Chicago, New York, or Atlanta?

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman a year ago Dana White was questioning whether her business could survive the pandemic this week she tells us she's looking seriously at expanding to another city I'd like to make a decision by the end of March she says and I'd like to be opening or in the process of opening by this fall I'm waiting to see how the vaccine does Dana also talks about her recent experiences with Venture capitalists who seem to be telling her we'll be happy to give you money as soon as you don't really need it plus Stephanie Stucky explains her team's recent 3-hour debate should stues be selling the road trip or the pean and Dana Stephanie and Jay GS discuss Clubhouse the new social media platform is it just a Time suck or does it offer real value to business owners even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will if nothing else let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges same thing with our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report which collects the most important news of the day for business owners in one place and which you can subscribe to at 21h hats.com where you can also find transcripts of our podcast episodes this week's lineup features Jay goz whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home Stephanie Stucky who is CEO of Stucky the snack and Road stop business famous for its pcan log rolls and Dana White who is CEO of paraly Boyd a chain of hair salons based in Detroit the episode is titled Chicago New York or [Music] Atlanta before we get started one of the recurring themes of this podcast is that marketing is hard for smaller businesses one reason it's hard is that we are all besieged by self-appointed digital marketing gurus who overwhelm us with outlandish promises on the other hand there's Steve craw co-founder of be found online a loyal listener to the 21 hats podcast Steve understands the business owners who listen to this podcast because he is one he knows his stuff but he's also a real person who you can have a real conversation with and if you tell him I sent you you can get a free consultation with Steve himself just shoot him an email at Steve befound online.com to schedule your talk that's Steve at befound online.com now on to the [Music] show Welcome Dana Jay and Stephanie thanks for joining me today how you guys doing doing I'm good still still fighting a good fight anything going on on the the lone front that you've uh been telling us about I have a proposal but they're trying to sell this as a business loan versus Real Estate so there's all kinds of you know caveats in there so no news no I do have news a bank actually called me that used to be a banker that was with one of the previous Banks and is looking for business so I'm still extremely confident that I will find a bank that we'll be happy to have us Stephanie how are you doing we're doing great we've acquired the candy plant manufacturing facility and we're which we talked about last week Knee Deep neck deep and strategery as I joke we're doing strategic planning we're getting our teams aligned and there's a lot that you have to do with the merger and acquisition well beyond just the legal paperwork give us an example what what kind of thing you referring to we have three different accounting softwares ah so Which accounting software are we going to use how do we integrate all of that uh today we had a a very in-depth conversation about integrating all of our websites into one website packaging we're redoing all of the packaging and stues will be the lead brand but then we had a conversation about one of the subsidiary Brands is it front porch pecans Stucky front porch pecans or is it just stues because front porch pecans has a certain following so we we agreed we were going to do stues front porch peans but that was a lengthy discussion and then just making sure everyone's aligned on what the brand is we had a three-hour discussion about whether stues is about the road trip or about the pecan and the road trip went out but it was a three-hour discussion so a lot branding marketing accounting can I take you back to the websites people struggle so much with one website how are you approaching the decision on how to handle three we have got outside Consultants who did a Model today they did a demo and they showed us how we could integrate and the exciting thing is as we're integrating we're upgrading hopefully and it's we're because we're we're putting everything into one we're going to be saving money ultimately even though the new system is slightly more expensive than what we're paying right now it's less than three separate systems and it's going to enable us to do so much more right now we are very clunky about how manage our wholesale accounts they literally email us and then we follow up with an email and then I will send them a form to complete that's a word doc so we're going to have everything integrated on the website where they can just order straight from our website and it can be immediately processed our sales reps will be able to go on the site and when they're at a store instead of doing a hand order they can order via the website how did you choose the Consultants who are helping you with this my business partner was in charge of that so it was a contact that I brought to him it's someone I know who I've known for about 20 years he's an investor in this company and they provide the software it's called gift key and another key factor for us is that the one of the companies we acquired has