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Curated Collection Of The Best Interviews From Across The Network





MASTERMIND YOUR LAUNCH: Melanie Romanaux with Somedia Solutions

Stefanie Diaz and Melanie Romanaux

Melanie Romanaux/Somedia Solutions

Melanie leads a team of social media specialists who are passionate about connecting brands with their existing audience and reaching new audiences to:

– gain top of mind brand awareness
– provide excellent customer service
– share valuable information and remarkable content
– crowdsource to improve products and services
– develop community and loyalty among fans and followers
– establish credibility, trust, reliability, and consistency as a brand within social communities
– develop and nurture relationships with influential community members and every customer or client

Here’s how it works:

Somedia Solutions helps you form a strategy (based on their Discovery of your brand) that will place you in the right places (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc…) and attract prospects who will not only buy what you’re selling but who also will talk about you and recommend you to their friends, family, and colleagues.

When the strategy has been drafted and your goals are aligned – they help you execute that plan in 1 of 3 ways:

1. Training – they’re passionate about empowering business owners, athletes, entertainers, and authors to successfully and proactively navigate the social media waters

2. Consulting – your marketing team wants to work with Somedia to hear new and innovative ideas and strategies to create an even more engaging and remarkable brand experience for your fans on social networks. Bring them in for the day, pick their brains, and then your team can take those ideas and run with them.

3. Management – they’ll do the heavy lifting for you and manage all the points of a successful social media strategy:

– listening and monitoring
– responding to questions, customer service inquiries, and reaching out to new opportunities
– building your audience
– managing the conversation
– creating and publishing original content
– creating your social media policy
– reporting

Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch

Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com.

 

 

 

Essie Escobedo with Office Angels, Amanda Wilbanks with Southern Baked Pie Company, and Amy Holcomb with SkyMedicus

John Ray, Amy Holcomb, Essie Escobedo, Amanda Wilbanks, Mike Sammond

Essie Escobedo/Office Angels

Office Angels’ mission is to restore joy to the life of small business owners, enabling them to focus on what they do best. At the same time, Office Angels honors and supports at-home experts who wish to continue working on an as-needed basis. Not a temp firm or a placement service, Office Angels matches a business owner’s support needs with professionals who have the skills and experience necessary to handle work that is essential to creating and maintaining a successful small business. For over sixteen years, Office Angels has been helping small business owners, associations, and non-profits with administrative tasks, bookkeeping, marketing support, presentation preparation, speaking engagements, business development, document formatting, database management, research, writing services, and much more.

Amanda Wilbanks/Southern Baked Pie Company

Founded in Gainesville, Georgia in 2012, Southern Baked Pie Company (formerly Buttermilk Pie Company) was launched by University of Georgia graduate and creative entrepreneur, Amanda Wilbanks. With family recipes, Southern charm and an all-butter pie dough that melts in your mouth, Amanda and her team of bakers create gourmet sweet and savory pies for all of life’s special occasions and celebrations. Southern Baked Pie Company masterfully creates a variety of decadent flavors and specialty selections utilizing seasonal fresh fruit from local Georgia farmers and businesses. They offer pies in a variety of sizes including: whole pies, petite pies, and bite-size tassies. While they’re born and baked in Georgia, Southern Baked Pie Company ships pies to corporate and individual clients nationwide.

Amy Holcomb/SkyMedicus

Have you ever considered having dental work done in Mexico, a hip surgery in India or Plastic Surgery in Brazil? SkyMedicus offers the first online, patient-driven healthcare marketplace that allows patients and credentialed physicians across the globe to directly connect in a secure and private forum.  Patients can get procedure approvals, costs and even book their appointments and travel accommodations directly online, while being supported by their very own medical concierge.

MASTERMIND YOUR LAUNCH: Candice Campbell with Nimble. Design Company

Stefanie Diaz and Candice Campbell

Candice Campbell/Nimble. Design Company

With nearly a decade of proven experience bringing connected brands to life in the built environment, Candice brings a strategic, thoughtful eye and holistic, experiential approach to every new engagement. Known for her relentless drive, meticulous attention to detail, and connected design approach, Candice has developed a reputation for delivering powerful brand experiences, and an undeterred level of Client service.

