0:00 okay all right so live streaming connect so i'm gonna um i'm gonna start the recording in just a moment and then go you know go right into the show okay all right ready mm-hmm wait no i'm not yes good afternoon and welcome to the way to wow people making money i'm your host kevin bemel and i'm very glad to be here this afternoon very very glad that you
0:36 have joined us i have lined up for you an absolutely spectacular guest um this is a a relatively new friend of mine but i feel like she's she's become my sister in the time that we've known her she she is she is sage she is successful and uh so we're we're gonna be talking to robin in in just a couple of minutes um as is my practice i do want to mention the show from last week so um i did the show on my own i talked for about an hour on how we can develop relationships
1:11 that will prepare sorry propel our professional life forward um showed you how to use linkedin and how to use twitter and even instagram to do that two different techniques so if you're looking to take your professional life whether it's uh as as a an employee or as a business owner to the next level i encourage you to take a look at at that show go to the way to wow channel on youtube you can watch the recording of it and as as i mentioned i think at the beginning of the the show really the quality of our lives is the
1:48 quality of our relationships and so again i encourage you to take a look at that if you have any questions comments always grab me on social media shoot me an email happy to respond and help you however i can so so that was last week and uh this week my guest is rob robin madison uh and you know i just realized you spell robin the same way my younger sister spells robin r-o-b-y-r-o-b-y-n um robin and i met a few months ago now and she has really become one of my mentors i'm i'm very very
2:25 happy to say i have learned a tremendous amount from her already including in the you know 10 minutes getting ready for this show she gave me a couple of pointers on uh something that i'm working on in in in this case in my personal life absolutely invaluable and so robin thank you very much welcome to the way to wow people making money thank you for having me kevin i'm really excited to be here yeah great well listen so um i'm just going to give you one um sort of data point about robin she's the the ceo of the advisory board this is an
3:00 organization that is dedicated to helping us put together a group of people who on a regular we can interact with on a regular basis and can help us see a better path forward in our professional lives and so that's something that robin and i are talking about but robin i want to start really at the very beginning of your professional journey which you were mentioning to me earlier this week was when you were you know just a young young girl so i'm this is uh uh you know it reminds me a little bit about my daughter who's been talking
3:35 about starting businesses you know already for six six years i think so so tell us you i believe what you said it was six years six years old when you started your first business not my first business but i did start working with entrepreneurs when i was six years old um i come from an entrepreneurial family um and i have a grandmother who owned her own salon was one of the women one of the early women who brought hair extensions to l.a my father has had a dental practice a family of
4:10 doctors who had their own practice so i always worked i worked from an early early age um i answered the phones and um when i was spending my summers with my grandmother the phones in my dad's office so i had a phone voice at six seven eight it was really fun i love pushing the buttons and using and writing practicing my writing on the pad but my grandmother would keep me some something you know summers during summer camp time and i would i would actually loom hair extensions before you could buy them from from china wherever you go now wherever you go now
4:49 it was a handmade process so i've been working literally my whole life so do you remember anything in particular about those early years working in those early years that that really stands out as something that you know has been a part of your professional life ever since well everyone was in a service related industry um so early on the idea of customer service really kind of stood out for me you know as a young person it just felt like helping um so
5:25 my dad is also a minister and i remember the story of the good samaritan i remember i wanted to be that good samaritan and i saw them um through their entrepreneurialism uh as as being you know in my child like mine a good samaritan so i feel like that giving back really has been my through line um and when i started working in service of working i've had so many jobs when i started professional working my first professional job was a manager of a restaurant in nashville and um and again my goal was to
6:00 be quality driven i i used to tease it i learned everything i knew know about uh tqm which is no longer a relevant term anymore but quality management and human resources from working in a restaurant because if you can manage high-end wait staff you can manage everything you know if you can handle restaurant restaurant customers and make them satisfied then you know how to deliver quality absolutely especially when people are hungry they're often cranky so if you can keep them happy during that time that's that's that's a great skill
6:35 i carried that through to through through the nonprofit career and into my corporate career so let's let's kind of move forward now a little bit out of your childhood years maybe into your teen years and and and through schooling um leading up to college what was what was that experience like how did that form you or you know form the the professional side of robin well um by the time i was a teenager i made my way into the salon my grandmother also was a it was a trainer she could train cosmetologists so i so she
7:10 would have me in the salon helping blow dry hair and do things like that um i again um on i worked often in the church um so the idea of giving back and staying you know having goals and tasks and delivering service to people it was something that was really important to me um but you know as a teenager i mean i was a teenager they didn't make us the way they make teens now who teens now are great they're volunteer they're world drill driven it was the 80s and so we had a whole different teen
7:45 experience um but i always knew that um i think working and living and growing up in an entrepreneurial environment that gave me leadership skills and executive functioning skills that um i didn't even know that i had really until i started my work work life um the ability to give direction and get direction and and the the benefit of clear communication was something that that was um um you know very deeply instilled in me as
