Bryan Rossmanith: 0:00

How are we doing everybody? I know we can do a little bit better than that. Come on. How is everybody doing there? We go All right. It is such an honor and privilege to be with you all today.

Bryan Rossmanith: 0:14

When we were discussing some of the panelists that were going to be on this for this evening, it kind of went over some different options and Bonnie reached out to some of our partners Danielle and Heidi and Shannon and Jenny Maxwell and they all agreed to be on the panel. It was absolutely amazing Couldn't believe it so huge shout out for them. No, it's great to have them here today and I cannot wait to be empowered and inspired by their business journeys and what they're building, because, it is no joke, these ladies are absolute powerhouses in the Denver community and nationwide and everything that they do. They're just committed to excellence and everything and they serve like I've never seen anything before. I was actually very personally touched by access when my mother actually passed away two years ago, and Access the team in Denver was the very first team to reach out to me and say how are you doing like that? I hope you're doing well. And two days after, I made a very brief post on Instagram about my mother passing a huge plant just shows up at my door and it was just. It was that inspiring moments that Really is impactful and I'll remember that for the rest of my life. It's just, it's a small act of kindness, but it's that generosity and that really thinking and serving of other people that takes business and your personal life to a next level. So I'm very excited to hear about that journey and kind of how they integrate the serving of people in their, their homes and their lives, their personal lives and their business, and how that actually transpires to more revenue, more growth and just Better serving our clients.

Bryan Rossmanith: 2:14

So, with Out further ado, we're gonna get started with a little bit of fun. Okay, so we have these posters. It's all about empowerment, okay. So when you say empowerment, what does somebody feel? Just shout it out Confidence, yep, strong, another large, in charge, large and in charge. How about that? Absolutely. And it's giving somebody the power, that they have the power to change themselves for the betterment of their future, their businesses and Everything that we have, our goals and aspirations in our life, because we all have goals, we all have dreams that we want to do in this life and empowerment to me just means that I can wake up every day and Make a difference in my life and hopefully somebody else's life.

Bryan Rossmanith: 3:08

So we have this little Girl right here. We'll we'll call her. We'll call her Tiffany. She's our, our empowered Tiffany that is changing the world and it says I am empowered. So on this side we're gonna say I am, and then on this side we're gonna say empowered, are you ready? One, two, three, I am empowered. One more time I am empowered. Really loud this time. Go for it, I am Excellent.

Bryan Rossmanith: 3:40

All right, now we've got a got a little icebreaker, kind of shake, shake it off a little bit, and now we're ready to get started with the panel. So we have with us a Jenny Maxwell who started planning diva a few years ago. That is a software company for event planners, doing an incredible job with it, and then she ran, occasionally, fabulous events for many years, which is a corporate event planning company, before Getting into planning divas. A very excited to hear about that journey and what it's like to go from a planner to now a Software creator and integrator in the event industry.

Bryan Rossmanith: 4:18

Secondly, we have Danielle Fippen with access, who has pioneered the event industry in many ways, creating relationships all over the globe on different suppliers and creating unforgettable moments for their clients. And then we also have Heidi Brown, with access as well. They are partners in the company and they absolutely crushed everything. Like I said, I was the recipient of some of their their serving abilities, just on a personal and business level, when my mother passed away, so both of these ladies are super inspiring and changing lives from then side out on everything they do. Lastly but not least, we have Shannon Martinez, who we can't wait to hear about her journey, who owns the olive and poppy, which is a floral studio and recently changed over to lusher event design. Did I say that right, lucia? Lucia, my apologies, and make sure to get that right every time. Love it, love it. So very first question that I'm gonna ask the panel, and they'll each answer, is what is your superpower?

Jenny Maxwell: 5:31

I Actually just learned my superpower a couple weeks ago. It was told to me it's called anti fragility. You should Google it later. I'm not gonna tell you what it is now, but Google anti fragility. It's pretty awesome.

Danielle Phippen: 5:49

I'm a little upset. This wasn't on the list, this on the list, surprising a little bit got it.

Bryan Rossmanith: 5:55

Got it just throwing, it's the event industry. You never know what to expect, so you got to just throw in a little curveball every once and again, brian also told us, told us to wear what you know you think would be impactful for your brand.

Danielle Phippen: 6:07

And then there's tables in front of me which doesn't allow my shoes to stand out. But my superpower, I would say I think my superpower as it relates to our business is dreamer. I don't think anything's impossible, and so I'm. Also, if any of you know core mapping, I'm a C, I'm a commander, so I get it done. So I think my dreamer and my get it done personality is my superpower.

Bryan Rossmanith: 6:43

Love it.

Heidi Brown: 6:44

Good one, Danielle. What are you just? Saying I would say okay, so we are business partners, we're also best friends and one of the things that have made us very successful is that we complement each other. So her being dreamer, mine is the driver, so I think that's definitely been. That's, I guess. If you have to reflect, if I am reflecting on myself, is that I definitely drive, and it can sometimes be a positive and it can be a negative, but it is something that keeps pushing my, my self-worth.

Shannon Martinez: 7:26

Super power. So we were talking about this a little bit before. I would say I have a pretty good no BS barometer. I'm a pretty good energy reader as soon as I meet somebody. I have a pretty good ability to detect liars, Because I'm not a good liar myself.

Bryan Rossmanith: 7:47

Yeah, I love that.

Shannon Martinez: 7:48

No lying, no lying. I'm gonna call you out.

Bryan Rossmanith: 7:51

All truth. That girl is a truther over there. That's what we would call her. No, I love it.

Bryan Rossmanith: 8:02

And part of the event industry, right is? You gotta throw a couple curveballs in there, so we might throw in some questions that keep you on your toes a little bit. All right, so next question is just give us a little. If you were to tell us 45 seconds to two minutes of your career, and how would you do your overall elevator pitch, what would you talk about, like, what are some of the biggest lessons that you can think of in your overall professional career?

Jenny Maxwell: 8:35

if you were to summarize that, that's like three questions in one, just so you know. All right, so quick 45 seconds. So I spent majority of my career in the marketing industry. I started out in the magazine industry and then moved into more of marketing and operations and I've planned events from conferences in Venice, italy, to wine festivals on the beach. And then, about a year and a half ago, I got really frustrated that our industry didn't have a software that I could jump into and use and work with my vendors and really collaborate and communicate. And so last year in September, I launched Planning Diva.

