s gotten busy. So the way I see it, I mean, I do have a few hobbies, but really it’s been work and my kids right now. So when I’m working, the way I see it, it’s overtime in a football, basketball scene. And then when I’m with my kids, it’s game seven, triple overtime. So that’s where all my focus has been after work.

00:17:28 – Rico Figliolini

Sure, sure. You have two kids, I think? Two kids. Good-looking kids. So, you know, you’re expanding. You’ve done your expansion. But there’s a future, right? I know you want to stay here. You want to expand. What does the future look like for Link Dental Care? For you? 

00:17:44 – Aristo Shyn

We just moved in here. We’re talking about expansion again.

00:17:47 – Rico Figliolini

Are you really? You just moved in here. How long has it been? It’s been a few years. Can’t you stop?

00:17:58 – Aristo Shyn

I mean, a few. I mean, patients and staff have asked me in the past, what do I plan to do? Do I plan on opening multiple offices or another location? And to answer one part of that question, I think when a dentist branches out to two, three, four offices, there comes a point where you’ve got to stop being a dentist and become more of a businessman. And I still like what I’m doing a lot. And I really want to keep our practice patient-centric and really emphasize that we are a people business, not a tooth-cutting business or a production business. But, you know, I definitely plan on staying in Peachtree Corners. We’re not leaving. I mean, if there ever is another expansion, you can rest assured it’ll still be under one roof. That’s been always important to me. And I mean, going forward though, I think we’re just, we’re going to continue doing what we’ve been doing. We’re going to continue to stay up with technology, continue to reinvest in the office and the community.

00:19:19 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Yeah. Sounds good. This is a great place. People want to take the tour. I mean, 3,000 square feet is a lot of space. I think you have plenty of space to expand in. What should people know about you maybe that they don’t know? Is there anything interesting that you want to share?

00:19:41 – Aristo Shyn

I can share what our dental practice focuses on. I think a lot of times patients and dentists alike, they emphasize, they put their emphasis a lot on good dental care. And that is absolutely important. But, you know, to us, you know, good dental care alone doesn’t really, it doesn’t always equate to a good patient experience. And I care a lot about the patient experience. So that means the patient experience starts from the first time you call into our office, from the time you walk through our doors the first time. From the way you’re greeted from the front office, from the way, you know, our assistants or hygienists take you back to the clinical area. So, you know, bedside manners and having clear communication. So, you know, when you’ve put in all those factors, you know, the receiving good dental care, although quite important, it’s not the only piece to the puzzle. So that’s been my focus. 

00:20:48 – Rico Figliolini

Cool. Patient-centric, essentially. Well, we’ve been speaking to Dr. Aristo Shyn. It’s a great practice, you guys have. I’m glad that he’s my dentist also, my family dentist. He has been doing a great job. So I appreciate you giving us some time and telling us a bit about your business.

00:21:06 – Aristo Shyn

Thank you.

00:21:07 – Rico Figliolini

Thank you. Everyone, if you have any questions, you can actually check out the website, which is?

00:21:13 – Aristo Shyn

LinkDentalCare.com. There you go.

00:21:15 – Rico Figliolini

And Instagram, it’s the same handle, @LinkDentalCare, right? Anything else you want to share? Count is 455, so we need to get that up to 1,000 apparently.

00:21:25 – Aristo Shyn

It was 200 a few months ago. I’ll tell you one more thing about Instagram before we end this. Within a couple months of us actually trying on Instagram, we actually went viral on one video. We got 1.3 million views.

00:21:41 – Rico Figliolini

Damn, which video was that one? 

00:21:43 – Aristo Shyn

That was last year. It was the one about our 3D scanner. So I thought I figured it out and I was almost ready not to come into work the next day. And then here I am doing a podcast with Rico.

00:21:57 – Rico Figliolini

Sorry, it’s not a YouTube content or TikTok creator yet, but he’ll get there soon. Thanks everyone. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. Of course, we’ll have links in the show note and you can always find Dr. Aristo Shyn here at Link Dental Care. So thanks again, everyone. Take care.

Continue Reading

Business

Burn The Ships: Alex Wright on Committing to Success & Helping Businesses Thrive

Published

on

Discover how Alex Wright, a former U.S. Naval officer, founding member of the City of Peachtree corners, and corporate finance veteran, made the bold decision to “burn the ships” and launch his own fractional CFO firm. Burn the Ships Financial embodies Wright’s philosophy of unwavering dedication to success. Wright explains how fractional CFO services can help entrepreneurs navigate their financial journey, from basic accounting setup to high-level strategic guidance.