8:22 a young person okay particularly to get what i want well they say you know children are natural negotiators right but uh it sounds like you really took it to you know another level because you were having to negotiate both in the you know sort of the personal and the professional environment from a very early age and it worked in high school in high school i um i was one of those individuals who was in california in los angeles you could take high school uh classes during the summer summer summer school classes ahead so the by the time i was a senior
8:58 um i had taken most of the classes that i really needed to graduate so i just had a couple of credits i needed um i was able to negotiate with the principal that my um theater class second semester counted for english for for honors english it was an honors class wow and and it was an honors english class and so i was able to negotiate that with the principal so he could see very clearly it's listed under english and so which i shouldn't have to take whatever else you wanted me to take and it was great my last semester i had two classes
9:35 madrigals in honors theater interesting so um oh shoot i i had my next question and now now it went away um so go ahead yeah so then um so i went to college i worked my way through college um really first i came i worked my way through college um and when i came out i worked as a rest in the restaurant i also worked as an educator um and i i entered uh into the united way um in nashville i was living with the college of natural double hbcu shout out
10:11 to fisk university and tennessee state university shout out from my hbc yeah um and i and so i and so absolutely so i i ended up working at the united way in nashville and it was um that was my first kind of step into the non-profit where it's also my first opportunity to really work with ceos because i was tasked with making calls on behalf of united way and working with um different leaders in the community um but i you know it's the skills the customer service and the
10:47 ability to pay attention to detail and take direction um is where i really kind of honed that there at the united way and then carried that through so and i recall the question i want to ask you and this is i think um particularly relevant for younger viewers um i know when i was growing up um my my parents certain expectations about what my professional life was going to be very clear right you're going to college you're going to be a professional i mean it wasn't the sort of you know classically jewish you know doctor lawyer accountant you know i i chose architect which was
11:22 a little bit out of the you know but um and and i've had other guests who have talked about that act that that that aspect of of of their professional life so what was what was the sort of interaction between you and your parents in terms of how you were developing your you know professional outlook as a young person well it's funny you ask i um i never um i really didn't know what i wanted to do honestly i had all these skills but i
11:59 you know was raised singing in the church and dancing and uh uh performing i played the flute i was really raised to be an artist and so i thought that's what i would do um and um uh you know i um so they just wanted me to go to college and get a job like they didn't have my dad wanted me to go to medical school he did my grandmother and there were i i was kind of the blacks i have a lot of doctors in the family i have a feeling that our parents were a
12:35 lot alike um but they really just wanted me to be be happy um i and my father wanted me to get a graduate degree and and and so i knew that even the undergraduate was not going to be the last stop for me but even with that i had i really had no idea how i would would do that um so i i i was i guess one of those lucky ones i had enough um instilled in me that it really didn't
13:10 matter where i went but when i ended up at the united way i knew that that this helping business people make a difference in their communities was something that was important to me and and something that i could i could get behind as a career um and so when i started that so that of course my day when i got that job my dad said to me of course this is a classic dad wait a minute you mean people are paying you to ask them for money she's like that's a great job for you because everybody was like daughter
13:45 classic daughter so now you're you're in the you know the non-profit world um but but dealing with a lot of people in the business world so what was kind of the next step aft after that and what was the motivation to you know move move uh you know to leave the the united way and move to your next step so i worked through the united way i worked at um i worked at some really great institutions in in nashville i worked at uh meharry medical college at hvcu medical college
14:20 um um i worked at um uh i did a lot of non-profit work um and then i came back home to la my goal was to become i wanted to become an executive director one day of a non-profit that was my goal back then i thought that i would um continue working that route um all along i was always mentoring executives um in the nonprofit and in in for-profit arenas um i was the place where people will call and my friends and would call her people refer folks me
14:56 talk to robin i am it it was pretty well known that if you were you know in need of career development that you could come spend some time with me and i would help get you in touch with everyone i don't know if it's because i knew the right people in the community from my time in in non-profit as a fundraiser or um you know just my personality but i always i'm always helping in that in that space as well and even today i have a few clients who i help with career development still so that's yeah
15:31 yeah so and so now you're you're back in los angeles um what was what was the next step the next step was corporate life somehow i got plucked from non-profit um and and pulled into corporate life i uh ended up working still in the number they were still nonprofit thai i ran the herbalife family foundation it was a uh non-profit that was uh that it still is that brings nutrition to children around the world um and they were in the middle of transition and organization and transition uh and so i i worked with
16:07 them to help build now the through line really also in my career is building because um i didn't have the pedigree of ivy which is a pretty traditional non-profit pedigree um though i did go to a black ivy viscous consecutive black ivy for those who don't know um and and so i was often um given uh the same the level of job but with less resources it was usually poorly neglected um institutions and i always always grew them by 100 200 or more i mean big