Jenny Maxwell: 9:18

And so I would say, jumping into the next question what did I learn? Last year was a huge learning year for me, because I've always started LLCs and when you start an LLC, you start with yourself and then you make enough money and you bring someone else on and you pay them and you slowly build your business. And last year I started out this corporation with five employees and I knew that I had a row and scale and I would have a five to seven year exit strategy. And so, instead of starting this fun business that I enjoyed to go to every day and it was just based on something that I liked, it was, this is like the fast train we are, like we have like it just fly every day, just flies by and I learned what I was good at, what I wasn't good at, my strengths, my weaknesses, like all in one year. So did I answer all parts?

Bryan Rossmanith: 10:15

Yes wonderful. So the question is if you were to summarize your career in 45 seconds to two minutes, what would you summarize that as?

Danielle Phippen: 10:29

Heidi and I took this and we're going to two part it, so we get four minutes. I said I'd tell everything pre-pandemic and she'd tell the fun part post-pandemic. So I like to tell everyone our industry is destination management, right, so that means absolutely nothing. We're a DMC, not a DMV. We are a local planning company for corporations and associations and I got into this business over 20 years ago from an ad in the Vale Daily when I lived there for a marketing coordinator. So there you go. We started planning events.

Danielle Phippen: 11:10

I worked for that company and I always like to say I've only ever worked for women, so I hope I bring something to the table for the women and men that worked for us. I learned a lot about what to do and what not to do, but I worked there for a long time and in 2009, which will be one of my answers later around the resilience of our industry, having survived 9-11, the dot-com kind of fallout and then the housing crisis, the company I worked for I won a single night million-dollar event and I concepted it and I sold it and I helped plan a logistics and then that summer I got fired because I'm a commander, as I mentioned earlier. So I got fired after 10 years. But going into that, I thought I could do this for myself. I just planned and thought up a million-dollar event in a year when the company I worked for that had done 17 million a year before will do five this year. I'm 20% of her revenue.

Danielle Phippen: 12:08

So I started a business and I called my best friend who was nine months pregnant and said quit your job and let's start a business. That was 2009. And we grew that business right up until 2019, 2020. We were looking at a $20 million year going into 9-11, or 9-11, wrong, wrong, problem Pandemic. You all remember and that was great and we really loved what we did. And then the pandemic happened. Cut to Heidi.

Heidi Brown: 12:41

Obviously it was pretty devastating for our industry, as we all know, but it actually was such a blessing in disguise for us For the pandemic. Danielle and I originally owned Colorado, so we serviced all of Colorado. We also owned an office in Nashville and we just felt so happy, right, we were like, ok, colorado and Nashville. We also belonged to a national brand, access, but at the time we were all individually owned and the brand was owned by a private equity firm. But the owners in New York were separate, different owners, the ones in Texas separate owners. We said we were one company, we would market that, but we really weren't. Danielle and I did our own thing as Colorado and Nashville owners. Texas did their own thing, but we said, oh, we have the same brand and it really wasn't consistent.

Heidi Brown: 13:37

So after the pandemic hit which was devastating, but the private equity firm backed out and literally left Danielle and I and said, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? We built our company off of this national presence. Now we have to go back to what we were originally workshop events and how are we going to do this? How are we going to build? And it was scary, 100%. We talked to our other partners, licensing partners at the time and we all were pretty nervous but, like I said, it was a blessing in disguise because a few of us came together and we bought the brand back and I feel empowered.

Heidi Brown: 14:19

I will say that was one of my moments. We felt very empowered that we can actually go in and, first of all, figure out all this terminology of how to even buy a brand back from a bankruptcy. I didn't even know half of the words that these people were saying, but I was like that sounds good. I guess that sounds good, but in result because I know it's an elevator pitch, so we're really going to the penthouse but in return, what it did is that it allowed us to partner with people who were like-minded and that is what I would really say is key people who really wanted to grow and it's OK if some people feel something different, but to be able to truly partner with someone that has the same vision and growth really was set us apart.

Heidi Brown: 15:06

So we did partner with just a few of them who are previous owners, and it has been a long process but a really fun journey of bringing what I would say really one company together. And when I say it now, I mean it, I'm not lying, and I really feel it, we feel it. We are one company, coast to coast. So we have offices from California all the way to New York, down to Florida, all the way up in Seattle, and so it allowed us to come together and put together a foundation, a structure, a culture, and for the partners, for our partners, we have three other partners and we look back and we say that was really the most incredible journey and it is the strength that makes us really pull this together, because we all have the same vision and the same plan and the growth. So I know that was a really long elevator, but it's our journey through access.

Bryan Rossmanith: 16:06

That's great.

Shannon Martinez: 16:08

Okay, I'm not that high in the elevator yet, but we're going to get there. So in 2003, I had a really amazing high paying sales job and marketing job that I found myself staying out longer and longer on sales calls, thinking there has to be more life than this, like I can't just be 23 years old thinking this is it for the rest of my life. So I did something really good now, probably stupid at the time I quit this high paying job and I decided I was going to go bartend and I was going to volunteer at flower shops. I lived in Portland, oregon, at the time, so I left. I got a job at this awful sports bar and I remember it was right around Valentine's Day as well volunteering at any flower shop that would take me. And there was this little tiny, it was like equal to like a Veldicamps or something In the bottom of the Wells Fargo Center and I walked in like the week of Valentine's Day. I was like I know you need extra help, I totally know what I'm doing, I'm here to help you. And she was like done. So I remember at Portland it obviously rains a lot Valentine's Day. There's thousands of red roses that need to be processed and I'm standing outside in the rain in this parking lot for free shucking roses and I was like hell, yes, I made it. I made it, called my parents and they were like what is wrong with you? I remember begging anybody that would let me do the flowers for them. I actually ran across some of those photos the other day, you guys. It was peacock feathers and old beer bottles. You know stuff I'm really proud of. Anyways, fast forward to.

Shannon Martinez: 18:05

I moved to Colorado in 2010 and started working for other florists from Broomfield to Parker in 2011. And I really got to know the Parker market and I really got to start to lean into relationships and learning how to speak with venue coordinators and learning how those relationships were formed and where they could take you. There was a lady that came in and bought the shop. She had a grocery store background. Respectfully, this is now her business, but I have been doing weddings and events for her, for the previous owner. This lady wanted to come in, do it this way, this way, this way, and I was like not one to comply. Until it hit me one day. I was like, respectfully, this is her business. She has the right to run it her way. I'm not doing her a service by trying to mold it into something I want it to be.

