On this special episode of the Capitalist Sage, Karl and Rico are joined by Mark Collier, business consultant and faculty member with the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center. What is affectionately called the SBDC, is a great resource to the small business community. Listen in to this episode to learn more about the SBDC and just how this asset can help you build your business.
[00:00:30] – Intro [00:02:30] – About Mark and SBDC [00:05:07] – Hiring and The Labor Crunch [00:09:52] – The Importance of a Business Plan [00:11:30] – Supply Chain and Strategizing [00:13:34] – Finding Your Differentiating Factors [00:17:01] – Getting Financial Systems and Plans in Place [00:23:54] – Resources with SBDC [00:27:36] – Closing
“We have a singular, sole mission and that’s to help Georgia businesses grow. That is all we do. We help businesses along all, what we call five core business functional areas. Strategic planning, marketing, operations, human resources, and financial reporting. So we’ve got a variety of tools and resources for small businesses.”
Mark Collier
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:30] Karl: 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 of Atlanta Peachtree, and my co-host is Rico Figliolini with Mighty Rockets, Digital Marketing, and the publisher of the Peachtree Corners Magazine. Hey Rico, how you doing today?
[00:00:50] Rico: Good Karl, it’s a beautiful day.
[00:00:53] Karl: Yes, no snow this weekend. As we sit here in January, getting ready for our mini exposure to winter. Excited to continue to have some great shows today. Why don’t you introduce our sponsor for today?
[00:01:06] Rico: Sure. Our sponsor is Peachtree Corners Magazine. The sponsor of the family of podcasts that we do, right? Between this and the Peachtree Corners Life and Prime Lunchtime with the City Manager. So, and now we’re working on our next issue, which is the best of Reader’s Choice Awards for Peachtree Corners. That’ll be coming out the beginning of next month. So a lot of stuff in there and it’s going to be a good issue.
[00:01:28] Karl: I think a deadline is coming up for that. I know I went in and made some, when is the deadline for people to get their votes in?
[00:01:36] Rico: Today actually is the deadline. The 20th when we’re filming, when we’re streaming this and filming this rather. So yeah, we’ve had over 1800 responses so far, which is phenomenal, I think for this type of survey.
[00:01:49] Karl: Well, looking forward to see that. And again, a lot of the small businesses that are featured in that survey also, I’m glad to see the many businesses that the community here supports. So really appreciate that. Well, today I want to jump right in and I’m excited to welcome today’s guest is Mark Collier. He is the business consultant and faculty member with the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center. And if you don’t know, what we affectionately call the SBDC is, this is a time to learn a little bit about it and understand it’s great resource to the small business community. Hey Mark, how you doing today?
[00:02:27] Mark: I’m doing well. Karl, and Rico, thanks for having me on.
[00:02:30] Karl: We’re really excited to talk. Why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit to our audience. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do with the SBDC to help the small business community?
[00:02:40] Mark: Absolutely. Again, my name is Mark Collier. I’m a business consultant at the University of Georgia, Small Business Development Center. I office in the DeKalb office, one of 18 offices around the state. And we have a singular sole mission and that’s to help Georgia businesses grow. That is all we do. We help businesses along all, what we call five core business functional areas. Strategic planning, marketing, operations, human resources, and financial reporting. So we’ve got a variety of tools and resources for small businesses. And here’s the best thing Karl, anyone who chooses to use our services have already paid for us through the tax dollars that they pay. So our services come at no direct cost because we have one singular mission. And that is when we help Georgia businesses grow and scale, and they grow their revenue, grow their employees, guess what? They pay more taxes.
[00:03:35] Karl: That’s right.
[00:03:36] Mark: A very simple business model that we work off of.
[00:03:38] Karl: Well, I love it. And most people already know. And if you don’t, most of the businesses in the US, 90 plus percent are small businesses. So continuing to support that is a mission that the SBDC and the folks that help advise and support the small business community is really passionate about. Well, today I wanted to start off by talking about some of the top issues you see business owners struggling with. And some of the things that they can do about it. Why don’t we start with the first thing that when you talk to business owners, where do you see them really having challenges?
[00:04:12] Mark: Well, that has shifted over the last couple of years. Prior to the pandemic year of 2020, it was the traditional things. Access to capital, strategic planning and marketing. Since the pandemic their needs have shifted dramatically to how do I deal with this pandemic? How do I pivot in an effective manner to continue to drive revenue growth for my company? So that’s kind of the core challenge that we are seeing now is how can businesses best compete in our emerging post COVID economy.
[00:04:44] Karl: Yeah. We’re seeing a lot of that when we talk to business owners. It’s actually incredible to think that in 2021, what constrained most business owners from having a really stronger bounce back from COVID in 2021 was that they didn’t have the people and they were struggling with supply chain issues that would allow them to continue to grow their business.
[00:05:07] Mark: Correct.
[00:05:07] Karl: But I’m curious, have you seen techniques and strategies that business owners have been doing, to succeed to navigate? Let’s say start on if you’re a service business, the people part, and then we could talk a little bit about people that sell products in the supply chain area.
[00:05:23] Mark: Sure. Well, from the people perspective, there’s been a labor crunch. Across the board labor crunch in a lot of sectors. So what small business owners have had to do is really wrap up their offerings to attract and retain good people. Not only in terms of salary but a huge one, Karl that’s emerged since the pandemic is the ability to work from home or some type of hybrid arrangement where they can work partly in the office and partly at home. Businesses who are focused on wrapping up their benefits and pay, are the ones who have gained a competitive edge in keeping and finding and retaining good people for their company.
[00:06:04] Rico: Has it become a problem with some companies trying to up their salaries, up their hourly pay to be able to meet the demand? Has that helped employment at all?
[00:06:14] Mark: Well, it’s gonna cause some kind of wage inflation, which we’re starting to see some reminiscence of out here. But in terms of the difficulty, yes. Obviously anytime you raise a pay of your employees, that impacts your bottom line because your labor costs start to rise. And there’s only so, so far that you can rise the prices of your goods and services to help mitigate that.
[00:06:37] Rico: Right. And to pay more for new employees to attract them, you also have to lift the wage just to your existing employees too.
[00:06:43] Mark: Correct. Rico, what smart employers are doing is they’re trying to get folks away from focusing purely on the dollars and starting to offer some ancillary benefits. Like I said, perhaps a hybrid work environment. Some additional vacation days or other incentives that are non-monetary that wouldn’t have that direct impact to a company’s bottom line.
[00:07:04] Karl: I think the market and what this has done, it’s accelerated a trend that we saw in large corporations for probably 20 years. You know, you work for a large company like Coca-Cola or UPS, you get benefits and vacation and all these things. that drove retention. That’s why you have people that have worked there for 20 years and 30 years. It wasn’t always about just the salary, although they were competitive. Some of that expectation now is creeping into the small business environment. And I know a lot of small business owners pride themselves of how disposable their workers were. If you wanted more money, I could find someone else to do it. Well, when unemployments under 3% here in Georgia right now. It’s 2.8, 2.7 and continuing to decline. The recognition in 2022, is that the market has shifted.
