 Hi, good morning everyone. I'm Cynthia Hardy and I have the opportunity and the pleasure today of moderating this important event, the City of Columbia Small Business Week Conference Opportunities Out of Crisis. In the almost four years or so that Melissa Lundler has taken the helm at the City of Columbia's Office of Business Opportunities, the world has changed. No one could have anticipated the world that we're living through right now. And right now, you know, these times will be written about and texts and read about over the next century. Not a small task leading through these uncertain times isn't for the weak at heart. Melissa Lundler, in the Office of Business Opportunities at the City of Columbia, has taken the reins to lead in all business sectors during this period of time. We thank her in the City of Columbia for putting this on for small businesses today. This has been one of the most difficult times. So whether or not, you know, providing resources to all sectors, whether it's a corporate sector, private sector, nonprofit sector, public sector, manufacturing sector, even the gig economy, the Office of Business Opportunities has made sure that resources have been there. We're not sure where we're going in this pandemic and all of the variables that are prolonging its existence. So at this time, I'd like to introduce Melissa Lundler and the Office of Business Opportunities leader. Not only can we count on her in this environment of resilience for our businesses, but also to sustain us during these uncertain times to these resources have been invaluable. We welcome at this time, Melissa Lundler, the director of the Office of Business Opportunities for the City of Columbia to open our conference. Welcome, Melissa Lundler. And again, thank you for this opportunity for on point media to participate today. Thank you, Cynthia. And thank you for all that you do, not only for the City of Columbia, but our small business community and our community as a whole. You mentioned a number of things, and that's the resources and, you know, the opportunities that we've been able to provide to our small business community, especially over the past 18 months has really helped a number of our businesses sustained during this time. But none of that would be possible without our Mayor, Steve Benjamin, his leadership, the leadership of City Council, and the leadership of our city manager, Teresa Wilson. So I want to make sure that everyone knows how many advocates you have here at the City of Columbia or our small business community and how much they realize that without you, we are not who we are and we're not the great city that we are. So I think that we all play a role in this and the Office of Business Opportunity is not just me. It's our staff, Ayesha Driggers, our new Deputy Director, Kalina Inyard, Latanya, Germany, Rat Whiting, Latanya Porter DeBerry, Carla Eichelberger, and Cendria Robinson. They're all there. We work hard. We work late for you. We know that, you know, you need resources and you need things done immediately. So we're here. We're here to support you. The Office of Business Opportunities. We provide trainings, technical assistance, and this is one of those opportunities, right today that we do every year. Unfortunately, last year, because of COVID, we're not able to do it. And we're not doing any in-person events right now because of the numbers in our city and in our county. But again, you know, we have a number of resources here. You'll hear from our resource partners and other city departments across the city. Procurement is a number of departments that work with us on a daily basis, Columbia Water, to make sure that we provide equitable opportunities to our entire city and everyone has an opportunity to participate in programs and procurement, whatever it may be here at the City of Columbia. Recently, I do want to share and it sheds light on the commitment of the City of Columbia to make sure we're creating an equitable playing field for our small business community, but also our community and our citizens as a whole. Title Six of the 1964 Civil Rights Act has now, Title Six Compliance is now part of the OBO Office and that will be headed by Aisha Driggers. And what Title Six is, it prohibits race discrimination on the basis of race, color, nationality for any programs or activities that receive federal funds and assistance. So by putting that in our possession, it allows us to do even more to make sure that we're looking and creating new opportunities to, you know, remove any barriers that may exist when it comes to participation, not only for our small business community, but our citizens as a whole, as well as our staff here at the City of Columbia. So I want to stop there and just tell you thank you for all that you do. Thank you for being a part of our great city. And I now would like to introduce you to our leader who we could not do what we do without him. He has been an advocate and a supporter of me in my position as well as our staff and the offices I've been here. And he was an advocate before I started with Ms. Herbert, who is also very, very, very committed to our small business community as you know. So Steve, I'm sorry, Mayor Benjamin, I turn it over to you. And thank you for all that you do for us. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you for all that you do for us. Amazing leadership at OBO with the team that you've assembled over there. And I'm so thankful we have you in the position you are in for such a time as this. I want to thank everyone for joining us today. So many of you have been around elected officials and politicians for a very, very long time. And we've always said that small business is a light blood of our community. And it's become a bit of a mantra for all of us. I do truly believe that over the last year and a half, everyone really realizes that is in fact, the case, not just the numbers, but the spirit of community is embodied in the entrepreneurship of men and women who try to perfect capitalism, provide for their families and support their communities. So thank you for joining us today as we try to recognize the achievements of the small business community and incredible resiliency that we've seen, sometimes in many ways unprecedented hardships we've seen as a result of the pandemic. And certainly, so many of us have significant personal losses over this time as well. I think the fact that we're all here today shows exactly how resilient we are. Our belief in you and the vital role that you play in the economic vitality of our city did prompt the city last year, as Melissa mentioned, to provide emergency relief to well over 300 businesses throughout small business stabilization, forgivable loan program to the tune of about $1.4 million, which is before PPP started flowing. It was critical as we all kind of walk the way through learning more and more about the coronavirus. This money helped keep a lot of businesses up and running our support to not stop there over the past 18 months through the Office of Business Opportunities. We've invested over $4.1 million into our small business community with commercial loans, grants, training and technical assistance as well. And as you continue to adapt and adjust pivot down the path of recovery, we will continue to find ways to work with you to support you to continue to make your businesses stronger and to help them grow. We're so pleased to have Chris Hively, Chris and we're gonna get together eventually, okay? We've been working on this and thank you for your patience. Coffee is on me. If it's after five, it doesn't have to be coffee. I'm looking forward to your amazing story as a co-founder of Matt Quest and now the energy that you bring back to Colombia is one of nations leading new venture and startup experts. It's a downright exciting time and we're so fortunate to have you here. And we're also excited to welcome so many, several successful local businesses have found opportunities again out of the crisis and the race to use of technology and e-commerce to continue to expand their reach and open up new