How to Harness the Power of Peer Groups and Partnerships with Bailey Rayford

from the crossroads of America and the hoer state of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the Heartland I'm Matt hunkler CEO at Powder Keg and I'll be one of your hosts for today's conversation I'm joining in Studio by co-host Nate spangle head of community at powderkeg and on the show today is bayy Rayford CEO of Kendall Logan Logistics and just be like oh my weight my my shoulders have been heavy because I couldn't release this or I couldn't talk about this to certain groups and then when you find those certain groups it just you're such at ease Bailey reord is the CEO at Kendall Logan Logistics a black woman-owned logistics company based in Indianapolis and it's a very interesting business Kendall Logan has an all women leadership team Decades of experience in the supply chain industry and does a ton of work in the skincare industry Pharmaceuticals and medical equipment working with big customers like Walmart and on the show today in this conversation we're going to discuss how to land large Partnerships to accelerate growth using business as a force multiplier for good and we're going to share some startup stories that are sure to inspire new ideas and perspectives in your own career here's Bailey raford Bailey thank you so much for being here thank you for having me I'm so excited to be here with you to today you have such a cool company and I I Logistics is something that is like very much outside in my comfort zone so I hope just you'll forgive me with my ignorance as we dive into all things supply chain and Logistics sure but I I would love it if you could for the audience just explain your business what it is that you do with Kendall Logan and yeah maybe just the high Lev view of the business would be really helpful oh yeah again thank you for having me today kindall Logan is is a third party Logistics firm every day we are shipping we're kiding we're providing fulfillment distribution warehousing and some small local I say within Central Indiana transportation services we're moving product to pharmaceutical drugstores B2B retailers and we're also fulfilling direct to Consumer yeah oh so you're like picking chipping individual individual pieces direct to people's doors so what we do is for example if you had a business and you wanted to have a fulfillment partner you would ship your product to us and through our warehouse management system and the technology that we use your orders now come to us it bypasses you or you have access to see it as well but we are actually seeing those orders come through too as we see the orders every day we pick the items whatever process and layout you have of how you want your boxing to look what do you want in there inserts marketing materials we we put those items in there to your spe to your as specific as you want it and we are the ones who are delivering it to your customers so fascinating how did you get started it feels like that scale that works really well right you have this big Warehouse you have a ton of customers right so you're picking and packing maybe five orders for this business five orders for that business 10 for that one how do you get started though if it's just like one or two customers and not very much order volume so ironically when I preco I would say probably 6 months prior to co so am how timelines work I know time warp I've always had my hand in transportation Logistics meaning dispatching brokering but I always consider that's the last mile when it comes to transportation and I'll be honest in our community when someone says I'm in logistics you usually say how many trucks do you have so there was a knowledge and there was a part of this entire process to me that's never talked about for career Pathways entrepreneurship professional careers as it relates to every part of the shipping or placing that order or designing that order to the delivery so I call it the guts so nobody really talked about the guts inside M and I don't know I woke up I just had my second child and I was like I want to figure out something else that I can make money with still have my flexibility with my kids my husband has a demanding job so I do know the importance of being a wife and I just decided I want to learn more about warehousing ironically I ran into or met a gentleman who owned a third party L logistics company in hendri county and I don't know even how it even came it was like very quick he was like what do you want to do and I was like I really want to learn warehousing and he was like okay you can learn as much as you want to so I'm grateful for that cuz he could have easily said to me you're not going to learn my secret sauce yeah um what kind of business was that it was literally the same but it was in a million s foot facility to the corner you were working in automotives to the other corner you were working in technology and testing you were in the back working in Pharmaceuticals had two more facilities in the city one was completely cold chain you still had a e-commerce B2B D Toc section so everything you actually could ever want to learn wow just happen to all be in the same building so and and you went and and worked there I did I became I called myself his 40-year-old into turn yes I woke up one day and I just decided to go and literally just learn what do you think aspiring entrepreneurs can gain from going to work in entrepreneurship being The 40-Year-Old intern before they start their business I think what they can learn is just sometimes you have to home if if you have the opportunity I was blessed yes to have the opportunity to just go and dive in uh a lot of people can't do that just for resources are financial and and there's no issue with that um but I think what they can learn is when you're in that space and you're not necessarily an employee you really get to see the good the bad the ugly MH um you know I saw where um a scope would come in Monday and quick turnaround to have a pricing to them by Wednesday I'm like we just got this on Monday he was like I don't care they they ask for it this is something they need ready real time you saw the ins and out of just so working on Saturdays or the the the late evenings after everybody else had gone home you were during Co it was extremely critical because at this point you're essential your hands are on a lot of the vaccines we see it on TV we hear about it on national news but no one really ever talked about the back office and the buildings and the people who are working I think that we had Connor Hitchcock of HomeField on the show a little bit ago and and he talked about Black Friday oh it's so great for all these orders to come in but what you don't see is him and all of his employees working until 2: a.