[00:07:56] Mark: Yes.
[00:07:56] Karl: We’re announcing it here. We’re calling it out. You can continue the same practices pre pandemic, but what you’re risking is being able to hire, attract, retain the best quality employees in this environment. And if you don’t have the employees to service your customers, you can’t grow your revenue.
[00:08:16] Mark: No. Not only can you grow your revenue, but you’re putting your entire business livelihood at stake. You may go out of business.
[00:08:23] Karl: Absolutely. It is something that when we look at financials for folks and we see what they pay on leads and salary, we’re just expressing to them the need. Now we understand that it’s going to decrease profit. If you act alone in that way. Some of these other benefits can be something that’s lower cost to deliver, but you’ve also got to think about ways of adding more value to what you provide so you can increase prices. That’s when it’s forcing you to think holistically about your business model. And if labor is going up by 10, 20%, what else can shrink? And where else can you grow revenue to help maintain an increased profitability?
[00:09:01] Mark: No, I was going to say probably you’re spot on that the words value added has taken on a new meaning for small business owners that they’ve got to have that value add.
[00:09:09] Rico: I was just gonna point out that, I mean from my experience with advertisers and such and being out there with some of the small businesses in retail, is that if there’s not enough employees, you end up limiting the hours that you’re opened. You end up, the service suffers and people are funny. The Yelp reviews we’ll go flying. And in fact for every one bad Yelp review, there may be 10 people that are not even going to bother doing a review. They just won’t go back. So it’s not just saying I don’t have enough money to do this. It’s more like, is my business going to suffer? And I’m going to lose clients because of that. Because eventually you ended up closing.
[00:09:50] Mark: No, absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:09:52] Karl: So this leaded to an interesting discussion for business owners. If when you have business owners come into your office, I’m curious to how often they walk in and they open up and present you a business plan for the new year, 2022. Here, Mark, here’s my business plan. Here’s where I’m going to grow revenue. I’m going to diversify revenue stream, I’m going to offer catering in my business. I’m going to offer delivery. And then here’s my cost basis and here’s how much profit and here’s some of the things I’m doing strategically. That’s what you get when people come in every day, right?
[00:10:24] Mark: Oh, absolutely Karl. It’s routine, no. Absolutely not. Most folks who come in, and it really depends on what stage they’re in. If they’re a pre venture or startup, there’s a whole different set of needs that are very different than an established business or what we call professionally managed business. But you’re right. The majority of business owners come in, they do not have a business plan. And that’s something I strongly urge because a business plan serves as a blueprint for success. You can’t get to a destination if you don’t have a roadmap to get there. And that is what a business plan serves. It is a living breathing document that kind of drives the company’s culture, it drives the mission, drives the vision. It drives everything. And Karl, you mentioned something where they come in at the beginning of the year. But within that overarching business plan, there has to be a strategic plan that has to be a part of that business plan. But that’s something that has to be looked at least on a quarterly basis to make sure that you’re on track. And if any course corrections need to be made at that point.
[00:11:30] Karl: One great example around that, as we talked a little bit about the impact of supply chain. I was talking to a business owner the other day, you know, we started talking about some of the challenges that’s happening currently. And I ran into a business owner that did a really smart thing. They saw what was coming with the supply chain challenges and they placed orders for key materials months in advance. And so now they’re going into their peak season in the spring and they’ve got all the inventory they need for over a year of the business. So they did some tactics, but they saw it coming around the curve. When I talked to them some further, the next evolution is they’re looking at getting suppliers that are more domestically based versus overseas. All the way around it, they don’t know how long ports are going to be jammed up, but they realize they have to make a strategic shift in their supply base so they don’t have to keep ordering all that inventory in advance and dealing with that. How important is it to start talking to somebody through those things to be successful?
[00:12:35] Mark: I can guarantee you that client of yours had a strategic plan in place with some mitigating factors that helped them forecast those types of things. And typically those things are uncovered during your SWOT analysis, your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So you can start to make some adjustments when things happen and do some better forecasting. But your client also has understood the importance of supply chain diversification. Because the clogged supply chains, and there was a point early on in the pandemic where nobody even wanted anything from China. They didn’t know if it would come over infected with COVID. We didn’t know what extent that virus can infiltrate products. So we went through that stage where they didn’t want any products from China. And what that did is created a mini revolution of Made in America products. Which I think we’ll start to see the fruits of that as this year rolls on and on into 2023.
[00:13:33] Karl: Absolutely.
[00:13:34] Rico: Yeah. And I agree with you, Mark. Politically speaking, even if the supply chain fixes itself to a degree with the world politics, the way it is and the stresses that are going on in the South China Sea and all that stuff. I mean, most people are moving towards American products. There are international things going on that we can’t even fathom at this point. But Ukraine is an example, what’s going on right now. So imagine something like that going on. What’s the practical things businesses should think about when they come to see you to be able to know. So then you can help them with a business plan? What’s the top three or four things they need to know to come to you with?
[00:14:15] Mark: Top three things is to have kind of their strategy, their overall strategy in place. What is their differentiating factor? What makes a client or customer want to purchase their product or service versus other offerings in the marketplace? And you’d be surprised at the number of businesses that can not answer that question. And I tell them, the business owners, you can’t answer the question, what makes you better than the competition? You really need to reevaluate if you want to go into this business.
[00:14:41] Karl: That’s a great point. I know that differentiation and starting to understand how you’re different for a neighborhood pizza shop may not think like it makes sense. But what this pandemic is showing is, taking the time to think through that and coming up with that, and it could be simple as service. We provide better service than anybody else. Dominos made a killing off of the 30 minute guarantee when they started. Why? No one else did it. No one else was guaranteeing the pizza’s free in 30 minutes or less. And guess what? All the competitors started trying to figure out how to deliver their pizza faster, because they wanted to make the claim and build systems to support that.
[00:15:24] Mark: No, I mean you hit on it. I mean, there are three broad categories that you can compete on. The low price, differentiation, or quick response as Domino’s did, we’ll get you a pizza in 30 minutes, quick response. Not going to be the cheapest. Not going to be the best pizza. But we’ll get it there in 30 minutes. So those are the three broad categories that you can compete on. And of course there’s some hybrids in some other underlying areas that have overlap. But those, you hit that one right on the head Karl.
[00:15:50] Rico: Because most businesses are, they don’t have a cutting edge technology. They don’t really have anything completely different. An HVAC company, a pizza place, a restaurant. They’re providing the same thing that you probably could get somewhere else.
[00:16:03] Mark: Correct.
[00:16:04] Rico: But you’re right. How do you position yourself and how you think about yourself? Would make some difference, at least, right?
[00:16:12] Mark: Rico, you’ve made a very important point. You raised the HVAC component. I’ll give you a prime example of that. I’ve got a client who has an HVAC company. He grew his business tremendously with one simple pivot technique. When he went out to service an AC, his people would find a loose door knob, something else that was totally unrelated to the HVAC problem. And they would fix that. Screw in that funny light bulb, fix a door handle, fix this. That small pivot created a, just a groundswell of goodwill for them. Positive reviews. And it just exponentially grew their business.