Resources:

Burn The Ships Website: https://burntheshipsfinancial.com/

Key Takeaways:

  • Burn the Ships Mentality – Why Alex embraced total commitment when leaving corporate America to start his own business.
  • Solving Business Challenges – How a fractional CFO helps entrepreneurs manage cash flow, optimize processes, and grow sustainably.
  • Financial Storytelling – The power of translating financial data into actionable insights for business owners.
  • City Leadership & Business Strategy – Lessons learned from helping launch Peachtree Corners as a smart city and how that applies to business growth.
  • The Role of Technology in Finance – How tools like QuickBooks and Power BI can improve financial planning—if used correctly.
  • Long-Term Business Planning – Why forecasting, budgeting, and understanding financial trends are crucial for sustained success.

Listen in as Alex Wright shares his journey from the military to corporate finance and now to empowering small businesses with Burn The Ships Financial!

Timestamp:

00:00:02 – Interview with Alex Wright

00:02:27 – From Naval Officer to City Leader, Alex’s Remarkable Journey

00:06:45 – Burning the Ships, Commitment to the Mission

00:10:39 – Solving Business Problems as a Fractional CFO

00:13:59 – Optimizing Business Efficiency Through Financial Analysis

00:18:14 – Guiding Entrepreneurs to Financial Clarity

00:21:30 – Providing Financial Guidance and Structuring for Growing Businesses

00:25:46 – Translating Financial Data into Actionable Insights

00:31:19 – Leveraging City Startup Experience for Business

00:37:43 – Helping Others Succeed From Military to Coaching to Entrepreneurship

00:42:14 – Expanding Startup with Passionate Partners

00:45:31 – Connecting with Burn The Ships Financial

Transcript:

00:00:34 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. I have a great guest today, this morning, Alex Wright. Hey, Alex. Thanks for joining me.

00:00:43 – Alex Wright

Hey, Rico. It’s good to see you again. Thanks for the invite.

00:00:46 – Rico Figliolini

Sure. We’re going to have exciting things to talk about. But before we get into that, I just want to say thank you to our two sponsors, EV Remodeling Inc. and Eli and his family who live here in Peachtree Corners and the company is based here. Provide a sponsorship to us for supporting our podcast and our magazines. And EV Remodeling Inc. is a company that does design to build. You need a whole house remodeled or you just need your bath remodeled or your kitchen, they’re the people to do it. They’ve done over 260 large projects over the past few years. And you should check them out. Great supporter of ours. Great people. Nice guy. EVRemodelingInc.com is where you can find them. Our second sponsor, Vox Pop Uli, is also based here on Peachtree Corners. Family owned, they are a company, if you have a brand and you want to bring that brand to life, Vox Pop Uli is the people to do it. They do, think about the truck wraps, car wraps that you see traveling around, trade show booths, signage, anything you need imprinted on any object imprinting. They’re the people to do it. You need a backdrop for you, 20 feet by 10 feet tall, they can do it. Any of those things that will bring your brand to life is what they’re doing. Challenge them, and they’ll come back and surprise you. They’re right here in Peachtree Corners and Norcross. So check them out, Vox Pop Uli, and the link will be in the show notes. But if you search them, V-O-X, P-O-P, U-L-I, you’ll find them. Thanks again for your support. So now we have Alex. So let me introduce Alex a little bit. He has a great background. He served in U.S. Naval, as a U .S. Naval officer back during the 90s. He was the founding member of the City of Peachtree Corners City Council and has been a city councilman here in leadership here since 2012 when he was first elected. He was also the guy that originated the idea of Curiosity Lab that set our path on being a smart city and on so many foundational parts that the Curiosity Lab has been involved in including autonomous vehicle, 5G technology, and all that. So without him, I don’t know where we’d be when it comes to that. Georgia Institute of Technology grad, so much more. He’s also a board member of the Peachtree Corners Veterans Monument Association, if you’re familiar with that and the monument that we have at Town Center. So now that I’ve given a really good background, I think, of you, Alex, why don’t you tell us just a little bit more about what what you’ve been up to and where where we’re going?

00:03:33 – Alex Wright

Yes, that was a great introduction. I wish my wife could have heard how great you made me sound she would’ve found that entertaining. Yeah so I, after I got out of the navy, you know I went to the graduate school and then basically the next 25 years was at various companies in corporate finance. Some big ones, Glaxo Welcome, which I guess that was GlaxoSmithKline, Home Depot, Equifax. And then the last 11 years was at a big consumer products company in a divisional CFO role. That was here in Atlanta. And about three, I guess it’s probably November, I made a decision to transition out of corporate America and with some colleagues of mine that I used to work with, formed a fractional CFO company. Some people refer to it as business advisory firm. And it’s called Burn the Ships. That’s the name of the company. And so, yeah, we’re in the process of just getting engaged in the community, you know, looking for companies that could use our services.

