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Hey everybody. Welcome to the Patty G show. I’m your host, Patty G. We are back for another fantastic episode. This week, we are talking with Nick of Emergent method. We are going to learn about the ability to grow and scale the start up to the capacity in which they have and the value in remote hiring and And workplace and really just at the end of the day getting the job done. But before we give that when I give a big wonderful shout out and thank you to the amazing partners that bring you this show each and every week Gov’t Taco, Falaya Real Estate, Lake Men’s Health Center, Horizon Financial Group, Mercedes-Benz of Baton Rouge, and you know, our outfits are always brought to you by McLavy LTD.

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Without further Ado, Nick welcome to the show. Great to be here, Patty. Thanks for having me. Thank you for coming and taking in the flight to get here in time to get this episode recorded. I’m very appreciative of that and just all around excited to hear about your journey, man. Same here and thanks for all you do for Baton Rouge Patti. It’s important that we tell our stories. Well, it’s it hit me in like 18 and 19 when everybody said they wanted to leave, because there was no room for opportunity here in Baton Rouge, and they just didn’t see it. So, whenever Somebody said they didn’t see it. I said, well, y’all are all dead wrong. There’s so much opportunity here. So many great business is doing wonderful things and I just got to prove it. And so, the way I’ve done that or attempted to do that is with the show. So through audio video means and you name it. It’s my way of showcasing the great businesses that are here in Baton Rouge. Couldn’t agree with you more. Yeah, keep up that good where one of them? Well, happy to be here. So for those, that may not be aware.

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Who are you? And what the heck do you do, man? Yeah. Nick’s bar? I’ve got a law firm here in town called emergent meth that that little started. That’s about ten years ago. And so in it’s most simplistic terms were a management consulting firm. Patty saw organizations hire us when they either have a problem, or they’re trying to accomplish something. And the work varies by the nature of the client by the nature of the industry. But we sort of feel that we’re at our best. When we help clients understand the current environment they’re operating in whether that’s internal organizational dynamics are sort of external market pressures, help them develop plans on how to improve their performance. Help them achieve their missions. Help them better serve the communities in which they serve, um, and and an unlike many other. The especially the big national consulting firms.

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We really feel like you know, one of our sweet spots in our Niche is is we like to roll up our sleeves and help organizations get the work done. So we don’t view ourselves as the Consultants that Handover report.

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That tells a client what it is, they should do.

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But but we’re at our best, when we become part of their team, when we’re not viewed as a vendor or outside consultant, but really valuable members of their team and help them get great things done. And and so the success we’ve had over the years is certainly a Duct of a lot of hard work and amazing team members, we have an emergent method that I couldn’t be more proud of to go along and work with every single day. But but we wouldn’t be who we are without our clients without the face faith and trust that they’ve put into us, and in our success, is only possible when our clients are successful. So, it’s been a hell of a run. And but more importantly, we’re really, really excited about where we are in the opportunities. We see to keep growing not just here in Baton Rouge, but really across the country.

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So, how many states are all actually working in? Now, we’ve got employees in 2021 States. It’s been kind of a crazy world, especially in the post covid environment. Now, where we’ve embraced a new virtual model, what we have amazing talent here in Baton Rouge has great talent all across the country and and with some of the niche Consulting that we do, it kind of requires us to pick up team members and other markets that have their own unique experiences we have active clients too. Today it’s probably 14 or 15, states majority in the Southeast. But, you know, we’ve got a big project going on right now in Kansas with Kansas State University on a couple of other exciting opportunities that we’re currently involved in. That’s incredible to see the growth over 10 years. So,

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How did we get here? How did you start? And one day decide. I’m gonna open and own management consulting firm. So I graduated from LSU with a degree in finance. But if you kind of rely on the clock back my junior year in finance, I was watching most of the folks that I knew that I was friends with, um, graduating and finance degrees. Either going an invite investment banking are going into the insurance business, and neither one of those felt right for me. And quite frankly, I didn’t understand the path of how I could get there from, you know, the curriculum. I was learning at LSU to to really appreciate what those opportunities were in as as happenstance headed. And and it’s been one of the great lessons I’ve learned over time.

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We’re all in the relationship business is I grew up in st. Landry Parish. So I’m I’ve got a thick accent especially if I drink. A few more of these beers. You’ll start to hear it here in a second, but I ran into a guy named Jared swallow from Opelousas who was the graduate assistant for dr. Glenn Sumner’s in the LSU internal audit program which is a legit job Factory, right? And it has been now for 30 years and so I was able to, you know, go through that program. And get an internship with pricewaterhousecoopers, which led me to Dallas for the internship, ultimately to Atlanta and I was doing internal audit work and it didn’t take me long to realize that that’s probably not the world.

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I wanted to operate in forever, but I tell you, I met some amazing people.

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You go work for a big consulting firm like PWC.

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Every day, you’re learning so much because you’re working with some incredible talent. And my story at PWC, I was able to bounce around across a diff couple different practices from kind of pure internal audit. I was my biggest client at the time, was Delta Airlines. This was 2004, 2005. Airline industry was really struggling to the time. Fuel costs were really high. So I worked with Delta Airlines on a big Outsourcing engagement and I was look up. He on consultant Taking notes, making coffee but in the right rooms around the right people and through that process of working on a, on a, on a bankruptcy kind of Outsourcing initiative and study, I got into a group within pricewaterhousecoopers called the people and change business, right? Which is really about,

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How do organizations really work? And they really work by the people that they have the processes they put in place. And so I got more in to change management more into leadership developments, which which led me ultimately back to Louisiana. After I had met my wife and we were ready to start a family in late two thousand and seven. As when I moved back for years, I was away in Atlanta than up in New York for a couple of years, um. But then came back to Baton Rouge and worked for a boutique consulting firm here in town for a little while began to really appreciate the landscape began to appreciate the opportunity. And in the summer at twenty twelve decided it was it was time to to hang mon shingle. The funny thing about that, though. Patty writers as we look here now with with almost two hundred employees.

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I legit got into this business because I didn’t want to manage people, right? I want it to be my own one-man show and it was great that first year was awesome. It wasn’t scary. I had a foundational client and it was during that year where I began to see some opportunities and the story of our growth is really growing through our clients Patty. You know, we’ve been able to add on and I’m sure we’ll talk a little bit more about it during the course of the, of the the show. But you No, we’ve been able to add on a variety of services, whether that’s it. Related work, graphic design, creative, web, branding, leadership development, executive searches. We’re big into kind of the project staff and business and we can talk about that a little bit more, but it’s, it’s really been, how can we build great relationships with the clients that we have?

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How can we not be viewed as, you know?