[00:16:53] Mark: Doing something extra. I spent seven years in New Orleans they call it lagniappe. A little something extra.
[00:17:01] Karl: There’s another area that I’m curious what you’ve been seeing. Many people start or acquire a business and one of the skillsets that I noticed that’s in high demand is good bookkeeping and accounting financials. I ask business owners three basic questions. I asked them, do they know how much money they made last year? That’s the first question. And it’s an open book test. I love it if they go in and grab their tax return or anything to be able to answer that question. Then I asked them if they know how much they made last month. And that’s usually telling me the difference between someone that’s really paying attention to the details of their business and really know what the quote unquote score is. The third question that I ask is, do they know how much cashflow they generated last month. That shows me that they’re at another level in their financial acumen in their business. Because despite all the claims of profit being good, cash is king, when it comes to business. Businesses don’t go bankrupt or go out of business for profit, they go when they run out of cash.
[00:18:05] Mark: That’s right.
[00:18:05] Karl: What can you advise people to close this gap in where you see people at today with their financial acumen and where they think they need to be a professionally managed business?
[00:18:16] Mark: Well, I think it comes down to utilizing the resources that are out here available. I mean, experts like you, Karl. The experts that we have at the SBDC who can help a business owner, get his arms around his finances. Help understand what the inflows and outflows are of his cash each month. Cashflow projections. Most companies don’t even do that. You’ve got to do some type of monthly cash flow projections in order to get your arms around your cash and what’s running, moving in and out of your business. So I would say one of the first necessary step is to get educated in better cash management techniques and financial techniques. And if not, reach out to the available resources that are out here that have experts that can help them go from one level to the next.
[00:19:02] Karl: What’s key in that thought is, we’re not suggesting that you need to become a certified CPA accountant. You need to build in your team. Somebody with good financial acumen to help keep the books. But you as the owner and leader of your business is responsible to what that score is. So if you’re not looking and reviewing your financials, I would almost argue, it doesn’t even make sense you keep it. You’ve got to track it. So that review of them and taking actions based on deviations from what you expect, is what the great companies do differently than everyone else.
[00:19:40] Rico: I was going to say, there’s enough absent technology out there, that once you have someone set it up for you. A couple of hours of them set up, you can pull down your phone app of QuickBooks or FreshBooks or whatever you using. There’s no excuse. It’s so simple to be able to track your stuff day to day, or week to week on it.
[00:19:59] Mark: You’re absolutely right. I mean, those systems, that’s part of the systems that you want to put in place. I call them the three P’s, policies, processes and procedures. They all build up into your systems. I’ll ask business owners all the time, what’s the highest and best use of your time? Is it doing books? Is it HR functions? Is it doing the marketing? Typically for most small business entrepreneurs, the highest and best use of their time is going out, making connections that will drive revenue, additional revenue for the company. That’s the highest and best use of their time.
[00:20:32] Karl: Absolutely. I’d say a close second to that is being a leader to your employees. Training them, building culture, building value, building ethics. If you’re going to focus on two groups of people, your customers and your employees, I’ll let you pick the order. Each businesses. But if that’s where you have to spend your time, you can outsource the bookkeeping. You can outsource the marketing, you can outsource some of these other functions. But being present and really focusing on that, is going to be really key. The one other tip I’d give is starting out in January of 2022, have a conversation with your accountant, your bookkeeper, or even with yourself and your team to create a budget for this year. A forecast. How much in revenue do you plan on doing each month? A monthly budget. And how much expenses? Both costs of goods sold costs, as well as operating costs, all those. Just by putting out a number, a target each month that you sold, those great tools Rico was mentioning QuickBooks and others, you could easily see whether or not you win or lose each month.
[00:21:38] Mark: Yes.
[00:21:38] Rico: And if you keep life as simple as that each month you want to win. And if you win 12 months in a row, you are going to have a good year.
[00:21:46] Mark: Oh, absolutely. And you know, I’d like to add something to that. In addition to setting that goal, you also have to have a set of tasks underneath that goal that are going to illustrate how are you going to do it? You know, I always say a plan without some detailed steps behind it is a dream. That’s all it is.
[00:22:04] Karl: Absolutely. Perfect example is, you want to increase revenue by 20%? You’re going to implement a marketing plan, that includes digital marketing. You are going to engage in X amount of sales calls per month. You’re going to approach new clientele or new customers or new channels and take those actions and each quarter break the year into four quarters. Each 90 days, set a goal to improve your business and put the actions in place to do it and hit it. Don’t move on until you hit those goals. If it takes you five months, then take five months. Then you set a new set of goals and repeat. And that’s what world-class companies do.
[00:22:45] Mark: Fully agree. Fully agree.
[00:22:46] Karl: The other thing I’d mentioned along that is once you set the budget, you have to review it. And if you’re going to ask me the frequency, a minimum of monthly. Depending on your business, you might need to review it weekly or twice a month. But a plan without some review and accountability to it just really isn’t helpful.
[00:23:04] Mark: No, you’re right. I mean the old adage is true. What can not be measured can not be improved. So without those measurement intervals, as you said, you’re like a hamster on a wheel.
[00:23:15] Rico: And that gets a little scary, I think for businesses that don’t have contractual agreements that don’t have expected certain amount of revenue every month. I mean it could be a restaurant that, every month is going to be different for them. Mother’s day. Father’s day. Those are going to be big events. Christmas maybe, thanksgiving. For other types of companies, like HVAC, the beginning of the spring, the beginning of winter. So, and some of them will have contracts, those monthly maintenance, but not all of them. So, being able to understand what you did the last two years, where you think you’re going forward, that’ll help protect maybe, you know, any losses that might be coming because you didn’t plan ahead.
[00:23:52] Mark: Great, great points Rico.
[00:23:54] Rico: Can people come to you to get regular assistance, even? Instead of just the initial thing. Can they come to you on a regular basis somehow?
[00:24:02] Mark: They certainly can. I’ve got clients across the continuum. Like I said, we kind of segment our clients out into pre-ventures, basic businesses, established businesses, and professionally managed. And typically those business segments will have different needs. But I’ve got clients where I do a monthly check-in. I’ve got clients where I do a quarterly check-in and some are semi-annual check-in. And I serve as a sounding board for them. And they know that I have no other vested interests other than to see them succeed and grow their revenue.
[00:24:35] Rico: And just to, so that people remember, this is free. There’s no fees here. You’re a professional. And you’re providing these surfaces.
[00:24:41] Mark: Yes. Well, we don’t like to use the word free cause that sometimes implies no value, but we say it comes at no direct cost. You’ve already paid for us through the taxes that you pay. So why don’t you go ahead and maximize your ROI on those taxes?
[00:24:54] Rico: Yeah. And people can come back to you, I mean, accountability partner to be able to hit things off with you.
[00:24:59] Mark: Absolutely. Yeah, so that’s one of the key needs that we feel as an accountability partner. And many business owners are very appreciative of that.
