In today’s episode, Brooke speaks with Cassandra Rosa, a business coaching and award winning speaker and author of Now What: Create the Clarity to Achieve Your Dreams. She also hosts the podcast called Clarity Conversations. Cassandra knew she wanted to make a difference in the world from a very young age. She pursued a degree in psychology and in the middle of it, she did volunteer work in Africa and fell in love with it. When she returned from her trip, she felt like she needed to do things the mainstream way but kept having feelings of doing more. After about 6 months, she decided to follow her dreams and left corporate and worked on personal development. She felt like this is the mentorship she wanted to do in her life. She launched her business in 2019 and in 6 months, she left her full time job and started traveling to mentor people. Her challenge early on was going through Imposter Syndrome. She wondered why someone would want to work with her when they could work with someone big. It held her back initially but she realized you needed to be a few steps ahead of people to create that authenticity to help people. Her biggest challenge was figuring out what she was going to offer. When she initially launched, she acknowledged that she was creating her offering for a prior version of herself and she began to attract so many people and it allowed her to have a deeper connection and understanding what her clients were going through. The traditional ways of making money burned Cassandra out in the first year. She learned that it’s important to balance your energies and be in the creative flow state as well as taking the action state. The ambition piece - destination syndrome she calls it, is something she redefined during the pandemic because she can anchor those feelings into each step of the journey and not wait to achieve that. It’s been more fun instead of reaching so far and feeling disconnected in the present moment. Cassandra makes a goal to step into a certain state, such as when you want more joy and bliss and freedom, now, what can you do to feel that? The clarity will come when you can get out of your own head. Mentorship a good resource and is important to utilize to get support and using tools like Instagram to follow people who can teach you. Her biggest failure was having launches and not hitting numbers she wanted but it helped point her in the right direction and redefining those instances into learning opportunities that can point you into the right direction. Life is a journey, not a destination is her favorite quote because it looks into the gratitude and the presence of the stepping stones and milestones we achieve along the way and basking in that. Cassandra Rosa is an intuitive certified life and business coach. She helps female entrepreneurs create fulfilling businesses with clarity and confidence. In her coaching practice, she loves to teach her clients how to clarify their path to their purpose, connect to their inner confidence and create the fulfilling business they daydream about. Cassandra Rosa is a healer, Reiki master, an award-winning speaker, and award-winning author of the book Now What: Create the Clarity to Achieve Your Dreams. Cassandra also is a podcast host of personal development and business podcast called Clarity Conversations. It’s available on all major podcast platforms!I work with spiritual entrepreneurs who are ready to… clarify their path to purpose  - Gain clarity of what a fulfilling business looks like for you so you have not only a refined vision and mission but the tools to manifest it!embody confidence -Form unshakeable confidence so that you achieve your goals without having the fear and self-doubt run the show.create an impactful business  - Create a business you daydream about simply and authentically so that you no longer feel stuck with how to start. Links:http://www.cassandrarosa.comInstagram: CassandrarosaaPurchase Now What: Create the Clarity to Achieve Your DreamsJoin Allobee:https://www.allobee.com/plus