a robust fundraising business and gift key has a lot of software related to fundraising so it makes it really easy to have hundreds of users log into the system and place orders for fundraising so they're uniquely in our space and it's a Georgia based company which we like can I ask you a question just to push back a little bit on your conclusion after your three-hour meeting it you said it's about the road trip how many stues that was there at at their Peak and how many are there now 368 at our Peak 67 today so I would I would challenge or question so they're used to it those days are gone they're aren't 368 anymore so just because someone have warm wonderful memories of the 1970s 80s 90s you there's not as many there's not as many restaurants out there so can you really recreate the road trip thing when you're when you're 20% of the size you used to be is that is that a smart strategy to go back to something that was 30 years ago absolutely it's all about storytelling when you look at my LinkedIn post I had one LinkedIn post that talked about how much I loved to go road tripping and the anniversary the one-year anniversary of me taking over stues I checked that post yesterday it had reached over a million engagements wow those people engaging with my post on LinkedIn they're not stopping at Stucky necessarily on the side of the road but they're connecting with the story I can weave a story around the wonderful experience you have of getting in the car and exploring whether you actually road trip or not you can go ride the Cyber Highway get on the internet and buy our product the product supports that the product is part of the story but what is leading with the brand is how we tell the Brand Story how I'm able to communicate to people what makes duckies different when you're a small business which we all are you can't be just like everyone else I can't compete with pilot or loves or Truck Stop of America there's no way there's thousands of them they're 20,000 square feet bies they're huge you need a GPS to find the bathroom we can't compete with that what we can compete with is we were the OG of the road trip we were founded in 1937 we were founded before there was even an interstate highway system we can own the road trip that is our differentiator that's what makes us unique and special and I can weave that story all day on that's our brand what's the connection to the sales though Stephanie do you think somebody's going to buy your product uh online and then take it with them when they take a road trip or is it just the The Nostalgia about the road trip that makes them want to buy that pan log all of the above I'm telling you I will do a post on social media and I'll talk about road trips and I'll mention by the way you should buy our pcan log roll when we do those posts when we send out an eblast we tell these stories sales Skyrocket our sales are up our online sales this month are up 550% I sold over 500 bags of our Southern sweet line in the past week with a handful of posts and almost no marketing budget I boosted one post on Facebook and I did three e blast and a bunch of posts on LinkedIn okay I think that's a good answer I think you're talking about branding you've got a unique branding thing that resonates with people and I think that makes sense good answer and it's back my data it's not just anecdotal I'll just leave it with that that we look at the Google analytics and you can trace what the origins of your sales are the actual conversions what's the source and the post that talk about the road trip get the most conversions to actual sales so it's it's backed up by evidence and this was a this was a the discussion so trust me we we really did weigh heavily that well we should be we should be selling the pecan but the pean's a product the road trip is a brand the road trip is a story how many people were in the room for this three-hour discussion oh 10 and but at the end everybody signed off on it every single person and the interesting thing it was like 12 Angry Men we started out and you can tell which side I was on from the GetGo me and one other person the the person on our board who is a marketing professional we were the two who wanted to do the road trip everyone else wanted the pecan and by the end everyone was not only for the road trip they were convinced Dana how are you doing I'm doing good Lauren I'm hanging in there I'm hanging in there glad to be open you know pandemic life I'm okay hanging in there that's it has business picked up no we're in the middle of our slow season um January and February are slow months and you know here in Michigan the weather has been um in the High Teens to 20s I think yesterday was the first day we started coming out of that so um Valentine's Day we saw you know a little bit of pickup but you know this is our slow season our quiet time right before the the spring Mother's Day Easter holiday stuff I gather you're using some of that quiet time to think a little bit about expansion yes I had I um you know when we had spoken before on the show with my demo day money I was looking at VC dollars um you know the demo day money kind of put you on the platform saying okay she is the grand prize winner so she has $200,000 um so you attract Venture capitalists I think and I was considering it and I'm still considering it we should repeat for people who maybe didn't hear the previous episodes you were the big winner at Detroit demo day back in the fall uh you won the $200,000 grand prize and and you're talking about Venture Capital because um how is that connected