opportunities for them. And last but certainly not least, we're gonna recognize our 2021 small business spotlight owner, Kara Streeter. She's the owner of Extraordinary Headhunters LLC. You're gonna hear a story in a moment when you do, then you'll remember we all have so much to be thankful for. If you look beyond the obvious, there are always amazing opportunities out of crisis, personal deep respect for Kara. She's always, she calls me nonstop trying to find out ways to help others. And I think that's a real mark of someone's character. So we're virtual now, eventually, we'll all be back in the same room. We'll have a chance to hug and fellowship and hopefully prosper together as a community prosperous. But we hope we leave this conference encouraged, motivated for continued success. Remember that we are resilient, Colombia, because we do this together. Thank you. I bless you. Melissa, Cynthia. Thank you for your leadership. We're gonna have a great day today. Miss Linda, do you have any comment before we proceed with the program? No, I would encourage everyone as we go into this discussion with Chris Haley, we are so excited about having him today. Please enter your questions in our chat box. And at the end of their conversation, the fireside chat, what we'll do is we'll actually Cynthia, Miss Hardy will actually start asking some of those questions. And because of time, if we don't get through all of the questions, I want to reassure you that your questions will be heard or will be answered by Chris, he has said that he will answer those questions and get those back to us and we'll circulate that back to you. I'm going to turn it over to Isha to see if she has any housekeeping before we get started. She has been the lead in this office pooling this together. She's done a great job. We were kind of nervous being virtual, you know, usually for a live conference, it takes us a week and none of us getting asleep. But it was almost as tense, but not as bad. What do you think, Isha? It's been great, but we have such a great team that we work so well together and wherever, where anyone's weak, the other strong. So we pull together and we get through it. So thank you, Melissa, for your leadership and the leadership of our mayor and city manager as well. For housekeeping, I just want to remind everyone to please keep your mics on mute. We do have a good crowd here, so we appreciate you taking time out of your morning to join us. It is an investment in your business for you to be here today. So we appreciate your time and your effort as well. Also, I just want to remind everyone if you registered and you are in attendance, we will have a drawing, a random drawing at the end for some prizes that were donated from some of our wonderful small businesses. So we're excited to offer those to you at the end of the conference. Again, if you have any questions, please put those in the chat and we will be happy to answer those for you. So at this time, I'll turn it back over to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Ms. Diggers. I also want to reiterate that we want our audience to keep their mics muted and put those questions in the chat. And I know we're going to have a very lively conversation generated from our audience today. It's good to see so many participants on the line, guys. This is so good. And I'm so excited that so many people are joining us today. And we thank the mayor, of course, for being with us as well. We want people to also put their questions I mentioned in the chat. And we're going to, OBO is going to share the program as you've heard in the chat. At the end of our conference, everybody who is registered in attendance about to be in an entry entered as you heard in that random drawing. So we're excited about that. The mayor talked about the theme and so did our director, Ms. Lindler, talk about the theme of resilience. And so when I think about extraordinary headhunters, that's exactly what describes them. The city of Columbia's Office of Business Opportunities has recognized Ms. Chiara Streeter, president and CEO of extraordinary headhunters LLC as a 2021 small business spotlight honoree. And they did that at the council meeting in September on the 7th this month on the 7th of September. The company is a full service staffing and marketing company. It's headquartered right here in Colombia. The three-year-old company recently opened four operations in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Denver, Colorado, Seattle, Washington, and it's Michigan. Now over the past 18 months during COVID, the company has provided more than 70,000 free tests in South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Springs, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Seattle and Orleans. They were also able to get more than 10,000 people into jobs and donate almost a half a million dollars, 450,000 to those affected by the pandemic. Wow. Ms. Streeter has been recognized by the South Carolina women in business in 2021, the best and brightest under 35, and the better business bureau. She serves on the Forbes Business Council Committee, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce Business Committee, the Columbia Chamber of Commerce Business Council, and she's a member of the United Way of the Midlands Young Leaders Society, as well as women in philanthropy. Ms. Streeter is married to Julia Streeter. They have three children, Amani, Julius, and Kareem. She plays such an important role in our community. We have a video we'd like for you to see. Here it goes. 2018, I started our agency June 13, 2018, and I knew that I wanted to make a difference. And there is no other way to make a difference in the world, other than providing employment or opportunities for people to win and succeed at life. And so we are a full-service staffing and marketing firm. So we fill any type of positions. Our core clients, it can be medical, it could be manufacturing companies, it could be anywhere from, you know, government agencies, federal agencies, we pride ourselves in filling positions in a 24 and 48 hour timeframe. And so we really go above and beyond for our clients. Where others see the impossible, I see opportunity. We're hiring right now. We have anywhere from 200 to 300 positions hiring right here in the South Carolina area. And as we continue to grow our brand and company, we're always looking for opportunities to get back to say, hey, how can we help you? We donated over $450,000 to individuals, businesses. We created high school scholarships. And when the pandemic hit, there were so many people lose unemployment, a lot of challenges. And so I met with my team who I depend on for everything. They're my Rob. You know, we all had a big meeting and I was like, what can we do? And I said a prayer and our client or our partner at RRT ambulance, they contacted us and they were like, hey, we're looking for a staffing agency to partner with. And, you know, we wanted to provide free COVID testing all over the state of South Carolina. And so we were like, yes, we can help you. And so we were very influential in helping them set up, you know, getting sites and hiring, you know, the top experts and just creating job opportunities here. And so we've been really busy. And I'm just so grateful and looking forward to opportunities to continue to inspire and motivate young people all over the world to believe in yourself that you can do anything. And advice that I have for new entrepreneurs is quite simple. Work hard, believe in yourself and know your motive in life. Know exactly what you want to accomplish and work hard until you accomplish it. So thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful to you guys for this beautiful award. I promise I won't let you down. I'm going to continue to make you guys proud and just continue to take things to the next level. And just look out, you know, as they say, I am South Carolina's most tenacious superwoman. What an exceptional award recipient, Melissa Lindler. Unfortunately, Melissa, I understand Kiera can be here with us today. So her staff is here to accept the award on her