m. trying to make sure that the shipping times are down and that they're customers are getting their products and through holidays weekends nights like I think we kind of with the Amazon age right we take for granted oh it's going to show up the same day someone's got to be pulling that off the shelf packaging that up and chipping it out yes and I think a lot of times Amazon has changed the business because even though I'm not an Amazon my customer who who is the owner whose products I'm shipping they still want their customer to feel that they're getting the Amazon experience so that takes on resources for us to be able to think wow I've got to have the same I've got to have a warehouse management system that's going to turn around quickly the the the tracking numbers things with just small things I'm going to have people who are working because now if they paid for the expedited shipping and they just decided today at this time time to order but they decided to pay the extra $20 and they wanted there tomorrow how does that fit into whatever already got going on today so when you see those red flags pop up you're like wait those 50 orders now have to go into your daily work so that sometimes mean now I've got to pay overtime to somebody or I'm going to become the labor I'm just going to do it when everybody goes home or I'm going to come in on a weekend myself and I'm going to actually do this just to keep my customer happy it's Prett incredible that you had that opportunity to go in and see at that scale the kind of business that you wanted to start and I feel I'd love to just slow down a second and ask a little bit more about that experience of meeting that person that owner of that business how did that conversation go how did you present yourself how did you even get into a conversation with this person in the first place because sometimes I I feel like that kind of connection clearly was life-changing for you MH in a lot of ways a lot of times I think people don't know how to facilitate or manufacture out of thin air seemingly those kinds of life-changing connections so I'd like to go back and say I grew up in an entrepreneurial household yeah sometimes the ask sometimes even you know what I don't know everything about this but what I do know is I want to back up the last mile I just don't want to be at the end I want to be in the middle or closer to the front as possible because what I noticed is I can negotiate more towards the front by the time I get to that last Mile and treking there's no negotiation anymore you're taking what's left and you got to have to be happy with it why because you need to move those trucks so I'm like no we're going to move it I'll start to say my family my dad started accompany him my mom 50 years ago very small business so allowing my brothers and I to still sit in the room be in the space good day bad day being watching them say I don't know how to do this but I know someone who does so watching like your parents do that then it comes to me second nature and I always live by if I don't know something and if it's something I want I'm going to go seek out and find people who do and I'm literally going to become a sponge so back to but I didn't know him he I was assisting another group with dispatching their trucks and this individual had given them the opportunity to basically partner with him as around like you just said Black Friday a big be Hest I'm like there is no way this man is going to allow you to use his assets and build your business what's the catch and I think I probably said that a thousand times um but now I know him I know there was not a catch that is just exactly how his DNA is built and he knew how people had helped him get started in his business and he was living his life to pass it on um so I got to work with him and learn him in those capacities literally at first and then um and it wasn't necessarily me starting a business in warehousing it was me wanting to just ex you know expand my knowledge and it could have been time because I was considering a professional opportunity once my son got a little older sure um how I got to the point of saying I'm going to do this for a business it was later on um I had started really diving in and he was allowing me to sit at the table and we had an opportunity with some Founders small companies that were being started in health care skin care um vitamin supplements they didn't have large um minimum orders so that's where the five to 10 a day were coming in well a lot of times those they can't go out and get a third party Logistics partner in that process what happens is they're told oh you don't have enough quantity or um call us when you get to 500 orders that could be forever right but many of them had been given some great um directed consumer opportunities and platforms because of Co and everyone was home but they also because of the unfortunate death of me of George Floyd a lot of these companies were just like opening doors and cutting some of the timing of you know the discovery or marketing um of some of these small companies too just so allow them to some of their black business launches some of you know increasing um the visibility on stage uh on some of their stories so with that I had started working with them and in working with them I just noticed they didn't understand Logistics yeah the products look good the products smell good but when it came to getting their product there and that huge booklet that comes from that Distribution Center they had no idea how to maneuver in it and that's like making a first impression right like you your item shows up at your door and it's very easy to to to tell people who like apple for instance like when my new iPhone showed up like a year or two ago it's a heck of an experience to open an iPhone you know like it is like wow this is this is sweet versus when something's like I feel like director like uh shipped from China and it's like Drop shipped and it shows up and it's like thank goodness it made it here like it's like taped together by the scams it's easy to tell that right and so imagine being in your apartment in LA in New York and you design this product and you've been working on the perfect formula and it's worked and now you're selling it to your friends just selling it to the little market around the corner now you build out a website so now you're you're okay cuz I'm still at home I still can package it I still can ship out 50 orders a week by myself and then you get a phone call from an Ulta or a Sephora or a Target um or a JC Penney and they're saying hey you're not going to allar stores but we'll give you this kind of start and pilot program and you're like wait I didn't even for some of them they had no idea this day would ever come and they didn't even build a business to even support it so they were like we don't even have barcodes on our product cuz this wasn't this wasn't what we were doing however so that quickly their business scaled shifted um they had to Pivot and some of them even have to Pivot now you got both business both parts going at one time so we're like wait this is where it's critical to have a logistics partner you need to know how to move it you need to understand the timelines you need to understand what their distribution centers are required ing you need to understand how to have your product leak proof how to make sure the spacers are in there understand the quantity counts understand the location of your barcode when it's going through the scanner of that retailer where they want it located all those things are critical yeah like imagine getting that call up to the big leagues you know Al the calls that's exactly what it is and you're like okay like how do I ship that from my 500t New York apartment you know exactly like you're shipping pallets like that just seems like a crazy