00:04:56 – Rico Figliolini

So tell me, I understand the burn the ships part, but really what inspired you to name burn the ships financial?

00:05:04 – Alex Wright

So, you know, when I was making the decision to leave corporate America and, you know, that’s kind of all you know, it’s, you get comfortable with that and to make that, you know, giant career change you know it’s, it can be kind of scary. And I happened to be reading a book at you know during this time when I was trying to figure out and do I want to do this and the name of the book was called actually burn the boats. And the book is about it’s written, I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he’s an entrepreneur serial entrepreneur and the gist of the book is not to have a plan b. And you can apply that concept to really anything, whether it be your marriage or training for an athletic event or starting a business, that something that’s going to be challenging and require your full effort in order to succeed, you can’t have that thought of, well, if this doesn’t work out, I’ll just go back to that. It has to be a total commitment. So that phrase is a metaphor for total commitment. You know, there’s a, not to go into much of the history, but, you know, the phrase comes from, not to go into a lot of history, but of Cortes when he was exploring the coast of Mexico. He had been tasked with that. And he gets there and discovers that, you know, there’s the Aztec Empire is there and decides, hey, I want to go into the bowels of Mexico and see what’s going on there. He just had a few hundred men with him. These guys that he had with them were apprehensive, obviously, because he wants to march into the jungle, the unknown. Plus, their orders were to just explore the coast. Well, his solution to that was, I’m going to eliminate the plan B. And the way he did that was he literally burned all the ships. There was now no way to go back. It was succeed or, in their case, die. So that phrase is about total commitment to the mission. And it really, at that time, it rang, just struck a chord with me as I was trying to make this decision because that’s a big change in a lot of different ways. And so I really just loved the story, that idea of total commitment. And so that’s the brief background or as brief as I could make it, where that phrase came from, because I just loved that story about the, you know, the commitment. Those other, not to go on a lot of my other, you know, kind of pursuits that I’ve got in my life, but, you know, different, whether it be especially like athletic things or projects, some of the things we’ve done with the city where it’s only going to succeed, you know, totally buy into, you know, what we’re trying to accomplish, the total commitment. So that’s the, that’s the name. And you know another, some of the advice I got was you need to make the name evocative so when someone hears that name, I think what does that mean? You know versus opposed to a right CFO services.

00:08:27 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, no I totally agree with that branding is key to to a lot of what we do and get people remembering. And I can appreciate what you’re saying too because having, I mean I have not worked in corporate environment except for a couple of years. And I’ve been on and off a business owner and then working for a company and stuff. So I’ve been on both sides of that so it’s a little different. But you’ve, your whole career has been with corporate large companies, so I can appreciate that jumping off the ship almost and not going back is really scary, I’m sure. So your experience has been as a divisional CFO at least for the past decade or so, I guess. How do you think that that’s going to, how does that shape the services that you’re offering through Burn the Ships Financial?

00:09:23 – Alex Wright

So in this role I had, when people say, I worked in corporate finance, that can mean a whole lot of different things because in larger companies, the finance department’s quite large. So the role I had, in this business, and this company had probably 15 businesses, and as a divisional CFO, you’d be embedded in the business. And what that means is you’re at the table with the decision makers actually helping run the business. From generating sales to making, say, manufacturing more efficient to how can we ship more efficiently to negotiating with vendors for better terms, you name it. You had exposure to that. So the relevance of that is you’ve seen, now granted, maybe it’s a bigger scale, bigger numbers, but the challenges of making a business successful, you’ve had exposure to a full P&L balance sheet, just like for a small company. And so that allows you, the reason that’s translatable is ultimately what, when companies hire someone. As a fractional CFO, really what they’re looking for is I’ve got a problem. I’ve got a pain point and I need someone to help alleviate that pain to make that, help take that problem away. So it’s really about problem solving. So running a business in the finance role is ultimately about solving problems as well. So I feel like the skill set is very translated because that’s what I did for 10 years, which was solve problems to make the, our business more financially successful.

00:11:13 – Rico Figliolini

In the practical way, can you give us an example, without sharing the company you worked with I guess or you know particularly, but is there an example that you can give of how that translates in an actual real life story?