In 2014, Candice formed Nimble. A Design Consultancy to help clients realize and extend brand stories beyond the logo and into the built environment to differentiate, inspire and influence audience behavior.

Since formation, Nimble. has grown from one to an established team of four, producing award-winning, multi-disciplinary brand experiences for clients in real estate and hospitality. In under three years, Nimble. has launched over 75 new brands, led nearly 50 property repositioning campaigns, and traveled 1,000’s of miles to bring innovation and consistent brand exposure to projects in 13 core markets.

With a love for real estate, and a relentless drive to perfect the connection of brand to place, Candice leads strategic vision, art direction, and all signage and interiors work on behalf of Nimble.’s property repositioning projects and key accounts. She directs a growing internal team, and works closely with the firm’s external collaborating creative partners, to craft holistic brand experiences, spanning the gap of branding to built environment.

She is a proud Savannah College of Art and Design grad, holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design. Outside of the studio, Candice enjoys spending time with her husband and son, Landon, endlessly renovating her 50’s ranch and experiencing design through travel.

https://www.nimbledesignco.com

https://twitter.com/nimbledesignco

Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch

Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com.

 

Steve Stroud with Roswell Inc. , Merrill Oakes with Urban Escape Games, and Mark Crutchfield with Roswell Infiniti

John Ray, Steve Stroud, Merrill Oakes, Mark Crutchfield, Mike Sammond

Steve Stroud/Roswell Inc.

Roswell Inc guides the economic development initiatives for the City of Roswell through a public-private partnership, supporting the business community through education, promotion, and building impactful relationships, and cultivating strategic partnership and economic opportunities to ensure Roswell’s competitiveness and strengthen the quality of life for Roswell residents.

Merrill Oakes/Urban Escape Games

Real-life escape rooms are a new concept and Urban Escape Games developed the first game in Georgia. They design all of their games in house with the immersive technology and themed to a story. Upon arrival there will be seating for everyone to watch a briefing video. Once in the game room you watch a video to immerse you into the storyline. Then the countdown clock starts and your team has one hour to find clues, solve puzzles, crack codes, and investigate everything to make it out in time! It is great team builder for companies. Their most recent addition is a Conference Escape Game where they come to your office, hotel or conference center, hosting groups from 50 to 2,500.

Mark Crutchfield/Roswell Infiniti

As one of the nation’s original Infiniti dealers, they have witnessed the growth of our area and how today’s customers expect and demand more than ever before. Their goal is to exceed your expectations. Their satisfied customers, many of them repeat customers, come from all over Georgia and the Southeast because buying or leasing a new Infiniti from Roswell Infiniti is both a pleasant and rewarding experience.

 

MASTERMIND YOUR LAUNCH: Mark Wyssbrod and Jason Binder with Envision Alpharetta

Stefanie Diaz, Jason Binder, Mark Wyssbrod

Mark Wyssbrod has intertwined quality of work with small business economics, the importance of financial position and a tax strategy. He is referred to as a Small Business CFO™. As an Eagle Scout, he understands the significance of being prepared and, as an economist; he understands the worth of being efficient.

Mark has lived in the Northeast, Midwest and Southeast. This diverse background allows him to communicate well with individuals with different backgrounds, as well as understand their motivating factors. Mark has integrated improv in his business, which allows him to be a better active listener and to think creatively for “outside the box” solutions for his clients.

Mark earned his Bachelors of Science in Business and Economics with a concentration in Accounting at the University of Kentucky. He earned his Certified Public Accounting designation from Georgia in January 2002.

With an entrepreneurial spirit Mark has started several successful small businesses. A past business venture was the award winning Pro@ctive CPA. After attending a retreat in the spring of 2013 he made a decision to sell this company in order to spend more time with his family and community. Mark is a “local capitalist” and is a part owner of a local payroll company, sign company, water-collection and reuse company and development company.