In today’s episode, Brooke speaks with Founder and CEO of Go Confidently Services, Julie DeLucca-Collins. They dive into Julie’s background. Julie comes from a background of teachers. She went into early childhood education herself and she loved it. Like many educators, she burned out. She had a part time job like a lot of educators do. She was a youth minister at her church and they offered her a full time position. It gave her good on the job training to create events and train volunteers. She was then recruited by Columbia University for grant writing. Throughout her career Julie learned that relationship building is key to being successful.Now she works with women and find out how she can support them to help them build the freedom and lifestyle they want.  Julie’s favorite saying is “action gives you traction.” Action gives you momentum to give you traction to get you where you’re going. One thing Julie wishes she knew when she started out was realizing we aren’t perfect. We have to give ourselves permission to fail. It’s ok to say I don’t know how to do that and figure it out or learn. As business owners we try to do it all when we should be outsourcing because it is costing us time which is a larger commodity than money. On a weekly basis, one thing Julie does is go through her planner and categorize her tasks and associate a value to them. There are things only she can do whereas creating graphics for her social media is a responsibility for someone else. It’s not that there is less importance in a task but as CEO she is required to do the things that are income producing. Networking can grow her reach and get new clients. If it isn’t on your calendar, don’t be distracted because the little things add up. For every time you’re distracted, it takes 17 minutes to get back on task. We need to ask for help when we think we can do it all. One of Julie’s biggest challenges in the beginning was getting clients. When we have a problem getting clients, most people don’t have a clear strategy which doesn’t create a consistent message. Throughout her process, Julie realized she needed to create a strategy and run her business like a business, that she needed to be proactive and not reactive. Don’t be afraid to look at your numbers. Talk to the people you’re servicing and make sure you’re using the language they use. It needs to be spoken in a way that services them. The best resources that helped Julie along the way was knowing she needed to hire an assistant. It is an investment she knew she needed to make in order to clear her plate in order to do the work she needed to do. The first purchase she made was to invest in a program that allowed her to invoice and track her money. She calls this Finance Fridays. Along with that, she uses the book, Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. You need to pay yourself first, allocate for taxes, and keep your expenses in check. Find automations, do, delegate, delete and automate. Julie wrote the book Confident You to record the stories of people who impacted her and mentored her to help her who she has become today. These people are confident in what they did, mission-drive and habits that allowed them to show up consistently. She wanted to create something the reader can identify with and how to overcome challenges and implement in your own life. When you have simple habits that can ground you, no matter what happens, you can refocus and continue on in the life you desire.   Julie DeLucca-Collins is the Founder and CEO of Go Confidently Services and the host of the popular Casa DeConfidence Podcast®. As a Business and Life Strategist Coach, Julie helps women business owners launch or grow their businesses, get clients, be productive, and achieve their dreams. Julie helps her clients create simple habits to achieve goals and change lives. Julie is also the best-selling author of the newly released book Confident You (simple habits to live the life you've imagined). Julie is a sought-after public speaker trainer and course creator. She is certified as a CBT Holistic Coach and Tiny Habits Certified. She is also certified as a Social Emotional Learning Facilitator and has completed her 200-hour Yoga Teacher Certification.Over the past 20 years, she has worked as a senior executive in the education industry and recently completed her tenure as Chief Innovation Officer for an academic solutions company based in New York City. She gained significant expertise in policy-making, business development, and business operations throughout her career. Julie worked to expand several companies into new markets and negotiated contracts on their behalf.Links:Links:https://www.goconfidentlycoaching.com/https://www.instagram.com/julie_deluccacollins/Profit FirstClick here for the link to the e-version of Julie’s bookClick here to purchase the physical book of Go ConfidentlyJoin Allobee: allobee.com/plus

Listen is as Allobee CEO, Brooke Markevicius, shares an update on Allobee and her journey in entrepreneurship and the life of a founder. As a female business owner, she has found it is really hard to go far without self reflection and an analysis of not just how the business is doing but how you are doing as a business owner. It’s important to assess if you still love what you are doing. Brooke spent time over the summer reflecting on this and determined she loved the company, the team, what they are building, but did she love what she was doing on a day-to-day basis. She felt she was dealing with burnout. She knew she needed to grow the business but felt the pressure to grow and scale the business and move faster. It was unsustainable and questionable if that is how she should do business. When we start moving fast, are we losing the quality and relationships that we should be building? She believes in gut-checking and asking these questions. Brooke shares the three things that helped her overcome being on the verge of breaking down. Society isn’t built for a woman to be a business owner especially as a mom and caregiver. Brooke has friends that are founders and business owners that she could share in this and not feel so alone. Brooke has always been ambitious and wanted to meet her goals but being so goal oriented can mess with your mind and be very exhausting. Brooke and her family spent the summer at their farmhouse in North Carolina. It was a blessing to have a place to get away and be together. They had no childcare and both she and her husband work full time. Brooke was scared how they were going to pull it off but her husband kept telling her they could do it. Next she shares 3 tips to avoid burnout: Tip 1: Get Away - Get out of your current physical location where your stress has been. Our bodies are aware of where we are at and it can be refreshing and hopeful to get away. It got Brooke out of her normal routine. She was forced to not work all the time because she didn’t have a choice without childcare. She also didn’t want to work all the time in this new place where it was beautiful and she wanted to enjoy time. It gave her a new perspective of what she had been missing. Tip 2: Look at the impact you are making as a business owner - Zoom out and look at the impact you are building. Brooke researched how much Allobee had paid women for their work. Allobee paid out almost $1 million dollars to women since 2020. Her goal was to get women paid for flexible work. Brooke realized she had reached that goal. Knowing that helped her destress a little. She knew she was reaching the Allobee’s mission. She also looked at how many businesses Allobee had impacted and helped support people. Over 70,000 hours were given back to business owners so they could run their business and enjoy their families and life. Brooke blocked her time starting in September so she has time for herself. It hit her that she had no time for herself and no flexibility in her own life which was counterintuitive to what she was trying to build for others. Is the impact you are making in align to what your goals are? Tip 3: Find something that you love outside of work - Brooke’s good friend Eve Rodsky, is the author of Free Play and Unicorn Space. Brooke didn’t put into play what Eve taught in Unicorn Space. She realized there was no Brooke outside of Allobee or mom life. She reread the book and sat on it for a while. She’s been thinking a lot about what this looks like for her but she encourages everyone to read the book and to make time for things you want to do and are not things that everyone wants you to do. She realized that trying to rediscover what that is for her is part of why she was experiencing burnout. Find something that makes you joyful and fills you up. Women are leaving ambitious “careers” for things they love for things that bring them joy and happiness. Find the right balance of ambition and joy. Brooke is still on that journey but it’s something we all need to find. Stay tuned for a great season of Allobee Radio! www.allobee.com/plusCode: ALLOBEERADIOhttps://www.elle.com/life-love/opinions-features/a40835443/women-rejecting-traditional-ambition-2022/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email 