[00:25:07] Karl: So let’s talk a little bit about some of the resources that the SBDC and some of the other resources available to small business owners. And I’d like you to comment on one small thing and see if this. When folks are looking at doing their planning, they’re always asking the question, how are my peers doing? If I’m setting a goal for profit or how much I’m spending on labor relative to my revenue. Does the SBDC have resources that can help people answer some of those questions?
[00:25:37] Mark: Absolutely. We all have access being University of Georgia, to a number of databases that can generate some impactful reports for our clients. Industrial CFO is a benchmarking data that lets you know, how am I doing relative to revenue, expenses, where my revenue is coming from? So it’s kind of a benchmarking report for other similar firms that are in your industry. We also have access to what are called Vertical IQ and that is an industry report. Good at giving forecasts for what changes or forecastings are upcoming in a particular industry. So, those are two of the most impactful reports that we have access to that we can distribute to our clients, again at no direct cost.
[00:26:18] Karl: And if you were to try to buy these reports online. And so some of these costs thousands of dollars.
[00:26:24] Mark: Absolutely.
[00:26:24] Karl: Just on that alone. I just want to make people aware of that. One of the great ones is there’s resources like IBISWorld and other similar. This benchmarking, if you are a professionally managed business or a business that has some scale and size, going out and seeing how you compare to your peers, benchmarking will tell you a couple of things. If you are below the financial metric averages for your industry, it tells you, you’ve got some work to do. If you’re looking at selling one day or exiting or valuing a business, it’s going to matter whether you’re above the average, below the average, or at the average. So understanding that sooner so you could take action to make improvements. But on the other side, if you’re performing well above the average for your industry, that’s a point of pride. And you need to figure out what is making you do that? How is it? Bottle it up and leverage it to scale and grow the business. So something as simple as that, if you wanted to do this year, go out and benchmark your business. Approach one of the great SBDC consultants like Mark out there and start that process of learning more about your business.
[00:27:34] Mark: Absolutely Karl.
[00:27:36] Karl: Perfect. Well, I’d like to attack, you know, do you have things going on? Besides the consulting service, I know you offer training and classes and stuff. Do you have anything that’s coming up or things you’d want to highlight?
[00:27:48] Mark: Sure. For a kind of an overview of our upcoming trainings and classes, you can go to our website, GeorgiaSBDC.org. It’s Georgia spelled out sbdc.org. Go to the training tab and you’ll see all of the training on there, but I’d like to highlight two signature programs that we have. One is called our Grow Smart Program. And that is like an mini MBA. It is an intensive eight week program that business owners come in once a week, for eight hours a day, for eight weeks. And they cover all of the business, core business functional areas. That class is open. It’s only open to businesses that are generating at least $300,000 in revenue, have some full-time employees. But that class is one of our signature programs because it can really make a huge difference in propelling that company from good to great. The other signature program we have is called Start Smart. And that’s at the other end of the spectrum for people who are either looking at getting into business or have been in business for less than a year. That program is more foundational. It’s a four weeks, it extends four weeks, I think, twice a week. Three hours after work night. But what it does is it sets the foundation for success. And I came from a Capital Projects Management background. And what I know is that businesses are much like buildings. The most important part is the foundation. So what that Start Smart class delivers are those business foundations that will help business owners get off on the right foot.
[00:29:24] Karl: Thank you for sharing that. And I’ve taken courses through the SBDC and I refer many clients to them. Those that go through and set that strong foundation from the beginning have a higher success rate and they were able to build and scale the business much, much quicker than learning along the way. It’s always tougher to learn after you realized you should’ve done a thing. To be able to learn that afterwards in the middle of satisfying customers, trying to hire employees, dealing with a pandemic, you want to get the foundation strong.
[00:29:56] Mark: Absolutely, Karl. You hit something very important. Now, sometimes those real life lessons can be very, very expensive in both time and money. So you will try to want to avoid those.
[00:30:06] Karl: Absolutely. Well Mark, if someone wanted to reach out and contact you, what’s the best way to reach and contact you?
[00:30:12] Mark: Sure. They can email me at MCollier, C O L I E R, @GeorgiaSBDC.org. And then our office number in DeKalb is (770) 414-3110.
[00:30:28] Karl: Excellent. Well Mark, I want to thank you so much. Let me reintroduce Mark Collier. He’s a business consultant, a faculty member with the University of Georgia. Go Bulldogs. Small business development center.
[00:30:40] Mark: National champion Bulldogs.
[00:30:42] Karl: National champion Bulldogs. Have to make sure I get that in there. Respect. At the University of Georgia SBDC, he and his colleagues all around the state. There’s offices in South Georgia, North Georgia, all around the Metro Atlanta area. There’s plenty of people out there to help you plan, execute. Whether you’re starting a business, whether you’re growing your business, where you’re planning on an exit feel free to reach out and leverage these resources in the community. And Mark, I want to thank you so much for sharing your insights and experience.
[00:31:11] Mark: You’re welcome Karl and Rico. And I really appreciate both of you for allowing me the opportunity.
[00:31:17] Karl: It’s our pleasure. We would like to thank our audience for tuning in. And we enjoy that. I’ll introduce myself again. Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors of Atlanta Peachtree. Our business advisors are passionate about small businesses. We’re available to consult on your business. Whether you’re looking to improve it or looking to grow in particular by acquisition, or you’re looking to exit the business. We are qualified in doing valuations and consulting business owners. And feel free to schedule a consult with us. I can be reached at KBarham@TWorld.com. Or you can visit our website, www.TWorld.com/AtlantaPeachtree. And come in and see some of the tools we have, information we have for small business owners to help them grow and be successful in their business. Rico, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you’ve got coming up?
[00:32:06] Rico: Sure. Our Pastry Corners Magazine, we’re working on the next set of feature stories for this issue coming up, February and March. The cover story is Reader’s Choice Award. So we did a survey, we have over 37 categories. So our readers and social media followers have told us who their favorites are in some of these categories. And we’re going to be sharing that in the next issue. Along with some information about we’re doing an overview article about the commercial and residential development that’s going on in the city over, the next year in 2022. What’s been approved, what’s in construction, and what’s coming up. So we’re doing that overview plus there’s a whole bunch of other features in there that, we’re be talking about Pinckneyville Middle School, about businesses opening up, restaurants and such. A lot of stuff going on there. You can find more information at LivinginPeachtreeCorners.com. Follow us on social media. Peachtree Corners Magazine can be found on Instagram, @PeachtreeCornersLife. Facebook, same thing, Peachtree Corners Life. Search those and you’ll find that. Follow us on LinkedIn. We have a page for the magazine there as well. And if you’re looking for someone to do content online or social media or other things along those lines, just check me out at MightyRockets.com or look me up on LinkedIn as well. And I’ll be more than happy to consult with you and see what you need.
[00:33:22] Karl: Sounds good. And we’re continually excited to bring you these Capitalist Sage podcasts. We have more folks coming in, in the upcoming weeks and months. We’re highlighting some local business owners. We’re talking to some of the great resources that are available here in the community. If you have a topic, feel free to reach out through the website and suggest a show topic.
[00:33:42] Rico: And actually you should follow us on Instagram @TheCapitalistSage and visit us on Facebook @TheCapitalistSage as well. So there’s a few places you can go to pick up more of these podcasts and learn more of what’s going on.