Mark believes it is important to give back to his community and he does so with both his time and resources. Mark has been a temporary foster parent, a volunteer at a halfway house, supporter of numerous community activities and events (including the Alpharetta Veterans Memorial in 2015) and just completed his term as the co-chair of Leadership North Fulton. Prior to 2015, Mark volunteered over 180 hours per year; in 2015, Mark volunteered 494 hours; and in 2016 Mark volunteered over 600 hours. The increase in time invested in his community is a result of following a calling to selling his CPA firm and surviving a near-death event.

Mark has been recognized as a Business Person of Excellence by the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce honored him as the 2013 Small Business Peron of the Year. This award was achieved for his focus on quality and commitment to his clients, team members and community. He has also been awarded the Five Star Wealth Manager Award for tax services since 2009 to 2013. In 2015, Mark was honored by the Georgia Society of CPA with the Public Service Award.

Jason Binder is a small business owner and independent financial planner for the firm Acolyte Advisors. He and his wife, Nicolette, have two daughters, Cecilia and Maggie. They enjoy attending local events like Food Truck Alley or taking the girls to the parks and greenway.

Jason has a passion for service within Alpharetta and the greater North Fulton area. Never one to sit back, he takes responsibility and works with others to make a difference for the community. His activities in the areas of community service, civic responsibility and economic development include the following:

  • Working with area nonprofits and organizing projects as the Community Service Director for the Alpharetta Rotary Club. Jason was recently honored as the 2014 Alpharetta Rotarian of the Year.
  • ​Appointed to the Alpharetta Design Review Board in 2012. The Design Review Board’s responsibility is to preserve Alpharetta’s historical and cultural character and enhance the city’s aesthetic value.​
  • Worked to bring Alpharetta’s community together as a co-organizer of multiple Day of Service events. Over 500 volunteers have gathered together to help beautify Alpharetta and support our local non-profit organizations.​
  • Led the development of the Alpharetta Business Academy for the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce.​
  • Serves on the Board of the Alpharetta Public Safety Foundation to support our city’s First Responders.​
  • Completed the Georgia Academy for Economic Development in December 2014. Selected by the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce, the Academy’s multi-day regional program provides participants with an understanding of the complexities of economic and community development.

envisionalpharetta.com

https://twitter.com/@thenimproveit

https://twitter.com/@jasonbinder

Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch

Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com.

Ted Rykoski of Sandler Training, Bryon Evje of Village Vesl and Baha Zeidan of Azalea Health

John Ray, Ted Rykoski, Bryon Evje, Baha Zeidan, Mike Sammond

Ted Rykoski/Sandler Training

Whether you are an entrepreneur entirely responsible for everything in your business or a leader in any size organization, Sandler Training can help you identify the right solutions to help you achieve the goals you have for yourself and your teams. Sandler Training’s global network helps businesses with solutions for Customer Service, Sales, and Sales Management wherever they are on the globe. Sandler’s fully customizable training allows us to effectively serve clients in variety of industries, and company sizes. Their clients are in IT, Banking, Healthcare and many others, and include small to mid-sized through large organizations.

Bryon Evje/Village Vesl

Village Vesl is all about community – for and between community members. Serving residents and visitors of Alpharetta, Milton, Roswell and other Georgia communities, Village Vesl provides information that truly matters – as it happens, in a trusted environment that all participants are passionate about and have a vested interest in: their town. Vesl creates for local residents and businesses a mobile community that enables real-time, location-based communication.

Baha Zeidan/Azalea Health

Azalea Health is a leading provider of cloud-based healthcare solutions and services. The complete Azalea solution provides Electronic Health Records (EHR), Practice Management (PM), Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) billing services, as well as Patient Health Records Portal, and a mobile mHealth application. With a focus on patient engagement, Azalea’s integrated solution has the flexibility to accommodate multiple specialties of any size practice and can immediately improve workflow as well as revenue cycle. The organization also provides tools and resources to help customers navigate the various requirements of MACRA, Meaningful Use, ICD-10 and other regulatory impacts. For more information, visit www.AzaleaHealth.com or call (877) 777-7686.