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As is doing one thing, right? Because our basic premise and philosophy within our firm and it’s LED, I think to the growth is organizational, challenges are not solved in a box, right? You know, if you have an accounting issue, you hire an accountant. If you have a legal issue, you hire a lawyer. We like to be kind of the Jack of all trade, problem solvers. And so, we’ve just kind of weave. Listen to our clients. We’ve seen the opportunities with our clients, our clients have, oftentimes asked us do, We do you do this in the real answer is absolutely not. We’ve never done that. The answer they got was absolutely, we do that. We go back to the shop, you know, we get on a whiteboard and we say, how the hell are we going to actually pull this off? And that’s really been the story of our growth and I’m really proud of it. You know, we’ve gotten some awards and some accolades and all those things are great. The things I’m truly most proud of or the very first client that we had on day one, was the water Institute of the Gulf.

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Which is a real jewel in this town. Rightness a real treasure for Louisiana. We still do work with the waters to to to the the golf ten years today. Um. First guy that you know, had sort of the courage to join me and in believed in what we could build together was Jon snow and he’s done a ton of work with the city with the city, Paris and his basics. We’ve done it every single month since he joined our team and and so just really focused on providing a great experience for our clients again, not be viewed as an external vendor, but more of an internal partner. Um. And then really kind of grown and expanding with them and leveraging those experiences to go get new work with with other organizations. That is an incredible story. Of what it takes to get where you are and how you’ve gotten there. I want to go back a little bit to something you said that.

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Is a topic that has so much value for young entrepreneurs. Young aspiring business. People, the point where you were at PWC and you said you were the lowly consultant fill in coffees taking notes, the taking notes part. Being in those important, big meetings not having a role necessarily or an opinion to provide, but the note taking, and even if you’re taking the minutes, just being able to be in the room where discussions are being had at a higher level than probably, Comprehendible at the time for you, how significant is that? And was that over the course of your career, just being in the room. Look it’s it’s the building block and I can promise you if any of the team members

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At our place. We’re going to ever listen to this. They’re going to cringe when I say it because they hear me say it all the time, right?

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Is until you can sweat those small things.

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You’re never going to get trusted with the big things and there’s just a general lack of patience that all of us have and it’s a good thing. It fuels us I mean I’m a very impatient person but being able to be in those rooms again making the coffee right. Making sure the agendas were out making sure. The room was set up, making sure the conference call lines back in the day were working, or now.

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Oh, it’s you know making sure Zoom is up when you’re able to do those things. You get pulled into more meetings when you get pulled into more meetings, you get exposed to new people and you experiences and then that’s when you see.

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The trajectory really take off. I’ve just seen it in our firm, where you can see these young, hungry consultants that are willing to be patient and willing to do those things. They’re the ones that I want. And every meeting with me. Right. And and they ultimately want to be in the room and and have those opportunities to lead those meetings. Look. I just got back from a trip with an Oklahoma City where we have two of our team members that are doing an amazing job where we’re supporting the state of Louisiana, the state of Arkansas in the state of Oklahoma with an initiative called the halo, hydrogen hub. So the U. S. Department of energy has put out a call for regional hydrogen based hubs to try to. You know, it’s a clue lunar base. You know energy technology.

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To come together. And we’re going to put forth one, hell of a team, but I’ve got two team members that are driving and leading it. And so I showed up at the meeting in Oklahoma City, we had the Governor from Oklahoma speak with our team yesterday. And it was pretty clear to me what my role needed to be his, I need to be the ones passing the microphone around during the Q&A sessions because David quarter was running the meeting. We had Kaylee Jones absolutely crushing it with all she does. And so we try and I hope that we’re still able to sort of emulate just how Important. It is to do all those other extracurricular, things that a lot of folks feel like that’s somebody else’s job. But to me when you’re able to roll up your sleeves and you’re able to do those things not just earlier in your career, but throughout your career, it’s how you’re going to continue to get invited in the rooms and how you’re going to get how you’re ultimately going to have big impacts with your clients in the things that they’re trying to do.

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And being able to then when called upon and that meeting or the future meetings down the line, you’ve had all these other meetings, where you sat in, you’ve listened to what’s done. And then you’ve helped execute outside the room whenever you’re called upon, you know, it’s when you’re sitting there as a young employee or a young entrepreneur and they’re talking about, hey, we want to do this one, do that and also they turn and go. What do you think? And then you’re like, oh, what? Wait, I’m sorry! It’s my time to shine. Um, and then you have an answer, not Really prepared, but you can work through a line of reasoning based on your past experience when you had no input prior. It’s at that point, we’re making sure everything was ready to go in the meeting ran smoothly. And some of the best learning I’ve ever had was when I said nothing at all in a meeting there and I just sat, there was taking notes and was just there and just present and actually listening because there are sometimes, when you go into a meeting, if you’re a young hungry person and you just think all the other things you could be doing right now.

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But the most important thing is being actively engaged in that meeting. Whether you say nothing at all or you lead it, you have to be so engaged. So thoughtful. And just a tin of to every little word you’re gonna pick up on so much and like you said, just skyrocket within your career from there. Yeah. Now couldn’t agree more. Look. We’ve got a saying within our firm. Right. As it relates to how we want to interact with our clients and in look. And I worked at price, Waterhouse coopers. And we we do a lot of work with the with the big consulting firms, the multinationals and they’re great. They have amazing people, you know, not not exclusively this way. I don’t want to create the stereotype there, but almost feel that they walk into a room as if they’re the smartest people in the room.

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And our philosophy is the first thing that we want to do.

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With our clients is for them to like us, like just fundamentally. Do they like us? Do they care about us? Do we know who they are? Do they enjoy being around us? Do we enjoy being around them? Like, that’s the first building block, because to me if you don’t have that building block, the rest of the stuff just doesn’t matter.

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And so, if we can get our clients to like us, right, second thing we’ve got to do is our clients have to trust us and look we can go so many ways with what trust means, right? But For us to really help organizations improve and succeed.

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Then, they’ve got to be able to tell us everything, right? Maybe they’ve got to feel totally comfortable and confident.

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You know to hand their baby to us, in many ways, right? But so that’s one definition of trusting in my book. Thus the next thing is they’ve got to know if we’re on it, we’re on it, right? So when they walk into the room and they’ve got a big meeting and their customers or their stakeholders are involved. We’ve handled every detail, right? They don’t have to worry about any of that when it’s Friday before a holiday. And, you know, the fit just hit the Shan from from their perspective, right? I want them come. Terrible call on us. I hate it for us, right. I don’t want to get those calls necessarily on the Friday, but do they trust us enough to make that call in? Will we rally as a team to be able to come together to help? Figure out, whatever that challenge is? And so if our clients like us and they trust us, and then at the end of the day, we need to do good work, there’s no doubt about it, you know, you know, they’ve got a value us. But if you do great work, and you’re the best at what you do in a Klein, doesn’t like you and trust you, they’re not going to call you back, they’re not going to refer you.

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And so that’s kind of been the mantra in the philosophy is everything that we’re doing today. How are we creating unique and distinctive experiences? Because that’s that’s what’s drove the whole business. I mean, our growth does not been that we create, you know, created some great strategic plan. Now we’ve been executing on for ten years. It’s not we didn’t. If if if we would have followed our strategic plans in the early days, we would undershot by so much right? And so we focus more on our quote, unquote methods, our behaviors, because when we do those things, we just feel like everything else takes care of itself. Yeah. And that’s especially when you’ve got the Gulf South employee relationships.