one a crazy cool opportunity for those Founders that are that are having that opportunity but also very overwhelming it's like oh I know about marketing and Facebook and I can sell a bunch of uh a bunch of my product and then you're like but B2B Big Box store like that's that's challenging for sure so I started working with them um while I was at the larger um location um facility and then unfortunately the company was going to be acquired and during that acquisition period um um some of these Founders felt like they didn't know if they were going to get the same support um by the new owners and it wasn't an issue with the new owner if just their focus they were wanting to be on that top minimum and it's like wait we're not still not there yet but what I also found out by working with them they had two things that they really wanted to do they wanted to stay in Indiana or in the midwest they thought it was great for them for shipping um and they why is that why is Indiana a hot bed for Logistics well the Midwest is because you usually can get something anywhere within a certain amount of time and like I said we're still on the Amazon I want it I order it at 8 I want it at 8:30 you know I want it as quickly as possible so being in the midwest you usually have the flexibility plus you have major hubs here you have FedEx here who you can really just move quick quick quick um you have Amazon who has some of their Regional facilities within you know greenfish build or just here in Indiana so it allows companies especially smaller ones to be able to feel like we can still meet those requirements and it does it works well we just had um Masa from uh Paco which is a director consumer vegan or plant-based food dog food company and they won the rally in prize competition for uh food and n and she said so she's Bay Area lives in San Francisco and she's like well even before rally we were already exploring the Midwest for our like shipping and production Hub because it's a one day drive anywhere in the country yes it's like that's that's Game Changer versus if you're trying to ship from I imagine like San Francisco to Maine that's a really really really long drive oh well and think about how Co changed the way we think everybody's at home regardless of where you are in the country or in the world everybody's home everybody wants whatever they could go to certain stores they couldn't you know certain things they just couldn't go pick up anymore they didn't have access to just the the normal way of living so the normal way that we came was we'll send it to you regardless of where we are we just happen to just be in a great part of the country that really made that process easy there's been such an explosion of these direct to Consumer Brands over the last 10 years because of the internet and social media marketing what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see direct to Consumer Brands companies that are selling a product make the discovery period um and it's just like any other entrepreneur we wake up every day thinking we know it we've got ours as the best is great but I think the discovery period And I struggled one time at my mistakes I felt like for me the discovery I was in it I was in it in a different capacity than when I shifted I shifted to now everything comes back on me compared to me literally being able to later to someone another CEO mhm and I'm like you know there's nowhere to pass the ball to so you're either going to run to score or you're going to be in the back of your mind you always know you're going to get sacked yeah you know so um that's that's a football term match I know you're a big Sports guy yes so the discovery period very much is like the research Gathering uh data talking to potential customers tell me a little bit more about like a good Discovery period process a a good Discovery process is yes you can have your product you should have a third party relationship to goe and test your product if your product's going on the Shelf somewhere in a business to uh in a B2B opportunity you're you should know how long that product should be on the Shelf MH you know um you should build a relationship I say with a third party tester you should actually do some shipping prior to your big shippings just to know timing how long it takes to get there you should have a relationship with with your distribution group um when we take on a new customer we require even for us we require a two to 3 week um pilot process from the time I get your product to the time I ship whatever date you tell me you're going to back it up because I've already shipped three times I don't care if you tell me to ship it to your house so you can see what what our process looks like but before I ship it or before it goes to anything representing company and your company we've already done those processes in house yeah you don't want to be doing that real time right I think that some people when they start these e-commerce businesses what they forget about it's really easy to ship something direct to Consumer like the packaging doesn't matter as much you know from like just getting it there versus shipping to a place like Ulta or any of these big boxes I know we can talk about your what you've been doing with Walmart which I'm really excited to hear about but it's like the order matters how it shows up there barcodes packaging what's it going to look like on a shelf like people start reaching out like oh it wouldn't it be so cool if I got my product in Ulta but I've never gone into Ulta and looked at a shelf and seeing like oh this is how mascara like tray designs are one of my buddies works at Welch packaging here in town and they sell he literally sells cardboard boxes but he I thought oh it's just cardboard boxes like what do you mean so much intricate detail in the packaging industry as he likes to call it yes I think um so for example we talk about Walmart so we do ship a farmer product um into Walmart we are shipping right now into 32 of the distribution centers today what what kind of product it's a pharmaceutical just it's on the Shelf Pharma product um it's based out of the UK so we are the North America distributor are there different requirements from like I don't know from a shipping perspective for FDA type pharmaceutical food that kind of thing versus like a a widget it is um so we did have to go through the process and we're actually still in the process of having our company FDA certified so that allows us to pack out medical devices that allows us to basically do the enduser packaging for companies so our company has a product in another part of the world um but we can assist them and be their North North America distributor meaning can come to us and then we can manage all their orders here in the US and Canada um so we're actually in that process now to even expand that even more um but absolutely when you think of like a box you know it's not just a box you know it could be a certain size certain width um it comes down to even if you're shipping it or not just on a pallet if you're shipping oneoff to and you using UPS what's that cost the cost is different for the size of that you know material um how many times we call them touches how many time are we going to touch this box you know that's how we l build out our price list too tell me how many times we're going to do this sample and in our um pricing quote when we do it we want to know how many times an employee is going to touch this box it's going to be five labels it could be stuffing material the in the inside of the box it could be reshaped in the Box you know but how many times when we design our pricing in our price point and our quotes we're quick to say how many time I I'm I probably say that more than anything how many times you touched the box when you first started shadowing this entrepreneur