16:45 growth um not year over year obviously but from from one to the other um and so in my corporate life i was tasked with with building this this foundation that was given globally um which is um a challenge they're the real strict you know international rules that need to be adhered to um and growing a team and and more so raising the money to support that was important and working with entrepreneurs i work specifically with the herbalife community to um to really coach and
17:23 teach in philanthropy and get them involved and engaged in how to appropriately you know select and and nurture an organization in their area um it was really really what we would do is um establish programs in a community and and that community of herbalife owners would work to support and and give legs around it and we would give the money and they would give the time and it was a really nice marriage um and i did that for 10 years i when i started there the budget i think
17:59 i had maybe 1.3 million in the bank and when we left our assets were at 9 million when i started we were funding maybe 20 organizations and when i left there were you know maybe what over 40 but close to 45 um organizations we were supporting over 200 000 children um a year we were supporting a good deal of children around the world and in almost 50 countries so so it was difficult you know raising money in 90 countries figuring out the way how that works
18:34 um getting the funds there that was that's that was that was a operational challenge and so that's that's a great lead-in statement what what were the what was the growth process that you went through now i imagine as much as helping other people to learn and grow you you were having to do that yourself as the organization expanded as the amount of money you were dealing with expanded how did you manage your own growth and what were if you don't mind sharing
19:10 even maybe what what was you know a couple of the issues that you had to you know overcome if you will or or deal with in a substantial way um what what i um well there were two things one this was my first corporate job remember i worked in a restaurant i worked in education working universities and nonprofits and so so the understanding the corporate environment though i i always i've been working in working talking to ceos forever so i i had um
19:47 a lens but i was always on the outside looking in i understood a lot of what um my my leadership donors my executive donors were facing as an executive um and just learning kind of learning that that corporate dynamic was was one thing um and then this was the first time that i worked in a global community um so understanding um the diversities of communication style um i was literally traveling the world i would go to 13 countries
20:22 per year um and i would start my year in in south america and i would work my way through different regions of the other regions you know asia pacific and uk um at the time if you think about it think about about europe they've got these um incredible tax structures because they they're they're more socializing more more services for their for their constituent for for their communities um but because of that they weren't very philanthropic the ideology was well we're paying all this tax and so the government will take care of us
20:58 but just think about it i when i went to united way was around 2007 and i'm not you know herbalife it was 2007. and we'd had that that global the last big global kind of you know crash if you would crisis and so for the first time there were communities who felt felt like i mean not that might not been the first time this happened they felt like that more was needed more was needed from from from the community and we can't rely on the government they don't have the wherewithal to to manage some of the what's going on
21:34 um some of the challenges that are going on so that was an interesting um community that was an interesting process just kind of figure out how i communicate in each region um and you know and then of course you know there was i had a great team around me so it was really they made it very easy for for me um it is but those were those were the big challenges that you know understanding the the the um the politics locally you know uh you know working with i worked with all
22:11 lawyers from every country you know i mean so there was a lot of growth and then learning to to listen um and i think learning to um to stand my ground that was something also that was a tough one and a tough one and be okay with that be okay with with saying no because in this direct selling environment the higher up you go um you know the more special you are and certainly you should be then you're doing all the work you're working really hard you're building you're building
22:47 equity in your business um and so um but but if it put me in position a position of telling executives who were more senior than i um you know this wasn't the right thing to do because my job was to keep the foundation the organization scene right um and so there were rules that needed to be followed that that generally were unknown and so i couldn't expect that they would know um and so being able to do that in a way
23:22 that didn't just make everybody unhappy and and i did i ruffled some feathers i'm sure of it yeah i mean i think trying to make everybody happy is almost for sure the best way to make nobody happy right so there's always going to be some who can do so um how did being female um you know being black did that have any impact on um how you had to deal with these these issues um you know i'm just i'm just curious to to know
23:58 that aspect because obviously your experience would be different than than than mine or or it could have been could have been different than mine in that respect you know it's funny because there are times in my career that i that um i i'm hugely aware and then there's times when i'm not and usually that happens when um i get comfortable um and sometimes i forget because i think people are people and i was raised in la i've got a very diverse group of friends
24:35 you know it's not like um you know so but yes um i think that certainly being my communication style is different certainly because i'm african-american and i was raised in in that space um it's also um yeah i i guess i don't interpret things to interpret things differently um and so there were some times where there were some missteps um and where i might have taken offense and i might should not have or vice versa because of a communication
25:10 uh deficit um i also you know i um i like to call it the super hero effect that happened this happens a lot of times with african-american executives when i'm coaching i um oftentimes warn them of this and that is we're taught to work harder you've heard it you've been anyone who's lived through covet is trying to work harder do better and couple that with the fact that yeah i'm also dyslexic adhd so i i have a disability that i i mass