00:11:30 – Alex Wright

Yes. So now you know at a larger company it’s especially when it’s publicly traded, you know, it’s all about how do we get our earnings per share up? You know, the company is normally pretty stable. And like, say, a smaller company, they might, in some cases, might be fighting for survival in some instances. So a little bit different scenario, but ultimately it’s about how do we make the company more profitable, whether it be small or big. And so an example of something we did at this larger company is, we were in a market where there wasn’t a lot of growth on the top because it was an industry that was actually kind of shrinking. So how do you grow profit if your top line is stagnant at best or maybe just growing through price increases, very low single digits? So one of the things that you could look at is, let’s look at our product, the actual composition of the product. So we are actually a manufacturer. Are there ways that we can make the product that we’re producing less costly, but hopefully in the process also make it more effective? And so in this instance, the product in this case was grass seed. You’re thinking, well, what can you possibly do to grass seed? But in today’s world, they actually take the grass seed and they put a biostimulant around it so that when the seed goes out, it has a much higher probability of germinating. So what you would look at is, what can we do with the stimulant to change the makeup of it, change the composition where it’s, maybe the germination is even higher, but we’ve substituted some type of material that costs less. So in those instances, you’re working with an R&D department, you’re marketing people. And so in this instance, we did that over a series of five years, switched all of our, you know, changed the composition of our products. And so the ultimate takeaway for that was we increased the margins for the business by about a thousand basis points. So what that means is let’s say your margin was 30%, now it’s 40%. So that’s, and that drops straight to the bottom line through that. Something is, it wasn’t simple, but you know, instead of saying, well, there’s nothing we can do because we’re not growing is to basically look at everything on the pan out. What are, you know, areas that we could look at? I mean, you could apply that to your own personal life. I’m trying to cut back on spending and you go through and look at every expense and explore it. And maybe we don’t need the 1G, you know, internet. Maybe we just need the 500 megabytes and, you know, no stone uncovered. That’s the way we had to operate and I think that’s very translatable skill for smaller businesses because most likely they’re going to be even more cost conscious than you know a bigger company that’s got you know, more resources at their disposal.

00:14:45 – Rico Figliolini

So it’s really looking closely not just at the books but at the process of what companies do, right?

00:14:52 – Alex Wright

That’s exactly right. So one of the things when I’m, and this is before I transitioned, you know people would say well you know what does finance do? It’s just kind of this broad term and I would always describe it as in three pieces and it’s very simplistic, the first the most basic part is the gathering of of information. And that could be billing AR, AP like in a big company that’s completely automated, smaller company it might not even really exist. The next level is you’re taking that information, you’re analyzing it, you’re putting it into a reporting format. At a bigger company, not completely automated, but mostly automated. At a really small company, especially like reporting, the small business owner, his financials might be his bank statement. That might be the limit of what he’s got. And the third part, and this is really where finance differs from, say, accounting, is. You are going to the decision maker and you’re saying, hey, if you pull this lever, this will happen over here. You’re giving them actionable data, advice, if you will, on how to drive the company, whatever the company’s financial goals are, giving them suggestions how to do that.

00:16:17 – Rico Figliolini

So it’s also, I guess. You know, if I look at it from what I do a little bit, from my business and stuff, every business is somewhat the same to the degree there’s peaks and valleys. You might not always have the same trend line of revenue coming in and stuff. So it’s finding how to maximize the use of the money that’s coming in and the money flowing out. Maybe it’s the manufacturing or the service side and how that’s being done. Whether that’s parts being delivered or how it’s being ordered and such. So you’re looking beyond just the numbers on the books. You’re trying to optimize the way a company’s doing business behind the scenes.

00:16:59 – Alex Wright

That’s right. And that’s the thing I was talking about being embedded in the business, being part of the decision-making is, again, looking at the full P&L. You’re not just reporting the news you’re trying to influence what’s going on. So you might be looking at in the course of a day okay how do we make our you know logistics more efficient. You might be looking at hey what’s the ROI on this marketing spend. You know any anything you can do to you know drive profitability. And that you know I guess that’s one of the upsides of a publicly traded company when you’ve got that pressure that quarterly pressure if we got to make earnings you know you’re looking at anything and everything all the time. Now there’s downsides to it because sometimes to make the numbers look a certain way things will be done that maybe aren’t super logical but you still have that relentless pressure to become more efficient to drive costs down as much as possible.

00:18:02 – Rico Figliolini

I think with certain types of business, like you said, the private business, smaller businesses, the owners tend to, the job keeps going, right? Three years will pass before you know it. Maybe they’re not optimizing their cash flow properly. Maybe they’re doing the work, if you will, and not really looking at everything because money’s coming in. Everything seems fine. They may not see even the trend of how things are going where maybe it’s going bad, but they’re not seeing it yet because maybe they have the revenue there. The cash flow is there. They might not see it for the next three months. And all of a sudden, they start realizing, whoa, this is bad. We’re beyond, why didn’t I see this before? So how does the aspect of what you do as a fractional CFO, let’s say, how will you give that foundation to these businesses? What’s the process, if you will?