that you met uh early in your Logistics career I know you said you were exploring potentially professional opportunities not just an entrepreneurial opportunity what was the deciding factor for you take me back to that moment when you decided you know what I could go and you know get a salaried position uh at some point but I think I actually want to start my own thing um so it was prayer it was um literally strong conversation with my husband yeah cuz I do have two kids and um the pivotal point for me was these group of Founders that I had been working with since our infancy um like I said still there at their warehouse with him I heard that they were leaving and I heard that they wanted to stay in the Midwest and I also heard um that they wanted to have a minority part partner um many of them were all of them were minority um women Hispanic black um businesses but that was a part of their collab um that every part of that ecosystem they wanted to find a woman-owned business or a racial Equity partner to be a part of it and I knew they were looking at other parts of the country to seek out those check boxes but I kept hearing we want to stay in the midwest um they were up against launches as well so when you think when someone says we're putting you on our Shelf November one and it's May or June well you're already in that process because your product probably has to be with them in the next 30 days to get to their distribution centers so they can kit it out to go in their kits that are going to go in 75 to 100 stores around the country so all that timeline made sense so they were worry too that one if we change now now we we take a risk of not being prepared because now we've got to build that relationship back up and we have to figure out we have to make sure that they can give us what we need and we have to make sure that we can be where we need to be luckily I'd already been in the room with them I had set through so I knew exactly their timing I also knew from a processing place like the technology that was being used I also knew like the the requirements from the Walmarts the the the you know the EDI eds's so I just I literally just went on a whim and I was like let's go figure out where we can do this um and start off small and see if you know we can execute it so that's probably it was that simple but scary at the same time what was the key factor that got them to take a chance on you um I think cuz I was already in the building um it's easy sometimes just to connect and don't get me wrong we still had our hiccups when we got started you know we still had things that weren't showing up on our system we still had orders that were not coming through so we still had our processes that had to be you know done um and we still had our own growth period of being in a new business um but a lot of times I think still what helps is there's not many partners out here that'll take a 20 order um or you're going to replenish but you're only replenishing every 3 to six months so it's not like your products are moving off the shelf every day and you need to replenish it every week or every whatever um so to build that kind of business for a small business to basically get that um opportunity is is still not really out there so you kind of identified this opportunity because you saw this bigger business that was kind of like we can't really service this smaller business and you knew from your experience that there were smaller businesses out there that uh you could start a a very lucrative business that could scale if you kind of got the aggregate of lots of different customers I I mean for example I'm meeting with seven new Founders tonight amazing and um they're the same way many of them are packaging in their homes um but I'm like what if we could have um packaging they're doing their formulas at their house they're doing their bottling at their house MH um and they've got great product and they're getting a lot of buzz but I'm like let's pull this out of your house you know I have stories I started an e-commerce brand um four or five years ago and you kind of always dream when you're like in the e-commerce play of like Oh Black Friday when we're like up till 2: a.

m. shipping it's going to be so at least I that'll be so fun then I did it once is not fun no no I'm out on this like like you get like a 100 orders in and you're just like taping the same thing over and over like you're put in there you're getting paper cuts on your hands and you're like this was really fun for the story the one time but like that's like the life of running an e-commerce brand out of your house you know so and those are the customers that I want to be able to assist it's great to have larger companies and your warehousing for them but a different business unit that we can offer because we still have Labor in the building um I'm like we can do that 2050 order 100 order what's the biggest misconception about the logistics industry that is just Trucking you know that is just Trucking um the logistics industry unless you're in it um every day and you see the different movements and requirements it's not just tracking I think another myth is is the female presence a lot of times you walk in warehouses and you walk on those warehous and floors and you'll see the packouts you'll see the kidding you'll see the labor on the manufacturing floor you'll see the forklift drivers the lift drivers women so I think to me that that was one of the misconceptions I had when walking in a building and you see for every one man there's two women or more really it's women women aren't necessarily the owners um um of these businesses however they are in inside you see a tremendous amount of women who are making sure these steps are handled and that you know these companies are successful there's so many new technologies autonomous vehicles AI Big Data what are some of the technology Trends you're most excited about for Logistics and supply chain I think the AI helps um with some of the technology of working with the founders um and also figuring out ways to streamline the processes for a less human era mhm um I think that's when you think of um the packouts and the picking and you know even the Fulfillment and the distribution part finding ways to remove the eras and be more precise your quality checks those Technologies are becoming more with robots yeah um I think AI is going to play a pivotal role in that too we're actually looking at technology now as soon as the boxes is dropped at our door we don't have to touch it but we can actually have technology that's going to immediately pick it up as soon as we you know and I'll take a step back I said we don't touch it but once we put a label on it like as soon as it's dropped from that UPS or FedEx to our B door that label is going on it and when that label goes on it where that that's literally where the handholding stops from a human wow the label goes on we've got the technology right at the door and that technology is going to already tell us where it's from what possibly it could be for that particular customer um and we're already being our warehouse management system that's incredible yeah so those are things that I think from a larger scale it's already being done yeah but like how do we now Define it how do we implement it how do we pay for it um for it to go into a small third party Logistics um company I'd love to kind of hear the Genesis of um of Kendall Logan right so you had the we were almost there these customers that you had been servicing since they were just their Inception and then you you build up and you're you know what we're going to do this and you rent do do you lease a warehouse and then you just start like shipping stuff like how did that start I um sought out a a warehouse um and um I met you know someone else at the time and um you