Shannon Martinez: 18:57

So I left and I started interviewing other places and I had my integrity questioned and I was unsure in myself. You know people asking are you going to show up? How do I know you're really going to be here for the wedding? And I was like you don't call in sick in this industry, like I'm the owner. I got to be there and I was like you're questioning my authority and my integrity and I was like I can't do this for anybody else anymore, like I have to be in charge. I can't answer to anybody else anymore. To the support of my husband, I went out stupidly and started a business, so I thought I got online, I fumbled my way through pages. I thought I had signed myself out. You know these little things that you do. You're like I'm going to make it. I'm going to do this on my own. I remember answering like Craigslist ads at the time for $200 weddings and I was like I'm making it.

Shannon Martinez: 19:51

Fast forward. You start getting a few employees under your belt and my passion for this industry and my passion to grow something for this community grew so much bigger. I have a servant's heart. I have to give back, to get back what I have in this life, and I really believe that as a community, we're stronger. I really lead with that heart. I lead that there is no competition in this industry. I believe that we're all better together, so I really focus on forming those partnerships and relationships with other vendors.

Shannon Martinez: 20:28

That was in 2015. We fumbled our way through. A couple of years later, my husband started his own business called the Strait Crew, which focuses on labor and logistics, being able to help other businesses Fast forward to the end of 2023 and 2024, we decided to merge everything under one roof and better serve our community. We've taken a lot of time to figure out what was missing from this community, how we can better serve our vendors and better work together and collaborate together. I really believe in community over competition and putting other people first. I believe that if you lead with a good heart, it's going to come back to you in the long run, which is proven by all these incredible faces that I see here to out, so hoarding us all tonight. There we are, wow, incredible answers.

Bryan Rossmanith: 21:29

I'm just very humbled to be in the room with these four amazing ladies that are taking over the industry and just really leading by example. I mean, just turn to the person next to you and give them a big old high five for being here. I just love the authenticity and just the vision of these ladies and everybody in the room because I think without that vision of our lives and our companies then it's impossible to be empowered and actually take charge and make a difference in this world if you can't do that. So the next question is if you were to get a do-over in your business, what would you do?

Jenny Maxwell: 22:15

So I don't believe in do-overs, I don't believe in regrets. I believe that you should give yourself gentle permission to fail. I feel that when you do fail, what you should do is take as much time as you can to extract all the information from why you failed and move forward from it. I would never go back and do anything over in my life. I would just take it as learning lessons.

Danielle Phippen: 22:49

First and I forgot to say this last time. So Heidi and I, when Monica Cheek started NACE the chapter here in Colorado with Sid Stoper, I remember going to the first NACE and I just want to say thank you to everyone here because we were saying when we walked in, some of our best employees we found here, because you demonstrate a desire to grow in who you are. And I'd just say to this NACE chapter and if I was on the recruiting team, right, it's like how do you be the best NACE chapter? If I was on this NACE chapter I'd be like NACE is coming here, we're going to be the best damn NACE chapter in the country. So I believe in it and I think you guys like the more that you can support that and find that like fire in your own furnace. I just want to say, having been there from the beginning and all the great connections that I made, thank you to NACE for having us. And, side note, heidi and I also own Max and Livy, which uses the strike crew, so I had no idea that we had that connection.

Danielle Phippen: 23:54

I have many do-overs that I would do in life, in my work career. I'm like well, you know, I would do that over. I think you know I look back on our career and I don't have regrets. I think I learned a lot right. So Heidi and I started Eclectic Hive and it wasn't right for us after two years and we sold to the current owner and wished her the best of luck and we restarted Max and Livy and access went through eight different versions and for every time we stumbled like we got back up stronger and so I have one do-over. I told Heidi tonight Her name's Kelsey Kay and I think the thing I could give to anyone here who's a business owner or just an employee in a company is sometimes it's easier to lead with judgment, right, it's easy to be critical, and Kelsey Kay had given everything to us. Maybe she didn't work like me or contribute like me and I found myself, you know, now 13 years ago and I expected as an owner that everyone who worked for me would give what I gave.

Danielle Phippen: 25:08

And you know we had a client the other week at the Gaylord and she showed up and I was like, oh hey, how's it going? And she was annoyed that our team wasn't working as hard as her and the next the hotel wasn't working as hard as her and she had on a Louis Vuitton scarf, a Gucci bag and Gucci shoes. And I said to the gala I was with I'm like how can you ask of them, like, your benefit is far greater? Her benefit, right, as the owner of that company was always far greater than the employee. And I think how could I find a level of humility that I could appreciate what Kelsey K brought to the table, because she was invaluable. And when we lost her, that was a sad day, right, because my own shortcomings came between her employment with us.

Danielle Phippen: 25:59

And so I think, whether you're an employer, an owner, how you can find your humility but also understand you know where we are as owners and what that looks like. And the sacrifice Heidi and I have made and the risk that we've made is great and I love that. But I can't ask someone who works for me to necessarily do the same. And how can I honor and appreciate them? I think it was a big do-over. I would do so. My do-over is Kelsey K. We love her. So you know we're still good friends now, but we would do it different.

Heidi Brown: 26:32

For me it's the constant learning lesson. And if I had to truly narrow it down because, like Danielle said, we've gone through a lot of openings of new businesses between Danielle and I, starting what was the workshop that turned into access, that turned into access version part two, and then a Klecht archive to Max and Livy, so I didn't realize until, actually saying all that I'm like, oh, my goodness, that's been a lot of businesses and I think the piece and maybe it's just my old age and getting you know my gray hair wiser is just it's there, it's hidden through stuff, but it's there.

Heidi Brown: 27:11

I know it sounds so simple and I know it sounds just a little, I guess, cliche a little bit, but it's just enjoy the ride. I think so many times that you just go through the grind and there were times that I remember Danielle saying, let's do this, let's do this one, and I'm like I don't know if I can, and you could tell through my work that it just wasn't, it was I was half ass doing it. But when I know like the businesses that I saw just were came to like really successful, it's because my heart was in it. And if you just take the time sometimes just to step back, whatever you're doing in your careers, whether you're wanting to open up your own business, whether you're working for something, working for someone else is just step back and be like am I enjoying it? Am I enjoying the ride? Am I having fun? Because your passion, your excitement will show through that and your involvement, your engagement, it will just come more natural and genuine.