00:19:01 – Alex Wright

Well, I think that obviously each company is different, right? You have to go in and see what, if any, processes they have. But I think if you make the assumption that they don’t, kind of your point, they’re just, you know, you’ve got this entrepreneur. They’re really good at making pencils. And that’s what their total focus is, selling those pencils, just growing, growing, growing. You know, they don’t really have a whole lot of time to, you know focus on the finances other than making sure they got enough money to meet payroll or buy anything. I think the key thing when you go in, in a situation like that is, you know, to talk to the owner or the founder, you know, understanding what is it that, you know, what are your, you know, try to define the goals besides just staying afloat, you know, kind of help them sit down. Okay. Let’s put this pen to paper. What is it you’re, I’m going to make something up, okay you’re doing 500,000, million in revenue and you want to get to a million and a half in two years. Again I’m just making this up. You know in the larger company it would be you know to be a budget or they’d call it a you know five-year plan it’d be some kind of structure you know a guide post if you will. I think that’s the, I mean you could apply that to your personal life. Like okay I’m trying to you know, retire at age 65 or I’m trying to lose 20 pounds or whatever it might be, whatever that you’re trying to accomplish. You’ve got the saying about if I fail to plan, I plan to fail. So I think that’s the key thing is to understand from that owner what it is you’re trying to accomplish. And then once, because ultimately it’s their business, you’re there to help them be successful. So once they’ve articulated what those goals are, then one of our jobs would be, okay, let’s lay out a plan to see if we can get to that. Because in some cases, you know, my experience has been people that are entrepreneurs, when it comes to forecasting financially, they’re not always the most realistic because they’re normally going to be really optimistic. I can conquer the world, which is you need that to be an entrepreneur. But one of the jobs of finance is to kind of poke holes in arguments, not to discourage people, but to make people think realistically, okay, can we grow from a million to a million and a half in two years? Understanding, you know, what is there a path to do that that’s realistic? And having those conversations with, you know, with these guys, because in some cases you’re bringing up things that maybe they haven’t thought about because they’re so focused on the here and now versus looking a year or two out that that’s just not really what they’re focused on because, again, they’re trying to grow the business.

00:22:08 – Rico Figliolini

So when you come into a firm, for example, you know, obviously people, you know, you want to build that foundation without the cost of a full-time CFO. I mean, that’s the idea, right? So work with me for a minute. In an ideal world, you would come in for a few hours or whatever that first month and then how would the rest of it work like is there a maintenance level that you provide? Quarterly stuff you provide? So give me in brief what that would look like to someone.

00:22:45 – Alex Wright

Right. So again, each company is going to be different but really kind of two levels, and I’m simplifying this, but really two levels of service. And you can pick one or the other or both. So let’s assume we’re talking about a company that we used an example earlier of the finances are literally the bank statement. I know how much cash I got. That’s kind of an extreme example. So we use that one as our example. So in that case, they don’t have a P&L or balance sheet. They don’t really know what’s going on other than, you know, how much cash they got in the bank and maybe in their head, they’ve got kind of a gut instinct of what’s going on. So in that instance, you know, you’re going to have to come in and create a structure that will allow you to build a P&L, which is, you know, the foundation of any type of forecasting or budgeting. You’ve got to have that initial document. And to get to that, you’ve got to go in and take basically all their transactions that, you know, are in their bank statement and create what’s called a trial balance, which is going to have a chart of accounts. Basically, all that is coding where, you know, okay, this is travel and this is, you know, sales and it’s basically, you know, accounting 101, right? And so that base level of service would be something like that plus reporting that goes with it. And that reporting you would get through programs like Microsoft power BI that can do you know anything at the like that but you’ve got to have the you know the numbers formatted. So that would be a basic level of service and the first time that initial transition that would be time consuming because you’ve got to you create something, a structure that’s not there before. But then after you’ve created a structure you know each month you’re just really just updating, you know the results putting them into a P&L format. And if we think back when I was talking about the three levels of finance that’s really like the first two levels combined. So that’d be like a fixed fee you know for that service almost like a subscription. The second level of service it’s more like what that kind of like that third level I was talking about before where you’re sitting down with the decision maker and you’re telling them hey, this is what’s going on with your business. And depending on if they wanted to have, layout objectives, then you talk about the progress each month of how are we progressing versus these objectives that we’ve laid out. And if we’re off course, what things can we change to get you back on course? And so that would be an in-person review where, the analogy I use is that movie, The Matrix, if you remember, they’ve got all the data that’s doing this, right? You can’t read it. And so if you’re not in finance, often people struggle to, you can give them 20 reports, but if they’re not a finance person, they’re often going to be like, I don’t really understand what this is telling me. That second level is, it’s really about storytelling, where you’re taking the information and you’re telling the owner a story, you know, not in a fictional way, but this is what’s going on with your business, but you’re translating it in a way that is easy for them to understand, versus if you’re just talking about debits and credits, they’re going to be lost with that.