Listen in as Brooke speaks with her friend and author Hitha Palepu about her new book, “We’re Speaking: The Life Lessons of Kamala Harris: How to Use Your Voice, Be Assertive, and Own Your Own Story.” Hitha talks about how writing this book was a team effort with her husband and family helping and supporting her through this process. Through all of her research, the one thing Hitha really appreciated was learning more about Kamala’s mom. She was one of the few Indians that were allowed to emigrate to the United States. Her advancement of research and moving up in her field reminded her of her own father and his experiences with speaking with an accent, looking different, and hitting the ceiling quicker in her career. Hitha could see how Shyamala mothered and it mirrored how her own mother mothered her growing up. Everything had an element of family and that is something women are able to relate to more. As she was writing the book, Hitha started her daily routine the same way Kamala started hers. She would have black tea and honey with raisin bran and worked out every morning. She returns to those rituals and daily practices whenever she needs to feel grounded. Hitha and Brooke talk about some of the false narratives from her own life that Kamala’s experiences helped with. Hitha talked about pitching to investors and the amount of time you have to prepare to be told no with no context or reason. Hearing I eat no for breakfast helped her understand each no got her closer to yes. Eat no for breakfast is her love letter to female founders and business owners who deal with this all the time. Stay focused on the vision, mission and impact you know you’ll make. People are encumbered by what has always been that they cannot see what could be. It’s a Kamala-ism that she always returns to. Brooke asks what is one thing that has happened because of the book. Hitha has heard from unexpected readers including a COO who was impacted on how to lead differently. It meant the world to her that this book isn’t just helping readers be their best selves but that people of power are learning how to lead differently. What is next for Hitha? She wants to explore how to support startups and will also be doing more speaking events. Her focus this summer is long walks, resting and writing a children’s book series. Giveaway:We are giving away 3 books.  To enter:Follow @hireallobee on IGFollow @hireallobee on TwitterSubscribe to the podcastLeave a reviewWe will pick 3 winners May 15th!”Links:https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/hitha-palepu/were-speaking/9780316283052/https://instagram.com/hithapalepu?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Tiffany is a psychologist by training and moved to North Carolina to start her professional journey in academia. She soon realized that this was not a good fit for her and she then moved to Washington D.C. where she worked as a federal policy maker in health policy. During those 7 years, she enjoyed her time in the government and also became a mom. She decided she wanted to do something entrepreneurial and moved back to North Carolina. She started making candles 5 years before launching her company with her husband as a hobby. She thought Bright Black would be a side job with research being her primary job but Bright Black took off.Tiffany wrote her business plan in the midst of a government shutdown while she was still working in DC at the end of 2018. She pulled together 5 years of thoughts and ideas. Their goal is to use scent to tell a story and it was a good way to have tough conversations about stereotypes and misunderstandings of black cultures. They wanted to break the connection between black and negativity by having a beautiful product that also allows people to have a good experience with dialogue and researching on their own to then share with their own communities. The work Tiffany did in the executive branch was on resilience. This experience helped her with the rapid growth in the midst of the pandemic and the challenges the pandemic placed on the company with supply chain shortages. They source everything from the US but still experience challenges. They still experienced growth because people were home and burning candles. They didn’t have jars or other materials available to keep up with growth. Despite these challenges, most people were very kind and understanding of their challenges. They communicated a lot and eventually made it through. Her biggest hurdle has been the supply chain issue of 2020. It was important to Tiffany to keep the same packaging for her product and she ended up making her own. Hard work hasn’t been enough. From the outside people think she’s crushing it but Tiffany has had moments where it hasn’t felt that way. Those moments have been hard for her.Her focus this year is to get her production space set up and figuring out how to engage with the public again. She knows this interaction is important to her brand. They are negotiating a contract with a large retailer which would give them a lot of momentum in addition to new limited edition scents coming out. 