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Or essentially Paramount when it comes to doing a business transaction, you have to have a built-in relationship that you’ve either grown and nurtured over the last decade, and some change, or that you’ve given a reason to want to have that relationship. You know, you’re not coming in at the very first meeting saying, hey, here’s how we’re going to solve all of your problems, rather, we need to know everything about your company before we can even begin to say, here’s what we can fix it because if we don’t know everything, then you’re just coming out. Like we were saying with that over. Confident like we’re the best in the just you just sit there and tell you how we’re going to fix your problems you but if you don’t take that time to listen and that patience of fully understanding every element of their company, you’re going to give something that’s probably not even relevant at that point and then in your typical fashion of here’s the report go do what you need to do and execute, then you’re done, you’re on to the next person. But for y’all’s method of no, no.

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Here’s the report and here’s where we’re going to come into play at every step along the way to make sure that what we say should be done is getting done. And if we got to Pivot, we’re going to Pivot. We’re not just going to give you a report. That’s good at this point in time. It’s going to be a living breathing document as probably gonna have some changes along the way. Well, so you bring up a great point, right? When when we started this company, 10 years ago, my wife and I did it on a whim and we’re neither when I was a very creative. And so, Called the spiral Consulting. It wasn’t until three years later when Jon Snow was on the team and Philip lafargue was on the team, and we started hiring some junior staff members and Junior Consultants. Then that I came to the realization, and we came to the realization. We don’t want this to be spiral Consulting, we don’t want it to be about an individual. And certainly that’s not a catchy name and it’s not going to help us build a brand. So, the name emergent method is, you know, it’s literally this we feel that we’re at our best.

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When we can facilitate a process and we get the right people from our clients in the room and ultimately, the great ideas emerge, it doesn’t need to be ours. I mean, it’s often times their ideas that we’re just helping sort of execute on. And so there’s there it takes a it does take a degree of humility to say, look, all organizations have problems and challenges. I mean, the one you work at. It certainly does. Ours is all jacked up as well, whereas as imperfect as they come in, our clients are the exact same way. And and so one of the things we really try to, you know, coach and mentor, our younger team members on is it’s not our job to make any body perfect, because we’re imperfect. It’s our job to make our clients a little bit better.

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And if we make them a little bit better and focus on the one or two things are asking us to focus on ultimately over time, they’re going to like us and trust us in value us. And we’re going to start to be able to have more large-scale change, right? But you got to build that trust and you got to you got to earn that relationship. And so it’s literally our name. I mean we have a method to put the people in the room that are all really, really smart working hand-in-hand with our clients don’t send us in a room And come back in and tell you what you think. What would we think you should do? Know, we want to be in the room with you and we want to help collectively figure out what’s going to be the path forward and we want to help you get that done. So that is the emergent method. Hey, I’ve always understood that

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Most of the time people have the answers. They’re asking the questions for, they just need somebody to tell them what they’re thinking, and they’ve already gotten it to them. It seems like a no brainer. I, oh well, yeah, of course I will. We’re here to just tell you in kind of a firm, what you’re thinking is probably the right thing and now we’re going to be with you and help you really see that coming life.

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That’s exactly right. So what we bring to the table is we have the experiences of working with tons and tons of organizations and we learn from every one of our clients. And so oftentimes, it’s not about the what, but it’s about the how and I think that’s where, you know, we’re really good when we’re working with our clients to say, how do we actually get this done? How do we move the needle? What step one, what step to which the agile process, we’re going to put in place when things don’t go according to plan and step two? So yeah, I mean, I think there’s no doubt about it, and to me, that’s the fun work, right? That’s the tangible work.

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The hand in the plan and walking away is pretty empty, right? You know what’s really fulfilling as being alone. Your clients, when they’re able to accomplish big things. And then you’re able to be there with them and help celebrate those victories that they’ve accomplished being a part of the team, you know, like you said that it goes back to not just being a vet under. Right. You’re not just being this consulting firm or this organization that’s brought in to solve a problem. Because generally if you’re on that team as an employee and you hear the words, we’re hiring an outside consultant to come fix our problems then for probably a good chunk of the team.

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Why am I the problem? Are they going to come here and now they’re going to do human resources management.

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Are there, am I still in the job? Why self position?

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Like you start looking inward like what is what is going on? But if they come in and say, hey, we’re adding some team members to help us work through everything. It comes off as a much better cell and is see all come in and say, hey, we’re may not be office mates, but we are teammates on this organizations train to get the ball rolling and get moving forward.

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Well look When our clients come to us and say, we want you to come assess our organization, and tell us what it is, we need to do. We’re probably running away from that client. Look, there’s smarter people out there than we are. There’s no doubt about it. I’ve got no qualms about it. Go higher Mackenzie, go higher BCG, go higher KPMG, that’s fine.

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And they’re really, really good in. There are certain businesses in certain industries and there are certain situations where that makes all the sense in the world and where the first to say will help you go get that will help you procure that that’s not who we want to be and it’s certainly not who we want to be right here in our home state right here in our hometown of Baton Rouge. Because we don’t want to be those Consultants that were to the throat slit, you know, we want to be the partners. I mean, that is what we want to be viewed. As, you know, it’s kind of cliché but we hope. Hope to be seen as trusted advisors, and just integral members of the team. And so we while I referred to us as a management consulting firm, that’s probably one caveat that we’re kind of careful with around those clients with that expectation. That’s not when we’re at our best. That’s not when we’re most successful quite frankly. It’s not when we’re most fulfilled, either. Yeah. And that’s

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Ultimately they may come in with that inclination of. Oh. We just need somebody to come in. Tell us our problems and resolve it. And have you ever had the situation arise where they lead with that? And you kind of work through it to get to the root of you need a lot more than just somebody coming in point out your faults. Given you a report called him walking away. Yeah. I mean, how do you do really just run from clients, or do you work through and know what we would describe what our typical process would be right? Which you know it’s it’s not all that complicated in the methodology certainly can be found. And in tons of places you’d say, here’s how we would approach that situation is we actually think your team is going to have a lot of the answers that we’re looking for. If somatic matter of packaging it up really help and understand appreciated. Articulate it.

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And we’re really, really good at, you know, synthesize and complex information in creating the visuals, the road maps, the plans to help clients then go, which even those things. So now there’s, you know, we try to Pivot, you know, in those situations to be able to be the kind of partner, we want to be, and if and if this, the desire is still, no, we need you to come assess, go up in a room, like, consultants in New York. Do and tell us exactly what it is. You think we should do. Those aren’t the projects? Russ. Yeah, and I think having a self-awareness and recognizing that within your organization is probably one of the reasons why I’ve gotten so far and where y’all are today, is being able to say and we’re not the people for you.