know I just was seeking out just like how to get started how to work with um as well it probably wasn't my you know it wasn't the best place but it wasn't the worst it was someone yes saying I'm not using this part of my building you know the great part about Indiana and when I people ask me why do I love living here I feel like you're going to find people who can remember how they started you're going to find people who are going to remember it wasn't easy so you could be that you know damn near billionaire right now but I think there are people still out there who remember you know the hiccups when they got started or the boot strapping and um I've been blessed to meet some of those and that's just literally how some of my opportunities have come of just you know not necessarily you know taking all I got at once but just giving me an opportunity and and actually you know being excited sometimes I've been blessed to hear the words I'm excited to see you in the business I'm excited to see you you know taking on this opportunity yeah and I think that comes from relationships right like you just from our our brief what we're 20 20 30 minutes in right now like you seem like an expert relationship Builder right from going to become that 40-year-old intern to getting a an unused slice of somebody's b or building to start like launching your company out of that comes from relationships and building that like Social Capital I I like to call it you know um do you have any good tips for the listeners on how to build strong relationships so I share this right now with my nephew I have nephews who are in college and I often tell them um you know anyone you meet talk to them speak to them um figure out a common you know common denominator um don't just stand in the corner and expect someone to talk to you or don't expect someone just to to to know what you're thinking um I even Shar this with my 14-year-old we have this thing that we say I always tell her you're in a safe space I call it a rectangle when I build out this diagram with her and then I put a circle right in the middle and I'm like your safe space is this circle but your actual safe space is this huge rectangle so you don't even know what's on the sides so I always get out of the car and I always tell her go kick a corner go meet somebody new go try something you're still in that safe space I think a lot of times people shy away from that because they feel like they're embarrassed to tell their story they're embarrassed to ask for help they're embarrassed or not even embarrassed but the anxiety of of feeling comfortable sharing your dream or your vision um again I give it back to my upbringing my parents where I remember I used to go to Chamber of Commerce meetings my mom sit on a committee I would go with her literally when I was like 12 13 years old I would go so much they finally made my own lanyard and gave me a seat at the table because they knew I was coming um so I've always felt comfortable talking to people um I everybody has a story and if you talk to for two to three minutes you're going to find a connector yes you just have to keep building the conversation to build the connector so for me I still do that now um if I walk in a room I might not know anybody when I walk in but I guarantee you I'm going to figure out to connect her what's one of your favorite stories from your parents uh growing up that taught you something that you still use today in entrepreneurship oh wow that's a great question um I don't know I think for me I mean I just had this conversation with my dad just two weeks ago like I had a bid in front of me and I felt like I wasn't going to make a lot of money on it but I felt like it was a relationship that I wanted and it was the first it was like me stepping into their door MH and I immediately called him and just he said hello and I'm like so give me a an example when you took on a customer and you weren't going to make a lot of money off of this customer and you still did it and tell me how you were able to maximize it and add some value at it or three years later now you're happy you did it because you still have it and you made this amount of money what was uh your family business my parents are on a commercial landscaping company and we're still active Farmers too yeah what do they farm so we have beef cattle production and we do crop production and um we started back in may like 2007 we started doing ornamental tree farming so anything you see on a commercial job site we actually grow it and so that allows us to keep our cost low in our landscaping business um because now we're growing all of our raw materials or the materials for those jobs and that farm is in North Carolina right yes very cool is that where you originally grew up yes what was the ecosystem like in in North Carolina and what other entrepreneurs you think kind of influenced your journey so I grew up in a very small town that's probably as big as his table it's one flashing light not even a full stop light a flashing light flashing light you want to be there so um and it's called Harmony North Carolina I do believe it's God's country um I do believe it's the best place on Earth um and people say where's your best place that you want a vacation it's on the back of a pickup truck or sitting on the back patio at my dad's house looking at the Cow or just watching people work around the farm you know that's like my heaven yeah um anytime I can get to it I'm there so I think um my ecosystem was it started at home I lived to the left of my grandparents to the right of my great-grandparents um every day after school I went to a space where I actually saw my granddad every day um even living next door I spent the weekends until my grandmother passed at my grandparents house house so Friday um my dad would take my little bag across the hill to my grandma's house and I wouldn't come home until Sunday like and I'm literally next door but the same um experience my grandmother was given my cousins who Liv 20 to 30 miles away she afforded me and gave me the same one even though I was next door like it was never a time you should go home and get your hair done because I got four other heads to do nope I said it line just like everybody else um I woke up and had breakfast grits with sausage in it every Sunday morning and um my granddad had all grandkids after church every Sunday he had all of us and we went straight back to his house for family dinner so my ecosystem was built of community um family our church family um my dad was one of the few um uh black business owners in our small community so I think um for early ages for me it was actually seeing you know the hard decisions but also seeing and I I celebrate this with him too you had a vision 50 years ago you never would have thought you know 50 years later you would still have employees that have been with you for 30 years um and it's a totally different vibe when you wake up with a vision and you know you scratch that Vision out 50 times or you think of this idea and you throw you you know throw away that piece of paper and start again but to know you built a you took a vision and you made it a business and now to hear the stories of my dad worked for your dad when he was working Building Bridges or doing the seating work on new highways when we were growing up in school um to to know you know I always laugh I always my little boy is fearless and I apologize him every day for putting him in the suburbs cuz he needs to be in the the country um but to watch him on you know we're home and he's on a tractor and or my daughter's on a four-wheeler and I'm like slow down I love it when I hear you know people say leave them alone you were the same way when you were growing up you rode the four-wheeler the same way they did or you did this you know so it's great to just have that