behalf. That is correct. And we were actually fortunate enough to present her, the council city council and mayor city council presented her with the resolution acclimation, the third six, I'm sorry, the six of SC staff. I can't get the thing right, but the council meeting before last. So we did present that to her. She, you know, she's still out there. She's trying to connect not only with our business community, but also with younger entrepreneurs as well, and making sure they have access to different corporations. I think right now what she has been able to accomplish, she saw a need out of crisis, right? People were not only looking for employment, they were still looking for, you know, quality candidates to fill positions, even though a number of us were working remotely. Not only that, she was able to connect with them on a different level by providing the free back for vaccines, not only in South Carolina, but I think in two other states as well. She also expanded her business during this crisis. She was already doing a lot of things remotely. So she had already utilized technology to, you know, build her business and her brand. But understanding that her staff doesn't have to be located in an office every day. She had already incorporated those those different types of work working environments already into her her business. So she expanded into three other areas, three other states, sorry, two other states, but three different locations that she was able to actually start all during the pandemic. So I think that's something that we need to keep in mind. As the mayor said, you know, don't always look at the obvious. Sometimes it requires you to look a little deeper and figure out where gaps are and understanding that those gaps you can capitalize on, but you can also business and grow your business. When you understand your business model, when you understand your target audience, you really, really have a true connection with your business and what you're trying to accomplish. You can do so much. You know, it's interesting, Melissa, I think about my own business as you talk about the resilience and how the movement right as the pandemic began, on point media had an opportunity with a client that turned into an employment opportunity. And so James Hardy, the other partner in our business took over the operations of on point media. We didn't know that that would occur 12 months ago, you know, but before it actually happened, but we were so grateful that we were able to pivot, you know, during a time of such uncertainty, you know, to be able to still remain whole and be solid. And I say that for all the other 52 businesses that are on with us right now and are growing, those numbers are growing. But I know that there's stories out there. We want to hear those go to that chat, you know, put that information in those chats. So we'll have an opportunity to talk about what you all are doing too, because as we get ready to go into our fires, our chat, you know, that's one of the things I think our speaker will be interested in is the resilience level of what it is that we have done so he can advise us further about some of the additional things we need to do. Do you agree with that, Melissa? I totally agree. I totally agree. And one thing I will say is the role that technology has played in those businesses that were able to be successful and sustain during the pandemic is it can't be understated. And I hope hopefully he will talk about that. And our other businesses that are on here that we're highlighting will also talk about that. So our last survey that we did in May of this year, 30 percent of our small business community has embraced technology in order to contend with the closures and the other regulations and rules that, you know, actually changed how they did business. So, you know, technology can't be understated. The role of technology we have to be willing to embrace it. You can't run from it. You have to embrace it if you want to be around. Absolutely. And it certainly has required that we morph and move in different ways. And we again applaud Kiara Streeter, the founder and CEO of Extraordinary Head Hunters LLC, is the business spotlight honoree and her staff, you know, that's joining us today. And, you know, kudos for all that you all are doing for being a shining example to all of us of what it could be, because you all have done so much, not just in terms of the operation of the business itself, but realizing the service to the community is an intricate part of that as well. When we do for others, it comes back to us in so many different ways. Don't get me testifying, Melissa, because I know it to be true. That's right. All right. Well, it's time to go ahead and to introduce Chris Hieblin. You know, when I saw your name, Chris, that you were with us and everything. I mean, we know about you. And I said, Melissa, that's a good guess. And she was like, yeah, yeah. And so we're really excited to have you because you're one of the nation's leading experts in how to turn startup, start ups into multi-million dollar companies, talk about inspiration. For over 30 years, you've worked at the highest levels of some of the world's most recognized brands, including Matt Quest, Rand Mack Malley and Accenture. You know, you co-founded Matt Quest with by itself is a huge, huge thing. But you're a longtime angel investor. You ran a corporate venture fund, two micro venture funds, totaling over seventy five million dollars. Man. And you still find time to hang out with us. OK, so let's talk a little bit because I know that you write for income into blog. And a few years ago, you published your first book about startups called Build Before. Now, that's especially important right now, you know, because as we are all looking at all this uncertainty that we have, Chris, you know, to be able to talk to someone who's done it successfully is a real deal. And so right now we want to welcome you and ask you for any opening comments before we start this fireside chat. And I start to read you some of the questions that we have from our eager audience, Chris. Thank you for that very nice introduction, Cynthia. What a great crew. I mean, I don't know about you. If you're harsh, not pumping at this point, then something's wrong with you. I mean, look at the the the energy from the video, right? I mean, clearly she's a force of nature, right? And, you know, in this last year and a half, the pandemic and how the rules changing. And the one thing that no one can control is your energy, right? So maybe we'll kick it off there. What do we want to talk about today? I got so much to share. Yeah, I know. Well, let me start by just asking you a couple questions as co-founder of MacQuest and executive to several software companies. How do you measure your success? Because I got to tell you, you know, Chris, right now, in this environment, you know, it helps to have groups like OBO and others to continue to inspire small businesses because they got real dark, real quick. You know, for a number of people, we didn't see it coming. And so having to figure out whether or not we are in the right lane, whether we need to switch lanes, when slow down speed up has been, you know, kind of it's been on the minds of all of us as small business owners. And the decisions that we make with those questions often determine how successfully we have navigated ourselves. So, hey, oh, well, you know, God, there's so much stuff unpacked there. I mean, how do we measure success? I think we do it differently based on, you know, it goes back to like Maslow's hierarchy of needs or something like what do we need? I think we all start companies for different reasons and it's different for all of us, right? I mean, some of it do it because it's their job. Some people do it because they want to make a lot of money. Some people want fame. Some people want respect, right? These are all kind of basic needs. And so I think it's a different across the board. Excuse me. The interesting thing is I think what the last year has done is tested our entrepreneurial kind of, you know, core, right? And