Pamela has been a serial entrepreneur for over 18 years. Her current venture is Hustle LIke a Mom. She is there to bridge the gap between mom life and entrepreneur life between pickup and drop off. She came to create this venture out of frustration. She was and still is a journalist on tv and in print. She knew she wasn’t the only one in her 30s where something wasn’t jiving. She knew there had to be a better solution so this was solving the problem for herself which helped solve it for other women in the community. Pam’s best advice for building community is not being afraid of starting literally in your backyard. Don’t be afraid to start with your first five to ten friends if they are the right people for your community. There is nothing wrong with being narrow and exclusive. You don’t need to appeal to everybody. Not everything you have to offer will be for everyone and that’s ok. Pam said whenever she has gone too wide with her community, those are the times she has failed. There are good lessons to be learned from failing. You can be more successful with the right 50-500 people than you can with 500,000. Pam gives strategies for getting started. The first step before marketing is to figure out your dream customer and make her real. Where does she live, does she have kids, etc. The one piece that people miss is not making her real beyond the purposes of your company. If you are a jewelry customer, make her real beyond how she styles herself. Give her a full existence such as does she have a family, what career is she in? When you’ve made her that real, you’ll pinpoint where she will spend, what Facebook groups she would be in. Then you can move on to the next step, which is what are you selling? Pam was hesitant with hiring out VA services but spending money on the right person, coach or summit saves money in the long run. Once you’ve decoded your community and who your customer is, the next step is figuring out what you are selling. Couple that with whom you want to attract. Pam likes to keep it as simple as possible. Come up with your two sentences, your messaging, and it should be something that anyone can remember and tell someone else. It shouldn’t be catchy but messaging that resonates. It takes 7 times for someone to remember what you are talking about.If you would like to learn more about Pam and her business, Hustle Like a Mom, visit the links below. Links:https://www.hustlelikeamom.com/group-coachinghttps://www.hustlelikeamom.com/quarterly-planning-partyFreebie http://hustlelikeamom.com/plan-pro

On today’s episode, Brooke talks with Justin Minott. Justin is an entrepreneur who got his start creating a non-profit that allowed him to accomplish his goal of traveling the world. During a trip to Africa, the idea to source coffee was born and he took that idea back to Canada and started a coffee shop there. He then moved to North Carolina and expanded his idea of a coffee shop to fulfill the local need of opening one that is family friendly. Justin talks about his biggest challenges: sustainability and scalability of your venture. When impact is at the center, it makes you approach your business differently. His coffee shop in Canada used this idea as they used 25% of profits to reinvest in communities in Africa. It also increased the quality of the coffee because helping the community clean their water was also cleaning the coffee which improved the quality of the coffee. They would reverse engineer their business plan based on the impact, not the other way around. Getting and running as an efficient business so you can scale while having the impact that you want is challenging. That is why he is an impact business coach now. As an impact business coach, Justin gets a great amount of joy by seeing people win. The driver for him was thinking often about his legacy and how it aligns with how he wants to be remembered. When he reflects on running businesses, the impact there was the community he could create, but when he got a glimpse of investing in the lives of other impact entrepreneurs, the impact was exponential by his sharing what he has learned with others. A good business coach isn’t a cheerleader, but someone who collapses the timeline and gives the entrepreneur the straightest path to where they want to go. The customer/client has to be the hero of the story and he helps entrepreneurs achieve that. Justin is also really good at building community. His best advice for fostering community is bringing people together towards a larger vision that isn’t  just hanging out, but adding value to people’s lives. It is having a compelling and clear vision for what you want to accomplish and building that community. It’s important to figure out why that matters to you. As entrepreneurs come together, what can we share so we can navigate this landscape in the best way possible? This journey is collaborative and that is the power of community. Justin says barriers to community is the facade of having it all together and that you have to present in a certain way and can’t look like you don’t know something. The lack of vulnerability and transparency in the entrepreneurial space is one of the biggest barriers to a connected community. Vulnerability and authenticity is power. Inauthenticity is exhausting and you can fit in but you will never belong. When you are you, you’ll find your people. Justin plans on creating momentum throughout the rest of the year with consistency and focus. He is going super practical this year, one foot in front of the other. Perfect practice makes perfect. He enjoys going fast but to go fast is to go slow. If you want to get to fast, you’ve got to go slow. The second piece of advice is figuring out how to get more of who he is accessible to a community. His focus has been digitally since he takes on a few clients at a time but it still allows for scaling as people have more access to him at a lower cost. The key is to build that community without the expectation that they will give you something back. Celebrate with them their successes instead of expecting something in return. You can find more about Justin or follow him at @justinminott or visit https://www.justinminott.com/

