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In this 12th episode of the Gay Business & Marketing Made Easy Podcast I give you a sneak peek at what to expect from the “30 Days – 30 Voices – Stories from America’s LGBT Business Leaders” June pride month project.
In celebration of June’s pride month, you fill find 30 podcast interviews with 30 leaders from across America who share business insights and tips for marketing to the LGBT community. Each day in June you’ll find a new podcast at www.jenntgrace.com/30days30voices – bookmark the page today! Or subscribe via the RSS feed. Don’t know what an RSS feed is? You can read more here.
I hope you enjoy the podcast project! Please don’t be a stranger, let me know what you think on any social media outlet –
“Like” me on Facebook: facebook.com/gaybusinessandmarketing
“Follow” me on Twitter: twitter.com/jenntgrace
Connect with me on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jenntgrace
Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the podcast? No problem! Read the transcript below.
AUDIO START: [0:00:00]
Jenn T Grace: You are listening to the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast, episode 12.
Intro: Welcome to the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast where you’ll learn how to do business with and market to the LGBT community in an authentic and transparent way. We’re talking about the $790 billion lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community. We’ll help you grow your business, gain market share and impact your bottom line. And now your host – she’s an entrepreneur, a marketing maven and an advocate for the LGBT business community. Jenn, with two N’s, T. Grace.
Jenn T Grace: Well hello and welcome to episode number 12 of the podcast. Today is going to be a very short podcast. Typically these run about forty minutes or so, and today I am just going to tell you about the 30 Days, 30 Voices: Stories from America’s LGBT Business Leaders Podcast Project that starts this Saturday, June 1st.
So since February I have been working on this particular podcast which highlights business owner stories, and business advocate stories across the United States. And rather than give you one more podcast to listen to, I figured today I will just give you an idea of what’s to come in the next thirty days.
So every single day in the month of June, there will be one podcast with a business leader, and it’s an interview. Some of them are a short twenty minutes, others are almost about an hour long, and I’m asking each person the same set of questions, and of course I do end up going rogue on a majority of the interview, and asking them additional questions outside of this pre-set template. But I wanted to give you a highlight of what to look forward to.
So in each one of the interviews I am asking for the person that I’m speaking with to give us a little bit of insight on what their path looked like that led them to where they are today. And then I also ask them for some sort of fun fact, or a tidbit, that very people know or would expect from them. And I can tell you right now that there are some absolutely hilarious gems of what people don’t know about the people that we’re talking to. So definitely stay tuned if for nothing else, that question is certainly bound to be a crowd pleaser.
Additionally I asked them if they had an ‘ah-ha’ moment, or if there were a series of ‘ah-ha’ moments when they just realized that what they’re doing now is what they were meant to be doing. Followed by inspiration. You know, what keeps these really motivated business owners and business advocates across the country motivated to continue doing this every day. We know that the work for equality is not always easy, so there’s got to be some source of motivation for everyone to just keep pushing to take it to the next level on a daily basis.
Then I switch gears a little bit and I ask for a piece of marketing advice to tell you, the listener, for how can you start to market to the LGBT community? What are those tips and tricks that help make you successful? And there are thirty interviews in this particular podcast series, and very few overlap. So if you’re really tuning in to find out how to best position yourself as a company or a business that can market themselves to the LGBT community in the right way, then these tips and this advice is going to be absolutely crucial for you.
I also get into asking those I’m speaking with around leveraging their LGBT status. So for those who I interview who are part of the LGBT community, I ask them if they’ve been able to leverage that in their business. And then additionally for people who are allies that I’m speaking with, I ask them how they feel that their status as an ally to the LGBT community has been able to benefit them in their business. So those are very interesting answers as well.
And then I round out the interview asking for business advice. Is there any particular business advice that’s just been that guiding principle that really helps them continue on doing their business? And really doing it in a really powerful way? And then I also ask is there a business book, or some sort of program, or a tool that’s really just transformed the way that they go about doing business?
All of these answers have been really thought provoking, and really inspiring. And then to really just get them excited and jazzed up, I finish off the interview asking them what is one thing in their business right now that’s just really exciting for them? And the answers that we’ve gotten so far, they’re just phenomenal because it’s showing that the LGBT community, the business community, these entrepreneurs, they’re all in a thriving mode versus a surviving mode. So it’s really exciting to see that the economy is turning itself around, and that all of these people are really experiencing some sort of growth. And I think that that’s inspirational to you, the listener, because I find that you’re going to get a lot of value out of these interviews, and what you’re hearing. So I really hope that you tune in through the month of June, and check all of these out. And you can find all of this information on the website right now at www.JennTGrace.com/30days30voices. And you can find a whole list of those who will be included in this interviewing lineup. I’m also going to share with you those names now as well.