Heidi Brown: 28:07

So I know sounds like so simple, but sometimes I just have to go back to those simple lessons Just to remember that, to have fun with it, have fun with your colleagues, the people you get to know knew a network and it does come back in return Right when you show up with that smile on your face. You're excited to meet that person at this networking event. You can feel it naturally. So it does come back full force, like you were saying.

Shannon Martinez: 28:35

These are all very good. I'm actually going to lean into a little bit more of like what Danielle said. My answer is very similar. I have to write notes down too, sorry, because they're very important. I don't want to forget and I'm nervous up here. But this one's messy for me a little bit because it's not instinctual to who I am. But I definitely would have learned earlier to create a veil between myself and the employees, like being a little baby startup.

Shannon Martinez: 29:06

Obviously, I took everybody that was close to me and I was like we're going to do this together. So it was like friends and family, right, but they only know as much as I know and shit gets messy when things go south between you guys. So I feel like in the beginning I tried to pull people that aren't going to run this like their own business. They're not going to care as much as you do. They're not the ones that have to take accountability or responsibilities when things go wrong. They're not the ones that work from sun up to sun down. It feels good at first, right, because this is your buddy, this is your family. You're like we're doing this together. I'm going to pull you up with me, but it's like at some point those relationships don't work out and you can't carry those people with you anymore and it ends messy. They're like.

Shannon Martinez: 29:56

Had I hired qualified individuals from the beginning, I probably would have saved myself a ton of time and a ton of money.

Shannon Martinez: 30:04

Looking back on it, if I would have hired somebody who was more experienced from the beginning, I could have learned more, because if I'm taking people that are with me from the beginning, their growth is stunted. Where my growth is stunted and I'm humble enough to admit I don't know all this yet I need the help of other people. I need the help of my colleagues and my business coach and mentors to grow to the next spot, and people don't always want to go with you, so you have to learn to cut those ties and let it go. I'm still working on that. We've been burned a few times on this. Now, looking back, we've hired qualified people and looking at budgetary aspects of things, I've seen where we actually save money by paying somebody twice as much, because it makes your whole team more efficient, your company more efficient, your bottom line more efficient. It also creates that veil where you're able to make quick business decisions. Cut that off when you need to and continue to grow and do what's best for your company.

Bryan Rossmanith: 31:12

Wow, such fantastic answers. I love the vulnerability in that. You can do a business or you can be an employee for 100 different companies. You always get a do-over in your life. You can always look back and reevaluate and change courses. That's just. The beauty of life is that we get to choose our direction and that it's ultimately up to us to choose that path and keep going and to accomplish our vision that we have for our lives. So next question would be what's your single best success habit that you do on a daily basis?

Jenny Maxwell: 31:50

I think I decided in 2018 exactly who I wanted to be and I decided I was going to act like that person, I was going to dress like that person and I was just going to be that person. And I fight imposter syndrome, just like everybody does, and really working on that negative thoughts that come into your head and replacing them with positive thoughts rewires your brain to just have a more positive, just I guess, every single day I wake up and when I have these negative thoughts and they come into my head and I replace them, I just have learned that such a more positive, happy person if I focus on that every single day.

Danielle Phippen: 32:39

That's a good one. I wouldn't have I've never of all the people in this place, it's like not an imposter, you rock it. Okay, I'm going to add one thing, because I don't even know we're going to get there. But, shannon, you just brought up a good thing. It's going to be my story and you touched on it and I just want to share this. It's not my story.

Danielle Phippen: 32:59

Heidi and I which I'm humble and thankful we won Inc 5000 fastest growing companies last year and we got to go to their big conference and there was a woman there. What was the name of her lingerie company? Lovely, I don't know. So she's sitting up on a panel like this and someone said do your do over from your first company that she sold for 123 million gorgeous New Yorker and then she goes. I sat on the sideline for 30 days and then I started my organic energy drink and a year later I'm in 4,000 stores and whatever.

Danielle Phippen: 33:35

And what she said, which is important and I think, if you're a manager of people, if you work with people, if you're an employee or an owner of a company, she said, if I could do it different, from the first company, where we were a family, to the second company. We were a high performance team. She said I had to fire my uncle John three times and that was the joke, right. But I think, even when I look back on my career, if I'd seen myself as a high performance player and not a family. You know, we're really fortunate. We're almost 300 employees now. We get stuck in this family and we had younger generations say I don't like the word family because it makes me think you're going to ask me to do something and not pay me. And of course we all were like, say what? But it's, the idea of what she said is if you're a high performance company, you're either on the team and you're playing on the field, you're on the bench, you're on the bus or you're back home.

Danielle Phippen: 34:35

And that idea, I think, really resonated with me and I think with how we run our company, because there's a lot of pitfalls in being a family.

Danielle Phippen: 34:43

It sounds really great from the outside, but I'll just say my one success habit that Heidi and I have done since the day we started our company 15 years ago is we always had a plan.

Danielle Phippen: 34:54

We were joking tonight, before we came here, we were looking up like how to write a business plan 15 years ago and every year we sit down and we know what are our values, what are our objectives and if you haven't, there's a great book called Traction. They call it a vision traction organizer and it makes you look at your 10-year plan, your 5-year plan, your 1-year plan, and then they call them the rocks and the issues and all the things that get in the way of your plan. And I think there's accountability and ownership, and so my success habit is I make a plan and every week that I start, I have a plan, I know my plan for my calendar, for what I want to accomplish, and then, as it relates to work and it's helped me and my family with my husband and my children, is I have a plan and then I go work that plan.

Heidi Brown: 35:43

Remember I said I was a driver, so my thing with just helps me to be successful in the day is because I can get into a routine of just keep pushing myself personally, work, work. If I work just more and if I keep on working, it's just I want to get more and more successful and obviously you know it can wear you out and it can break you down and it is actually one of the things that when we went to this Inc 5000 conference it was really interesting to hear so many successful people say take care of yourself and then you also will be successful. So one of the things I've adapted still not 100% great at it. I just want to say but I don't look at my phone.

Heidi Brown: 36:27

When I first wake up, my alarm goes off. I might hit snooze one or two, three or four times, so maybe that's what I know where the snooze button is and then I'll just turn it off. I don't even look at email and I do something for myself for an hour and for me it's exercise just going for a run, a walk, stretching, whatever it might be I clear my brain so that when I get back, or when I do get behind that computer or, unfortunately, like we all do, look at our phone. I'm just more at a clear state of mind and I found myself not reacting to emails aggressively or reactive, you know, just being a little bit more patient and thoughtful on it. So just taking that moment for yourself. Work will be there, it will always be there and there will always be lots of it. So just take the moment for yourself before you look at that phone. That's where I would just recommend at least it's been helping me when I commit to it.