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We’re not a people that are going to do that that are going to go in your conference room and your board room and bring in our whole team and just have us in the room and throw out ideas of why do you think they’re failing? Why do you think they’re going bad? We’re just looking from the outside in, you know, you can’t if you look at a restaurant with the lights off, you’re going to say. Oh, they’re closed down for the night. What they could be at a different event doing. Something else. I can have an off-site. You don’t know what’s happening. If you’re just looking through this lens of what you’re given of here. The problem, fix it, whether it’s no, that’s this is a good start. Yep. Now, let’s take a look at the whole organization and figure out where the stems from and what your people think? I mean that’s like interviewing them. And ask them, you know, what do you what what is it that you say you do here? Yep. You know for something and working through that to get to a good root of what it is. You’re trying to accomplish that’s correct.

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So you said this all started with one set of services, and then it’s kind of expanded over the years. Let’s kind of walk through that growth and ultimately end up with well today. Yeah. I mean, so. So you know, my background is business. Um. And so I would say, we started off in the strategic planning, organizational design, organizational development room. And that was mostly done through the Water Institute of the Gulf. I mean, I was part of the team that put that operating business plan together and then help you know. When when I started the company my efforts, every single day were based out of the Water Institute and one American place downtown. They were my full-time client. I mean, I was. Ah. I was on the website I had I had a job title within it. I had a email address with and that’s how we started the company.

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But you were still like a contract in depending on how much an independent contractor, right? We have set up the LLC and so, but everybody in this community didn’t know that I had necessarily started a company, they all viewed me as a team. Member of the water Institute. Jon Snow was the second hired. John’s background was more calms, even though he has a degree of an MBA.

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And so, John and I brought business and great Communications.

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Especially when it relates to stakeholder engagement for the public sector clients. We work with both state, Eight and local governments. Third. Higher was Philip lafargue. He’s got a background and user-centered design.

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So he brought really creative and strategic problem solving, he made us think about problems in ways, we never appreciate it. He made us appreciate how important design is to everything that we do, including the look and feel of our proposals are deliverables.

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The you know the documents that stay even after we leave our fourth, big higher was a guy named Anthony Napolitano. Who’s the best IT project manager in the state of Louisiana, there’s no doubt about it. He used to work at CGI for almost 20 years but each of those hires were because our clients were saying, hey, do y’all do this? And we didn’t and so we knew we needed to go find somebody else to begin to supplement us.

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And so now I would sort of characterize us and in five verticals, we Still do that traditional strategic planning work. A lot of nonprofit. A lot of governments and for-profit work where organizations.

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And again, we’re at our best when we’ve got a really inclusive leader, who’s wanting to do. A lot of Engagement to help, figure out the future direction for an organization.

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So, what we’re doing right now with Kansas

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And the President at Kansas State was the former Dean of college of AG and life sciences at North Carolina State University, Jon snow led an effort when a project there, he then got appointed President of Kansas State. He loved our process. Not because we’re higher Ed experts. But he loved the fact that we are really, really good at bringing a diverse group of steakhouse orders together to help chart a plan and a path forward for an organization. So that’s kind of one body of work. If you would pill the unions back a little bit on that, we do executive searches for organizations. We do a lot of H arm consulting as well. So that’s kind of that traditional management consulting bucket the second and and and and certainly a large is strategic communications, especially within the public sector.

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Where we’ve got amazing folks that used to work with in the media, we’ve got great content developers and storytellers.

[00:29:45.600]
We’ve got amazing graphic designers, we have world-class web team, so we’ll kind of handle any of the community. Strategic, communication opportunities, within our clients better. It is within the it space mostly public sector, mostly large-scale, it transformation, project management, quality assurance, quality control. Control testing, change management.

[00:30:10.800]
The training of the individuals that are going to use these new systems in these new tools in the bells and whistles that they have and then the last big area that

[00:30:20.200]
We have we’ve got up subsidiary company called emergent talent and so we work on big large federally funded programs. We work in the project management space but often times it requires getting the word out about available resources to specific, targeted communities, getting those individuals to apply for assistance, reviewing applications processing. Those applications doing all the quality assurance quality controls all the backend compliance work, And then handling all the communication challenges associated with these programs throughout. And so, our core emergent method Consulting team, which sort of fits in those first three or four verticals. I reference

[00:31:01.900]
That’s a team of about sixty people. And then we’ve got a team of about one hundred and forty right now that balloons up to two hundred. It may come down a little bit that work on a single project for a fixed duration of time. And so again, all those things sort of happened organically. Umm. We can rewind the clock and go back to certain events HTS which allowed for the big, significant growth. Um. But the twenty sixteen floods here in Baton Rouge. Certainly did. Got us into the disaster. Recovery space. Um. And so that’s been a real big growth area for us in the covert world. You know, we were all Baton Rouge employees working out of our downtown officer in bond. Hooray with clients at the time, right. We were all with our clients. So we were sitting in our office and in the world came to an end. Right. And we all sat at home. We didn’t know what the hell to do. Umm. Wheaton had no idea of the opportunities that would be created for that.

[00:31:58.600]
You know, there was a lot of federal money that started rental assistance, programs, Mortgage Assistance programs, all these other, you know, kind of, you know, Federal programs that were coming out trying to keep the economy running. Our firm was able to get involved in a lot of that work, not just here in Louisiana, but using mostly Louisiana people that had a history of working on these big disaster recovery programs in deploying them to projects in North Carolina, North Dakota Colorado. Do you kind of name? It kind of California, all across the country Arkansas, Alabama.

[00:32:31.600]
The other thing that happened during covid-19

[00:32:56.100]
You know, all the work we’re doing is remote, is it possible for me to work out of Sacramento? And, of course, we said yes. Because we wanted to support our team members. We had no idea what it meant at the time, but then it just opened our door up in the 20/20 kind of that summer. And into the fall, where we had multiple team members, moved to New Markets. We were able to bring some new team members into this market and then we just started hiring kind of all across the country based on what our clients telling us.

[00:33:24.000]
They’re looking forward to our clients needs.

[00:33:25.900]
Need and so that’s sort of been the growth and how we’ve done it. So we’re we’re not an ad agency, but we do everything in a day agency, does, you know, we’re not up IT company, but we do a lot of the work that a lot of the big tech companies will do as well. And so I think that’s been one of our secret sauces is that we reviewed a strategy, problem solvers but we’ve got multiple sweets of services that we can offer.

[00:33:51.000]
Our clients based upon what they want, what they need, what they’re asking us to do.

[00:33:55.500]
Net crazy. What has been born out of covert in the fact of accepting technology and figuring out the best way to implement it into an organization. I mean, beforehand. It was no. Everybody’s going to be all hands on deck in the office. If we don’t see you and we’re not making those face-to-face connections or research as in the client, the best we can encode hit in Harry Potter is kind of just like, why haven’t we been doing this for so long? We’ve all got this technology. A webcam costs thirty forty, fifty bucks. And if we just give people this technology, the ability to work within a realm that suits their need and moved to Sacramento to take care of their families. Move wherever they have to to help whomever they need. Well now we can retain that that team member and we can expand our operations. Yeah. I mean, it’s just nuts. Yep. It’s been interesting to see how.