Listen as Brooke and New York Times Bestselling Author Eve Rodsky discuss her new book, Find Your Unicorn Space. Eve shares her work with her previous book, Fair Play and how it has led up to her new book. The books have shown her that the antidote to burnout isn’t walking around the block, but being interested in your own life. She says having a four word audit is important to determine who makes your decisions and that there is a cultural movement to have people make different decisions about how they work, such as new decisions not based on assumptions but choice. Eve is trained as a lawyer but she has been involved in organizational management specifically with family foundations. That lens of how to design an organization has led her to understand that how we spend our time is subversive. She noticed that her husband had time to watch tv but she was doing household duties until her head hit the pillow. She said this creates a cycle of rage and resentment and we need to learn to fill our time nutritiously. When Eve researched how people feel about home life, the word that came up often was drowning but when she unpacked what that meant, the next two words that came up were overwhelm and boredom. These trends were triggering for Eve and she wanted to tell people how others have found how to rediscover the talents and curiosities that make you uniquely you. Unicorn Space is active pursuits that make you come alive. It’s not a hobby because people associate “infrequency” and “nice to have” as hobbies. How do you get there? It’s not a passion because that connotes we all have one that we can return to. We are allowed to change. Eve feels like she changes her passion sometimes daily. The connection with the world and completion are the other two pieces to Unicorn Space. Eve’s rest is the restorative practice of her Unicorn Space. It is a mental and physical space you can go to outside of your usual roles. Eve asks you to journal what is one thing that is important I am doing today that is outside of your usual role. Her word for the year is flourishing. Languishing was the word of 2021 and so she likes the -ish and wants to figure out ways to restore yourself through the active pursuit of flourishing. She wishes that for all of the listeners. 

Kristyn lives in New Hampshire with her husband, kids and dogs. She started Wash Street with her co-owner Laura four years ago, and their goal is to make laundry services as accessible as meal kits, house cleaning and oil changes. Kristyn remembers struggling to get ahead in her household. She identified laundry having the most pickups and putdowns and decided to outsource the service. She tried to find a company to outsource this service to and couldn’t find one so she decided to start one.When her kids were young she bought a laundromat and right before the pandemic it started to grow. They were able to stay open as an essential business. They’ve been on a growth streak and have dealt with capacity constraints. They offer pickup and delivery services for their customers in addition to standard laundromat services.The most profitable customer is outside of the city and generally has large families. One of her growth goals is to service and support the customers outside the city. Brooke and Kristyn talk about how important outsourcing has been for both of their businesses and how their own companies started from a need they identified in their own lives. They also discuss Kristyn’s greatest challenge, favorite quote, her biggest failure and how she learned from it. During the slow season, she is surveying and trying to gather information on potential contacts and future clients for the beginning of 2022. 

Karla is a graphic designer who worked for a cable company for 10 years where she learned if you want something, you have to ask. From there, her family moved and she then worked for an agency and freelanced on the side. This is where she was introduced to Allobee. When the pandemic hit, she lost her job at the agency and decided to go home to Mexico for the summer where she began to focus on her freelance work. She lost her dad last year and wanted to use this opportunity to help support her mom. Her mission is to teach others similar to how her dad taught others in his career as a teacher. In the past year, her business has taken off. She learned it was important to have a plan and set goals to have something to work towards. She learns from other freelancers from all industries and has invested in coaching to help build her community. Believing in herself has been the most important tool. Networking is also key by making real connections and friends. They don’t have to be in person. Be of service and help other people because everything you give comes back to you. She also learned it was very important to be present in the communities. (10 min mark recast) To maintain productivity, she lives by her calendar and makes time to meditate. She sticks to her non-negotiables like being present for her family. She uses Asana for organizing projects. The resources that helped her along the way were a couple of courses she took called B-School and The Free Mama Movement. To keep momentum for the rest of 2021, she sets quarterly goals and adjusts them when necessary. Karla would like to have 6 more clients and diversify ways to find clients. KARLA'S WEBSITE https://www.karlapamanes.com/ FREE OFFER https://www.karlapamanes.com/brand-design-audit.html