Shannon Martinez: 37:34

We're very similar, at least. So end of 2022 and beginning of 2023, our business was like fast-tracked to everything and I forgot the difference between work and home. And I'm not too embarrassed to admit I had some mental health issues as far as like anxiety and ADHD and complete burnout in 2023. Like talking about closing our business. I can't handle this anymore type of thing Because I just didn't know how to separate work from home. It was like constant I would pick up the phone first thing in the morning and I would sit on the phone until one o'clock in the morning.

Shannon Martinez: 38:19

So fast-forward, get some help by way of business coach and through what my husband and I call happy hour every night and not what everybody else thinks is like happy hour. There's no alcohol involved. It's not alcohol involved. It is really like taking that time to set your phone down and to really distinguish yourself. Like I am at home now. Nobody needs to bother me at eight o'clock at night, nobody needs to bother me at seven o'clock at night. But I need to do something for myself and I need to do something for this little brain up here to further grow and be more patient during the day.

Shannon Martinez: 39:01

So happy hour now consists of master classes or podcasts or seeking out other business mentors or watching videos at night. Affirmations, meditation, relaxation all this stuff that you are taught to take care of yourself, and since implementing that back in again, I have felt the patients come back. I wake up excited, with purpose, like my feet hit the floor every morning. I'm excited I don't get a case of the Mondays anymore. I don't have the Sunday scaries anymore. Like I look at, every Monday morning is an opportunity for us to continue growing and I look forward to coming home at night and turning off that phone. Now I even tried it this weekend Was busy working and I put my phone literally in the other room for two days and I was like this is amazing, like just checking out right, because I'm still a fun person outside of work. I just have to find her again sometime.

Bryan Rossmanith: 40:06

Everybody just shout to yourself I am a fun person, I like that one. I am empowered. Yes, that's a good one. I love what Danielle said about being on the team or off the team. I think it's fascinating to study just high performing teams and sports and business and kind of how that relates, and I just hear a lot of. There's a quote that says, if you failed a plan, you plan to fail, and I just hear a lot of planning. They're event planners but of course, a lot of business planning and a lot of rethinking in these answers. So it's a lot about reinventing yourself almost on a daily basis on what you have to do and really establishing those baseline guidelines to people to accomplish what you're looking for. So the next question is more directed towards Heidi and Danielle, kind of on work life balance. You said that you were best friends. How do you go about doing the work life balance on that? Because when is work time and when is hangout time, work time?

Danielle Phippen: 41:19

This is social time for us.

Heidi Brown: 41:22

I'm just saying I thought you get a new one, or maybe someone up here, I'm like, oh, come on, I'm just empty.

Danielle Phippen: 41:32

It was funny. I was thinking when I was like what's one thing you'd recommend to other people? And I'm like work with your best friend, obviously, I think the thing which you can imagine. We hear a lot right now, generationally, about work, life balance. And you know we've talked a lot with our teams.

Danielle Phippen: 41:51

You know it used to be you were fully in the office and we all went to this other side and I'm like is it OK from leadership to ask you to meet in the middle? Right, that's a tough conversation to have, but you know we went from work to life, work. And I think, how do you find the middle? And I'll tell you, the people who are going to succeed in their careers and find financial success, work success, they're going to know they're going to meet you in the middle. If you're seeking life, that's great. Probably we're not the company for you. We're a performance-based company, right? And I think that there's a piece that it's like I've said, I had a manager once and he said the fire lives in you or it doesn't, and you can't ignite it. And all of us, oh, thanks, Thor.

Bryan Rossmanith: 42:43

We need some more wine. I have a Ken year old. Thank you, Scotty.

Danielle Phippen: 42:46

And he says thanks Thor. Now I'm 48 almost and I'm like, oh, thanks Thor. I don't even remember the question how do you work with someone? Work life. I think you have to all just say, for Heidi and I, we've done a really good job propping each other up to understand there is a time to work and if you can understand that, I think there's a lot of success in that and the fact that we sacrificed life many times over the last 15, I'll say my whole career, 25 years, I sacrificed life sometimes and now I find I can reward my life because the work ended up begetting better work and better success. And so if you have this expectation that it looked the same every day, every year, every month, and prioritize life, that's great. But if you want business success, it will come at a cost. And for Heidi and I and I'm not going to answer for her because it's like we speak the same language we've done a really good job holding each other accountable.

Danielle Phippen: 43:56

But Heidi shared with you guys. She shared with me last year because I was so spun out and I have two kids, I have a husband, I have a life, a family, and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm 47 years old. I'm 10, 15 pounds overweight. I'm stressed all the time and I can't find time for myself. And she goes don't start work till nine. What's going to happen?

Danielle Phippen: 44:20

But I found that I could figure out where it worked for me, but it was the idea of someone who would support you. So whoever your support person is, she's been that for me. I took all the time, heidi, there you go.

Heidi Brown: 44:32

No, it really is. I was going to touch on that is we have a very unique. We call it lightning in a bottle. We really do, because you can't always work with your best friend and we've been able to figure that out.

Heidi Brown: 44:47

Business coaches are very important, yes, but really, to answer Brian, what you're saying is that when we do the work-life balance, it's holding each other accountable. We both she's got two beautiful kids, I've got three kids and to know that there's support, there is huge. And to be vulnerable to say I need help If you can only tell that we don't like to fail and failing seems like a very negative, bad thing and it can't be, it's not. And to be vulnerable to say I need help, I need time, I need balance, it's the most important thing and so I'm very fortunate that I have a great partner. But we have to hold each other accountable, say go, stop, take it, and I got it. And it might not come back the exact same perfect way, but we're keeping the train moving forward.

Heidi Brown: 45:42

But ultimately, it's OK to raise the right flag and say I need a moment, and that is not failing. You might feel it, but it's not failing. It's just giving you a time to re-energize and to be creative. Because I will say that that's where I can actually speak for her, because she comes back from these moments when she can have her time with her family and man, are those creative juices just flowing. I was like where did that come from? But when you do get to enjoy life, when you get to get that time, it actually is when it allows you to be creative, and we like to call our company be Imagineers.

Bryan Rossmanith: 46:21

So Love those answers. I love those answers. Next question will be for everybody, and that is what is. I have to look at my notes here. What are you currently most excited about in the event industry?