that same system around you just to realize you know this is exactly what I wanted you know I want them to have this experience of understanding family and Legacy and it seems to me you've really built uh that Community here in the Midwest I've tried I think if we're going to live here and this is going to going to be home it's important to me to be involved it's important to me to be engaged in the community it's important to me to seek out opportunities so people can not say live through you but understand and seek to know opportunities are available and I just want to take away anxiety and fear so I hope I can be that Catalyst sometimes and people can be like she can do it she's sharing with us that she made mistakes she's sharing with us you know how she had to navigate and start over um and possibly this didn't work out right or that but she's still doing it and I I mean my previous roles I worked for the Department of act and um I worked with small farmers and I sit many times at their tables and I could identify with them I could identify with that small farmer his son works for the farm you know his brother and everything they make comes off this little farm um but I could immediately be like wait that identifies with me and it's important to me to help them succeed because that's literally could been my story um and I just think when you're in certain spaces I don't care about economics we all we all that could easily be me and I say that a lot when I see little boys I volunteer at some of the schools on the east side and I live in Hamilton County and this is true and I'm very transparent about it just to say sometimes like the resources that my son has access to he's autistic is over and Beyond it's like incredible but when I go volunteer 20 mil away it's like why can't I just literally shift all the resources to the left but what I'd know is if I shifted my son over to here he'd be in the same he'd still be that same little boy so when I look at some of these kids sometimes I'm like that's my son and I'm like you know so a lot of me building the ecosystem here and and finding those it's just the mere fact of how can we make a difference um how can we get engaged how can we support the community how can we help build businesses and change some of the trajectory of some of the fear and anxiety of people not coming to the table um or not even feeling comfortable that know that there's a seat at the table for them what do you think are some of the bigger opportunities for communities like Indianapolis to have more business owners that look like you or have a background more like you um that's like my that's like one of my passions right now um I love that about you um oh yeah thank you for me I I feel like I'm blessed I'm blessed to have access to certain rooms I'm blessed because I feel like I'm still learning but I only can imagine if I didn't have access how hard my learning process would be um I want to close those gaps yeah I want to and sometimes I might not do it correctly or understand the proper way because I just I get intensed about it because I'm like this is simple you know I just want Equitable opportunity and I think um I have learned just by sitting in some bedrooms or sitting in some of these spaces where you're like wow where is the diversity you know it's paper paper is anxiety you know when there's a stack of forms that you have to fill out to prove that you can actually participate and it's all a stack of paper it's like I'm not feeling people are like I'm not feeling all that out and I'm like you should but I get it MH and I think some of that goes back to just the Grassroots meet them where they are sit at their kitchen table with them and help them get over that anxiety the way we used to do it technology has helped um but it's still to me I just feel like I want to figure out ways or just be a part of the change of removing the anxiety what are some of the ways you've managed your anxiety as you've run into business challenges or things that could have been roadblocks that you turned into hurdles that you left over well first of all my husband probably hears more or he's had to be okay help me figure this out or you no you can't go do that tonight CU I've got this big whatever so I think watching him um how he's navigated has been essential I still go back to my upbringing um I still go back to going to the office every day in high school I would get out of school and I would go straight to my dad's office and even if it just me filing or it was just me my anxiety probably could be a whole lot worse but I think what helps me is is to understand this is only temporary mhm or this is just right now um one thing I do I have a notebook and I have a red pen and I don't allow myself to have but so many bad days a year so um I'm really big on that tell tell me how you do that with the pen and notebook um so I have a calendar and I circle in my calendar when I've had a bad day M with this red pen and I probably give an entire thesis on what was the bad day and by the end is trying to figure out what could have not made it a bad day um but I don't allow myself to have one a month and if I feel like I have a day that's going that way to be in a bad day I have to remind myself listen you already had one you know last month if you're on track for if it's starting out like oh this could go to a bed how do you get myself you before you go to bed tonight this has to shift to a good day I love you cannot write in a red pen you cannot pick up the red pen today o I love that oh my gosh um that's probably real um I have a great group of women business owners um we're fortunate to be a part of group YPO and I'm a part of a great forum and I literally know there are some days when I just feel like I want to release or I'm getting at that level I'm like oh I can't wait to get the Forum um and um I've been with that same group for almost 10 years wow and we meet every month and talk to me about the benefit of peer groups that meet regularly oh it's it's just is essential to me recently I was at an event and um the speaker made a comment and it's like we don't think about it but when we bring certain people around us all the time it's just as important as water so in your body and your soul so she named it that day she was like bring your water like when you're going somewhere you need that group you need to also bring your water you need to also know the people in the room that without a question or a doubt have your back and your front um so it's to me it's extremely essential I have um two of those groups more or less um people say I have more but I think I only have like a couple my biggest peer group that I probably talk to daily and know I need that are my brothers um even though they're in North Carolina I do believe between 7 and 8 in the morning or between 7 and 9 I got to I might not talk to both of them but ironically I'm sure both of them are in the room so whatever I said to one the other one's echoing in in the background and it's like all three of us are having a conversation that's cool um but I I think peer groups are very much Essential and it helps you it helps you understand you know the es and flows um it also is critical just to know just a ping pong off people and it builds a network I've been blessed to have opportunities and I'll tell you it's happened because of that particular Network or me building a relationship with that individual person um and I even challenge like my my daughter is 14 and I'm like you know with your basketball team y'all should do practice and pancakes and she was like why I was like cuz you're going to eat pancakes every Saturday morning so build your team and be that leader and build this group you know so anything that I do I'm always thinking of like how do you make it stronger yeah yeah and one day it's