Thanks to Taco Mac (4305 Old Milton Parkway in Alpharetta) for providing lunch, delivered by ChoicesToYou.com.

 

 

 

MASTERMIND YOUR LAUNCH: Brian Srikanchana with WorkReadyGrad

Stefanie Diaz, Brian Srikanchana, Doug Rhoads

Guest: Brian Srikanchana/WorkReadyGrad

Brian Srikanchana is the Founder and CEO of WorkReadyGrad. He is an Atlanta native, graduate of Georgia Tech (Biomedical Engineering, 2008), and EdTech entrepreneur. While in college, Brian co-invented two medical devices: a piezo-electric gait monitor to help post-stroke patients re-learn how to walk, and a modified bronchoscope for use with quantum dots (quantum dots are fluorescent and bind to cancer cells, helping surgeons know where to cut when removing malignant tissue).

After college, Brian spent four years as an analyst within a long-short equity macro hedge fund. Inspired by his participation in Mentor Jackets, the alumni mentoring program at Georgia Tech, both as a mentee and later as a mentor, Brian founded WorkReadyGrad to scale mentorship to many more students while helping close the US Skills Gap.

WorkReadyGrad connects students with mentors to help them navigate their educational experience. Students will be better able to plan their futures so that upon graduation they are the ideal candidate for the job they’re seeking.

Joining Brian in the studio for the interview is Doug Rhoads, the COO of WorkReadyGrad.

www.workreadygrad.com

https://twitter.com/@workreadygrad

Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch

Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com.

 

Mike Dillon with The Dillon Agency, Jeff Plank with HLB Gross Collins and Dr. Tuan Bui with OrthoAtlanta

John Ray, Mike Dillon, Jeff Plank, Dr. Tuan Bui, Mike Sammond

Mike Dillon/The Dillon Agency

The Dillon Agency is an independent insurance agency. They represent many of the top insurance companies like Cincinnati, Travelers, Hartford, State Auto, Grange and Amtrust. The agency is also a member of Secured Risk that allows them to access a wide variety of specialty carriers. The agency specializes in construction insurance and bonds. The Dillon Agency provides additional value added services such as risk transfer agreements, safety policies, certificate of insurance verification, and annual client reviews. They take pride in the level of service they provide and the commitment they make to be true partners with the companies they represent.

Jeff Plank/HLB Gross Collins, P.C.

HLB Gross Collins, P.C. is an Atlanta-based full service certified public accounting and consulting firm that has been providing excellence in client service for over forty years. Serving clients both locally and around the globe, the firm offers tax, auditing and assurance, business consulting, valuation, estate and personal financial planning, and international services.

Through its affiliation with HLB International, the world’s 12th largest international network of independent accounting and consulting firms, HLB Gross Collins P.C. offers seamless service to meet its clients’ needs anywhere in the world.

Dr. Tuan Bui/OrthoAtlanta

OrthoAtlanta is one of the largest orthopaedic and sports medicine practices in the greater Atlanta, GA area with 37 physicians and 13 physician offices spanning the greater Atlanta metropolitan area including its Gwinnett and Johns Creek offices. OrthoAtlanta offers easy accessibility to patient services including on-site physical therapy, six imaging centers and two AAAHC surgical centers. Comprehensive operative and non-operative musculoskeletal care and expertise includes sports medicine, arthroscopic surgery, hip replacement, knee replacement, neck and spine surgery, hand, wrist and elbow surgery,  shoulder surgery, foot and ankle surgery, physical medicine and rehabilitation, pain management, general orthopedics, fracture care, work related injuries and acute orthopedic urgent care. Learn more at www.orthoatlanta.com.