Jenny Maxwell: 46:44

Tech baby. All of it, whether it's event planning, whether it's AI tech, is the future in event planning.

Danielle Phippen: 46:54

I think you're a C on the core mapping. You're a commander too aren't you.

Danielle Phippen: 46:58

She's a get it done lady. I like that. I can appreciate. Like minded, you stole Heidi's answer. I will say what I'm most excited about the events industry. And I told Heidi this is like we are just the most resilient industry and I think through my career of 911.com, housing crisis, pandemic, you name it I'm like when our company we lost $20 million, just fell off the cliff in March of 2020. And we laid off 40 amazing employees and you just thought like dang, what just happened? But I never lost. I was like, oh, I'm coming back and I used to say to the other tidy and the other woman that we're business partners with. I'm like we're like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.

Danielle Phippen: 48:04

And I think what I'm most excited about the event industry is that there's no limits and there are probably people in this room. I mean I got the chance like meeting Brian, who started with an ax throwing company, and I mean he works with our company probably weekly, and all of the people with team building companies and my High and all of the companies we work with. I'm like these were the dreams and visions of people who woke up one day and took a chance, and so I'm most excited about what do we not know? Because there's someone here, there's someone in every city who's got an idea, and I would encourage everyone, like what do you have to lose? You have everything to gain, and I mean maybe a little setback. I mean we lived off like $15,000 a year when we first started our company for three years and I made it work, went to Walmart with my $60 a week and I did my little phone calculator.

Danielle Phippen: 49:00

So I think I'm most excited about what we don't know. That's what my team I oversee, the creative team, that's what we're looking for every day is what do we not know? Because we are so resilient and we are Imagineers and we're innovators and I love that and we're just like you were saying earlier. I'm like what was the word? And I'm back here and I'm like fierce, fierce. So that's what I think we are.

Bryan Rossmanith: 49:24

Love it, love it.

Heidi Brown: 49:28

It was yes, jenny, it's the same thing, ai. I think I'm coming from a different perspective, though, because I was that girl that said I don't need to do email. I mean I'm fine, until my professor was like you're going to fail this class unless you know how to work. Email Fast forward is like my friends are texting me. I'm like this thing is stupid. I hate text. I'm a phone person, I'm not going to do it. Not going to do it, ok, when we started our business.

Danielle Phippen: 49:54

I would text tidy and I'd be like, because we were coming to a NACE event. I'd be like, hey, I'll be at your house in 10 minutes and my phone would ring hey, I'll be ready. I'm getting tired.

Heidi Brown: 50:08

So I'm a little different, jenny. It takes me a little bit to that, to keeping up with the times. So AI is exciting. It's also for me. I'm like I have to put myself out of my comfort zone, just like I did with email and text, so I am excited to embrace that piece of it. The other piece that I look at for our industry, which has definitely kept us on our toes, is keeping up with the generations and really really understanding what motivates them and what inspires them. Our company inspired people through shared services and I'm like and what does inspire you in some cases with some generations, and so just being able to? But that's exciting for me, it is to keep up with it, to be engaged, be current, and it is to take challenges and not be afraid, and some might flop and some might soar.

Shannon Martinez: 51:16

Also leaning into what you guys said. I'm also very, very excited for AI, for also different reasons. So, from a designer aspect, you'll hear a lot of people like aren't you scared of what it's going to do? There's all these false realities out there with photos, and I also look at that as a challenge. I think that's going to push us as designers. We need to push the boundaries, Like, OK, they're completely fabricated photos, but how do we get there as designers? How do we bring that stuff to life? And I think that's something that, to stay on the forefront, I have to enlist the younger generation to help us learn this stuff. I'm getting up there, but enlisting the help of a younger generation but the design aspect from it, I think, is just going to push us a lot farther. How do we create those mechanics? How do we get the fabric to look that way? How do we get the flowers to go in that direction? How do we get them to hold in this position? I think it's going to be really exciting. It's just getting started, right.

Shannon Martinez: 52:25

I feel like we're at the beginning of social media again, with the whole AI inception and what it's going to do for us.

Bryan Rossmanith: 52:32

And we have AI sketchbots back there. I mean, hello, all the event technology that's coming out AI photo booths there's just so many iterations that we can do in the event industry. So it's very exciting to see all the applications that AI will have in the next few years and in upcoming, and how it's going to impact our industry. So last question, before we take on the people's questions, will it be when do you feel most empowered?

Heidi Brown: 53:01

OK, I feel bad. Jenny, you've been going first the entire time. Do you have any other questions? Yeah, ok, all right, jenny, I'll take one for the team.

Heidi Brown: 53:13

Well, I think I mentioned earlier I felt one of my most proud moments right, obviously feeling empowered is when we did take over the company, went up against nasty private equity firm but didn't think it. I didn't, I was against, so out of my comfort zone to just know, like connecting with banks and how does this whole process I'm like I plan events. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing on this side of it, but that was really incredible. And, in turn, what just makes me feel even more empowered is seeing the impact it made on my kids, because they saw what my company went through in 2020. And they saw me being on a lot of those phone calls and having to lay off family members at the time.

Heidi Brown: 54:08

But one of my biggest things is my son. I went for a walk. He's like well, mom, what are you going to do now? You're going to stay home with me? Like no, I'm not, I'm going to go back out there. I'm going to do it again. I'm going to be bigger and he's a teenager. So I mean he probably said go bra, go bro, gotcha Awesome. So I will say, yes, the empowerment of being able to do what we did from access and build it to be one company. But really seeing impact that it made on my kids and I do have two boys and I have a daughter and just seeing that, her confidence and that, just like you said, being a servant just being able to give back, has been pretty incredible.

Shannon Martinez: 55:01

A few years ago I had a colleague of mine asked me to speak at a retreat for the first time. It was a retreat she was putting on for other colleagues. People were paying a very large amount. I thought at the time to come and see myself and my assistant speak at the time and it's a lot of that imposter syndrome you were speaking about earlier like what do I have to share with people? And it was honestly standing up there in front of a group of 45 women eager to learn with you, being able to share those experiences, and hopefully somebody would be able to take away a little nugget that would help them in their future business. I think was the most empowering. Being asked to come back and speak multiple years in a row just further hit home like, ok, maybe we're doing something right, maybe we're sharing something right, maybe I'm teaching myself right. I'm still learning along the way. I never want to be done learning, but I think being looked at as somebody that had something to share for somebody else was probably the most empowering for me.