I think, you know, I got to be careful not to be insincere. Like I think if you're an entrepreneur that ups and downs are always there, right? I mean, certainly the pandemic kind of. Bigger spotlight on for small businesses not being able to operate. That's out of your control. I think for many of you know, you had to figure out like what do I do? Do I do I go silent? Do I do I pivot to this thing? You know, I think it's tested our entrepreneurial reserve, right? And, you know, hopefully maybe most of us will come out stronger for it. But well, you write about that. And I think that that's probably one of the things people appreciate from the level of honesty that you bring to conversations like these and all the interviews that I've seen you do. That's been the most important part of it all. Because at the end of the day, if people blow smoke, it doesn't, you know, that doesn't transfer in the dollars and cents. No. And so people are interested in. Here's a question. People are interested in, you know, we all know, for instance, with my business and everybody else's business that's on, we have to deal with our competition. You know, there are a lot of good marketing companies like my, you know, that are out there. So one of the biggest things that I've seen you talk about is not seeing it as a competitive situation, but seeing it as an inclusive situation where the product is the main thing. And so if our product is good, it's probably needed by the masses. And so that means there's enough for everybody. So can you talk about that? So it's so funny that we got into this because the reason some of them, by the way, it looked like both the mayor and I are in hotel rooms. I promise you, we're not in the same one. I'm on Hampton Street at the Marriott, so I'm from North Carolina. I've been coming down here for a few months to see what I could do to help the entire city and region figure out ways to build more entrepreneurs. Now, my focus is more on kind of high growth, high tech entrepreneurs, but the lessons there are the same lessons that we could share today. So why am I here? Well, there's a scarcity mindset sometimes that we all take. And a scarcity mindset is it's a fixed pie and we're all fighting over our slice or even our crumbs. That's a competitive view of things. And not that I don't want to stick my head in the sand and pretend that competitive things aren't aren't real. But there's the also the non-scarcity notion is that we can make the pie bigger, right? And then when we make the pie bigger, there's there's a lot of pie for a lot of people. And so back to your point, Cynthia, I mean, if you offer a quality product and you offer a quality service and you do it in a way that is frictionless to our customers and you find ways to find your customers, I believe that takes care of almost all of the business, right? And what invariably happens is people forget one or more of those things. And and sometimes focus on I think the wrong things are the things that aren't as important, right? So let's all make the pie bigger feels a lot more fun than fighting over the crumbs of the pie. You know, it's interesting because people see map question. We know how early you started in the game. But then we see all these other local finding kinds of directional apps, tools that people can use, but still you stand. And so I think it's important, you know, that that people recognize that. And I think it's all in the attitude. As you mentioned, just make the pie bigger. We know the need is there. Sometimes we have to remind people of the need, you know, but, you know, that's what that's what distinguishes us in so many different ways. If not, we can all be robots working for the man and the big company. Sorry. Did I say that out loud? Oh, you did. Now, listen, almost 40 percent of 40 percent of respondents have indicated they plan to increase the use of technology in the future as a result based on a survey that the city of Columbia and the Office of Business Opportunity did. As someone who works in the software development area, can you can you kind of explain to us the importance of not only capitalizing on technology, but using it as tool to survive in this technology driven environment and never has it been truer than it is right here today, right now. I love this question right here right now, because I know that most of the people in the audience are probably not, you know, super tech people and maybe not have applied. I mean, I'm sure there's a few exceptions here, but typically in small business technology, you know, to the level that I've done all tech companies, right? I know that it hasn't been applied, but I'm going to tell you two things, and there's two really important things that is a thread through our conversation today, not just mine, but what's already persecuted before me. Excuse me, and that is two things. One is technology can be used on on what I say both ends of your company, which means technology can be used to figure out how to acquire more customers and technology could be used in order to figure out how to reduce expenses and both those things have positive impacts on your company. All right. So everyone should be going, yeah, I got it, Chris. That's like the most obvious thing in the world. The scary part is what technology, how, when, and as a as a business owner who's still running their business day today, how do I layer in how to how to put this new thing in my business and it comes down to one word and one word only community, right? Here's a community that's, you know, if we don't have it yet, let's figure out how to augment it and build it more. But here's a community out here ready to help without fees per se, right? And I know each one of us does that. I mean, are your award recipient exemplified this? Like, how can I help others? And my old company, we called this give first. How do we give without any expectation of getting anything returned? And I promise you, you'll get it back in ways you didn't even manage or imagine in spades. So the problem with give first is actually not getting more people to give. It's having people ask for help. And I'm not saying that, you know, myself or anybody on here is going to give you 40 hours of free technical help. I'm not saying that. I'm saying, good, get out there and ask people, hey, I have this kind of business. I'm thinking about an email marketing or I'm thinking about this piece of software that helps my kitchen run better or whatever it is and ask others, what do you do? And that's not competitive. That's just being an authentic real entrepreneur to say, why do I have to figure everything out myself? How can I reach out to my community and lean on them for some help? And what I found in the four months that I've been kind of walking around and meeting Aisha and the team and everyone else in this city and this region is that there's a little bit of I can't. There's a little bit of a culture of I don't I can't ask for help because that'll show weakness. And I'm telling you, let's just just actually let's blow that crap out of the water right now. You know, put your ego to the side and don't pretend that the face of entrepreneurship, you have to have all the answers, you know, be vulnerable, meet one on one, grab someone, ask for an introduction to someone and say, you know, what do you think? And and out of that, I think you can figure out how to apply more technology easier than the scary specter that it may be with you. Sorry for that long winded answer. But that's really good. In fact, I'm going to follow it up with the question to Melissa Lindler. I raise your triggers in their team because you mentioned the significance of knowing where the opportunities are networking. You all have a few ways that you offer for us as businesses to network together and figure out ways to maximize those synergies and those relationships. So does anyone want to talk about what those ways are so people who are on with us who may not be familiar with our offerings will know what they are? OK, I will actually ask for Collina to share about share with the