to the uh the award because once you get that money VC's look at it as first money in I see you you become more attractive at that point exactly so they you know say hey let's look at your business and a lot of them said you know love your business model love what you're trying to do um and you know they sell you uh rapid growth rapid expansion this is our Network this is our fund this is how much Capital we have access to um and you're like oh oh okay um but then there's a lot of things that aren't communicated where they are um in acquiring or you know taking on new businesses where they are in their timeline so they may not be ready as as they as we thought they were or they communicated they were we still have work to do so it's you know about growing par boy and although you know and I've spoken with several entrepreneurs here in Detroit and we've all said Detroit is a great place to start a business but because we don't have the population density it's not the best city to test the legs of your business to see okay what can this really do so I'm looking seriously looking and have been working towards expansion to other cities that have population density I have this feeling that right now is a good time one because I'm sitting on this cash and two because there were a lot of business that unfortunately had to close 40% of African-American businesses around the countryes closed which is sad so okay but how could you make that you know something that works to your advantage by looking at you know good real estate negotiating good real estate prices um but strategically picking cities that have bounced back from covid or have you know gotten through Co A Little Bit Stronger than other ones and have the population density that I'm looking for we've talked in the past you used to live in New York and you've thought that would be a good location are you thinking about New York now I'm still considering New York uh my concern is that the MTA is still you know I won't say struggling but they're not back to where they were my other concern is that roughly 400,000 people left New York City that's huge and even though those people may not be my customers it still speaks to the you know you know the density so I am looking at the MTA because that is one of the heartbeats of New York City and as the MTA goes as the city goes so if the NTA is not up and running if they're seeing their writers ship down that means people are staying hyper local they're not getting on the subway and going into Manhattan to get their hair done they're walking to where they need to go get their hair done so that would mean you know if I'm in Manhattan my customers need to be within walking dist of me or in Brooklyn so that's what I'm looking for but I'm looking at you know pretty much every major city um Chicago Atlanta New York are my are my top ones right now have you been looking at real estate prices I have what are you finding that there are really good options for sale you know the issue in buying a salon is when you buy a salon the owner wants you to buy their business and they don't want you to change their business they want the business it can but you're buying all of their employ employees all of their stock you're buying their database and again my business is unique so you know a 16 chair blowout bar with 16 stylist hair color that's not that's not anything I need their database is likely not anything I need so it it's hard to find the the right Salon to purchase um because I'll be buying stuff I don't need given what you just said why would you buy a Sal why wouldn't you just lease or buy empty space that you could create your own thing in well you know buying buying is not ideal leasing for my business model is ideal but you know there's everything that comes with leasing I can't tell you how many small business owners I know I'm one of them where my first location my Southfield location one of the reasons why I closed it was because of the landlord when you're dealing with landlord you have a silent partner that can make or break your business if they're not you know um mediating or remediating the mold in your space then you can't live there you can't work there long you have to find someplace else I can make the argument in small retail that that you should try to buy uh your space because eventually if you're younger and you started in business your landlord's going to die or retire and their kids are going to take over and sell it to somebody or something and you just don't have stability and I will also tell you from personal experience I open up a store down town right by the merchandise Mark a small condo it's a condo store so there is an opportunity for some of these condos to to buy them at a good price and save money and have control over your destiny and I don't think a lot of retailers think about it it's a good thing to own your space that's all I can tell you it's a good thing Jay should Dana come to Chicago absolutely I think we're a bigger market and I think we've got the the I think we've got the the density I think we've got the income level and I think it's it's uh and I think their rents are more uh work better than maybe a New York I mean you're talking to someone if you recall I opened up my popup in SoHo a couple years ago and trying to make money paying the kind of rent you got to pay down there is extremely difficult so I think that Chicago is a friendlier space for a small retailer does it make a big difference which neighborhood absolutely some people don't think about this especially in Chicago you