Brooke speaks with Jill Makoya, an Allobee expert in copywriting. Jill’s background is in education. She taught for 15 years and has experience not only in the classroom but VIP Kid and other remote teaching opportunities. She has a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s degree in Art. She has certifications in copywriting courses. Allobee was her first introduction to offer her services to an agency. She had only worked with small business owners and solopreneurs. She was inspired by the level of organization and structure from the beginning. In 2010, Jill felt called to go overseas to teach English as a second language. The second major shift in her life happened when she came back to the U.S. in 2015 where she went back to public school teaching. After she had her son, she longed for more and was no longer excited about teaching because she wanted to be home with him more. Jill knew she wanted to work from home and knew she could thrive in an online environment because of her side hustle with VIP Kid. Jill was attracted to freelancing when she stumbled upon the Free Mama Movement program. She joined the community and got immersed in the training and videos. After a while of this, Jill decided to jump in and start her LLC and self-teach several programs. In her first month, she secured two retainer clients that stayed with her for 6-9 months. She was determined to learn by doing. As Jill worked with social media, CRM, email sequencing, and others, she realized that she wanted to niche down to copywriting. She attended a webinar on copywriting and realized this was her strength and she wanted to pursue it. The one thing Jill wishes she knew when she began her career is taking messy action can lead to some of your greatest moments. She learned quickly you don’t need a fancy website, elaborate sales page before you declare that your doors are open. She says to focus on relationships and the benefits of what you are trying to offer or sell and how to master your craft.Her biggest challenge happened recently as she dealt with the feast or famine that comes with freelancing. She was used to steady business and then experienced a period of time where there wasn’t as much work. She reflected during this time to determine if she needed to pivot and step out of her comfort zone and connect with a different target audience. The seeds she planted during this time have started to grow. Join our hive! https://allobee.ac-page.com/hive-membership

Ferol is the COO of Written Word Media and runs a variety of brands to help readers find the next book to read. He works to sell advertising to authors, largely independent authors. They do email, social media and primarily support the authors by giving them access to advertising for readers. Allobee has helped support Ferol by helping them with their new program, Reader Reach. Allobee helped with the marketing and setting up of the campaign and getting working out the kinks.Ferol got his start at a non-profit research lab that built medical simulators. There he was introduced to technology he didn’t know existed. He started doing some of his own freelance work and it drove him to get his MBA and he began working with ReverbNation, building software for musicians. He never connected with music but came from a family of readers and always wanted to work with his wife. She was an online marketing consultant at the time. They eventually started working together and built Written Word Media and hired staff.Ferol’s biggest challenge has been balancing family and work, especially when his father was sick. He views challenges as opportunities. The key is self-awareness during trauma and chaos and the daily struggle that comes with that. It’s important to ask for help and support when you need it. Ferol also talks about his favorite quote, favorite read, and how he plans on momentum through the remainder of 2021. https://www.writtenwordmedia.comFerol Vernon holds an MBA from Duke University with a focus on technology and entrepreneurship. Ferol’s focus is building killer technology for readers, authors, and publishers. Ferol spent over 6 years in the music business at ReverbNation helping grow the company from a pre-revenue startup to a 100 person company.

Listen as Brooke shares her experience at creating a remote-first company during a pandemic as well as easy tips at creating a successful team culture overall.The Allobee leadership team is all on the east coast but experts are all over the United States. We do an All Hive meeting at the beginning of the month and I asked our workforce plus our internal team, if they could use one word, how would they describe our work culture here at Allobee. In this remote time, do people feel supported, inspired, welcoming, flexible, safe? I love that supportive was the #1 culture for Allobee. If you don’t feel support, a lot will fall by the wayside. I encourage you to do a word map or something similar to find out how they define the culture.We make sure that our missions and values are extremely defined and that everyone knows about them. At Allobee our mission is to get women and caregivers paid that have left the workforce. It is also a mission to help our business owners scale simply. We talk about this a lot in all that we do. Are you talking about your values on a regular basis? Does your team know what your values and missions are? Talk about them often.  Recently while on vacation, I was reading a book about the 3 things a CEO should do. One of those was culture. The author said he set up a Be Attitudes, which was a great play on words for Allobee, so I created 12 Bee Attitudes. Bee happy, kind, bold, proactive, etc. We implement these on a rotating basis. We make sure these are intertwined in our communication, through events and everything we do.How do we bring people together? Virtual world can be complicated especially during the pandemic. The majority of our force are caregivers. Adding anything extra was too much so we didn’t do too much for the first few months. We were constantly asking how people felt and started doing more recently with virtual co-working where you can work and chat with the internal team. We also have our virtual meet and greet and use the Gather Round platform. It’s fun, laid back and easy and it helps team members who haven’t interacted much. One of my favorite things with our internal team is called Breakout Boxes. I encourage you to look into them.The tools we use for collaboration and communication are  Asana, Slack, Zoom, Loom and Circle for our membership platform. If you have any sort of membership or want more of a community feel, Circle is a great way to communicate with one another.In a world that’s constantly changing, it’s important to adapt and enjoy something better. What’s working for us today, might not work for us tomorrow. We need to have a pulse on our team and know what’s going on and how people are feeling. 