25:47 and mask very well i think sometimes not so well um and so it made me have to kind of really work a lot harder anyway um and so i would i can produce i would produce and achieve amazing results i remember my first first six months at herbalife we had this huge event and we were sitting in this meeting and um i had given the report and the reports was that okay our we collected this amount of dollars and one of the executives looked at me and said you mean we collect you collect
26:22 you actually collected it because in the past because of the sensitivity to the to the um the celebrity status of some of our they they weren't even being asked to pay they were they would pledge but no one wanted to make that ask of them because they didn't want to offend them and but i was too green to know anything better and so i just made the ass you know that's what i'm doing and it it really launched me as a
26:57 superstar um and so then the expectations are always there except if you're if you're if you're if you come in at this level then that's your average and if you've ever been in uh um uh you know an annual review and you have one of those bosses that says well here's your job and if you're doing your job then you're a three years right right and so the expectation is if you set it here and now that's where we're supposed to hit if i don't hit here every time then i'm no longer a three i'm somewhere particularly luckily i i didn't have that that challenge um so much but but
27:33 it did it didn't affect me in my reviews but it did affect me sometimes the expectations was that i could you know leave tall buildings you know um for a while i was a fundraiser for the los angeles jewish federation and like you i was you know pretty new and green to it so we would have this long list of people who had made pledges but hadn't paid and i you know coming out of the business world is like well if i have an unpaid invoice i gotta call the person and say hey you gotta pay right and i i ruffled quite a number of feathers over that and finally you know somebody
28:08 pulled me aside and said he probably shouldn't call these people and i said but there's something wrong here they presumably made a commitment to support the organization but then and they get plaudits for doing that right but then they don't actually pay the money so we've got to have an effective way of dealing with this right in my naivete i was overlooking i perhaps some of the you know more political aspects of it people political i mean not you know national political so it it's it's interesting um that that you you know that you i think one of the interesting points of your story is how um
28:45 sometimes not knowing the rules if you will can make us more effective because we see the goal we see the mission and we go after it and and uh we don't let things that might stop other people stop us so i i think that can be a good thing absolutely absolutely so so now your your herbalife um and what um what what caused you in the end to move on from herbalife well you know it was um
29:20 you know it was time for a change really it was time for a change i've been there the organization had changed there were there were leadership changes and that happens across the board um i was having a life change at the same time and um a couple of things were really important to me um one i realized that i started when i started you the united way my youngest son was in kindergarten now um i have two boys um with my first talk of let's talk
29:56 about above and beyond with my first child i didn't take a maternity leave i worked at plan i was pregnant at planned parenthood i gave the birth gave birth at not at planned parenthood but while i was working at planned parenthood and didn't take a maternity leave it was back that was a sunday wednesday i was representing planned parenthood at the united way in a meeting at united way so but and so i have and he was on my hip i didn't get a lead but the point was he was with me all the time
30:32 with my second child i moved back to la and gotten this job at the university and i didn't get that i i took some leave i did take a leave with him but i didn't get a lot of time and he was in kindergarten when i started started um traveling um so i was traveling i was gone a lot during his from kindergarten and now he was going into high school and i knew i had these four years with him um and whether he liked me or not of course he's a teenager he didn't like me the same as is a kindergartner but but i wanted to be i want to be
31:07 present for him i want to be present there and and just to get to see and get to know him better which is really difficult difficult to anyway with a teenager but he's you know wonderful they're both boys are great they're once a musician um and chef personal chef and uh and both are students college students and the baby is in new york right now in nyu so um he's not a baby at all so i apologize if anyone he's not going to be listening so i hope they're always our babies
31:43 always i say that i said you guys have to grow into men but you'll always be my babies right i i tell my daughter the same thing you're you're growing into a woman but you'll still be my baby and honestly i needed i wanted to start working with um businesses and executives i i looked around united way and i keep saying united way um herbalife and other corporations that i that i worked with uh and there just weren't a lot of brown and black executives so i thought that i would start off with with uh coaching executive in that space
32:18 um but found myself found myself working more and more with non-profits like like you know the ones i grew up with dental practices and veterinarian practices and yeah other small small businesses and helping small businesses helping individuals kind of get up off the ground and stay focused you know a lot of times it's just you you know having that sounding board um helping to solve problems and um a lot of individuals see people sometimes see a problem and and it can and it can stifle them and a lot
32:54 of times we see things for other people you that we don't see for ourselves um and i was i'm fortunate in having that kind of vision and um just depth of working knowledge um to to be able to kind of identify um some of those some of those gaps and let's fill them and and i'm not afraid to pick the shovel up and so how did how did that transition from working at herbalife to coaching small businesses coaching non-profits how did how did that work