[00:34:48.000]
It’s sort of moved and how its evolved. And if we wouldn’t did it, I cringe to think about what we would be today. I think would be a fraction of the size that we are. Today, I a lot of folks and a lot of our clients are look, they’re struggling with it because it is hard to coach and develop and build and maintain culture and cultural or virtual, there’s no doubt about it, we struggle with it. I don’t know what all the answers are and we can certainly talk about the things we’re doing. And we’re trying to do, you know that were the best. Of the the old days when everyone needed to be in the office. But look are many of our clients are struggling with that. I think what has been our biggest policing in terms of, how do you make sure all your team members are productive right? If you have a high-performing culture, right? Nick Saban’s, quote is one of my favorites, Patti, it’s high Achievers, hate mediocre people and mediocre people hate High achievers.

[00:35:44.200]
If you have an organization where you allow me to yoga people into the organization, the high Achievers, going to get frustrated, they’re going to leave. If you have an organization that’s full of high, Achievers, and you bring someone in their mediocre, the high Achievers are going to hold me and our leadership team accountable, to make sure that mediocre people person, either steps up we gets pushed out, right? And so that mentality in that mindset and we’re not perfect at it, right? But by and large, we’re Team of high, Achievers, right? Overachievers insecure overachievers in many ways and so that’s self-police.

[00:36:16.200]
They don’t allow a slacker to sit at a computer.

[00:36:20.600]
Either in their office or, you know, in their bedroom and some other location. If they’re not carrying their weight, we know. And if they’re not carrying their weight, we work to address that situation. And so you really I think to survive in this virtual world, you really have to be an organization that has incredibly high expectations.

[00:36:41.600]
That does. It’s best to maintain that standard day in and day out. Um. If you walk into our office, there’s three words on the wall. And you may remember this from from the trip you took there with your entrepreneurship class, but it’s singular, unequal and extraordinary. It’s the most unorthodox we do, visit statements. Vision statements. Our clients all the time. I think it’s the most unorthodox vision statement, but that is ours. So what does it again? We want to be singular, unequal and extraordinary in all that we do in whatever it is that we do. Because again, I’d never thought. Ten years ago. We’d be a big player in the disaster. Recovery world. I never would have thought ten years ago. We’d be leading. Ah. A strategic plan for the land Grant University of Kansas. I never thought, you know, ten years ago. We’d be involved in a lot of the projects we’re in. And so if we combined our vision back then around the type of stuff that we did, we wouldn’t be where we are to date. We we created a vision around whatever it is, we decided to do.

[00:37:41.000]
We’re going to be singular and equal an extraordinary. And that is the that is the standard that is the expectation. And so I, you know, I think the most important job that I have now Patty because I don’t get to work directly with the clients as much as I love to. And that I wish I could, you know, given the size of the organization now, but my most important job is to convince people that aren’t going to be great fits. Even though on paper, they may look really, really good. Not to take the job before we offer it to him. And I talked about how hard the work is. And how stressful it can be and how much of a grind that it can be. Because if you’re not willing to do those things and perform at a really really high level our culture and the team members that we have, which are now the keepers of that culture are not going to allow you to stick around.

[00:38:26.200]
Yeah. And I saw today, somebody talked about their hiring process for their organization, and he said that he and his wife

[00:38:33.500]
We’ll do what is possible in the interview process to try and find reasons to fire the person before they even heard about it, they work through everything and all the wrong, three reasons. We’ll all the reasons why you would leave all the reasons why you would fail. They work through all of that and then if they pass all these tests and they pass through this process and they go great, go talk to our team and they’re going to hire you. We’re just, we’re just here is The Gatekeepers. Make sure only the best of the best get through. And when we are done with you, You, you have an appreciation and a very clear understanding of what’s expected.

[00:39:09.300]
Look, our team does a great job in the recruiting and the screening. We do simulations with people to try to understand what their skills are they meet with multiple folks on our team? I don’t ask me any questions in the interviews. I try to scare them I do. And it’s funny, you know, whenever we get a stud and everybody knows it’s a stud, they’re like all right Nick do not scare this one away like please for the love of God, do not

[00:39:32.600]
Scare this one away. But I think it’s really important to lay those expectations out on the frontend entail some of the horror stories that we know exist within our business, right. Those calls at six o’clock on a Friday. I hope they never happen. I want to avoid our team members from having to deal with them, but they do happen. And if you’re going to be the person that doesn’t answer that call right then you can’t be on our team, right. Because if you don’t answer that call and that clients no longer going to trust you, right? It goes back to what we talked about earlier. They don’t like you. They don’t trust you. They’ll never gonna value. And so I give those examples and say, look, we do our best to create the appropriate work-life balance. But we are a professional services firm and we want to be the team that our clients call when they’re in the mine. Um. And that’s never fun. It’s never easy, right. But when we get those calls, we’ve done something right. And if we could get those calls, we’ve done something terribly wrong and.

[00:40:28.400]
That is a very simple I can relate to that on professional level as well within the firmware. We have that the same expectation, you know, we hope we never get that call at 6:00 p.m. 7 p.m. on a Friday. Moving on a weekend for that matter, but I’ve been in the mountains in Nashville, or in Tennessee and have all my wife. I got to go back to the room, and I gotta take a phone call, and I got open the computer.

[00:40:53.400]
I got to work through something because the clients got something that’s going wrong or Worst case I’ve got a client in a foreign country, and they can’t pay for their dinner right now, because their credit card is declined. So I’ve got to call the bank. Tell them, they’re on vacation, unlock the card. If they can get off their meal. That’s right. And we have to do that. Because like you said, if you don’t

[00:41:13.400]
Your melee going to lose them. This we’re never going to stop calling. They’re going to stop doing anything you want. And those are the clients that know they can call. You are generally, the ones you don’t want to lose this one because they’re going to be with you. If you have to send out a memo saying we’re going through some tough times. X Y and Z is happening. We’re going to do our best to fulfill everything we can. But just a heads up we’re working through some stuff internally. Yep. They’re going to either reply back and say Nick do what you got to do man we’re completely understanding you handle this very well. We know we’re going to get our stuff too.

[00:41:43.300]
Take care of, thank you for letting us know, and on the flip side of that to Patty. When you do those things in, you inevitably screw up, right? Like I make mistakes and I’ve had clients a human, right? But when we then make those mistakes those clients because they’re our friends because we have a real relationship with them. They remember how we were there for them in a time of need. And when they were in a bind

[00:42:10.300]
In all the time they’re going to be there for us as well. And so I just to me, that’s what a real relationship and a real partnership look like, right. Yeah. And you can’t be singular an equal and extraordinary like by definition, right? That’s the tip of the spear. Right. You can’t be those things unless you’re willing to make some real sacrifices, because many people in this world would see that call come in on Friday and say I’ll get to it on Monday. I’m not telling our team members. They’re the ones that are gonna have to deal with it over the weekend. But they gotta take the call. They got to come back to the team and then we all come together and say, what are we going to do. How do we? How do we step up to support our clients in their times need? And that’s why on of the things I’m most proud of is watching our team rally when those calls come in, because it may come in to John in John legit has stuff all weekend that he really doesn’t need a miss. So the rest of the team’s gonna rally around, John, say, John Hugo. Do those things. We’ve got your back. We’ll take care of this and you’ll get back in England.