need one of two things in in a market if you over retail you either need lots of highrises where there's just a lot of people that that are living right by you or you need parking but if you've got neither you got a problem and if you go through Chicago right now you can go right through the neighborhood there are blocks in Chicago that have literally half the stores are empty and my argument is they don't have parking they don't have highrises there's not enough density there and that's why there's some neighborhoods to Chicago that are doing extremely well and there's some neighborhoods that are doing extremely poorly so I think you can find a location in Chicago that has either highrises parking or there's an L stop that's one of the critical pieces of owning a retail store how about Atlanta Stephanie Atlanta is a great place especially for a business that caters to an African-American clientele we really are a black Mecca a lot of reasons for that but most notably that we have a rich density of higher education that are historically black colleges and universities Spelman and Morehouse Chief among them so many students go to college in Atlanta and then they stay for their professional careers and there's a lot of wealth here in this city a lot of African-American wealth and Entrepreneurship and we've got uh great locations there's neighborhoods that I think would be a really good fit for you uh west side of Atlanta prices are starting to boom and I'm not an expert on the real estate market but I do know that there are some areas of town that are more affordable than others we do have a good Marta subway system so places can be accessible via Subway or you know we do have parking in some areas of town more so than others I've heard there's some traffic there too we do have traffic if you're commuting from the suburbs I live in the city and of course Co has changed everything so I'm not going to be looking through the co lens when I make this statement but I ride my bike almost everywhere I don't get in my car and it's a total totally walkable uh taking Marta and taking your bike you can really get around the city quite easily the other thing about Atlanta that I think would be relevant if you're in a beauty or Hair Care industry is that we have an entertainment hub here because of our film tax credit we are among the best destinations in the world to make movies and so you've got all of this entertainment here and those people need to have their hair and makeup done to be ready for the set so there's a market there uh so just depends on what what Market Dana's looking for but I think this is a wonderfully inviting City and if you come here Dana I will personally show you around oh that's great Plus Dana needs to be in the movies Dana I have a question question about your industry and it stems from a conversation I had today actually with a private Equity Firm where they referen the barbershop model which I had never heard of and it was in reference to stues makes most of our money a lot of people would think it's from our franchise fees but it's really from the sale of our product and this man said oh you're using the barber shop model meaning most barber shops make their profit from the sale of hair care products so I'm curious how much of your profit is dependent upon or your Revenue if you're willing to share actual percentages how much is dependent upon the sale product versus your services the hair care services zero per. wow yeah so and I think that's why I'm proud maybe naively so but I'm proud of my business we've been open eight years done little to no marketing and sold little to no product and we still make money so but should you be selling product I mean maybe not you're doing well without it no we've started selling product you know Co kind of made me you know add to this and I'm glad I did but the product that we would sell at that we sell at our Salon our styling product not uh maintenance products so we're not going to sell a lot of shampoos and conditioners because that's why people come to the salon they come to per boy to get for us to shampoo their hair we did sell shampoo years ago um and it just sat on the shelves when we wind up moving it to our back bar because they're like no I want the styling product I come to you to wash my hair so we go okay we do that so now we've added you know three products we're about to add two more um to our line to sell but it's not a factor at all we make a little bit of money because we just got started but we're it's not contributing to our bottom line and so I'm excited about what a purely boy could do in a larger City because if I'm in a city that's not that dent and I could survive for eight years with Word of Mouth alone without using retail imagine what I could do in a New York Atlanta or Chicago and what type of marketing data do you look at when you're trying to figure out which city would be the best fit for you so that's a great question so for me I'm strictly looking at population density and how the people in that market wear their hair so take for instance Atlanta Atlanta there's a lot of African-American women there and some people go oh Dana there you go well I have pods because there's a lot of African-American women there that wear weave so I'll be able to service them in between their weaves but I won't be able to put it in or take it out so there in lies my challenge is that the right market for me um for peral Boyd we are Hair Care hair Health hair maintenance so I have to look at population density and how they're wearing their hair