33:30 what did what did you look at in terms of what you needed to do in terms of you know creating some kind of structure what were those issues how were those issues handled well here's well difficulty you know going out on your own you know it's scary right it's very scary um when you have to kill what you eat um you know it's like like i thought i was a gatherer and now i'm a hunter um and so um so so you know putting just i think the biggest challenge is managing your time
34:07 um and and just and and finding the clients finding good clients finding people i want to work with um so that was challenging when i work with a client i always look at infrastructure first um i always look at um you know kind of that basic that base level where what do you have to work with um what's your mission i want to know what your mission or your values i love i love testing values i want to know what what motivates you what drives you um you know and and really creating helping i like to help
34:42 business people create a business owners really create that environment that fits their lifestyle and meets their their vision that it all aligns there's some sort of alignment there um and luckily for me i'm super creative so i can almost always find a way to tie it back and if it doesn't i'm gonna tell you let me tell you this you know kevin [Laughter] i i have very little filter and i'm using all of it for your show you don't have to use all of it i mean we can bring out the five inch guns if not the 16 inchers
35:22 and and did you did you initially connect with um uh the advisory board is that is that more uh sort of a more recent iteration so i just so i was working as a consultant because that's where you so i was working as a consultant um for about four years in the pandemic hit and um during that time every like everyone else i was very self-reflective um i also have a compromised immune system so i was really very much segregated i didn't take um a lot of risk then there were some
35:58 people like who enjoyed the freedom of the la streets i was not that person i was not that very much i was just watching every day yeah i um i stayed in most of the time um i i got used to cooking and [Music] all the fun things i made a sourdough sourdough dried out it was growing and now it's dry but i was but i was looking at my career and what i really wanted to do and i wanted to um i was looking for franchise opportunities really what i was looking for um i i looked back on my career to see what was
36:34 important to me and what i was really good at and building is something that i've always been really good at being able to take a a senses of the lay of the land which is important um asking the questions of the key stakeholders which is important and taking that data and and turning it into gold um you know mining that and turning into gold and that's what i really was looking for so when i looked when i found the alternative board um it just made sense and the idea behind the alternative board is that you know um
37:10 these stories it's really a great story of how it was founded the the uh the owner the founder and owner um had had had a business that he had grown and and he was going to take it public but to take it public he needed a board of directors and and once he had gotten that in place in order to take it public he had an aha moment he thought wouldn't have been great to have these insights of diverse non-competitive executives um to to uh give me this advice while i was growing this one you know so he
37:46 founded a new organization the alternative board and it's it's a franchise and and new here in the la area relatively new in the area um but the idea is that you know you know four to ten business executives sitting around the table once a month holding each other accountable giving shared knowledge asking questions and holding our feet to the fire and in between that working one-on-one facilitated by man in between that working one-on-one with each of those members to make sure that they have the resources to um stay on stay on task to
38:22 to to meet their goals uh that that they um uh are honoring and are ready to get ready for the next board meeting are ready to to present out and meet you know meet the challenge ahead and so it just it's it's about for me i like to call it a monthly business retreat um but for me for me it's um it's really about about supporting the business community and the reason why i chose which is really the goes back to that altruism which really is a driving force for me um is that giving back and that's what feels good
38:58 to me being able to help support and strengthen the business community um really at the owner level because owners are people and it's and and your life is personal and your business is personal it affects every part of your life um if you're if you're not you're not managing your time well that affects your personal life and then your personal life it affects your business life we you know um and so so uh and that's how i came to the alternative board and so that this that kind of um
39:34 completes your professional arc so i want to sort of do a quick review of where we've been and and pull out some of the the ideas that that you've discussed so the first one that really struck me um was this idea that in the end customer service and maybe even business on a on a broader scale is really just about helping i think that's that's that's really a fascinating insight i have a friend she was actually a guest on the show um a couple of weeks ago who does a customer service um twitter thing once a week
40:11 and um i've gotta put her on to this idea i've never heard that before but i think in the end that's it right if i'm in business i'm in the business of helping people whether it's helping them with a product or helping them with a service if i have that helping outlook that to you to use your example the good samaritan outlook then people are going to want to patronize my business and if they don't think i'm going to help them then why why in the lord's name would they want to have anything to do with me right i mean isn't that kind of fundamental yeah unless of course but people are driven by different things so that's
40:47 what drives me um and i agree i think that i um i mean but at the end of the day i'm also trying to drive profits as well uh and and whatever is important to you with my customers with my clients it's whatever is important in your world if if um money is what it is then let's get those sales up let's figure out what's what's that what's that roadblock that's keeping you from getting your product to market and to the next level um if if you're on the other end and and you want to change your lifestyle you want to move from you know the kind of
41:22 work here now to to a a simpler you know retirement lifestyle if you would or a simpler lifestyle style then let's figure out how do we move you what what do we what what can you delegate who what pieces do we need to put in place to ensure that you're still receiving the income that you need but your your quality of life has changed and then and you're getting that quality of life um so it really and that's the beauty of the alternative board and having kind of that diverse