In this episode, I talk with Julie Atwood, longtime consumer packaged goods executive that has come up through the ranks of many different companies and currently works with Hand in Hand soap. I just love the mission of the company and so it was great to be able to help kind of during that transitional growth time for the company. Hand in Hand had been around for 10 years. The founder and his wife, and friends and family employees that were operating the company. And it was quite small for many years, largely a mission. And then it quickly pivoted and got some amazing traction with Target on the heels of COVID. Then as COVID was in full effect across the country, Hand in Hand was one of the few companies that was able to provide Hand Sanitizer to the retailer Target in a very quick turn around so they could quickly get it into consumers' hands. So it was at that time that the company sort of exploded. It didn't have that infrastructure to support the growth. Julie stepped in and helped Hand in Hand quickly put together an infrastructure to support the growth and meet all the important retailer needs and the inventory needs.Check out the episode to hear more about Julie and her time not only with Hand in Hand, but Ben & Jerry’s and 7th Generation. This is an episode you don’t want to miss!Links:Work with Allobee:  https://allobee.comSign up for Circle with this link:  https://circle.so?lmref=d4HGygSign up for Catch Benefits:  https://catch.co/partners/allobeeSign up for Lance Bank:  https://www.lancebank.co/landing?ref=allobeeallobee

We are back! It’s been a while friends as I took some time to focus on business, family and remembering the reason why I started this podcast. And why I started it is to share valuable information and tips with you to help you in your personal and business growth.In this episode, I share with you the 12 Allobee ‘Be attitudes’ and how you can emulate these values into your life and business to create a culture that others want to be a part of. I challenge you to really think about what it is you do believe in? What are you creating with your business? What change are you bringing to the world?We hope you enjoy being a part of our Allobee community and team. Thanks for listening and please share your biggest takeaway from the episode by taking a screenshot of the episode and tagging us on Instagram @hireallobee.Links:Work with Allobee:  https://allobee.comSign up for Circle with this link:  https://circle.so?lmref=d4HGygSign up for Catch Benefits:  https://catch.co/partners/allobeeSign up for Lance Bank:  https://www.lancebank.co/landing?ref=allobeeallobee

If you've ever struggled with how to scale your business in a sustainable way, without burning out or needing to spend so much cash you're in the right place because today I will be sharing my top 5 tips on how to scale your business sustainably. These come from lessons learned through my last 7 years as an entrepreneur and the 3 years of building Allobee. The top 5 tips to scale your business sustainably: Hire smart Success leaves a trail and clues - look at your competitors and other companies scaling Empower your team to make decisions Human then automate Know your vision for the future and get everyone behind it Check out the episode for more details on all of these tips! Also, stick around until the end of the secret sauce to success on scaling! More info on Allobee: Work with Allobee: https://allobee.com Discount for Allobee: RADIO50 Sign up for Circle with this link: https://circle.so?lmref=d4HGyg Sign up for Catch Benefits: https://catch.co/partners/allobee Sign up for Lance Bank: https://www.lancebank.co/landing?ref=allobeeallobee

In this episode of the podcast, I chat with you about our new Summer Internship Program. We wanted to support those out there who need internship opportunities to gain experience and to help them with their career growth.    I also wanted to give tips to those who are interested in hiring an intern this summer. Here are the bullet point tips, but take a listen to the episode for more details!   Tips on how to have a positive experience with virtual intern: 1-Vetting is Essential 2-Cultural Fit for Your Business 3-Passion and Drive 4-Project Bound 5- Set Milestones 6- Go Through a Company   Apply to Summer Internship Program: http://allobee.com/summer    Partnership with ReWriting the Code: https://rewritingthecode.org/    Press release link - https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/female-founders-develop-unique-internship-program-for-diverse-community-of-women-working-toward-tech-degrees-301270296.html?tc=eml_cleartime