you're not going to be able to go to a market research firm and see how much African-American women are spending on hair care services because the industry is so Mom and Pop that they're not reporting this data the companies or the hair care service companies that are reporting this D data are not geared towards African-American women hair care I.E Super Cuts great lip Great Clips B Ricks and the like those are all gear or dry bar those are geared towards um white women they have African-American women clientele but that's not their bread and butter so that kind of gives you an idea of how Innovative perly Boyd is because I want to be one of the first national hair salon chains for women of color it's like Henry Ford trying to get market research on drivability right it's like how do you know when you're just introducing the car to the market you kind of have to say where he went where the people with money who would have the Leisure money to buy a Horseless Carriage so how will you make your decision of where to go without that market research how will you be able to pick uh the right City the right neighborhood I'm looking at density and I'm looking to see based on the people I know where do they go get their hair done so in Chicago a lot of people go to the Egyptians and I've seen those salons again they're they're not uniform is that the name of the salon no they're a a demographic of people they have these like Dominican salons in Chicago they're Egyptians they're Egyptian salons so they're and their mom and pop they're very small they're you know looking how do you manage your money you look at your venmo all right not a lot of them have a consistent brand so you go there you get your hair done a couple of times you find out where not where their density is but for me it's I need to find the address that my market will feel good going to so when they see the address they go oh okay it's there but and they have to be able to park walkability for per boy is not ideal right the women aren't deciding I'm a destination so they're not oh let's go grab lunch and we'll go get our hair done no they go get their hair done so they can go do everything else you just brought up a key element of retail that's changed dramatically it used to be it was all about your location now it's half your location and it's half your internet uh website so to your point they see an address it's part of The Branding oh that's in the South Loop I'm going there whereas if you put the store in the wrong place it's just not going to be appealing to people so the address is that that wasn't the case 20 years ago it's the how you look on the on your website is critical so you're right it's about the address the right address what did you think of uh what Stephanie had to say about Atlanta did that sound intriguing to you I mean yeah it's it's you know I know you know that's all it's it's not news right you know morous Spellman Clark all the you know HBCU that are there and a thriving entrepreneurial Community as well it is y so Atlanta is the last Chocolate City and you know the black community has had chocolate cities since the Great Migration at one time it was Chicago at one point it was Detroit at one point it was even New York um and so because we haven't really done a lot of um migration the last one was Atlanta um I think the second or the next one to come up is going to be Houston um and that's great I just want to make sure that the places I go to look for that population density those women are getting their hair done the way that would make per boy a viable option if they're getting weaves and braids and wigs and stuff that's not where I want to go you could argue if this is a test case for a National Expansion maybe Atlanta is got is is too heavily African-American to where someone could argue oh well it worked there because everyone knows how you know it's a majority whereas it maybe maybe Chicago is more of a mediumsized demographic that would fit better rolling it out to the country so I I got a belief for someone looking to roll out nationally that's a consideration but you want to go where your customer base is you fish where the fish are right and so part of the national model is I mean you go where there are customers that are going to be using this product and as you become more and more profitable you can afford to get in markets that may not be as dense but getting back to the data I'm really fascinated with this lack of access to data and honestly I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't thought of the nuances is not only small businesses but small minority businesses and the challenges with accessing that critical data I would love to see some enterprising entrepreneur hopefully someone listening data is becoming democratized now and with apps and people constantly inputting different aspects of their lives online it just seems like very soon this type of data should be more readily available you know just if if they're all using the vinmo app if it's a click away from starting to keep track of what type of customers you have what their demographic is I I just think in a matter of years we're going to see a lot of this data more available it can also be scary there's some big brother components to this for sure but more and more data is becoming available and even a company like Stucky is what we're able to mine with our Li limited resources getting on Google analytics it's really interesting to me how you can capture data even on a shoestring budget there it's was frustrating for me well it's been a