41:57 not the niche my niche is business owners my niche isn't a business type and so because of that um i get to work with just incredible people just just and i learn so much um and it reminds me a lot of my i lean on a lot of the skills that i had when i was working actually at cal state la in their development office um and and there would be different professors with different projects that we would go after major gifts where i had to learn about hydrogen fuel cells
42:32 which something in you know crime labs and all those that are now up on on the cal state la campus um and so i get it's great because i get that opportunity to learn the mechanics of your business so that i can help you and i don't need to go deep but it's like can help you move in a direction that makes sense i think it's the executive functioning skills that that are that are i'm leaning on heavily yeah you know i i think this is another connection point we have because when i had my real estate company i always told
43:08 people the hardest thing for me to find is a good client so once i had a client kind of you know in the fold it was much easier to then figure out what is the next thing they need rather than to go find another building to manage or another building to appraise right because that's a whole new relationship i have to create as opposed to building those existing relationships and broadening them that was the perspective i i always had on business so the another thing you mentioned was about how our values should underpin our businesses
43:44 um i would i would venture to say so we're not working out of concert with ourselves how do we do that investigation how do we really figure that out you see that's tough that's a tough one um i like there's a values exercise that i like to do i have these little cards um that have value and then a definition of them so that we know we're talking about the same thing uh because i can say you know um if you think about it let's think about religious faith
44:20 spirituality a lot of times those three things are tied up or intertwined or used interchangeably but i will argue that they're three different things i could be religious and spiritual i could be non-religious and spiritual still you know i could not believe in good and organize religion and still have a very spiritual relationship um and i just say that because i'm a pk it just makes sense for me but and so i i um so what i do when one of the things that when the exercises i do and i've done this a lot with um
44:56 um in the foundation world as well um is i i have people take a look at a deck of i don't know it's about 50 some odd i've never really counted them i just have the tech um and and identify what's important to them and what drives them um based on the the idea of it and the words and let's pick three top ones and let's think the three things that that that don't um and that changes and it changes throughout our lives just like we change our focus change um and so um that's how i do it okay i start there
45:33 and then i then we talk about what part of this is in your in your business how how is this tied to your business how are you implementing this in your business you know interestingly enough a lot of the people i've talked to on the show their career path has been somewhat opportunistic and yours seems to be much much more um sort of well considered and and and thought through so were there kind of serendipitous parts to it
46:08 um that we haven't captured yet or or or so serendipity okay so um true confession um when i took the job at the united way there were two jobs presented to me one was in resource development which is fundraising i did not know that at the time the other was in community development um i come from a blended family and one of my moms has um was a human was in human resources and got to wear a suit every day and the
46:44 other mom was a social worker and wore leggings and sweats every day and i knew i wanted to wear a suit to work every day and gosh i was in my 20s and so so landing and fundraising was not landing in nonprofit was not a by design um but i um i was i was very i was very strategic about i knew the goals that i wanted to to achieve i knew the financial goals i wanted to achieve um and i knew
47:19 kind of the business trajectory that i wanted to go on and i would set goals for myself i'm a big goal setter i set goals um and i'll say i would say things like by the time i'm 32 i want to do x all right next year i want to do this and and i had these like three year i you know milestones for myself and even if i missed a year one okay even if i didn't make that sorry about that i thought i put that on
47:54 do not call um even if i didn't make that i would not change my goal i didn't i never change it so i just meant i had to work hard that much more harder to get to the next level so i can get back on track and make where i want to go my goal was to be an executive director one day and i was able to do that i had a goal of wanting to work in higher ed and at a major gift level and i was able to do that um but i like doing new things too um i like trying different so if you
48:31 look at my career with my linkedin almost every job was just a little different [Music] so serendipity was just being in the right place at the right time with herbalife i was i was ready i was ready to go for financial reasons from cal state la um because i was the breadwinner in my family and um i wanted more i wanted my kids in a better school i didn't want and um you know what i wanted them to be in an independent school so i thought i need to make more money to do that
49:06 i can't you know i want oh i wanted them to have the lifestyle that i had i grew up with a dad who's a minister and a doctor so so i had a comfortable lifestyle so so there was very little serendipity except for that i you know i had applied for jobs um you mentioned being being black one of the issues one of my challenges was not so much black but you know i look younger than i my age you know that so um i'm not sharing with the public but um and so that all you know not only was i a brown girl but
49:43 i look like a young brown girl i remember in the interview right before the job that i was i was the top candidate the hiring professional said she wanted to hire me um and she and i was you know asked by the ceo and this was a a major it's a local hospital major hospital here in california and the ceo asked me you know are you okay working with people this age it was a plan at the time i was a planned giving officer so i only went like my the median age of my of my donors were like 72.