Jenny Maxwell: 56:13

I think I feel most empowered when I'm helping other people and I see them succeed. I know I have a lot of gifts to share and so when I can take the time out and be able to share these gifts, I think that, and then to see them succeed off of it, is what makes me feel the most empowered. It's not really anything that I do or I achieve, but it's just helping other people. Like some of my friends here from Fortesamo, they went through a really hard time last year and they said, hey, can you give me a hand? And now they're succeeding and thriving and I feel very empowered that I got to be a part of that journey.

Danielle Phippen: 56:56

I think mine's, yours. I'm kind of a nugget type person, so for everyone here, I think I've learned a lot. If you don't follow Simon Sinek and all of his leadership videos there's just a lot of good nuggets in there and one of the things he says is people won't care what you say unless they know you care. And the way I think I've felt most empowered in the last few years and my personal growth was I'm such a driver and I love how I felt empowered and what filled my cup, even up to two years ago, was that entrepreneur, that visionary. I was never satisfied. I was always growing to the next, to the next, and now I think I want, I want our business to live well beyond us, and that meant that the next generation had to carry the torch.

Danielle Phippen: 57:52

And so one of the phrases that our business coach uses is you have to lead with care, and if people know you care, you can challenge them to do good work. And that's kind of in my motto, and the people that I find around me that know I care for them and I challenge them hard to do good work. It's been so empowering and rewarding seeing how they've grown in their career and you know. When you talk about the work-life balance, I'll say on this side, for the last three years we've been kind of shot out of a cannon, but I see a lot of great moments with my family and not spend the result of allowing someone else to grow in their career. So I'm super thankful and I feel empowered by the gifts they give me that I hope I return to them.

Bryan Rossmanith: 58:40

I love those answers. There's so much knowledge and wisdom that you can unpack from all of that, so we'll open it up to the audience. Who has questions for our amazing panelists this evening, bonnie. Hello.

Speaker 7: 58:57

I love all of you ladies. Thank you so much for being here. My question is that you know you guys have grown in your careers and are now in a place where you are empowered. What are you doing for your employees and the people that you work with to empower?

Danielle Phippen: 59:13

them. I'm going to hand this over, but I've tried to hire Bonnie for five years. I just want everyone to know that the owner of Biscuits and Berries is my neighbor. I can't get Bonnie.

Heidi Brown: 59:30

It is a great question and, bonnie, it's. One of the things that we made a priority for our company is we made it a mission to be one of the best places to work, and so we're super excited we actually have been nominated for that. But it is an ongoing process and part of that is to have growth opportunities and you know so it is part of our culture. We have made it our culture to encourage growth and in ways and I know every company is a little different size or whatnot, but you know always making sure we're announcing all new, new, new positions, because we can't assume that someone doesn't want to take a position or not. So making sure everyone is aware of open opportunities across all of our offices.

Heidi Brown: 1:00:17

But we also have one of the big things for us is spending a lot of time on training and to build just the knowledge so that it allows people the confidence that they can reach out to continue their growth. And the other, I would say, main piece is a mentor program that we added at our company to give that comfort zone. And again, it doesn't have to be a big company, it can happen at any size, but you can't assume that someone's always going to be comfortable talking to the boss right, and so creating that mentorship has really been a huge added value, especially with the growth that we have. But it's one of our biggest things is our people make our company, so it's our culture.

Danielle Phippen: 1:01:01

I'll just add one thing. We have a gal, I would say, approachability. If you're a manager, be approachable. I had a gal on a senior creative manager come to me three weeks ago, asked for a meeting. She sat down and said senior managers should be compensated at a different level. And let me tell you why. And she's laid out all of these things.

Danielle Phippen: 1:01:20

And in our business we call them fast trackers. If you're a manager, know your fast trackers and if you think you're a fast tracker, make sure your manager knows, because that sometimes is you won't get what you don't ask for. To ask the force on our team, she's going to get what she asked for it because she came to me boldly and confidently and asked for what she wanted and was willing to do the work. So I'd say that sometimes we think our work should show for itself and when I look back on my career, I wish I had been bold in saying I'm a fast tracker, I'm going to commit to your company, I'm going to help it grow and here's how and I think any of us as business owners, if someone came to us, we'd talk about it for weeks. We'd be like that's the girl, which is why I'd keep trying to hire Bonnie.

Bryan Rossmanith: 1:02:09

Any other answers from our panelists?

Shannon Martinez: 1:02:13

I think ours is a lot of the same. Since we started Lusha, we have also I think now we're up to probably five different departments, and it's really sitting down with those people and asking them their goals, which we hadn't done before. We assumed our goals were their goals and that's why they were there and it's not. They don't necessarily know our five-year goals, our 10-year goals, our lifetime goals. So recently we've been sitting down and onboarding with everyone.

Shannon Martinez: 1:02:42

My husband, lou, takes care of the human resources side and has been really great at implementing even surveys that we're giving out to them, like who's your best friend at work? Where do you feel comfortable talking? Because, exactly that, they haven't been necessarily comfortable approaching us. So right now it's sitting down with them, asking them their goals, like how can we help better your goals? Asking them to take initiative, giving them the resources to take that initiative. If it's something that's going to benefit our company, I would love to invest in those people because I feel like, in turn, they're going to invest in us. Whether that's leadership conferences or different certifications for different rigging classes or whatever it may be. It's empowering them, like literally empowering them to tell us like do you have ideas Otherwise? We can suggest things as well.

Bryan Rossmanith: 1:03:39

Awesome question, bonnie. Thank you so much, sir. Are you enjoying Team Access or what's the deal here? No, bonnie, no Bonnie, and I hope everybody's taking notes because this is absolute business gold here, am I right? Yes, are any other questions? No, we have some Perfect Hi.

Speaker 7: 1:03:58

I've heard you mention business coaching a few times and I wanted to know what made you decide to take on a business coach and how did they contribute to your success, and how would you recommend going about finding the right business coach for you?

Shannon Martinez: 1:04:13

My husband actually started using a business coach for his company. First I didn't really even know that these types of people were out there. I thought they were like beyond my reach or I thought they were for a different industry. I had no idea the relevance it would be for us. I started using a business coach probably four months ago. Yeah, in that four months I have been able to accomplish basically the last 10 years I had with Olive and Poppy Incredible. I had to be vulnerable and I had to ask for help because I wanted to fail forward. I got lucky in the sense that my husband was already using one, so I tagged along and fell in love with the same one. He is in our industry.