00:26:21 – Rico Figliolini

So if they already have QuickBooks online, for example, they’re already getting reports, you’re at that stage already, but you’re able to tell them more than that, what the reports give them in numbers, because you’re looking at all of it, right? Holistically almost.

00:26:38 – Alex Wright

That’s correct. So you know a lot of companies will have you know they’ll have a controller, bookkeeper, you know maybe both of them. And so in my you know previous life I had plenty of accountants that worked for me and really what their job, and I’m simplifying and this isn’t to say anything negative about accountants, like I said I’ve worked in accounting. But their job really is to tell you okay this is the number and this number is correct. But if you ask them well okay that number is that’s a number ten, last year it was a five, why did it go from a five to a ten? That’s really not what their role is in most cases. So they’re challenged to you know explain the why part of it right? And so that’s where, that’s really where finance comes in to explain what is going on. And not just report.

00:27:36 – Rico Figliolini

And not just explain it. I  would imagine if, from my point of view, you might explain why that went from a five to a ten, but you should probably be able to give me advice on, you know, where can we take that from now? You know, why is this? I know the difference is there. I knew it grew. Maybe it grew for this reason, but you might be able to tell me how we can adjust that, right? I mean, the whole idea is, for you to provide guidance. So almost like a, what do you call it? A person that, the accountability partner, if you will, in this.

00:28:15 – Alex Wright

Yeah. Well, that’s the great thing about, you know, having a budget is that you’ve, again, we were using examples earlier, but you could apply it to different parts of your, you know, personal life, but having that objective. If you don’t have that objective, then you don’t really know. It’s like driving a car. You’re trying to get somewhere, but you don’t have a map. You’re going to struggle without that map to point you in the direction you’re trying to get to.

00:28:45 – Rico Figliolini

So now we’ve got here, does technology play a part in what you do as well in financial advisory or in this type of field?

00:28:59 – Alex Wright

So the, remember when earlier I was talking about the kind of the three levels of not services but you know what finance does, and what’s occurred over the last 20 or more than 25 years is that systems like say SAP or Hyperion or for these large ERPs is they have really kind of flattened the work structure of companies because what they’ve allowed is it’s really like an early form of AI. Is  they automated you know tons and tons of functions that before there would have been literally like armies of people you know just doing kind of mindless work almost and so technology, now some of these small companies you know they’re not going to have an SAP or Hyperion but when we were talking earlier about power where that’s like Quickbooks but on steroids the kind of things that can do. But the reality is, whether it be QuickBooks or Power BI, if you don’t have that basic level of the information formatted, the magic can’t happen without that. So ultimately, at the smaller companies, there is some manual aspect of, I’ve got to code this expense correctly, input it. So the technology, at a smaller company, you know, that doesn’t have an SAP or Hyperion or Oracle is really more in the, you know, the reporting phase, the things it can do once the numbers are formatted correctly. It’s almost mind boggling now that the danger there is you can have too many reports. I can produce 30, 40 reports, but it’d be too much, you know, information. And that’s the, so when people talk about, well, I got QuickBooks. or even got Power BI, if you don’t have someone there to interpret it for you, to say, well, this is actually what this is telling you, it’s a very limited value. Like we were, again, using the Matrix example of it’s great, but if I can’t take any actions based off of it, then I don’t really want to do it.

00:31:15 – Rico Figliolini

Right. And I can see that in a world where a company might have two, three, or four different credit lines using them for a variety of reasons. Well, the financial planner might come in and say, why do we have these two where your APR, your interest rate is this high, you’re actually utilizing the wrong credit line or, you know, there could be a variety of things there, right? Let’s look a little bit at experience. As a founding member of Peachtree Corners, the city of Peachtree Corners since 2012, how has the involvement in local government influenced your business perspective? Has that influenced it at all? And where does that go?

00:31:57 – Alex Wright

The thing that I, kind of a, not a comparison, but an analogy is, I was talking to someone about this the other day where we started the city. There was an election to whether to have a city, and then there was an election to elect a council. So we had seven people who, for the most part, didn’t know each other. And I mean that was the city, there was no city staff there was no anything. So the reason that’s relevant it’s almost like a startup where we’re like okay we need to find someone, it’s like you don’t know what you don’t know. You had to go find people to kind of help us get started and then there’s those growing pains of whether it be the relationships amongst the council or you know finding the right people from a staff standpoint to be part of a city startup because if you think about all the cities in the country, very few new cities. That idea of a new city, it’s not unique to Georgia but you know prior to say like 2005 that wasn’t something that was happening here. So it’s that, there’s only certain people that want to take that risk. I guess it was kind of like going from a big corporation to a startup, it’s you got to have the right you know mindset and you know kind of fire in your belly to do it so it’s being part of something and seeing it grow from you know literally the seven of us in a room one day like meeting each other to you know what there is now. It’s what I envision starting a company would would be like. And you know maybe the the comparisons aren’t you know the correlation not completely you know accurate but I would think for sure there’s some you know similarities those same kind of decisions we had to make about bringing the right people in at the right time and you know just being able to get along. Because at a smaller company I would think those relationships are, the importance of them are more pronounced because there’s fewer people. Versus at a larger corporation not that the relationships aren’t important but you know the success or the failure of say like working at the home depot headquarters is it going to be based on you know just a you know my relationship with somebody because there’s 400,000 people that work there.