50:20 and i was really excited for this i was so excited to this was going to be a kind of a nice little step up and it didn't happen i was really very disappointed about that um and i remember the um my the headhunter friend and diane netzel the net retired netzel um and associates uh said to me you know you you were great you were the top candidate and and something good's gonna come come um and it just happened that she uh was working with the herbalife family foundation maybe you know six months to eight months later and she said i know
50:55 the right person for you you need someone who presents well who can do the fundraising and the grant making who can build and i've got that person for you and and that's exactly what i did you know yeah so so yeah you know i know in the early part of my business i was very young when i was you know my mid-20s when i started my real estate company and i'd be you know talking these people about you know managing a multi-million dollar asset they're kind of looking at me like i don't know if i want doogee house or you know
51:31 i still get people asked that question particularly now like so i can help you know like so i've twice this has happened to me in the last month so how old are you and i have i've got grown children so do the math i'm old enough to have grown children so however young you want to make me just make it young enough to be old enough to have those two grown children i do think that sometimes you know these these doubts about
52:06 ourselves or these doubts about us come from ourselves i know a lot of my being being young in the beginning of my business was really coming from me being so kind of scared about starting a business and and what did i know about you know being in a business and all that kind of stuff so i was probably as much projecting that on other people you know as as they were you know thinking about it themselves and and by doing that then it would cause them to question it so um marty do you have a do you have a question for our guest i'll give you an opportunity to to chime in here if you
52:42 uh you're still on mute you have to unmute marty let's see [Music] put it in the chat we'll add we'll we'll we'll we'll ask it yeah oh there he is there you are hi marty okay can you hear me now yeah i feel like i feel like that yeah i thought that can you hear me now can you hear me now
53:17 that was uh certainly you know it's very informative um what a lot to a lot to try and absorb um what i would be interested in is how do you approach people you don't know you sent a letter off first you knock on the door uh how are you trying to go about it la there's 10 000 people you could call on how do you narrow it down like i my wife and i have a uh in kevin kevin is on on the board um a special angel and we raise we bring music to kids uh kids let's say 13 to
53:52 18. some have been into child pornography prostitution uh they're yeah we ask um i usually don't ask but my wife asks how many helmets how many of you have run away and everybody raises their hands you know it's that kind of a group and they're there could be incarcerated they could be in a you know you know in a halfway house or home that kind of thing how do you raise money and who would you uh pinpoint for something like that if if this is in your belly wick this is coming from a 76 year old so
54:28 you can't guess my age marty i might just be two years younger than you um so um so what you're doing first off you know thank you for what you and your wife are doing i think it's amazing bringing music is so important it heals the soul it helps the brain um and so what you're what you're doing is important um so uh first off if you're not um including that bit in your message i
55:03 think that's important i think the first thing before you start calling on individuals is to get your message and make sure your your message is clear as to why your why why why you're doing what you're doing um why there's a value to these children um and um so that's the first uh the second is you know um if i were you since your your industry your music i would start with people who i believe have a passion for music philanthropy is is nothing more than connecting people's passions to a cause
55:39 i'm passionate about the arts if you ever called me about something arts related and i had money to give i would likely consider you as an organization um so i so do i pick up the phone do i call i do everything i don't i don't um i do what's appropriate for the person um i i think that a a great way to get your word out um in this day and age which we didn't have you know you know years ago was you know social media you know showing showing what you do is
56:14 is great you know if you can somehow put a an image to a to to to the the uh outcomes that you're producing if you can show the value of the work that you're doing that's a great way to engage folks and and see what what that pulls in you know and i would say on linkedin um on instagram that's just pictures that's easy peasy and and make sure that you have um all of the mechanisms in place for them to get in touch with you and and give money the moment they see
56:49 the moment they have the urge to give because you know we particularly in los angeles we can get easily distracted the moment we move on we move on and and now we're on to something different so being able to capture that audience um i i i don't think that letters are as effective as they used to be um i think if you can do and they cost they're costly i mean i remember days of direct mail where we were organizing