[00:43:08.100]
Yeah, and it’s understanding when you’re in the professional business, like, like you are your clients success. Ultimately dictates your success.

[00:43:19.800]
If your clients aren’t successful and what you’re doing to help them fails and they go out of business that keeps happening time and time again. You’re going to go out of it.

[00:43:28.100]
Well there’s no doubt about it. Why would you ever hire us? If I tell you who our clients are in there, all bad organizations. Right. Exactly. And so taking those calls on the weekends understanding that If they called you, it’s serious enough where it can’t wait till Monday. It, can’t wait until next business day, right? It has to happen at that point in time and whether it could be 9 times out of 10, a simple question that needs an answer or a simple problem that has to get resolved.

[00:43:58.100]
Rarely but still will happen. Will you have the big mountains that you’re like we got to pull the weekend. Correct. We got to pull the weekend and we got it all come together if you had plans, sorry. But at the end of the day, we’re going to be here with you as the leaders of the organization and we’re going to help you through this clients particular need. And if we all stick together and band together, we’re going to get it done. And then hopefully, we don’t have to be here all weekend, but if we don’t do it some element or some component of our clients business, while they have a major, Or problem or a failure because we didn’t do our part. And at the end of the day, when you put a bunch of high Achievers in a room, they’re going to say, not on our watch, we’re gonna do whatever we can to get fasted and look up some of the more enjoyable.

[00:44:42.900]
Experiences. I’ve had working along. Our team has been in those miserable situations where it’s really late at night. So over the course of a weekend. Look. I’ll never forget. I was an LSU. Football game in two thousand and nineteen during the Joe Burrow. Amazing run. I want to say we were playing Utah state that day was a eleven am kickoff. We partake in a lot of tailgate. And we had a whole lot of fun. And we had a team that was working on a big proposal for one of our clients, and we thought we got it to the finish line about two o’clock in the afternoon. I was at the game and we didn’t. We weren’t. We weren’t where we needed to be. And there were a bunch more request that came in that required a lot of us to rally not in the best situations at the time. But to all come back together and that Saturday afternoon to redo a couple of parts to be able to get that proposal done on a Sunday getting on an airplane and get it submitted.

[00:45:39.000]
That was awful at the time. I mean, it was awful, right? I mean, I remember cursing, I remember being incredibly frustrated, super apologetic. I was telling the team, we will buy you, whatever it is, you want. I mean, you could order Roots, Chris. You cannot like, literally whatever you need, we will get you. But once you get through that experience, those four or five of us that worked on it. It’s one of the best stories that we have. We love it. And, I mean, it sucked at the time, but we did it and that client is still Now, one of our long-term clients, they remember it. And those late-night stories or for me at some of the early morning stories where I’ve had to come in the office at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. Yep. And just spend the whole day working to resolve an issue and at the end of the day, you’re right, it’s

[00:46:25.300]
Wow, that was miserable but look at what we got doing and team building that goes into that you know and kind of flowing into that part of the conversation of building that culture having those miserable times where people are stuck together. They’ve got to get it done and it’s just a matter of biting the bullet, we’re here, we’re all going to work together. We’re going to get this done, whatever it takes as an organization. What do y’all do? Both in those situations to maintain strong. Team building and also outside of those in a normal day to day life.

[00:46:59.800]
Yes. So this is where it gets real interested in the virtual world quite frankly Patty because it used to be really easy. When those calls came in, we were all here in Baton Rouge, it’s been and looking, I’ll never forget. We had one project in North Carolina. That was a really really tough engagement especially getting it kick off and going in this would have been you know that april/may timeframe of 2020.

[00:47:22.100]
There were tons of late night zooms. Four or five of us on it and working on either the same document or different things. We were just kind of there for one another. All of us had cocktails in hand. Ah. But we were just kind of rallying in supporting one another, right. Because it was miserable. It was miserable at the time, but it was. What was required and what was needed, right? Um. Look for for those team members that consistently step up and those way PG, those are the ones that have done the skyrocket within our firm. So they’re being rewarded in all kinds of ways because they’re now leading projects because they did that two years ago, right. They’re certainly going to get compensated for. They’re going to be afforded great opportunities to work on FF, fun, new and exciting projects. And so you better believe that that we sorta know who’s stepping up in those situations. And that becomes a rocket ship for those individuals because.

[00:48:12.600]
That’s when they proved to us that we can give them a client because we know how they’re going to respond when that client calls them on a Friday at 5:00, right?

[00:48:22.200]
And so yeah you and then the other things we try to do and I think the only way to kind of make it through it. Most of the time is you just you can’t leave people on Islands in those situations. They need some support structure and support system in place.

[00:48:36.100]
So we’ve got to have two or three or four of us working on those things during the course of the weekend. And that’s, you know, I hate it for our team members when it happens. But I am so proud.

[00:48:45.200]
Like I never forget any and Brittany on our team just several months ago, kind of a similar situation where a big proposal was due for one of our clients. Those two did just an amazing job. You know, you know, both have young families, right? Both have young kids.

[00:49:02.400]
So they both just kind of blocked and tackled and said, I’m going to do my family stuff from this time to this time, so you’re going to be in the document.

[00:49:09.300]
I’m going to hand it over to you at this time and so that, that coordination and that that understanding that you’re not going to go at it alone, I think is, what makes a miserable situation, pretty tolerable.

[00:49:21.700]
And having that feeling of camaraderie and understanding where if you have people with the situations of young families for me, a big time of day to get work done, is from 4:00 to 7:00 in the morning. No doubt about it. It’s like it’s quiet time. I can get Two things I need to get to. I don’t have a million emails coming in my kids asleep, my wife’s asleep, I’m like I can get stuff done and I can still be there whenever they all wake up and we have that good family morning. And I know it’s like you don’t miss any things, right? And you’re still figuring out a way to work around your personal life within your business and professional life.

[00:49:58.900]
And that, I think, is something that people will recognize and covert the importance of understanding a workflow and a time structure that’s best for you on an individual level while still maintaining your same, if not better contribution to the organization on a professional level in and look. And I think that flexibility ninety five percent of the time makes that five percent of the time when you make those sacrifices a whole lot again. More tolerable, right. I mean, in in the team is willing to do it because they’ve got all the flexibility in the world as long as they’re getting their work done. Right. I mean, that’s all we care about. And we know whether or not an individual’s getting their work done? Right. Because you know, always ask a question. What have you done today to go above and beyond for your clients and your team members? Actually I sent it in a slack.