[00:33:56] Karl: Absolutely. Thank you everybody for joining today, have a great day.
Join UrbanEBB host Rico Figliolini for a conversation with Gabrielle Mills, co-founder and CEO of Sourced, a full-service back-office firm supporting small to mid-market businesses. She shares how she and her mother built a company that provides accounting, marketing, HR, staffing, and administrative support—all under one brand.
Learn about the challenges entrepreneurs face with business operations and how outsourcing can provide the help they need. Gabrielle also discusses:
A $12M business that never checked its financials
The importance of trust in outsourcing key business functions
The balance between people, technology, and business success
Sourced’s commitment to giving back to local charities
Timestamp: 00:02:20 – Sourcing Solutions for Entrepreneurs 00:07:26 – Building Trust and Expertise to Serve Clients 00:14:53 – Fixing Broken Books for Business Owners 00:18:18 – Encouraging Diversity in Talent Acquisition 00:19:57 – Embracing Mistakes and Developing Processes 00:23:12 – Giving Back to Local Charities 00:25:34 – Leveraging Technology to Enhance People-Centric Services
Podcast Transcript:
00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini
Hey, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of UrbanEbb here based in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. I appreciate you joining us. We’re a little smart city just north of Atlanta. I have a great guest here, Gabrielle Mills. She’s the founder and CEO of Sourced. Hey, Gabrielle. Thanks for joining us.
00:00:20 – Gabrielle Mills
Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me.
00:00:22 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, no, I appreciate you being here. We’re going to learn a lot from you, I’m sure, this morning. And this is one of those freezing mornings here in Georgia that really never happens, like down to 20.
00:00:32 – Gabrielle Mills
It is so cold. I’m very cranky about it.
00:00:36 – Rico Figliolini
Yes, it’s amazing. But it’ll warm up in a week. But before we get to our interview, I just want to say thank you to two sponsors we have that have been with us. Appreciate the support of our journalism, these podcasts, of the magazines as well. One of them is EV Remodeling, Inc. They’re a company that has done work from design to build. whole house renovation, as well as just redoing your kitchen, your bathrooms and such. They’ve worked with over 260 families. They’re based in Peachtree Corners. Eli, the owner of the company, is a really great guy. I think you should check out their website. You could do a virtual consultation with them as well and check out their portfolio. So go to evremodelinginc.com and find out a little bit more about them. Also, our second sponsor is Vox Pop Uli, also based here at Peachtree Corners. They’re a company that takes your brand and brings it to life, essentially. They’re a family business, father, son, other family members in there, another daughter in there handling marketing. And even members of their employees are considered part of the family. It’s just a great, well-run company. We just did a podcast with them recently. You should check that out. But they try to bring your brand awareness out there. They can do anything from truck wraps to print on any object, just come to them, give them a challenge, and they will actually step up to that challenge. You might think they can’t print on it, but God knows they’ll find a way to do what you need to bring to that trade show and to make your business stand out as a retail operation or whatever. So check them out, vox-pop-uli.com, and it’s V-O-X-P-O-P-U-L-I.com. So now that we’ve gotten our sponsorships out of the way, Gabrielle, appreciate you staying with me like that. So tell us a little bit about how you started the business, why you chose the word sourced, and what the business is.
00:02:39 – Gabrielle Mills
Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. So I can’t tell you the answer to that question without acknowledging my business partner, Chrissy Strohmeyer, who is also my mother. So we are a mom and daughter team. We have just enjoyed the heck out of building this company together, but really my stories are her stories and vice versa. We started the business because we wanted to be entrepreneurs and we wanted to help other businesses grow and be successful. We think entrepreneurs are the salt of the earth people. They’re the reason for our economy. They create jobs. They’ve got so many great ideas. And they are the last people that get a helping hand because they don’t always have enough cash, right? That’s why we started Sourced. We actually went to business owners and asked them, because we didn’t have this idea. We asked business owners what they need, where they were underserved and how, if they were to do it all over again, kind of what they would do. And we put all of their answers up on a whiteboard that’s currently in our office. In fact, you saw it when you came over to our office the other day. If that whiteboard could talk, man. And we looked at all of their problems, all of their suggestions, all of the things they were struggling with. And our services came out of that. So Sourced is a back office services company serving small to mid-market companies. And the easiest way to describe what it is that we do is we basically have five businesses under one brand name. So on the fractional side of our business, we are a full accounting firm, full service accounting firm, a full service marketing agency, outsourced HR, administrative support. And then not fractionally, we do direct hire full time placement. So all of those ideas came from entrepreneurs that we spoke to that they needed help. And we said, we’ll do it.
00:04:38 – Rico Figliolini
It’s amazing. All under one roof.
00:04:42 – Gabrielle Mills
Well, we didn’t mean exactly to create five businesses at the same time. That was more of God’s plan. But, you know, here we are.
00:04:51 – Rico Figliolini
No, no, I can appreciate that. I’ve come across a lot of people in different businesses doing different things. So you do look at where your services can expand into. So it makes sense for where you guys are coming from.
00:05:04 – Gabrielle Mills
So you asked me where the name comes from. And I don’t get that question a lot. And it’s actually a really funny story. When I was working my big girl corporate job at IHG, Intercontinental Hotels Group, I had a relative that worked in the company. And she was the only person that knew that I was thinking about leaving and starting my own thing. So I floated the concept to her. And she loved the concept. At this time, we didn’t have talent acquisition. We only had a fractional client or fractional services. And our name was the Atlanta Assistance Group. And we were going to go by TAAG, T-A-A-G. And she was in branding for IHG. And she goes, I have to tell you, that name isn’t scalable. It’s easily forgettable. And you also have TAG, the Technology Association.
00:05:57 – Rico Figliolini
That’s right.
00:05:58 – Gabrielle Mills
And she’s like, I really think that you need to rethink your name. This was seven days before I was going to quit my job and do this and tell them I was going out. In which case they would want to know what the company is, what our name is, all the things. And so the next seven days, Chrissy and I were just on fire trying to think of everything. The amount of hours we spent digging through the thesaurus was crazy. And one day we were, I was driving and I was playing around with the word outsourced, resource, I was trying to come up with a play on words there and Sourced just came about and I called her and I was like, what do you think of this? And she’s like, I love it. And I think we came up with it two days before I quit.
00:06:48 – Rico Figliolini
Wow. And I love the website name though, getsourced.com. I mean, it just like makes sense to be able to do that. So, you know, you’ve been dealing with a lot of businesses, helping them and stuff. Sourcing is an issue sometimes, especially if you’re doing financial fractional work like that. And small business owners, maybe the larger ones like 10 million plus different, or even let’s say 5 million plus different, right? And I’m not sure what your sweet spot is, but the trust process to get a business to trust you to do their work because they’re sourcing it out to you. You’re not in the office. How do you do that? How do you gain traction with that? How do you gain their confidence to be able to provide the services that will make their business better?