57:24 letters and bins and that's you know then they come back you pay for the postage even though you get the non-profit rate they come back you've got to figure out what you're doing with all this extra you've wasted all your money time those days are we don't need those um there are also some really great tools out right now for online giving um that you can you can set up ways to take donations online and now you can get money from everywhere actually that was the way i was able to grow the herbalife family foundation is i moved away from most of the traditional
57:59 um mechanisms i i held a cfre for 18 years as a certified fundraising executive it's like being a cpa in the fundraising um realm um and so i and i taught i taught the classes there's people out there who've taken classes for me in this space but i wasn't really able to to do kind of those best practices because it just didn't make sense in that global community um so and and being online if you can get it online that's my recommendation thank you marty for your question and
58:35 you know what bro i knew from chairman of the board what one other question robin you know i moved from chairman of the board to the chairman of the advisory committee and what kind of people are am i going to be looking for for my advisory committee to phil sloth should i go after accountants an attorney a different people fill slots that can be beneficial you know 2 um 501 c 3 so so you have a you do have a board of directors yes yes so who's on well
59:12 i'm going to say it depends um your board of directors is your fiduciary they have they have the fiduciary responsibility for your organization that is they're the ones that can be sued if all things go to pot um it's the easiest way to say it for folks so so what you want on that board are going to you're going to want you might want something different you might want you know your business people there your lawyer your accountant um your you know someone and you know the help with your branding i like to use advisory boards in the non-profit realm i like to use them
59:50 for um um exposure um i i like to use them as um someone i get to go to two or three times a year someone is going to put money behind me um and and the ass they're gonna they're gonna they know that i'm gonna ask them for something amazing and they're gonna be able to provide something amazing to me um and that just depends on what kind of amazing i need um so so when i'm when you're when i'm recruiting for when i have a fiduciary board versus an advisory board i'm looking for people who can help me
60:26 open doors that's what i'm looking for on my advisory board um whether it be opening doors to help expand my organization and really honestly if you have a business board if you have a board of directors fiduciary board um i think advisories should be fundraising even though fiduciary is a fun their goal is their responsibilities fundraising as well that's part of the fiduciary responsibility i said that word way too many guys kevin what do you say to you same question oh
61:03 oh same to me um so you know as the new board chairman of special angels so i i do look at i have two primary responsibilities one is to um make sure that we are taking our fiduciary responsibilities seriously and we're i mean all of that is being handled properly and the second one is to make sure that um the resources particularly the financial resources are there so that the gov so that the organization can operate and grow right
61:39 and and i guess i have i would say i have a third responsibility that anyone in a position of leadership has i believe which is to make sure i'm grooming someone to take my place because you know i'm not going to be there forever i'm not the right person to be there forever so you know i've got to make sure that there's someone who can step into my shoes and i need to do i need to have that person ready really kind of sooner rather than later not that i'm planning on leaving but you know the vicissitudes of life so um so i you know i agree with robin that on the advisory board side you know people who have an interest in
62:14 supporting the organization but you know they don't want to be involved in the nitty-gritty they don't want to have the the you know um liability um and yet they're willing to um respond positively to you know the big ass i think that makes a lot of sense in terms of how we you know view those those two different bodies so there you have it well we actually thank you thank you kevin thank you robin you're welcome we're we're over time from league i had a feeling we were going to go over
62:50 time with rob because she has so many great things to say and and and unfortunately many ways we've only scratched we kind of just took the surface stuff we you know having robin now for a few months there's so much more underneath the surface that we could get into so i'll have to you know drag you back here for another another show um sometime in the future but robin thank you so much for coming here and sharing your thoughts your ideas on how we can advance our professional lives and the value of having um you know an advisory board um you know to support us
63:28 see the things that oftentimes we don't see so so thank you for that um and i'm just going to quickly wrap things up by saying we are here every wednesday 12 30 pacific time 3 30 eastern time i'll let the mountain in central time folks figure it out from there plus one minus one i guess and um we you're here to talk about every week to talk about how we can advance our professional lives with uh guests like like robin or as i talk about some of the things that i've learned and written about over the years so thank you very very much for joining us and as i always do i just
64:04 want to give you my sign off and that is marie darling i think about you all the time still my belt thank you so much everyone i thank you