But if you are listening to this and you’re thinking, ‘How am I going to find out this information on a daily basis?’ There are two ways that you can do it- or actually there’s probably more than two ways, but two ways that I would recommend. And the first way is to subscribe to my RSS feed. If you head on over to the website you’ll see information about the podcast, and there is a ‘Subscribe to RSS Feed’ option. So when you do that, essentially you will be notified any time a new post comes in. So a new interview shows up, you’ll be notified via email or however you choose, so that way you don’t have to come back to my site every day and look for it. Or if you are a fan of mine on Facebook, or you follow me on Twitter, or we’re connected on LinkedIn, I will be posting out links to every one of these interviews every single day for the month of June. So if you see a name that just sparks your interest and you want to listen to it, you can certainly do it that way as well, and you don’t have to subscribe to the RSS feed. But whatever way is easiest for you is how I would recommend you going about doing that.
So I have a fabulous lineup of guests, so I do want to tell you who is going to be a guest on the show, so that way if somebody sparks your interest, you can certainly come back and make sure that you tune in for that interview. And I have them all listed out on the website as I mentioned before, and everybody’s date is available right there corresponding, and as the day comes by, those names will become hyperlinks. So on June 1st for example, we will speaking with Jennifer Brown of Jennifer Brown Consulting, which is a New York City based consulting firm. So on June 1st which is this coming Saturday, you will be able to go to the website and a link to her post will be available. And it will also be on the right hand side of the website under recent posts, it will say ‘Expert Interview with Jennifer Brown’ or something to that effect. And it will be fantastic because their information will be ongoing every single day, so I really hope that you tune into this. It’s been something that I’ve been working on since February, and I’m really proud and I’m really excited to have had the opportunity to talk to so many amazing leaders.
So as I mentioned on June 1st we’ll be speaking with Jennifer Brown of Jennifer Brown Consulting.
On June 2nd we will speaking Bree Gotsdiner who is a founder and director of Publicly Related.
Followed by June 3rd, which is Sam McClure who is with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.
June 4th is with Tony Ferraiolo of Tony Ferraiolo Coaching.
June 5th is with Richard Oceguera which is with Richard Oceguera Coaching.
June 6th is with Dawn Ackerman who is the president and CFO of Out Smart Office Solutions.
June 7th is with Matt Luginbuhl who is with the Office of Diversity & Inclusion at Aetna.
June 8th is Danie Fineman with Keller Williams Realty.
June 9th is with Jill Nelson, the CEO of INUS Group.
June 10th is with Brad Sears of The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
June 11th is with Liz Cooper of The Human Rights Campaign.
June 12th is with Stan Kimer, founder and president of Total Engagement Consulting.
June 13th is with Meghan Freed, founding attorney at Freed McKeen LLC.
June 14th is with Trung Tieu of Pepsi.
June 15th is with Sara Calabro, who is a content strategist.
June 16th is with Jim Koury, editor and founder of Diversity Rules Magazine.
June 17th is with Matt Skallerud of Pink Banana Media.
June 18th is Robin McHaelen, founder and executive director of True Colors.
June 19th is with Dennis Velco. He is the owner of LinkedIn’s Largest LGBT Group.
June 20th is with Valerie Clark who is with the Greater Boston Business Council.
June 21st is with Evan Urbania, the CEO of ChatterBlast Media.
June 22nd is to be announced.
June 23rd is with Deb Prior of Liberty Tax.
June 24 is also to be announced.
June 25th is with Kristen Hickey, a supplier diversity professional.
June 26th is with Tonie Snell, CEO of 925 Hire.
June 27th is with Ronnie Tannenbaum, who is a same-sex jewelry designer.
June 28th is to be announced.
June 29th is with Kevin Letourneau, CEO and president of Go Out Loud.
And June 30th is to be announced.
As you can hear this quick lineup of guests features a wide variety of professionals from different types of industries, different types of backgrounds, different parts of the United States, and overall there are some really great people on here who have really great information. So I hope you tune in starting this Saturday, June 1st. And if you miss the interview on Saturday, June 1st, do not worry. That interview will continue to be available beyond June 1st, so there’s no urgency in making sure that you’re listening on the day of, they will continue to be available.
So thank you again for listening to this podcast. I apologize for such a brief episode, but at the end of the day, this podcast project coming up is the best thing going for June, so I don’t want to clutter your time this Wednesday, when there’s so much great content coming to you on Saturday.
If you like what you hear during these interviews, I encourage you to pass them along to people you know, to colleagues, to associates, and of course let me know what you think of them on Facebook, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, send me an email, do what you’ve got to do, get in touch with me somehow. I always appreciate hearing from you, and I can’t wait to hear from you soon.
Thanks so much, have a great one. Bye bye.