00:07:37 – Gabrielle Mills
I think there’s a lot of ways that we do that naturally. First and most importantly, we have an amazing, amazing team of people and they really do the selling for us. Most of our business comes from word of mouth and referral because the people that work with us have such a great experience with our team and our people that that trust is kind of transferred already over because the referrer has had a great experience. That helps. Chrissy and I are involved in every single sale at this point before we pass it off to our team. We obviously have been through the entrepreneurial journey. We’re in our ninth year. We’ve done all the bumps and bruises, made all the mistakes. We’ve seen a lot of other people’s mistakes. We can kind of provide a lot of guidance during the sales process. So I think that builds trust. And not to be understated, the processes and the standards that we’ve built over time, we know how to fall back to the level of our training, regardless of the situation at hand. So we really lean into that when we’re talking to clients or prospects because they want to know how things are going to go. You can have a really good person who’s really friendly, but they may not know what they’re doing. That’s where the processes and our training comes in. We don’t have to do a lot of training because our people are already very experienced. But the way that we do things, we want that to be standardized. So we train on how the Sourced way is. So the client is experiencing something consistent.
00:09:14 – Rico Figliolini
So when you’re training, obviously, that’s an internal thing that you’re doing. There’s always industry trends, right? I mean, taxes is one thing where there’s always an update every year, different things going on. God knows probably this year will be a lot of things going on, accounting and stuff. But how do you keep ahead of some of the trends then or adapting to the needs of the entrepreneurs that you’re reaching out to? Because I’m sure that changes and evolves too.
00:09:42 – Gabrielle Mills
It does. I mean, you keep up with current events. We listen to our clients. Our clients know a lot. Our clients are very, very smart and we’re industry agnostic. So we get the benefit of seeing lots of different things from lots of different people and lots of different industries. So we just kind of like by osmosis learn things. But I think any good leader, regardless of if you own the business or you’re just working in the business or you have some kind of your stakeholder somewhere, I think anybody that is worth their salt is kind of always keeping up with. What’s going on and how does the business need to adapt and how does my department need to adapt and how do we grow and how do we improve? And I think just by having a regular practice like that, where you’re always kind of investigating it and looking at ways of improving, it’s more natural than it is forced to grow and change as the world changes.
00:10:37 – Rico Figliolini
Do you find going through the things you’re going through that, I mean, obviously, The day-to-day work is never-ending, right? It’s a process. Some days, some weeks, it’ll be the same as other weeks. But every once in a while, you get a challenge. You find something that you have to overcome within a business maybe, within your own business. Do you have any success stories that you can share that relates to that?
00:11:06 – Gabrielle Mills
Yes, I’ll tell you my favorite one. And it’s one of the more recent ones too. In our nine years of business, we have seen a lot come through our doors. We always tell people, especially those coming in for accounting. Accounting and talent acquisition are our two most popular services. And we started in accounting. That’s kind of our bread and butter. And people are always very vulnerable about like, oh, my books are bad. I had a bad accountant. I don’t know what I’m doing. We always tell them we’re like doctors. We just want to, give us the real, real, we’ll fix it. Like accounting is not a human body. So like we can actually fix it because it’s just numbers. But we’ve seen a lot of horror stories. You cannot scare us. You cannot surprise us. We’ve seen a lot in nine years. Recently, I think this client came on board early last year. And it was a $12 million construction client. And they have been in business for like 20 years or something. And when we were working on, we got referred into this client and we went and we talked to them and they were having an issue with their accountant that was internal. And they wanted to let that person go, but she knew way too much in the business. So they were like, we need somebody that can fix the craziness that’s happening in the books. And you can imagine they’re large books, $12 million company. We need to create some kind of redundancy in a situation where we need to let somebody go and we can’t, we’re beholden to them. And we just don’t know anything about our books. We’ve never seen them. And the best part of that meeting was that Chrissy asked, or she was talking about the financials, the financial reports. And the client stops her and she goes, wait, why do I need to look at my financial reports? And our jaws just dropped because this is a $12 million company. They’ve been in business for like 20 years. They have done a phenomenal job building their company. They had no idea the importance of their numbers. They didn’t know what their, like how their money was transacting. They, I don’t know how they were running it. And so that was a lot to overcome. It was probably one of our longer onboarding processes, but we got that client off of QuickBooks desktop and onto QuickBooks online so they could see their numbers, right. Their books were done and I’m not blaming this person that ended up leaving. There was reasons why this was, but the books were entirely backwards. So where there were things that should have been a positive, they were showing a negative and a negative should have been a positive. So all their numbers were backwards and then nothing was set up properly. So we had to do a whole setup. We had to clean the whole thing and we just had a meeting with them yesterday just talking about our usual check-in, how things are going. We’re constantly looking at improving this account. And they were just saying they have never felt more secure in an accounting firm. They said, regardless of how our team changes, you guys are our people. You’ve taught us, you’ve changed everything, you’ve done everything. And we just, they were showering us with lovely things and it just warmed our hearts so much because this was one heck of a undertaking. But I also, give them a lot of credit too, because that one, it was not a cheap project. And two, that took a lot of trust in them too, to be like, I don’t know you guys and you have to fix all of these problems at once. And it was a lot of work that they had to do and we had to do. And so they put a lot into the relationship as well. And it was, they’re probably one of my favorite clients now. And it’s, will probably be my biggest success story for a while, just from the scale.
00:15:01 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I have a friend, Karl Barham, who owns Transworld Business. He consults, he buys and sells business for people. And it’s constantly amazing how many, not just half a million dollar companies, but $10 million companies, sometimes their books are so bad that they have to like step away and say, you know what, let’s fix this up. You may have to wait a year before you can sell this business just because the books are so bad. You know, it’s just like, there’s that.
00:15:31 – Gabrielle Mills
We don’t like to see it. Obviously it breaks our hearts and we can, we can fix it. We have the, we can fix anything at this point. But it’s unfortunate because they didn’t get bad because of that person. They got bad because that person didn’t have the support that they needed. Likely that the entrepreneur was not an accountant. They shouldn’t be. They should be building their business, doing whatever it is that they’re doing. Accounting is important, but this is why we went into businesses. You need to go do your dream. We’ve got the stuff that, yes, you need to keep up with, but you don’t need to know how to do it. We can show you, but you don’t need to know how to do this. You just need to know what your numbers look like.
00:16:19 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, I’m surprised that when their accountant did their work at the end of the year, I can’t imagine it was the same person doing it. It had to be someone else doing it. And no one figured it out.
00:16:33 – Gabrielle Mills
Well, with this particular client, there was a couple migrations in systems that caused that reversal. So they started on one system and moved to QuickBooks Desktop. which reversed everything. And then the person that was working in the office, she would do a lot of things right. But there’s a lot of different ways to do accounting right, quote unquote. But she continued the backwardness because that’s how it had to be done. It was very complicated.
00:17:02 – Rico Figliolini
And I’m sure. And sometimes you’re down a path and you don’t want to leave that path. You just keep going and just figure it’ll work itself out at some point.
00:17:11 – Gabrielle Mills
That happens in accounting of like, we just start fresh. Like right now we’re getting a lot of clients that need cleanups and we only have to go back a month and a half because it’s the 21st today. When we’re in July, we’re like, okay, how far back do you want to go? Or not July, but more like October. They’re like, we can clean up from January or we can just hold off and start fresh in the next January.