00:34:17 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I think part of it too is you’re starting, you know, the city started with just, you know, with a certain amount of revenue because it took over some of that revenue being a city, franchise taxes, business licenses, but you also grew into a budget. And then as the city grew financially, I know it’s not a business, but you all treated it to some degree as a business, right? You didn’t spend money you didn’t have, or if you did there was a reason you knew where the revenue might come in from whether it was a grant or a loan or whatever it was. I’ve got to say that the city has overall done it responsibly. So has any of that informed the way you know or have you used your experience there you know working with that type of finance too?

00:35:08 – Alex Wright

So, you know the analogy I use sometimes with people is like the city council relationship, say, to the city manager is similar to in a company, a board of directors to a CEO. So that, you know, being a role, you know, because I was never on a board of directors at a company, you’ve got to be way up or probably older than me normally, you know, to be in that role of coming up with policies and then entrusting someone to execute those, you know, definitely gives you a different perspective. You know, running an organization because my career had been on the implementing people’s policy, you know, taking that directive from on high and implementing it and, you know, bringing it to some results. So to have that perspective from the other side has been, I think, good because, you know, I sit there and think about not too many people get that opportunity to be on the other side of the, you know, the table, if you will, to come up with policies. And trust other people, find the right people to enact those and make them successful.

00:36:20 – Rico Figliolini

Going from other experiences, your military service as a naval officer, has that also provided any experience that you’ve drawn on? Excuse my black cat.

00:36:34 – Alex Wright

No, you’re okay. That was a little more tricky. I think the thing that, where that part comes in, and this was really more about, you know, the why of, you know, I wanted to get into this type of work. Because when I was making the decision to leave corporate America, you know, I was in a position from a career standpoint, financial standpoint, a personal standpoint, you know, kids rolling off the payroll. There’s an opportunity here to do something different. And I did a, I don’t know if you know what a SWOT analysis is, but strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, did like a SWOT analysis of myself and thought, what is it that, you know, now in this situation where I don’t have as much responsibility as far as taking care of other people, like what really brings me, you know, satisfaction, fulfillment, besides just, you know, helping a company get that EPS each quarter. And, you know, the common theme as I looked at all these different things I’ve been involved in. I looked at my military experience, looked at serving on the city council. I looked at the 20 years I coached kids sports. All three of those things are thinking, how the heck are those three related to each other? But the common theme, because each one of those brought me satisfaction in different ways, was that you’re helping other people in each of those instances. You’re serving other people. You’re making other people either successful or in the case of, you know, the military is really about, you know, serving the nation, but it was doing stuff for other people. Again, differently. And I thought, how do I take these skills that I’ve built up over 25 years and do that in a way where I can help other people be successful? Because one of the things I would constantly hear from small business owners is, we were kind of talking about it before where they’re really good at you know that making the pencils or whatever it is but they struggle with finance because that’s not what their you know expertise is. And in a lot of instances can’t afford you know to bring somebody in or they don’t they don’t need someone full-time. And as I learned more about that industry I thought this could really fill that that impulse, if you will, you know, I’ve got about how can I help other people be successful? And in a way where you go in, you take this person’s got their whole life’s work tied up in this business. Their heart and soul in it. And to be able to go in and help them eliminate or alleviate some of their pain points that are preventing them from being successful. That really appealed to me much more than, well, I’m just going to go back into I’m going to call it the matrix of corporate america life we’re just going to you know get that EPS up three cents. You get to a certain point in life where like I’d really like to a bit of focus more on giving back. Just like with the you know city council it pays eight thousand dollars a year an occasional free t-shirt but you just have a great sense of satisfaction when you go out to the Town Center and you see like the the playgrounds and stuff we’ve built out there and you see all those people enjoying themselves you think you know I had a some small part of you know bringing that you know joy to these other people so it’s that same you know you want to do the same thing but in this different you know industry.