challenge there's no data on African-American women in services and how much money they get in Services there is on product because they get the data from your big box stores sure right so your targets and you know whatever your Sally they get that information from there but when you're going to African-American women getting their hair done every everything is so micro you know I've been hopping salons for weeks looking and trying to talk to different stylists and you know when you ask him the question how much money did you make in 2019 forget 2020 how much money did you make in 2019 everybody goes to their phone and picks up their cash app or their venmo you ask them do you have QuickBooks and they're like for what how much money did you spend on product they don't really know you just described the picture framing industry you could ask someone how much did your frame store gross last year they don't even know so this isn't just what Market you're in it's a typical MPA Small industry yep so I have to wing it unfortunately I have to wing it I came back to Detroit because I used to live here I'm comfortable going to New York outside of what the MTA is doing because I used to live there but now if you're looking to expand to Chicago which is top of my list or in Atlanta which is a third on my list then you have to wing it and lean the people that you know lean on the black women that I know um that know people there the other businesses owner business owners that I know um and just ask questions and then next you've got to go you've got to spend time there and and watch where people go get their hair done and go get your hair down there to make sure that you're offering something different and how much of a hurdle is that if you're pitching say to a VC firm trying to get Capital because so often they want datadriven metrics when they're deciding which companies they going to invest in it's it's a challenge because the mindset I hate to say this but the mindset in that world is here are the things that you can show us that show that you're a viable and so it's like but if you look at that where would Coca-Cola be where would Ford Motor Company be all of these I what's frustrating to me about the VC and and that VC world and that whole Equity world is that they're not how much Innovation are you looking for they're really not none of them would have invested in Coca-Cola or Ford right those firms would never have gotten a dime exact there's there's a famous story about the Xerox machine they invented the Xerox machine they did research and the research came back and said yeah nobody really wants it I didn't invent the hair salon but I invented a new way to to that process tell us what that is Dana especially for people who may not have been listening to previous podcasts sure it's lean manufactured it's walking only seven days a week so we don't take appointments no matter how much volume we do we can see you know in our prime before covid it was nothing for us to open up and have 15 women lined up outside of our salon on a Sunday all of them walking only all of them getting in and out and under a certain amount of time because I've leaned out the processes now my guests don't feel that the customers don't feel that but my hair traffic controller and my staff are managing that flow through processes so for me when you're looking to attract a VC they're like well I need to see this this this and this which is fine but there are certain things you're not going to see because the data is not there also the African-American dollar is not what people are looking at anywhere big mistake yes big mistake like what are you doing African-American African-Americans period you're looking at oh will this app go vir viral yeah I have enough black people Lo download it sure the buying power and so then they're not even looking at the buying power of the African-American woman outside of product African-American women go get their hair done two to four times a month and they spend $65 minimum to get it done do that math and be the only so Dana have you looked into doing this kind of market research yourself could you pay for this too costly no even too costly and for what you know because it there's no guarantee a VC firm is even going to invest in you if you do have the data and then usually they're going to want a significant amount of equity so there's a tradeoff the only way the data is GNA come is when I grow and then I'll be able to report the data for the next person coming behind me but if I really wanted to invest my time or the time of a team to walk into these salons and these ities one you're not going to get accurate data they're not going to tell you how much money they made are you kidding me if they even know if they even know well a lot of them know because it's electronic but guess what a lot of them aren't paying taxes on it absolutely so they're not GNA tell you right so the only way this data gets organized is if Dana expands and the only way Dana is expands is if she finds a VC or finds someone in the equity world that realizes the buying power of the African-American woman and understand that Dana is solving a problem that hasn't been solved before the health care and the walk the Hair Care rather and the the giving women back their time the walkin only hair care solution it's not just solving a problem and and offering a very different niche of service but it's also you have a tribe that's what I refer to Seth Golden's marketing principles a lot when I talk about branding and he refers to tribes know who your