audience. Our goal here at the city or citywide, minority women, entrepreneurial, small minority women, entrepreneurship utilization goal that we have at the city of 15 percent, but also to share with her share with our audience also about the minority business directory that we implemented as a result of not having our in-person minority business opportunity conference. Collina, do you want to share with people how they can participate? Yes. That's awesome, guys. Thank you, Melissa. And thank you, Chris, for leading us. So thank you, Melissa. Thank you, everyone. Good morning. My name is Collina McGingard. I am the program coordinator here with the City of Columbia's Office of Business Opportunities. And we have, well, typically we do the minority business opportunities conference that we've had but unfortunately, due to COVID, we weren't able to do this in person. So we decided to have our conference virtually, but we also added the minority business opportunities directory. And in that directory consists of listings from all of our City of Columbia departments, including the Office of Business Opportunities and our community partners that that provide information on the goods and services that they are looking to purchase. And all of these departments and community partners are looking for so many different items and services to procure at some point that they would like to use. And in time with that, back in 2015, our city manager, Teresa Wilson, implemented the citywide utilization goal. And at the time of the implementation, 10% of every city department's budget, whether it's Office of Business Opportunities, Parks and Recreation, our IT team, everyone, 10% of their budget had to go to purchasing goods and services from minority, small minority women-owned businesses. And since that implementation, the goal has increased on an annual, on a yearly basis. Recently in fiscal year 2018, 2019, we were able to surpass the goal at 12% by the end of the fiscal year. So at the beginning of fiscal year 2019, city manager Wilson increased that goal from 10% to 15%. So now the goal is at 15%. And I'm happy to say that during fiscal year 2019, 2020, we were able to meet the goal, even though the last three months of the fiscal year we were in COVID, we were still able to meet that goal. We are on the way of meeting the goal again for fiscal year 2020. And that was the first entire year that we were in COVID-19. So even though we didn't have a lot of in-person events, we were still purchasing face masks and all different types of supplies that the city departments needed to continue to serve and do work. And we are still on the way of meeting that goal. And since we have just started and I encourage everyone who is on the call to please review our direct. We have it uploaded on our city website and I'll also put it in the chat for anyone who's interested. Thank you. Awesome. And one more thing, Ms. Skinyard, if you can give people the email address if they want to email you all directly. Yes, you can email our office. It's obio at columbiasc.gov. Or if you would like to just talk to me, you can email me. My email address is kalina.ginyard at columbiasc.gov. And I'll put that information in the chat. And also if you would, Ms. Skinyard, Eddie Brewer is asking to everyone how do new vendors or businesses get their names on that list if you'll put that in the chat as well. Well done. And we thank you for all that you do. Thank you so much. Chris, I'm going to ask you about your book, Build the Fort. Now, before I do that, there are a few different people that are asking questions, right? And so I want to kind of highlight- Not nearly enough. There's not nearly enough questions out there. Not nearly enough. So, OK. So Chris, one of the things people want to know, could you talk about businesses that are consulting and consultant based writers says they're unicorn in their field and how can we as small businesses bring attention to what we do? And when we asked what your area it came back, I think it's contract management, which is also a significant area that people can exist in and make a good living in as well. Yeah. So I'll try my hardest to keep this short because basically asking for is like a three hour consult in one minute. But I mean, Cynthia, you this is the world you live in, right? I mean, no, no, your target audience is know where they live. I mean, both physically and virtually and and digitally, and then figure out a way to shout loudly and to speak in their language. What I find is way too many businesses cast too wide of a net in order to hope that they'll catch more fish with a wide net. And what happens is you're messaging and your position and and even the name of your company or, you know, and becomes so vanilla and watered down to try to meet everyone that you meet no one. And so narrower is actually better than wider. And in that narrower, if you get the target right, if you get the I mean, there's a lot of ways how you validate that. But if you get your messaging narrow enough that when someone and get in front of someone, then they go, hey, that's me. I need help in contract management. Let me see what you have to offer. And so without knowing anything about your business or how do you go to market? My guess is and I'm not and that's interesting because it fits right into why you wrote your book, you know, because oftentimes we have brain ideas, right? And we know what it is that we want to do. And we, you know, and we're and we're good and we're smart, you know, but when it comes to actually attracting the customers that we want and making a profit at the end of the year, we realize we might need a little bit more consultation, even though we have all those things going for us. So your book talks about those micro steps and starting our own business and key steps and getting new business off the ground, especially during a crisis in your ludic well, and you stated it about knowing where we're going and being narrow in the focus. And I think sometimes, you know, you can take an issue like economics and there are a number of different things that you can do with that business, but you, but it's so big that you have to be narrow for someone to know, oh, that's me. And that's the way you put that. And sometimes the marketing and the targeting is the last thing we decide to do after we open our doors. I mean, and, you know, I'm an old guy, right? So I've, I've done it both ways. The old way is you build something and then you deal side, decide how to sell and market it, right? And it's very linear and step-wise. And by build, I mean everything from writing copy, if you're a consultant or, you know, building your restaurant or or or or whatever it is, right? But the world in the way that we do a startup and the way the world changed is that we have to bring the potential customer equation into the the customer issues into the equation sooner. And so I call this customer development and then product development. And instead of them linear, you have to do them at the same time. And so with that, I think is a lot of confusion. The other thing that entrepreneurs have is we all have this vision of what the full business looks like that you're going to achieve three years from now, right? And that's what wakes us up in the morning and gets us excited. The problem is how the heck do I get between now and three years from now or one year from now or 10 years from now? And so there's probably a thousand things we could do. But there's probably every day three to five that we should do. The question is, which three to five do we choose? And that's where there's been a lot of new thinking about how to do this smarter, how to get the customer involved in your product development earlier. And so what I tried to do there's tons of business books that help you optimize your current company. I want to focus on I have an idea. How the hell do I do something with that and simplify things and show a hands like I ask everyone like how many people build a fort and the answer is almost like all of us, whether it's the inside fort with the chair upside