[00:50:46.500]
Today to our team because we’ve got one of our team members. Just coming off of maternity leave, who’s dedicated on Project site at a hospital here in town, Emily Rodriguez. And I got an email from the client today, saying, I just want to let you know, Emily is killing it. She is crushing it. And so, I don’t need to worry about when Emily is working, and how she’s working when the client sends me that email, there’s no concern and no worry there. So, I showed our team today saying like this is, What success looks like right? Eye reputation tomorrow is being generated by what each of you do today, or what you don’t do today and what Emily’s has done for the past couple of weeks, right to lead to that email. That’s the reputation we wrote. That is what we refer to as the method. Yeah. And and so, from that perspective, it’s easy to see, right? I mean I our clients will reach out to me and say

[00:51:41.400]
They’re crushing it and there’s no more rewarding feeling in the world. It’s that is way better than winning the work right? That’s that is the best feeling in the world when our clients are recognizing the amazing contributions of our team members. And it’s because they are singular unequaled, an extraordinary and being able as an organization to recognize the value in output versus input, right? Then you organizations, right? Meaning, we don’t necessarily care, Care, if you’re in the office from X H 2y. H. We don’t care if you’re working from X, H 2y H, so long as your output, and your client relations, like you just mentioned

[00:52:22.700]
Are there and you’re getting your work done. And you’re fulfilling your goals and obligations. You’re working with team members. You’re being your collaborative best, and the clients are recognizing that giving us feedback on that, which means you went above and beyond their expectations for someone to get feedback, you gotta go above and beyond their expectation and for them to hit that Mark and exceed that Mark. It’s like, I don’t know when you work does matter when you worked whatever you did. Yeah. You went above and beyond and you need finance. What? We’re about anything you need from me. Now you just tell me, right. Because clients aren’t going to send me an email and say, you know, your team member has met expectations. It’s not. It doesn’t have no right. I’m gonna get a call when they have messed up and when they’ve done something in really, really good.

[00:53:08.200]
In nine out of ten. I’m getting a call because they’ve done something amazing right?

[00:53:12.100]
Which is what I’m most proud of and as an organization doing more than just giving them a pat on the back and saying, great job. You met our expectations and doing the way that y’all do with, making sure that they’re both competent, they’re compensated and rewarded properly goes a long way. Because no, one ever has to question. What is expected and what they have to do within the organization to either, get ahead or get Get a higher reward. They can see it within their colleagues because they know.

[00:53:42.500]
Yeah, I saw an email come through from Jenna at 11:30 at night and Brad sent an email at midnight and they were I saw them burning the out the candlelight but

[00:53:51.700]
You know, I don’t know what to do to get ahead in this organization. It’s like, well, you don’t have to necessarily do that to get ahead, but if you do that, you’re rewarded with a lot more than just, great job. You met our expectations. It’s oh, my gosh. You went above and beyond our expectations to get what you got done. Thank you. And here’s here’s your reward system. And look getting all goes back to, right? Are we setting the expectations on the front end? And I think we are, I think we in so our team members just do it Patty like This is not enforced, it’s never made right? You know, our team members kind of know. This is how we’re going to handle certain situations. And again, I just I am amazed to work alongside an unbelievable group of team members, mean they’re awesome. Couldn’t be more proud of them, quite frankly and like the proof is in the pudding in the results. And what y’all got over there to merge. A Methodist is proven itself day in and day out.

[00:54:47.600]
So as we start to wind down and wrap up the show, we have a setlist questions like to ask every guest. Yeah. So the first one for unique is, what is something you did as a kid? You wish you could still do today? Yeah. So I lost my mom when I was twenty three years old and my mom was she was my person, um, she thought the world out of me. She always pumped me up. She always challenged me. My drive. My fire. My fuel. Right in. So many ways comes from her. My work ethics certainly comes from her and my Dad. Um. But my mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was a freshman at LSU was given six months to live. Made it almost six. She watched me graduate from LSU. She was able to watch me get married. She was alongside of me whenever I went through my own little bout thyroid cancer when I was early in my career. Pvc and so.

[00:55:39.100]
The thing that I wish I can go back and relive is just any time with my mom. I mean, I, it’s one of these crazy deals is every time something really, really good in my life happens. There’s always a an empty spot because I can’t call my mom and I can’t talk to her and in so, no, that’s, that’s probably the biggest thing from childhood. And then, second of that, I grew up with four brothers. We were a close-knit, family, and my other four brothers, all lift back in in the st. Landry, Parish area still today. And so the The impromptu in the everyday meals and the being around family. I missed that. I get to see him and I don’t get to see him enough. I get to see him around something that’s planed and experience, right? But I I miss kind of the everyday just being able to be there with my four brothers with my dad when I still get that opportunity some time but really just miss my mom. Yeah, that’s

[00:56:32.700]
Traumatic experience to go through but like you said makes makes you stronger and gives you some put something to push for. She was amazing. So what are three lessons? You’ve learned along your way?

[00:56:43.500]
One ready for this one patty probably should have been that you said these questions to me ahead of time. the first, I think in we’ve talked so much about this rightness and, and You got to surround yourself with people that are like-minded that have the same sort of mentality that have the same level of expectations because I just see it all too often when you don’t have that level of passive aggressiveness to level of frustration. The team dysfunction that occurs when not everybody is held or is living up to the exact same standard.

[00:57:22.800]
Think that’s just absolutely critical. This the second thing is, relationships are King relationships are absolutely King, um. And so the relationships that individuals are building today, they have no idea how important those relationships might be. Five or ten years from now, my story would not exist. Our story, emerging method would not exist. Asked if it were not for great relationships that we develop, you know, throughout each basic stage in our career, right. I go back to Gerrit swallow. When I was at LSU and him getting me into the internal audit program. I met a partner, repeat ABC Carol Hawkins. Who was an LSU grad? She was high level with pricewaterhouse coopers. She gave me my first opportunity. She supported me every step of my way within PBC her. And I now serve on the dean’s advisory Council together at LSU. She’s been one of the biggest champions and cheer leaders and mentors and supporters for me.

[00:58:17.000]
My partner in Atlanta was Chris Martin. My managing director was a guy named Eric Cavani that brought me on projects Derek and I have kept in touch all these years, Derek comes in to do our strategic plan for our leadership, our facilitation for our sessions. And so relationships are absolutely King. The individuals that I was grinding in the trenches, with as a junior consultant. When I first moved back to Baton Rouge there. Now, the CEO is there now, the cfo’s there. Now, the CEO of who’s had no Idea at the time I loved working with them and you they were incredibly talented right? But they were five layers down in an organization and they’re now the ones making the decisions. And so relationships are king. And the more you invest in those relationships and build real and meaningful relationships especially in our business, then everything else is going to sort of take care of itself. Oh yeah, that’s couldn’t agree more. So what is something that you love about Baton Rouge?

[00:59:15.900]
However, people I do and I do what I love about Baton Rouge as well is it would have been really, really difficult for us to do what we’ve done in a Major Market. And what I love is that we’ve been able to do it in Baton Rouge and then bring the best of Baton Rouge so much other places because I truly feel that people that are going to interact and work with our team, right? Even those individuals that aren’t from here because everybody that gets hired at emerging methods. That they’re here for our Christmas party and it’s a shindig. They’re coming in the spring for our crawfish balls to coming in the fall for our company tailgate. And so those are our three main activities, where we’re bringing everybody in the Baton Rouge. They’re going to get to know this place because this is our home. This is where our business is. This is where our business will always be. And so, she is very, very special to us. And I think her people are as, As Good As It Gets quite frankly. We’ve got so many challenges and problems. What?