00:17:36 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s a tough decision. You said before you’re agnostic business-wise a little bit, but are there types of businesses that may benefit most from what you all do or that you target or that you’d prefer working with? Or have strength in those industries.
00:17:53 – Gabrielle Mills
We have developed patterns of clients that tend to come to us. So on the accounting side, we do a lot of construction. That’s the example that I gave. We have a couple of YouTube clients, which is kind of neat. We do a lot of work for attorneys. Accounting for law is very specialized. So we do that. On the marketing side, they’re completely across the board. There is no consistency whatsoever. Same with administrative support. HR gets thrown into any monthly recurring service that we have. So again, there’s no consistency. On the talent acquisition side, we have quite a bit of consistency. Although there’s randomness throughout. We do a lot in, we still do a lot in law. We get a lot of financial roles. So we do anything from accountants, tax managers, tax seniors. We do a lot in IT, particularly in the cybersecurity market. A lot in finance, some in construction, not really all that much. Did I say finance? Property management in talent acquisition. Yeah, those are about the consistent ones in talent acquisition. But again, we kind of see it all. At this point in our business, we actually get really excited when we see a business or an industry that we’ve never worked in before. So for marketing, I was just pitching a client yesterday who’s opening a shooting sports facility and gun range. I have never done that before. And I was like, oh, this is different. This is unique. We’ve got research. Same with anything in our talent acquisition department. If it’s different, we’re like, okay, this is exciting. Because usually, I mean, we just see a lot of businesses come through here.
00:19:48 – Rico Figliolini
Well, that’s cool. Yeah, especially when you see a lot of different businesses like that. We talked about success stories. As a business person, I think any business person, if they’re honest with themselves, will say, yes, we make mistakes every once in a while. New situations arise that they’ve never seen before and it’s a problem that they have to overcome. Have there been any mistakes in your business journey or that you’ve seen in other businesses besides, obviously, the accounting issue? But anything that you’ve overcome as an entrepreneur, as a business person?
00:20:27 – Gabrielle Mills
No, Rico, we’re absolutely perfect. We’ve never made a mistake.
00:20:30 – Rico Figliolini
I could see that.
00:20:34 – Gabrielle Mills
Oh gosh no. I tell people, people ask me about our journey a lot. They’re just curious about our story and how we came to be. And we love telling it. I always tell people, Chrissy and I didn’t have experience in any of these things before we started. We just had a dream and wanted to be, help businesses and build a business ourselves. All of this we have learned from the ground up, having no experience with the exception of like general business acumen and general sales acumen. But we’re not accountants. We are not recruiters. I did start in marketing, but not tactically. So I always say that I went to the school of hard knocks, got a couple of degrees from there. And that’s how I got to where I’m at because we’ve made every mistake in the book. We’ve had clients that have trusted us and loved us through some mistakes that we’ve made to get us to where we are. I would say the biggest piece of advice or mistake that I made that I learned from was Chrissy came into the business from day one. And she was telling me and our director of account management, Maureen, she was like, we’ve got to focus on our processes. We’ve got to focus on our processes. Maureen and I were focused on the people and just serving the people. And in year three, which was our hardest year yet, we got so many different challenges and scenarios that were really, really difficult. And what Chrissy was telling us from day one finally got through to Maureen and I of like, oh, this is why we need processes and standards. This makes sense now. So it took a lot of heartache to really understand why those are important. But now it has been the secret sauce to our business because we know how to hire off of them. So if people aren’t already operating or have experience with that certain frame of mind, we know that they’re likely not a fit or they have to be at least willing to be coached into that direction. We’ve developed consistency because our process is our standard. We’re always making our processes better. We’re always looking to make them beefier. We never would have gotten there if we didn’t learn that lesson.
00:22:53 – Rico Figliolini
And sometimes you do. I mean, you have to learn your lesson. It’s like bringing up kids. They want to do their own mistakes. They don’t want to be told to watch out for that step. And they’ll do their own mistakes.
00:23:04 – Gabrielle Mills
She was a broken record there for a few years. And then the light bulb finally went off. And Maureen and I were like, oh, okay. Now it took us some tears to learn it. But we got there. Now we’re on there.
00:23:19 – Rico Figliolini
I’m sure. So you’re a local business. Obviously, coming out to meet with you and your mom and the rest of the team was nice to take a tour and find out what you’re doing there. You do give back. I know you’re good people. You’re giving back to the community. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about some of the local charities that you’ve given back to?
00:23:45 – Gabrielle Mills
So early in our business, we decided that we’re not in business, we’re in business for the joy of being in business. We’re not in business to make a gazillion dollars and cash out. While that would be lovely, we would totally not turn our noses up at that. We wanted to at least serve our clients and then serve people that never really came into contact with Sourced and use the business as an opportunity to give back because we believe that if we’re successful, we have been giving blessings and so we should be giving blessings out. So we committed from day one that we were going to donate 10% of our monthly profits to charity. And those charities would be selected by our team of people. So every year, in December, we put out a survey to our team. And our team can nominate a charity that is important to them. And we decided in January, up to three charities that we’re going to give to that year, and every quarter we look at each month that we’ve made profit, take that pool of money, cut it by, divide it out equally across however many charities we have that year and give them out. We have served, some of those have been large organizations, but our favorite ones are the ones that are smaller and local. We started the first couple of years working with an organization called Connections Homes, which is out of Suwanee. They help kids who are aging out of foster care really like with support to become adults, but also they’re not really adults. They’re 17, 18, 19, and they still don’t know how to do the world. That’s an organization that we’ve supported. We’ve supported an organization called Ignite Hope, which is another foster care association. We’ve done neighborhood cooperative ministries, which is a, for those who are local, you guys know that it’s a very large nominal nonprofit here in Norcross. And this year we’re partnering with an organization called Because One Matters, which ironically is another foster care organization. I just realized that there seems to be a pattern. So we tend to give to the kids.
00:26:08 – Rico Figliolini
No, I like that. I like the fact that you’re giving locally and it’s 10% of your profit each month is what you split up, which is great. It’s almost like tithing in a way.
00:26:18 – Gabrielle Mills
Yeah. And that’s how it came about. We wanted to tithe using the business. We give once a quarter based on the months because what we didn’t want to do is we would have one month go to one charity and that was a particularly good month. But then the next month maybe wasn’t that good of a month. So we wanted to balance it out. So we look at all the profits that come in from the quarter and then equally disperse it.
00:26:39 – Rico Figliolini
That is cool. Alright. We’ve gotten sort of to the end of our interview time, but I’m sure that there’s things that we could talk a lot more about. Is there anything that I’ve left out? Anything you’d like to share? Maybe services that you may be looking at expanding into the coming year or anything along those lines?