00:40:16 – Rico Figliolini

Now and I can see that. I mean you brought a lot, you’re passionate about the things you do. We were talking about a little bit about the industries that you’re passionate in, the areas of like CrossFit and stuff. So, you know, a person that’s driven that way and that’s sharing. I mean, you’re doing the Memorial Day Challenge for kids on Fort Payne, which is our obstacle course. That’s probably one of the best in the city, if not the best. So I can see that. I mean, giving back to the community and all that. And working with entrepreneurs, startup businesses, or even just businesses that have been around for a while, providing them with information. And you’re right. Some people, number one, either they think they can’t afford it, but they really can’t ignore it, right? Because if they’re going to grow their business, they really need to know what those numbers mean. And, you know, I mean, you’re right. Bank statement or even a QuickBook report. I mean, fine, so you can see your business is growing, you can see its profitability, but you may not see the things that are coming, which those numbers can tell you. It’s almost like being a futurist with it, right? Or being able to tell the future with numbers, if you will. And those numbers don’t lie to a degree. So giving back to the community as a business leader, as a political leader, I mean, I know that’s part of what you do. The relationships you’re building with Burn the Ships Financial, I mean, you just started out. This is your first few months in business. And you want to be able to give the feedback that you can to them. So tell me what, you know, what do you look ahead? What’s your company’s long-term goals? We’re towards the end of our interview here. So I just want to know where you think you’re going, where you want to be in a couple of years. What type of clients, what industry maybe. What do you want to be? Tell me.

00:42:24 – Alex Wright

So one of the things that I’ve done you know as I was learning about other companies that play in this space you know some of their you know limitations whether it be bandwidth or skill set. One of the things I did is I reached out to a lot of former colleagues and said hey would you be interested in going on this journey with me? Like hey, don’t quit your job but you know would you like to you know partner with me on this? And literally every person I reached out to was like, yes, I would love to do this with you. They were very excited about it. The reason that’s relevant is, it gives us a scope of skills and bandwidth that I would argue most of these other companies just don’t have because they don’t have access to these people that have worked in companies. The reason I mentioned that to your question is, some of these folks that are really you know fired up about you know doing the business initially, I was just, I’m just going to do it myself and take on four or five six customers you know that have compelling stories but as these other folks really wanted to get involved you know I’ve been rethinking that just see how things go but you know it could be that things take off and we’re able to some of these folks come on board we might you know make it a bigger plan. I just wasn’t expecting the level of response I got about how excited people wanted to do this as well. So that’s TBD, obviously. We’ll just see how that goes. But money is a very personal thing, whether it be our personal money or a business’s money. It’s really about trust. And obviously, you’ve got to build that over time. I’m anticipating, you know, it’s going to take several months where, hey, you got to inform people they have moved into this space and you’re spending a whole lot of time meeting with people and just telling them what I’m doing and, you know, getting the word out that I’m here to, you know, get involved to help people be successful. So we’re just, we’re going to have to wait and see how that goes. See what kind of growth opportunities there are. But, you know, Peachtree Corners, that’s over, I want to say about 2,500 businesses. They’re not all in the space that I’m looking to get involved in, but it’s a great location to be in, in terms of this industry.

00:44:51 – Rico Figliolini

For sure. We’re a growing city, so it’s never-ending. We’ve been speaking to Alex Wright with Burn the Ships Financial. Just started a startup of his own. A city councilman with City of Peachtree Corners here as well. Alex, I appreciate you being with us. Can you tell people where they can find more information about you, your website, your contact info?

00:45:15 – Alex Wright

Yes. So website is just like the company name, Burn the Ships Financial. We got that up a few weeks ago. And that’s probably the best place to go. It’s got my contact info and some of my partner’s contact info on there. Yeah, that’s going to have all my info. I was going to say you could go to the city website, but at this point, everything you would need would be on the company website.

00:45:46 – Rico Figliolini

In fact, on the homepage, there’s a phone number, email address, and a schedule a consultation button. So it is burntheshipsfinancial.com that you should all visit. And check out Alex Wright and his team and the services they provide. Hang with me for a second, Alex, but everyone else, thank you for joining us. Appreciate your support. Appreciate the support of evremodelinginc.com and Vox Pop Uli as well for supporting our podcast as well as the magazines and the digital work that we do, newsletters and all that, and the journalism that we produce. So thanks again to everyone. Alex, appreciate you being here. And if you all have any comments, leave it in the comment box, depending where you are. YouTube, Facebook, or just email Alex and he’ll be able to answer your questions.

Continue Reading

Read the Digital Edition

Subscribe

Peachtree Corners Life

Topics and Categories

Trending

Copyright © 2024 Mighty Rockets LLC, powered by WordPress.

Get Weekly Updates!

Get Weekly Updates!

Don't miss out on the latest news, updates, and stories about Peachtree Corners.

Check out our podcasts: Peachtree Corners Life, Capitalist Sage and the Ed Hour

You have Successfully Subscribed!