[01:00:12.600]
What I’m really proud of you for Patty is is doing this because it’s what I don’t think we do enough. We’re incredibly prideful of our LSU. Tiger football team, right? But we beat ourselves up over everything else in all of our problems and all of our challenges. The reality is, all places. Have those things we’ve got all of them too. We do. And we need to get better at him. And we’re committed to doing all that we can to support our clients to support our nonprofit communities to invest and give back to this town. But there’s so many great things happening in so many, great people. And for our best and brightest, you can go off to a big Metropolitan area. And I encourage you to do it. I think it’s a great experience. I learned a ton from it. But it’s going to be really, really hard to make the kind of impact that we’ve been able to make an our team has been able to make.

[01:00:58.600]
In other places, right? Because you’re a number.

[01:01:01.000]
You’re a cog in the wheel.

[01:01:02.300]
I really think you have an opportunity to make huge impact huge Legacy.

[01:01:06.500]
And it’s again we talked about it at emerging Methodist like what’s the Legacy projects?

[01:01:12.200]
You’re working on right for me. I can’t drive down Nicholson and see the water campus in the water Institute of the gulf and not tell my kids look. I was you know, a small part of it but I was part of this like that’s cool like my kids see it. It’s you know it’s hard to explain what it is.

[01:01:27.700]
We do is I’ve tried to do this, you know, during the entire course of the show.

[01:01:31.600]
And so I just I think there’s a real ability for high achieving.

[01:01:35.400]
People that want to do good to make huge impacts in this town.

[01:01:39.000]
That would be very very difficult to replicate a nun.

[01:01:42.200]
Yeah, and the ability to call one person and get in touch with anyone that you need. Is it speaks volumes? If the fact of how closely knit everybody is. I mean, it’s a little big town where we really can connect anyone and everyone to somebody. If they need to get ahold of them, they have to make one phone call and that person’s go. Oh not a problem. I know that person to this this this and this and I’ll get you meeting. No problem and seeing that and having these companies come one of these owners like yourself, come on, and share their experiences. And it’s just invaluable. Yep. So for the final question man what can I do to help you you keep inspiring everybody else Betty.

[01:02:18.500]
I sincerely believe that right, right? I need we won’t folks looking up to Colleen, drag us back into a bed of hydel. We want those stories told because I want them to go create awesome things. I want more, Brandon Landry’s in this town and more Todd Graves and more Taro Browns and more John Davies.

[01:02:35.200]
Just keep inspiring this next generation. Don’t get discouraged. Block out all the negativity and all the noise go work to fix things. Roll up your sleeves, right. This is our problem. This is our city. Let’s just keep working, so you keep inspiring. You keep me in the connector and I were just very optimistic about batteries. Well that makes two of us at least. Yeah. So thank you, ma’am. For coming on the show, I also enjoyed your telling me to thank you for making this work and getting us all together as nice, listening to and hearing and learning from people and just hear and everything you’ve gone through and everything that’s come out of what your experiences are truly inspiring appreciated by. So thank you. And thank you to everybody else for listening or watching us this show. I know I’m very grave. One of the guest stars. Well look, if you’re interested in your high achiever looking for a place to work.

[01:03:26.500]
Emerging methods, definitely place a check out. And also if you’re a company struggling to just need that extra Edge to put yourself through some project through the next hurdle reach out to them. Let them know. You heard about them from the Patty G show and are going to take great care of you and a big wonderful shout out and thank you to the amazing folks that bring this show possible each and every week here a little bit more about them right now.

[01:03:46.800]
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[01:04:14.800]
Thank you all. So very much for listening to this episode of The Patty G show brought to you by government Taco. They’re located on the corner of Government Street and Jefferson Highway J is always slinging up a new Taco of the month. So if you’re a frequent ER to government taco, let us know in the comments what you thought about this month’s Taco of the month. If you’re not a frequenter, maybe trying out this month’s Taco might just convert. You big thanks over to them a government Taco, for making the Patty G show possible.

[01:04:44.500]
In taxing on a plane looking toward the end of the runway. It seems so far away. It’s even hard to see it. And that’s what the concept of retirement probably felt like when you were in your 20s 30s and 40s, way far in the distance, not visible, or even a concern. But as you turn 50, something happens. Retirement suddenly seems like something real something. Not too far away in your 50s. You are rolling down. The runway retirement is getting closer and closer faster and faster.

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Weeks and months zipping by. But are you even ready for a successful takeoff to retirement? Fear not. There’s still runway left. But the time is now time to make progress and time to get a plan. The runway decade will help you get organized. Get energized and give you the ders action. You need to take off to your desired retirement. The runway decade building a pre-retirement flight plan in your fifties.

[01:05:45.500]
Thank you. To Mercedes Benz of Baton Rouge for making this show possible, Nick. Pentose is a past guest. We love having him on listening to him. Talk about the culture they have over at Mercedes Benz of Baton Rouge is really an incredible thing to hear.

[01:06:00.400]
How they treat, not only their employees. But every customer that walks through the door, you were more than just a number to them. They’re going to give you that white glove, concierge service. Every step of the way, they’re going to make you feel like family and take, what can be a stressful time in people’s life shopping for a car. They’re going to make it so enjoyable and so pleasurable. You’re going to want to go back there time and time again for every new vehicle. Thank you so very much for Mercedes-Benz and making this show possible. Thank you to our wonderful sponsor Lake Men’s Health Center With Our Lady of the Lake Physicians Group, guys.

[01:06:35.200]
I know it’s tough to get out and go to the doctor. I know it’s challenging to find time in our busy days but I promise, you sign up to be a part of this group with dr. Curtis Chastain and dr. Tyler Boudreaux, you won’t regret it for several reasons, but most of those being, the fact of the time, it saves where you’re able to get him on the same day, get that appointment done and spend that time you need to talk with them about what your health goals and cern’s are as well.

[01:07:00.000]
During that the financial investments you have, you will be able to live out and see those come to fruition. So if you’re and investing guy, you know, all about and planning for the future and investing in the future, there’s no other more important thing to invest in than your health, make sure you go check them out. Our Lady of the Lake, Physicians Group Men’s Health Center and tell him Patty G sent you. McLavy LTD is a proud sponsor of the Patty G show has been serving.

[01:07:27.500]
The Baton Rouge area proudly for 40-plus years, gentlemen.

[01:07:31.300]
And ladies, if you’re shopping for your man, there is no other place in the Baton Rouge area to get your clothing.

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Whether it’s game day needs, every day, needs business attire, formal attire, whatever you want.

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Go over there, see Frank and Ashley, it’s a father-daughter Duo, they do incredible things in their store.

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They will outfit you from as simply a shirt that you need for one evening.

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Or all the way to a full wardrobe, overhaul, they’re going to take care of you every step of the way and be sure, and let them know that Patty G show sense.

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*Music*