down on the couch and the blanket, right? Or it's the outdoor fort. And so I use that that kind of parable, if you will, and I tell a fort building story in my book just to say, let's simplify this and figure out how to focus on the right things. And if we do that, I think we increase our chances of success earlier. OK, and Chris, this is an interesting question that that I've been touched. And it's, you know, during the pandemic, some of the world shifted and so some of the businesses that were relevant before are less relevant now. And so because that is the case, how do we know how to pivot or when to pivot? Or, you know, some people, some of us find out later than we need to that. I'm sorry, people aren't coming to this gate anymore. They're actually going over there to that gate. That's why everybody's inside and nobody's over here. And so we want to be able to make good decisions at the time that we need to make the decision so we can still be profitable. So it occurs to me in answering that question. We can't be fearful. We almost have to be bold in our decisions, which means being prepared. And I think there's not only that, Cynthia, but there's one other thing. I think we need a very healthy sense of self-awareness and look in the mirror and say, I'm watching my customers stop showing up. Again, it comes back to customer more than product. I've been offering a product to a set of customers. And now my product doesn't seem to be as relevant as it used to be, right? Because they changed. Well, you know, not shame on them. As entrepreneurs, it's our job to figure out how to deliver and serve their needs. So I think a healthy belt of self-awareness and honesty with yourself and maybe with your partners to say and making sure to your point like you're watching this and then recognize, hey, there's a shift happening. And if you wait too long with that, then I'm sorry. Like that's shame on you. Like if you're a good entrepreneur and you're running your business, you should be looking and watching your customers all the time, asking them, right, even the city here, put out a survey in May, right? That's because you're their customers. They're trying to make sure they keep their finger on the pulse of what you need and what you're doing. You have the same challenge. And so, you know, there's a lot of people who just go like, I'm going to keep doing the same thing and I'm going to muscle through. And I'm going to show resilience. Well, it's resilience plus smarts and honesty and self-awareness, not just resilience. You know, and that's one of the things that's been interesting for me to watch as a news person to watch the Office of Business Opportunities, the city's theme about being resilient was actually exemplified in the way OVO started using their resources to undergird businesses, oftentimes, non-traditional businesses, you know, that without the guidance of, you know, some guidance to let them know what the trends were, where they fit into that and to help them actually think about it, because think about it. A lot of us were in shock when the pandemic hit and people stopped showing up and the resources started drying up. And many of us were, you know, kind of spinning our wheels for the first 30, 60, 90 days, just trying to figure out what the heck has hit us. And then by the time we spin out and try to figure it out, it's, you know, sometimes, as you mentioned, later than it needs to be. So the kinds of resources that we're seeing from places like the city of Columbia, you know, and the city was out there with the 1.4 before PPP even came into being, which is a true, which was a true benefit to so many people. We have people asking, you know, how do they make sure that they're headed in the right direction? You know, they're reading as much as they can when they can. But these wing winds keep becoming more and more uncertain. I wish I had one great answer for you. I mean, and I liken it to a question that I've gotten all over the world, like, how do I know when to quit? And then I'm not saying that's your question, but it's in that same family, right? It's in context. And the answer is, I don't know only you know. And all I know is that, you know, look for signals that aren't about you, right? And I know we have this passion and that's, you know, that's like the ante into the poker game, like you have. That's not it. That's not the only thing you have to have, but it has to be one of the pieces. But with that passion, sometimes it clouds us. And that's that self awareness and looking in the mirror part. I think the best piece of advice, the best way to answer that is to say, go out and talk to other people, see what's happening, see what your energy levels like, look at your data, whatever data you have, look for signals, take all that in, make sure you get as many pieces of information that aren't just about you and your heart. In other words, get data and look at the data and let the data influence your final decision. And I'm meaning I'm saying data in like the most generic vanilla, right? Way possible. Look, look for external signals, talk to your customers, see what's going on. With all honest, I mean, in this pandemic, we didn't know whether this was going to last a month, three months, six months, a year or a year and a half. So that being said, no one can kind of figure that out. But outside of that. Yeah, that's good, Chris. It leads into the next thing I want to ask him. We've talked about so much of it. And so let me know if you have anything else to add on this question that our audience is asking about some of the other issues that small businesses have to continue with today that they didn't have to face before COVID and how to approach those issues. I think you've dealt with a lot of that, but there's anything else you want to add in that regard. Yeah, I'd like to pile on and double down on the whole networking thing. And what I I really believe that entrepreneurship is a team sport, not a solo sport. I like to say when you're the only one in the entrepreneurial room, then every decision is perfect. Right, because there's no one there to argue with you and say, what? So and so even if you are kind of a solo entrepreneur running a restaurant or a service and media company, whatever, you know, there's a there's a community out there. And I the new word networking has a negative connotation. And the reason it has a negative connotation is because most of us believe that networking is about a transaction. I'm trying to get someone from someone else, something from someone else. And it's not that you know this, right? It's just about connecting on a human level. I spend. Well, I can tell you without any exaggeration that I live in Raleigh, Durham and in the last 10 years, I've met one on one with at least 4,000 people. And I continue to three to five a week. Most of those are now virtual than in person. My point of that is that when you get yourself out there and you make that part of the recipe of your business, you're going to find invariably find three to five people that you just connect with and grabbing a cup of coffee, a lunch, an end of day frosty beverage and just hearing what's going on, hearing what they're doing. That is so knowledge like you get to get knowledge, inspiration, support all the things you need. And I think we need to treat this job as not a we're in our back room kind of hunkered down, you know, weeping about works, things going like get out there, share what's going on. Don't be afraid to share, be vulnerable. And I think a lot of great things can happen out of that. So use the community. You know, Chris, groups like this have been a godsend during the pandemic, you know, because many of us have had the opportunity to still ourselves, take a close look at what we're doing and our bank accounts. You know, to determine if we're doing it the right way. You know, we've had mental health challenges in our community for a long time, but they've been heightened over the past year. And, you know, for entrepreneurs, you know, I want to say to entrepreneurs helping to mitigate the damage