tribe is who is your customer you have a very strong sense of who your customer is and when you know that then you can brand to the Right audience you can make sure your dollars are most strategic and that's who's going to come in and spend money I mean that's you've got it all it's just getting that extra Capital yeah and so moving to a city where the density shows that this is a viable business that you can make the money you know yes I've been open for eight years in in metro Detroit but I haven't hit the dollar amount that would make somebody go oh maybe we should invest in her I had a VC tell me I think your business is amazing I don't want you to take on VC at all and this was a VC he said I'm going to tell you something that my colleagues would scream at me for do not give away a percentage of per boy because the value of perly boy today is going to be crazy int years build it yourself don't tell anybody I told you that I said okay so that's what I got excited after demo day okay now we're back to here's $150,000 let's look at the cities where you can launch and let's grow it and just laugh in five years when you all are trying to become Equity partners with me and I'm like but didn't I tell you like five years ago that this was a great idea oh $100,000 investment I mean that is that is so reasonable and ask invested $30,000 when I open Southfield I open with $30,000 and grew it to 300 in a year wow without marketing without retail give the other side of this thing that raising money and building a successful business are two completely different things because I've seen examples of someone who is expert at spinning a tale and telling this fantasy story with all wrong numbers I might add raising tens of millions of dollars and doing nothing but burning through the money because the business won't work so it's they're two different animals just because you got a good story doesn't mean the business will work and just because your business will work doesn't mean that you're goingon to be able to raise money for sure we're running short of time but before we leave this Dana do you have a timeline in mind do you know when you'd like to make a decision by I'd like to make a decision by the end of March and I'd like to be opening or in the process of opening by this fall I'm waiting to see how the vaccine does I'm waiting to see if there's any you know new strands that can't be fought I'm still keeping my eye on covid um and just waiting to see you know what I learn about the different markets I'm looking to go to so we will certainly be coming back to this uh I I want to ask all three of you uh today in the 21 hats Morning Report I uh highlighted a uh a guide that ran in Inc magazine it's a guide uh an entrepreneurs guide to using Clubhouse and I know Dane is there I'm curious Stephanie Jay do you know what Clubhouse is have you experimented with it is it a porno site I am on clubhouse too I just got on Dana so we'll have to I'll I'll be sure to follow you I just joined I just joined okay so Dana I want to hear you explain to Jay what Clubhouse is Jay Clubhouse is hyper networking so it's a social media app where similar to Facebook but better how is it better you join a room of of a topic that they are discussing that you're interested in so for example I'm interested in writing so I have been in rooms where they you're online with writers you're online with agents you're online with Publishers and you can ask questions and then if you have more questions or if there's Synergy you can follow them on Instagram and you can message them a lot of wonderful things um have happened I'm interested in podcasting that has led it has opened up doors um I'm I've got you know I dabble in the Michigan cannabis medical marijuana area that through Clubhouse has opened up doors and allowed me to talk to people I would not have had the opportunity to to talk to that Google or finding it online it's not going to put you in front of those people in California Oregon Oklahoma so if there's something you're looking for for your business how do I merchandise this or how do I Market this you can go into a marketing room there's also famous people on it because it's still kind of small and limited to only iPhone users a couple nights ago 100 people were in a room with Matthew NES Beyonce noll's father and they were taking taking questions I've had the privilege of talking to Ted Gibson a very well-known um hair stylist in a room of small people you ask a question um they're like oh you know why don't you message me and we'll connect and next thing you know two days later you're on the phone with this person I would add it's invitation only but we could arrange that and it's more intimate yeah we'll we we'll we'll invite you Jay you have to have a member invite you but you're limited how long you've been doing this clubhous since uh I think January December really so it's been a couple months no one's invited me over to the clubhouse I'm just finding out accidentally because laurren brought it up very interesting that's why we're talking about it Jay I I want to get everybody on this podcast into Clubhouse and uh we're gonna get a room yeah can I I just want to add one uh well two quick points one is that it's more intimate and is a lot more curated than anything you might see on LinkedIn or some of these other forums and then it's also more indepth so tonight I'm doing my first room and it's the future of retail and I'm also signed up for entrepreneurship and I was super excited when I went on this morning and I saw someone that I