like at the time she's a I think a freshman you said it's like one day she'll look back and be like Oh practicing pancakes turns into like founder Fridays or whatever it is you know like one day down the road you're like oh that like small and sports are just a great teacher of that you know the small intricate team and how you build chemistry on and off the court the field whatever so I love that I think for uh we were just talking about this last night one thing so she's a freshman and she played soccer and going in high school and the anxiety of being a Freshman and a high school even though it's not a large High School um luckily with soccer and I I kudos to the coaches they partner they put a freshman and a senior together um and her senior has been phenomenal that's great and um even yesterday I was talking to her senior just by chance I passed her and I was like oh we're going to miss this game or you know I played really well and she was like yeah I know you know um I was me and me and REE were talking about this and and it made my heart feel good cuz she had been traveling my daughter had she had went to the WNBA game in New York and to know that she's still communicating you know with her person and it was just casual and on their own it wasn't someone forcing you to be but I like telling her like and it's just want to identify like this person's been real good to you you know this person has really taken some of the anxiety off of you um but I just think as an adults as entrepreneurs and when you keep getting that small that Circle smaller you're going to find your like-minded people and they're going to have the same day-to-day issues you are and they're going to have the good days and the bad days they're going to need your support just like you're going to be able to cheerlead for them so I love your story and I I love this conversation and everything that you're doing with your business with your community and I really appreciate you coming here and sharing your story oh no thank you guys this has been awesome thank you we have uh just a couple of fun segments yes yes yes you're not getting out of here that okay I I have one question and two segments I want to run through it final this is this one kind of wrap-up question I love your your agriculture farming background if you if the I want to say the white calar Community if the white calar Community could learn one thing from our nation's Farmers what would it be um one thing I think farmers were the first uh business owners to build succession planning oh um to know there's multigenerational far families big or small um who are literally designing ways to keep their children living on the farm working on the farm um but when it comes to I think entrepreneurs and businesses I think sometimes we forget and they're a little totem pole because we've had so many other successes making a lot more money but I do think they have designed and probably were one of the first to design and understand and the the reason for having a succession planning I love that that's a great answer all right we have a one segment number one pretty fun one here it's called Ship Happens okay all right we have a couple fun shipping questions to ask you in our segment Ship Happens first what is the most unusual thing you have ever shipped uh the most unusual thing I've ever shipped um we have shipped um we've shipped product like mask or you know like um to like a masquerade party and you're just getting all you're you're kind of questioning like when you're shipping it packaging it like who would wear that or or who's going to be the person that's going to have like you kind of now want to shift from being the shipper to like the actual event because you want to be in the room cuz you want to identify and see like what person has this on or you know so that was like a fun day cuz I'm like and who is G or what is this or you know what kind of party is this you know so okay um what is the furthest location you've shipped something um the furthest location we shipped something is probably to China um I think we have shipped um yeah we've shipped um to China okay that's I mean the other side of the world it's tough to get further than that we go um the Moon have you ever shipped anything to a celebrity's house um I don't think I've shipped to a celebrity's house um I think I've shipped to like a celebrity's mom's house oh and um I didn't know it at the time I think we were shipping some product and then it was brought up like later on who the product was going to and then they shared like who the celebrity was O that's pretty fun okay so celebrties Mom house yeah and then do you have one shipping quick shipping Horror Story um shipping horror stories would be you get a huge packout request expedited need it the next day and it could be something that would take a week and you literally are trying to figure out how to do it in a 12-hour period there we go so yeah I have had those absolutely like literally understand I've gone home at a certain hour to have dinner with my family to know I'm going back to work and possibly knowing I'm coming back just enough time to make sure my kids are getting off to school the next morning yeah but that's a part of it you know and if you're grinding in the beginning of it you got to do what you got to do amen um okay wait one more question on that the shipping part and then we'll go to our lightning round where did the name Kendall Logan come from um Kendall is my daughter's middle name and Logan is my son's middle name so um um that's where it came from and for me is I still everything I do goes back to family um and I always thinking what's my why and my why is I want my kids to have options I don't want them to have to wake up and go have to work for somebody um because they can't fulfill or can't have options so I want them to have options of working for someone or in a corporate or professional setting but I also know that you know their parents built a business that they could actually become entrepreneurs and then they could pass it on I always live by the notion that my grandparents and my great-grandparents were working for me before I existed I love that and um that's literally well I have a twofold in my why my why is to I don't want my kids I want my kids have opportunity I don't want my kids' dreams every derailed because a banker has the right to say no um and I want you if you need to work with that Banker that's fine but your dreams will not be stopped or derailed because somebody's sitting on the other side of a desk and they just have the power of telling you no and my second one is I know my great great grandparents my great grandparents and my grandparents and I can go back till 1904 the first Farmland that was purchased in our family was when my family was free to Slaves um they were thinking of me they were planning and they made sacrifices so I could have a great life um I want my great-grandchildren to talk about me is a everyday name just like I can tell you about Herman sharp just like I can tell you about Raymond Holmes just like I can tell you about Burgess Bailey these gentlemen I never met I never sat in a room with but I can tell you how my papa bur just liked his water and how he put his shoes on every day I can tell you about my papa Raymond and the way he made his perfect lemonade and and how he built his house and people were watching him build a home thinking he was building it for somebody else because they couldn't understand a black man could build this kind of house for himself um I can tell you the story of Herman sharp where he stood and sat at the bottom of his land and he never drove he walked everywhere um but when Duke power decided to put power through this rurual area mountain area in between wilts County and arale county in North Carolina how sat in a