caused by burnout is something that we just have to look at ourselves with mental or behavioral kinds of attention. Is it necessarily something that happens over there? You know, it's oftentimes, you know, we look at our mental and think about, you know, what's our outlook, you know, toward what it is that we're doing and is our outlook helping. And I think that we have to be open and honest and clear when we're working through crises like we are right now and aren't sure what's going to happen on the other side. It can take a toll on a person. Without a doubt. And my former business partner, Brad Feld, is very well known writer, author and investor out of Boulder, Colorado has openly talked about his mental health challenges. And this is someone who, by all accounts, is one of the most successful investors, startup persons in the world. And the first thing we're trying to do is bring awareness and be open about that this isn't something that's only for the select few. This is something that runs rampant in the entrepreneurial community. And some of it is we put on ourselves by thinking, I always say there's two faces that we put on as an entrepreneur. This is public face. We got it all. Everything's working great. And you got to do that to your employees, maybe to your investors, to a board of directors, to your family, right? We got to put up like, it's all good straight ahead. And then let's be honest, we also know there's the other face, which is I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know where we're going. I don't know how we're going to get through this. And the first thing is let's recognize that we all have both of those faces. And what I'm here to tell you is that there's someone here on this call in this Zoom room that would be willing to listen to you, right? And just have you just kind of express that. And that doesn't mean, and many times it can't be your family or your employees because you do have to have that other face to give them confidence and not let them worry. But you need an outlet to talk about that stuff. And I want everyone to hear that if you think you're the only one that's going through this, you're not. No matter who you are, no matter what the success is or not, we've all been through these challenges and dark moments. And so reach out. And if it gets nasty, please contact somebody. You're not alone. Chris, one of the comments we have, there are people on with us that are just starting businesses and they want a little bit of encouragement about what they're getting themselves into. What do you tell them? Shit, like, let's do it. Like, all right. Let's do it. Let's do it. So I say there's five steps to Build the Fort. I'll run through them really quick. By the way, I put my email on the chat. I'm going to tell people that. Say that again. Yeah, my email is on the chat, chrisatbuildthefort.com. You can email me any question. If you ask me what the meaning of life is, I'm probably not going to answer that. But, and then I do have open office hours on my website's currently down. My son's updating it this week. But be patient. Go to thehighvally.com, contact me and you can sign up for 20 minutes and we can talk about whatever you want. And don't be surprised. I'm typically booked two to three weeks in a head, but get your slot. We'll have some fun. But that being said, you know, there's five steps to Build the Fort. If you do the first four, the fifth one is, let's just do it. If you're waiting for more knowns than unknowns, this isn't probably the game for you. This is a game of managing the unknowns. It's a game of discovery to figure out how to make those unknowns knowns. And you can't really, there's only so much you can figure out on paper. The rest of it has to be diving in and trying it. The best way to learn to be an entrepreneur is experientially. And by the way, if you're not ready to do it on your own idea, go work with somebody on their idea and watch them and shadow them and learn from them. And then there's lots of different ways we can go from there. So... People are interested in your success. People want to know a little bit more about how you have been managed to have such a successful career and your greatest personal accomplishments as an entrepreneur. And we know that there are many, but we love the fact that you seem rooted and grounded with regular business people, just regular people. Almost as if you're saying I'm regular people too. I am regular people too. I'm flawed, I've been lucky, I've done all of these things. I mean, you know, I enjoyed... By the way, I came down here a introverted college graduate. I came down from Philadelphia to University of South Carolina in the January of 1983 to get a graduate degree in geography. I want to let you know that I can still remember to look at my dad's face when I told him I was going to be a geography major and then go on and get a master's degree in the darn geography stuff. Obviously the geography thing panned out pretty well. It did. Now, that being said, and I'm happy to tell that story and I know that's an interesting story, that feels like talking about being a high school quarterback, right? So I'm just a regular guy. I've had my, I've had successes, I've had failures, I've had dark moments, I've had positive moments. And the thing about me, I tell people I have career ADD. What that means is I know in myself, I do think I love to take blank sheets of paper and get things started. And then if they start to, and some of them go places and some of them peter out and die. The ones that go places, I eventually hand them off to somebody else because I don't enjoy managing the business. I enjoy the chaos part. So I've had, I do things every three to five years, I do something different because that's what makes me happy and that's why I figured out I am. So the advice, and I can talk about successes and how do you do it, you know what? Be true to yourself, figure out who you are and create your life around that. And I happen to get lucky early. I do believe it's as much luck as it was positioning, timing, very much timing. But that being said, I also figured out how to have no fear. And knowing that like at the end of the day, what's the worst thing that happens? Well, you know, I tried this thing, it didn't work onto the next one. Like, you know, I always say what's the, you know, I always say when I speak from the audience, raise your hand if you've started a company and the result is that you died. Well, obviously that's, you know, so that's actually the worst case scenario. So, you know, moving up from there, you know, just anyway, you got it. Well, yes, but we want to continue with that because, you know, our theme is opportunities out of crisis. Yeah. And when you started to see all these other folks discover what you discovered in that it's further ground over here. Did you panic when you first saw everybody else running in your direction in terms of your business model? No, that's the best feeling in the world. I mean, I've gone from doing it for myself to doing it for a handful of people through investing to saying, how do I build startup communities all around the world? How can I help the city, the state, the county, the university, these organizations, these individuals who are standing up, co-working spaces like Greg Hilton at SoCo. And, you know, how do I help all these people figure out a way to work better together so that we can make this pie bigger? And now I get to impact not one or a handful. Maybe I get to impact a hundred entrepreneurs. And that feels good to me. That's been the lattice. I'm now in about year five of that blank sheet of paper. And so, you know, let me do a little better job of answering the question. Like maybe the question is, so how do I do it? I'm super curious. I'm just a guy. I'm not any smarter or dumber than anybody else. I talk to lots of people. I'm a person who socializes my ideas freely. I want to get that feedback. I want people to go like, huh? Or go like, oh yeah, that's great. And out of that, I get energy and momentum and I eventually figure out hopefully what