really admire who's in my space who's head of retail for a major chain followed me so I'm now going to try to get in a room with him and yeah like Dana can I DM you and talk to you about getting getting in your stores that kind of thing so it's it's an indepth access it's a lot more than just a LinkedIn connection it's having real conversations real conversations Dana can you imagine something tangible that Jay would get out of it what what would be the Allure for him if Jay's talking about succession planning if Jay's looking at you know if there's another growth opportunity that he has he could be in a room with uh manufacturers of you know home furnituring and talk to them about what they're doing during covid and if he wanted to ship internationally or if he wanted a different client base all of that these people are in these rooms and they're all talking and they're connecting with each other I've been in a lot of beauty rooms again it's very stylist driven the business owners are are landlords technically they're Booth runers so when I get up to speak I'm sharing my ideas well Dana maybe you can show me how to set my business up like yours because I'm 60 and I'm tired of doing hair like I become a resource for them I should say uh I've been on clubh house for a week or two and and Dana's kind of been my uh unofficial welcomer uh she's dragged me into several rooms and introduced me around a little bit which I have appreciated uh the best story I've heard about Clubhouse Dana is the one you told about what happened when you went into the podcast room and and you introduced yourself and you said that uh you have interest in starting your own podcast and tell us the reaction of the people uh who were who were on the stage in that room it was it was amazing so you know a lot of it is how you present yourself if you sound like this and you really don't want to talk your reaction's kind of get different you know me I'm high energy so I introduced myself and the moderators all had anywhere between you know 50 to 60,000 downloads of their podcast per month hundreds of thousands of followers and the guy said okay right now everybody who's interested in helping me launch Dana's podcast raise your hand and we'll invite you to the stage Dana I want you to take a screenshot of this stage and then follow each of us on Instagram when you launch tag all of us and not only will you tag us but we will share your podcast with everybody on our on our who follows us and he said who's going to join me 20 people came up to the stage and then when they thought some of these people had questions a lot of them said oh no no no I was just appeared for Dana's launch so she could get my picture so that that's the type of networking Jay have we sold you are you going to join Clubhouse I'm like my head's spinning so I I don't even have a reaction because I just I I always wonder where people have time and that's a legitimate question I'm really interested that you invited Lauren to go and that Lauren didn't pick up the old phone hey Jay I'm going over here you want to go with me so I'm just I'm doing it right now Jay I'm gonna answer that like you've heard me you've heard Stephanie you've heard I know Lauren you know podcaster doesn't want to grow their podcast so that's when I'm in podcast stuff I always ping Lauren but if I knew hey Dana I want to do this for my business you know I'd be pinging you sometimes I ping Lauren 10 o'clock at night Lauren get in here like he's like can't right now Dana but if I knew what you were interested in Jay I'd pin you and I listen I listen when I'm when I have time to listen to stuff so when other times I have downtime I'm not on a call on a zoom or I'm not needing to focus on something on my computer I'm listening um to clubhouse and that means I'm going to tell you now I'm constantly working I'm constantly working because I'm always listening in between and my downtime is now listening and at night before I go to bed I'm in bed listening Stephanie have you found uh it difficult to make good use of your time in clubhouse do I mean I know I've wasted a good bit of time in rooms where I shouldn't have been uh how have you done I just joined tonight is my first room on the retail experience but I've also signed up for entrepreneurs giving your pitch funding finding funding for your business so we'll see um we'll see how it develops you know there's one called hustle which is really interesting to me so marketing there's a bunch of marketing ones so ask me in a week or two and Dana I'm following you now oh great thank you Jay we're going to get you there and we're going to do a a 20 one hats room on on clubhouse J you have 51 friends on clubhouse and I'm inviting you now wow there you go people who are listening follow us on clubhouse I'm on there as Stucky stop I'm at Dana Alexis all right guys my thanks to Dana White Jay gz and Stephanie Stucky as always appreciate you guys sharing wait wait don't leave yet if you have a question or a comment that you'd like to 21 hats owners to address send it to me by replying to your Morning Report or by email at Lauren 21h hats.com that's l r n at21 hats.com do it now before you forget and don't be afraid to tell Jay what you really think you can take it and if you got something out of this conversation help us reach more business owners tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcast follow us on Twitter subscribe to the morning report at 21h hats.com this episode was produced by Jess Theron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone [Music]