Lunch provided by L’incontro Italian Restaurant and delivered by ChoicesToYou.com

 

 

 

 

 

MASTERMIND YOUR LAUNCH: Jonathan Hessing, Austin Schmidt, and Zunair Ukani with Shouty

Stefanie Diaz, Jonathan Hessing, Zunair Ukani, Austin Schmidt

Jonathan Hessing

Jonathan is a firm believer and advocate for manifesting realities through positive thinking and energy. Through his life he has found that faith and confidence… and consistency will bring happiness to the mind, body, and spirit. Using this outlook he works with his co-founders to build a company whose platform enables users to make money, as well as view exciting live-streamed content.

Austin Schmidt

Austin is a creative thinker and marketing innovator. Family and friends play a big part in his life. Surrounding yourself with the right people is necessary. He believes that positive thinking and hustle are the keys to becoming successful. Believe in yourself to achieve something, but put in the work and hustle to earn it. Him and his co-founders are utilizing their complimentary skill sets to change the game in live streaming.

Zunair Ukani

Zunair is wanting to copy and paste Jonathan’s biography #twins. He also believes in the concept that everything happens for a reason, and that every occurrence serves a particular purpose into molding an individual into the way he or she is at in their present state. He also believes that the core of human spirituality stems from universal energy in which the manifestation of a desired reality can actually develop. He, alongside his co-founders, aspire to become one of the largest tech leaders from the East Coast. There are only “W’s” for winning, and “L’s” for learning… there is no “losing”.

Stefanie Diaz/Mastermind Your Launch

Stefanie Diaz has always had a keen ability for developing marketing strategies for entrepreneurs, but it’s her ability to position startups for accelerated momentum through personal branding and content marketing that has become the cornerstone to her professional success. Her background includes being a strategic adviser to CEO’s spanning startup phase to over $100 million in annual revenue. She has led strategic partnerships with global retailers and Fortune 500 companies, as well as facilitated multi-million dollar government contracts. There is something magnetic about the energy of startup founders that draws Stefanie in. They’re hungry, driven, and committed to making positive change for themselves and the greater community. After conducting over 60 interviews to date, Stefanie is excited to bring Mastermind Your Launch to the Business Radio X platform. Learn more at MastermindYourLaunch.com

 

 

Mindy Wolf with Wolf Law Firm, Crosby Olinto with NXGEN, and Sherry Wheat with TeleSales

John Ray, Mindy Wolf, Crosby Olinto, Sherry Wheat, Mike Sammond

Mindy Wolf/Wolf Law Firm

Mindy comes from a family of small business owners. She has many years of experience investigating, evaluating, and negotiating property and casualty claims as a senior claims representative, which has given her a deep understanding of many types of businesses and the risks they face. The combination of her knowledge of small businesses and her experience managing risk has made her a natural fit to help small businesses with their legal needs. Over the years, Mindy’s passion has remained constant: She supports the legal needs of small businesses, their owners and key people. But beyond business, Mindy’s broad skills and experience allows her to also serve her clients and their families with more personal matters, such as traffic violations, personal injury cases, and estate planning.  Mindy is the ‘go-to’ person for all of her small business clients. With a vast network of professional connections, Mindy is able to provide referrals for her clients ensuring their needs are met.

Crosby Olinto/NXGEN

NXGEN is a global leader in the electronic payments business. They process credit card and electronic check payments for small businesses located throughout North America and in 13 European Countries. Last April, they were presented, by the lead association in the Payments Industry, with the STAR Award. This award designates NXGEN as the #1 Merchant Service Provider among it’s peers. Crosby Olinto has managed the Southeast Region for NXGEN for the past 5 years. Effective Jan 1, he became an Independent Consultant for the company, allowing him to devote 100% of his time to serving his existing clients, while expanding his business.

Sherry Wheat/TeleSales

TeleSales is an Inside Sales Team that is associated with a Collaborative Team of Business Development, Marketing and Sales Experts, skilled in online and offline technologies, specializing in the Growth of Small & Medium-sized Businesses.