people need so that I can find a way to serve them. That's how I'm very curious and unwilling to try things. I'm not a risk taker. By the time I make the decision, I've gathered a lot of data. So. You know, I want to remind our audience that we are in our Q and A section right now. We've asked you all to list your questions in the chat and we'll continue to take those questions from the chat and want to remind you to go ahead and put them there. This is an awesome opportunity that we have to be able to chat with Chris and also just to be able to interface with each other about the successes that we've had, the values that of course we have been able to garner. There've been a lot of valuable lessons that we have learned over the pandemic and we've been able to share with others too and it's been really powerful to be able to have that sense of camaraderie within our group. So we remind you if you don't get your questions answered during today's forum that we will send you those. You know, we'll send those answers to questions for those of you all who are in attendance. I want you now, Chris, if you could talk to our group about the fact that you've been meeting with businesses in Columbia over the past few months with small business owners and you have a general consensus about what our needs are, strengths, weaknesses, needs, opportunities and so share anything that you would like to about that. Yeah, and I was just looking through the chat real quick while you were talking Cynthia. Yes, I do realize my website's under construction and if we want it up, we need to like tell my son to get his act together and actually finish the work that I asked him to do a few days ago but I think by Friday, Saturday, we'll have it back up and you'll see a whole bunch of articles and a whole bunch of resources and a way to reach out to me but you can also send me an email and I'll send you a link to my calendar if you want to take your 20 minutes. So to be clear, my focus for Columbia and the Midlands region is more on high growth, high tech companies and I realized this is not this audience per se and I define a high growth, high tech business as someone who's using a decent amount of technology to help grow a business that kind of has no ceiling, right? With the idea that we want to create a little bit more of an innovation economy here in the Midlands. Like many places I've gone to, we all know the phrase, the hole is bigger than the sum of the parts. But what I find here, hey guys, how about you mute? Cause now you're the speaker. Unless you guys want to sell something but anyway, good to see you guys. So Cynthia, what I'm finding is that and this at Columbia and the Midlands is no different than any other place is that we're slightly less than the sum of our parts. So we're not even the whole, right? We're not even the sum of our parts for slightly less. We have fantastic assets. Obviously universities, not just USC but Benedict and Allen and others, right? We have a very, very involved city and county who are through programs like this who are trying to encourage. But all of that is not coalesced to something that's bigger than those parts. And so, and it has to do, this is typical in cities that have kind of a state government, right? Where the government and the university are the largest employers, right? We just don't have that many people thinking that Columbia is a place that I can start a company or a business. And so the first thing I'm doing is finding ways to change the culture. And it's a long-term play. It takes, it's a generational change. It takes 20 years is what my partner Brad and I talk about. It's a 20-year journey that restarts every day. But I've done this in places as, you know, smaller than this, Fort Wayne, Indiana and in bigger places like Lima, Peru and Buffalo, New York and Louisville. And so we're just gonna try to change the culture and we're gonna smash some people together. We're going to encourage more connectivity, break down some barriers and just mix and match and create these collisions. That out of that, hopefully some sparks will start to emerge. Chris, as we asked for your closing comments, I do want to acknowledge all of the businesses that are on with us today and applaud you for all that you've done to be able to survive during these very tough times. One of our businesses, a very successful marketing and communications business, Tom Sawyer Communications, owned by Carolyn Sawyer, reminds all of us of the significance, Chris, of the need to pivot to survive in these times that we're in. And your closing comments, as you get it back together and rejoin us and your closing comments using that theme along the lines of pivoting to survive and of course opportunities out of crisis is the same way that the city of Columbia has termed it, talk to us in your clothes about what you'd like to leave with us in terms of inspiration to go forward. You're muted. Thank you. I had to plug my computer in all of a sudden. Oh, shit. It's run out of power. That would be great. And good night. Good day. Great. This is a great place to summarize because we've hit on a couple of great pieces. And so let me bring them together. As entrepreneurs, we're never done, right? We're always evaluating our business. We're always trying to think about how to move forward to maintain what we have and possibly even grow more to what we have. And to do that, obviously the pandemic has been a two by four to the back of the head, right? Let's recognize that. So the question is, how are we going to react to that? I told you that I love the blank sheet of paper, the zero to one part. Well, this is like restarting your business over again. That's okay, right? Don't be, you know, we can be a victim of that but we can decide, hey, it's just a next chapter of my business. We have to reform it. Let's go talk to customers. Let's go talk to peers. Let's see what they're thinking. Let's use the community as a whole to learn from so that I can make better decisions about what modifications I should or shouldn't do where I should focus my energies. And to do that, all they're trying to do is increase your chances of success just a few more points. And just, I just beg you not to think that you're alone in this and you're the only one going through this. There's a community and a bunch of services and ask anybody on this group to connect you to somebody else and just socialize what's going on. And out of that, you should be able to make better decisions and understand what kind of pivots you need to make to either survive or to prosper. Well, Chris, highly mad quest co-founder and author of Build the Port. We certainly have enjoyed you as our featured speaker today and we appreciate all that you bring. I will at this point yield to Melissa Lindler who is our director to see if there's anything she'd like to add before we move forward to the next segment of our program. I just wanna thank Chris for all the great nuggets that you dropped here. You have articulated a lot of things that I had in my mind as we've gone through this pandemic with our small business community. And I think a lot of them can relate to everything that you said. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. And thank you for making yourself available to our small business community for that direct consultation. Please take advantage. He's a wealth of information and knowledge and he's so approachable and so relatable as you can tell. And Cynthia, thank you. The exchange between both of you was wonderful. I'm excited. Actually, I've been taking notes. That's why my head was down. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We always learn, we always grow. I think one thing that I can take from this is the point about being willing to adjust and not being in fear. It's okay, change is okay. Sometimes change is forced. Sometimes it's voluntary. I think right now it's both. So thank you, Chris. Thank you very much. And thank you, Cynthia. Great job. Sure. Guys, thanks for having me. I know that this is a time that we're resisting to our panel discussion Thanks, Chris.