00:27:00 – Gabrielle Mills
So we’re likely not expanding into other services because we have five already and that’s enough. We are finding that there’s a lot of growth to be had in our talent acquisition department. So we’re eager to see what that ends up looking like through the year. What we really want to focus on in terms of like diversification or innovation, which I think is really where your question comes from, is how we utilize technology to make our services more streamlined and more advanced. We will never not have the support of our people. We are a people business. We will go under before computers take over our jobs. However, there’s a lot of really great technology that if you use it right and smartly, we can make profit margins better, save our clients money, be able to reach more people. So we’re going to try to figure out how we can lean into that a little bit.
00:28:02 – Rico Figliolini
So that’s a great path to go down for a quick minute, maybe. Because AI technology is something that everyone, every business is tackling and using in a variety of ways, right? ChatGPT, Grok3, there’s a bunch of them. Claude, I mean, there’s a whole bunch. DeepSeek, I mean, you could just go on and on with these things. And every business, every industry is trying to figure out how they can use that, right? And some use it badly and others use it better. Sometimes it’s used for support or for research versus making decisions. So are you finding that you have to also look at that to augment or to add a complexity to the service you provide?
00:28:52 – Gabrielle Mills
So what stands out in your question to me is the have to. I think that nobody really has to, but I’m in an industry that if I don’t look at it, my industry will die because it is based on people. And if you don’t lean into the technology, you run the risk of the world thinking they don’t need people anymore. And then you’re obsolete. So we don’t have to do anything. But if we want to stay in business, we should be looking at how to utilize it better. The beauty of our business is these are things that people are always going to need. And computers can’t replace entirely. You always need a person overseeing or creating or some version of managing what the computer does. So we always have a people element to it. What we’re looking at with technology is how do we make ourselves and our processes and how we do things better and faster using technology and use the human brain where the human brain needs to interject.
00:30:01 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Okay. Great explanation. Well, we’ve reached the end of our time together. Where can people find out more about your company? Of course, we’ll have it in the show notes as well, but how can they reach out to you?
00:30:14 – Gabrielle Mills
Yeah. So if you’re local, just come and see us. We are off of Scientific Drive in Technology Park, down by the Forum. If you want to check us out online, we are at getsourced.com. We’re on all the socials under SourcedATL, or you can always just look at my name, Gabrielle Mills. Unfortunately, very easy to find out on the web.
00:30:39 – Rico Figliolini
I’m sure. Check her out on LinkedIn. It’d be easy to find her there. I want to say thank you again to EV Remodeling and to Vox Pop Uli for supporting us. Everyone else, you have comments, leave them in the comment section below, depending where you’re watching this, whether it’s Facebook, YouTube. If you’re listening to this on Apple or any of the audio podcast places, Spotify, leave a review, like, share. We’d love if you would support us that way. Gabrielle, thank you for being with us. Appreciate it.
The Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) celebrated the opening of Fifth Third Bank’s new branch in Peachtree Corners with a ribbon cutting on February 20.
Located at 3210 Holcomb Bridge Road, the new location features lobby and drive-thru hours, regular banking, investment services, loans and more.
“We are growing [and] proud to open up our new financial center at Peachtree Corners,” said Randy Koporc, EVP, regional president GA/AL Fifth Third Bank. “Congratulations to Financial Center Manager Jasmine Youngblood and her team, Retail Executive Dewayne King and all involved in getting us to this day.”
photo credit: Keri Zampano; courtesy of Peachtree Corners Business Association
“Thank you, Lisa Proctor of the Peachtree Corners Business Association, for helping us celebrate at our ribbon cutting,” Koporc continued.
Fifth Third plans to build more than 60 financial centers in Georgia and Alabama over the next five years and looks forward to strengthening the communities that they join.
“We love welcoming new businesses into Peachtree Corners,” said Lisa Proctor, president of the Peachtree Corners Business Association. “Fifth Third Bank will be a great addition to our banking community. We can’t wait to watch them grow.”
photos: Keri Zampano; courtesy of Peachtree Corners Business Association
About Peachtree Corners Business Association
The Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) is a business membership organization that focuses on innovative approaches, programs, shared resources, community outreach and opportunities for member businesses and professionals to connect, develop, grow, and prosper.
The PCBA is made up of businesses of all sizes and types who want to expand their reach and grow their business within Peachtree Corners and the greater metro-Atlanta area.
Sequel Coffee Co., a new specialty coffee brand, is set to open its flagship location in Peachtree Corners in the summer of 2025.
The new coffee shop will open alongside shared workspace provider, Roam, at Town Center and will feature a convenient drive-thru complemented by an inviting in-shop experience.
Premium coffee and locally sourced offerings
Committed to delivering an elevated coffee experience, Sequel Coffee Co. will serve freshly brewed coffee and handcrafted espresso beverages with responsibly sourced beans from Valor, a local metro Atlanta roaster.
Interior rendering courtesy of Sequel Coffee Co.
The food menu will feature a curated selection of locally sourced café favorites and convenient grab-and-go options from local vendors Two Chefs and A Seasonal Affair.
Guests can expect a variety of delicious offerings, including breakfast sandwiches, quiche and freshly baked pastries, as well as yogurt parfaits, homemade granola bars and protein-packed power bites for on-the-go fuel.
In addition, rotating seasonal flavors and limited-time menu items will offer new and exciting food and beverage options throughout the year.
Strengthening community connections in Peachtree Corners
A concept created by Roam, the hospitality-focused work and meeting space, Sequel Coffee Co. is built on the belief that coffee is more than just a morning ritual — it’s a catalyst for creativity, productivity, community and connection.
Image courtesy of Sequel Coffee Co.
Sequel’s tagline, “start your story strong,” reflects its mission to inspire the potential in every day by championing stories, embracing moments and thoughtfully crafting coffee.
Sequel seeks to become an integral part of the Peachtree Corners community by fostering meaningful interactions through hospitality-driven experiences. With a brand philosophy centered on people, purpose and belonging, the company aims to inspire customers through delicious coffee and intentional service.
Bringing Sequel Coffee Co. to you
Ahead of its brick-and-mortar opening this summer, Sequel Coffee Co. is currently serving the community through its mobile coffee cart, offering a full-service espresso bar and trained baristas for offsite events.
Ideal for corporate offices, networking events, school functions and private gatherings, the mobile cart provides an opportunity to enjoy Sequel’s signature coffee experience in any setting — before the shop even opens its doors.
Sequel is also currently hiring a Shop Manager to lead daily operations and cultivate an inviting experience for customers. Interested applicants can learn more about the position and apply at sequelcoffeeco.com/shop-manager-job-listing.
About Sequel Coffee Co.
Sequel Coffee Co. is dedicated to inspiring potential in every day through thoughtfully crafted coffee and warm hospitality.
Offering handcrafted espresso beverages, freshly brewed coffee and a curated menu of café favorites — along with a convenient drive-thru and cozy café space — Sequel aims to create a welcoming spot for guests to fuel their day and transform the daily coffee routine.
Roam is a comprehensive workplace solution offering co-working memberships, private offices and meeting space for professionals and businesses of sizes.
Opening in Peachtree Corners at 3847 Medlock Bridge Road in summer 2025, Roam provides flexible and inspiring environments to help individuals and teams accomplish their best work. Now leasing private offices and pre-booking meetings and events.
City Government3 days ago