Are you on Clubhouse yet? If you’re not, you should be! It’s the new place to be and if you jump in now, you won’t regret it as this platform is growing quickly! In this episode, I share with you the 10 reasons why you need to be on Clubhouse! Take a listen to learn more and check out all the information below about how to get more involved with us on Clubhouse!   Link to our Clubhouse Guide and to get our list for weekly clubhouse updates:  https://allobee.ac-page.com/clubhouse?test=true   Make sure to follow me at @queenallobee on Clubhouse and click the bell in my profile to be notified when I start rooms.   DM us on IG for an invite to Clubhouse   Go and Follow Likable Business and Hustle Hive Clubs on Clubhouse to be a part of our exclusive discussions.   Join us Monday at 9am EST and Friday at 8pm EST for our Likable MomTrepreneur Show!   Join us, two successful MomTrepreneurs, twice a week to learn how you can succeed as a Likeable MomTrepreneur! Becoming a mom gives you a super power called, MOMentum which gives you grit, determination, empathy and the ability to be a great entrepreneur.  Our guests will share their journeys to allow you insight and inspiration. Come listen, ask questions and gain community with other MomTrepreneurs!

Vernita is such an inspirational person. In this episode she shares her journey to becoming CEO and how she hopes that her path is helping inspire her daughter. We have a great chat about how we can best serve others by remembering they are all going through something. You’ll learn in this episode that ambitious moms can make it happen but they don’t do it alone and it’s not easy. We definitely need each other to reach our dreams, be our best selves, and be strong moms! Take a listen to be inspired today!   Vernita was the first employee at Natalist and currently serves as our Chief Executive Officer. Previously, Vernita spent a decade working with organizations and businesses in positions of leadership, asset management, program development, recruitment, and culture building. She has a B.A. in Sociology, Master's Degree in Public Administration, and a Certification in Leadership, all from Clemson University. Both her professional experiences and educational background have helped her develop a very thoughtful approach on how to manage and sustain resources—including people resources. She believes human assets are paramount and has spent her career learning how to lead and steward them well.   Vernita is a proud wife, mom, and community volunteer. She currently serves on the board of Charleston Hope and the International African American Museum. She has been recognized as one of Anderson Independent Mail’s “20 under 40,” Athena Young Professional of the Year, and Greenville’s Best and Brightest.   More info on Vernite: Instagram @heymrsbrown. http://instagram.com/natalistco Company Links:https://natalist.com/    

Excited for you to listen to our first male guest interview! Here is some more info about Flip Brown: Since August of 2000, I’ve worked with well over one hundred businesses and other organizations to help them become more connected, more collaborative, and ultimately more successful. I’m honored to have served my clients who have strengthened their business relationships, deepened their awareness, and held true to their values.  In pursuit of providing strong value to my clients I’ve obtained over six hundred hours of professional development training, which is ongoing.    My hunger for knowledge and experience has led me through multiple certifications and training programs. I went back to college at the age of thirty-seven and completed a Bachelors and then a Masters degree. I’ve been a supervisor and I’ve been supervised. I’ve sat on both sides of the therapeutic relationship.    I’ve worked as a psychologist, nonprofit executive, international product manager, mobile crisis team clinician, retail salesperson, and wilderness workshop leader. I’ve also been a hardwood furniture craftsman, windsurfing instructor, gigging musician, cross-country ski instructor, a cappella singer, and rabid organic vegetable gardener. In short, I’ve had multiple careers and interests, and they continue!   Three other things you should know about me. First, I am extremely blessed to have a wonderful wife and life partner. Sandy Post is a remarkable human being, and as someone who knows us well once said, “She wants the best for you and the best from you.” How true!   Second, I have a deep lifelong involvement in music. There is a magnet on our fridge that says, “I may be old but at least I got to see all the cool bands” and is fairly true. I have been playing in and out of groups – rock ‘n’ roll, acoustic, Americana, and Grateful Dead covers – for over fifty years. I love singing in three-part harmony, and in addition to my main instrument of bass guitar I also play acoustic and electric rhythm guitar and have recently taken up the pedal steel.    Third, I am humbly working to increase the depth of my spiritual practice. After having worked through growing up in a cult religion, I now cherish my connection to the Universal Life Force  using the doorways of Mahamudra Buddhism and Sufism, among others.    To learn more about Flip: Website https://businesscultureconsultants.com/ Mighty Networks: wholisticwork.mn.co Podcast: Wholistic Work Podcast     Check us out at allobee.com