chair and he stopped them because he felt like they were devaluing his property so I can tell you the stories over and over and over about those three men as if I knew them so to me I want to live a life that's about family and about my family Legacy CU I want my great-grandchildren to be able to talk about me the same way it's amazing I love that that's so powerful spectacular I am going to switch it up but in this time I I feel like we need to drop these mics really quick cuz that was amazing yeah that was awesome we do Wrap out every show with the lightning round super quick three questions all about Indiana I just want to say that was so powerful and I'm like I got the gooseb Toof always says it Goosebumps I have the Goosebumps listen to you talk about your family your heritage I know that that you're going to leave a lasting Legacy just by the way we've spoken for 45 50 minutes and I just know that that you're making a huge impact in the lives of your family and the broader Indiana Indianapolis C or Midwest Community so thank you for that um lightning round here we go three questions quick answers outside of the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem what is Indiana known for in my mind it's known for sports boom but I will say so I'm a big Sports fanatic um you'll see me at games by myself because if certain teams aren't playing my husband's like are you going to the game tonight and I'm like if a game is playing I am there um but it's known for just I say a opportunity for ground up start up bootstrap as long as you got the energy and you're willing to find your grit you can get it heck yeah so that's what I also tell people Indiana is known for heck yeah what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana Hidden Gem in Indiana I think if people aren't from here the hidden gym are restaurants ooh one in particular um one in particular so I'm a beef snob um because I grew up in beef cattle so I find myself becoming a beef snob on like my steaks and it's not before I got here I've been this way my whole life it's you can't change it um it's just how I am but I think my I mean I I I'm I love like a 1933 I love still though a homegrown restaurant where you see that owner sitting in the back cooking and he's a part of you know so like in Westfield we have Park Street so we got these homegrown restaurants um so anytime you'll see me and my family we're there I just love to like you know like we go to Chiba a lot that's a sushi spot and I love seeing Keith and his wife and his kid it's a family business so it's one of those like you want to support because you know how everything rolls you know it's important um and a lot of times I can identify with myself so I love that but I think our restaurants amazing and chba and West Westfield gotta go yeah um and finally final question who is someone that we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing big things someone who's doing big things okay so that's I can't answer one so can I do 1 a1b 1 a1b all right so um the person that I probably would just tell their story of just where they come from as as a kid and their success now I happen to be married to him so I am his big fan biggest fan um it's my husband Jimmy I think um I think his story of just how he grew up um he grew up um single parent really small town not necessarily knowing or just the access and resources I always say we're different so if he's a a I am a z um we've done a personality test where we've been on where's your spouse and can you tell your spouse how far away from you so it's like your spouse is all over here that's us um but the grit of just not knowing where your life would turn out but you also know how it could have turned out and the fire to keep on trying to understand and learn and not necessarily he's he's not a he's not an extrovert but he's not an introvert either he'll tell you somebody he's introvert but he's not um but stepping in those rooms and being with his intellect I'm just always a fan of and I'm always like throwing him like out there be like go go he like no I'm not going I'm like oh you know you're going I already bought your ticket you'll be there yes um the second person is probably d uh dear to me um I would say is a fire on top of a fire um is my girlfriend Janna Hegman I think uh for a business owner a female that I probably ping pong off of when she could easily be like girl I got a zillion problems of my own right now and I'm taking this 30 minutes with you and I'm forever grateful to her for that but I I love her I love her um she woke up one day and said I want to start a business and it was around housing and nonprofit housing and there wasn't one that was basically just one for her to just say I'm going to go duplicate so I am always in awe to sit and watch how she I mean I was in the room with her when she was doing her sketch wow and doing her Discovery and I saw her pivot um numerous times and to see her success and to see what she's doing around the Midwest but especially here in the state of Indiana is one that I am every time I go to a new facility or new building or I hear about oh I'm going to do this or I'm going to consider you know this next space I always reflect heard you know I remember us sitting at the restaurant one day and you're telling me I'm considering so to see you know this multi-million dollar company now years later um she is literally going to take over the world sometime what's the name of the business tnh Investments TN Investments all right might have to be that might be foreshadowing a future guest yeah oh yeah but she's super cool but I I do um I always think it's it's great to find people who you can they might not have your same resource background and believe me to see their success and then know how it started I'm just a very little peanut on the wall um but I think it's it's so important to just seek out people that you can be like just drop your shoulders with take the weights off you know and just be like oh my weight my my shoulders have been heavy because I couldn't release this or I couldn't talk about this to certain groups and then when you find their C groups it just you're such at ease I love that thanks for sharing that oh you're welcome and thanks for sharing your story here today no this was awesome thank you guys really inspiring what you're doing a thank you I I mean this was just a spectacular conversation learn so much about logistics and just about building strong relationships strong Community um and leaving a legacy I feel like people don't spend a lot of time thinking about the Legacy that they're one day going to leave behind to their family their friends their community and and the perspective you brought to that was just very very very powerful oh thank I I will say that's a wrap on this episode of get in but if you are listening and you want your startup or your organization represented send three large t-shirts to 16 Tech addressed to Nate at Patrick egg and we will talk about your uh your startup give you a minute ad read and give you a little shout out and thanks for listening thank you this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if if you have suggestions for a guest or segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powder.

com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powdercake executive Community Check out powder. com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listen to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast in video marketing platform made specifically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at powderkeg and if you're a startup you should listen up because cassid for startups is definitely for you they are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82% off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted at cd. us/ powderkeg