Shannon Martinez: 1:05:04

And then I've recently started researching just business mentors in general. I know that there's a few in this room. I don't know what's that. What is it? A picture? I use Christarkia in print group. He's amazing. But it was just a great track for me to have somebody lay it out and somebody to keep me accountable and somebody to keep me excited.

Shannon Martinez: 1:05:31

When I left there I was like let's go Every time. Every time I leave there, I'm dancing down the middle of the street. I have my homework list. I have a cheerleader, I have a support team, I have somebody who's traveled this path before not that I'm taking the same path, but somebody to say these are the steps you need to take next and this is why I have to role play. I have to get up there and look stupid, but that's okay, because I'm learning myself.

Shannon Martinez: 1:05:57

I'm not supposed to have these answers. If I had these answers, I wouldn't need a business coach, right? So it's sitting up there and being vulnerable and asking somebody to give the advice. Like where do we go next? What are the next steps? Like I didn't even know all the paperwork we needed to have filled out. I didn't know the marketing strategies that needed to be done. Like I started off as a florist, obviously moved into events design and moved into being a business owner. I never started off as a business owner, so I needed somebody to teach me the back end of this, to keep that part going, while we keep the fun design aspect going up front as well.

Heidi Brown: 1:06:35

But I'll let you ladies, yes, I highly, we highly recommend a business coach. It is an investment, so it is scary up front, especially when Danielle and I were starting our business, we hired one when we were workshop events, which I do feel. This business coach really helped guide us to our path to where we are. We are also we have a couple of business coaches, but this, you know, I will say I think the biggest thing. But again, you know, we're in our infancy stage, I guess I would say, of our business. So to be able to invest in someone like a business coach they're kind of like is this makes sense and I would highly recommend it.

Heidi Brown: 1:07:16

And the reason is one of the biggest things is when you're used to being in the business all the time the doer, everything is urgent, everything is urgent. And when you have a business coach, they help you prioritize of what's important versus what's urgent. And if you don't focus a certain amount of time on the important, you won't grow, because the brainstorming, the creativity, the planning, it always gets pushed to the back burner. And having a business coach allows you to well, forces you, if you do your homework, to be to focus on the things that are important for the business. So that was, I would say, probably in kind of like an overview, was the biggest thing that helped us with the business coach.

Heidi Brown: 1:08:04

Ours was Dean Savoka. He does also a lot of great retreats. So a little plug in for Dean Savoka, and then Daniel, and then, just because our business just changed, we just have a different business coach that's more focused on leadership, and so it's just kind of different stages. So, just like anything, right, just reach out to to people and just are asking questions. I'm sure, potentially, maybe right, I don't know Nace might have some members that are already part of this that could help even just start asking. But don't be afraid, pick up the phone, start calling and see and take a leap, and it's a great financial investment.

Danielle Phippen: 1:08:45

Yeah, I'll just add Dean Savoka, and I think in our first year I'm kind of a tangible person, right, let's say it was $20,000, $10,000 a piece, but call them, call Dean. And if you can't afford Dean I bet he has five people you can't afford. We use Mark Youngblood. His program is called Intermastery. He's based in Florida. You can be in group programming with him for $12,000. It's a one year training course and you learn about a lot about like how to work with people, how to set goals. So I think it's kind of based on what you want. But I think they give you clarity even in your personal professional career, like what is it you want? And you know, we call it the North Star.

Danielle Phippen: 1:09:29

If you don't know your North Star today, spend some time figuring that out. Right, my North Star was always it was entrepreneur. I just wanted to create something that I was super jazzed about going to do and I wanted to be the best at it. So I was always willing to work hard. I didn't know what it looked like, but then I could go like chase that, and so I think if if you start there, then you can decide if a business coach is right for you. But you should know your North Star. If you're just plugging along and I didn't ever talk about this night If your North Star is make more money, it won't come. It might come but it might be fleeting. And I think if you seek other things, things like financial reward, will come but it will take the work. So that is investing in a business coach and it's been a huge piece for us and setting goals for our company, a vision, a mission, and you could do the same for yourself personally.

Jenny Maxwell: 1:10:27

So I haven't hired a business coach, but last year I went from being a marketing person and event planner to a completely different industry. I went into software, which is like 80% men, and I had no idea who to turn to or who to ask questions to, and it was. It was phenomenal how many women would give me just resource upon resource and they would say, oh my gosh, be on my podcast here. You need to reach out to this company, you need to reach out to them. And so I have a lot of mentors. I went to the Colorado women's chamber recently and there's hundreds of women that are just in all walks of life in different business industries and they're willing to help. And the Department of Economic Development and Opportunity they're willing to hook you up with people. So if you can't afford a business coach, you can't. If you're just looking for something maybe more like a mentor or something like that, I think that's a good resource too.

Bryan Rossmanith: 1:11:28

Incredible answers. I just hear a lot of don't be afraid to fail, because comfort zones are where dreams go to die. So don't stay in the comfort zone. We have time for one last question and then, unfortunately, we're going to have to wrap this panel up. I feel like this panel could go on for days. It's just so much incredible information. Who has that last question? And if you're afraid to ask, just remember push past the comfort zone. Joe has a question for the panel.

Speaker 4: 1:11:58

Let's talk about the future. Do you have a plan Like you guys were talking about, like one year plan, five year plan, 10 year plan? Can you elaborate just a little bit more about that? Like what do you see that maybe we might not see? There's a certain perspective that you can actually do at us. That would be great.

Jenny Maxwell: 1:12:18

I mean, I have my plan all the way to 2030, mapped out quarterly, monthly. Everybody else, I don't know what they're doing, but I know what I'm doing.

Danielle Phippen: 1:12:27

There's a lesson, right, have a plan. Who asked me recently? They were like what do you see in five years? And I was like I don't know, world domination, you know.

Danielle Phippen: 1:12:37

I think I think what I would encourage everyone and it's been my success habit is I never felt constrained and Brian said it perfectly Like I liked being a little uncomfortable. And you know, I was uncomfortable at every NAIS event I went to. I don't know who I'd talk to, I don't know if anyone would talk to me, and I always pushed myself to do what made me really uncomfortable because I knew that might drive me towards success. I'm still uncomfortable today in large group settings. I was uncomfortable when I got here, so there's company in that. But I think I would just encourage everyone like what is it you dream and are you willing to step out into that? That's, I think, our future is. We're not bound by restrictions, right? We're like I don't know you want to open in Canada.

Danielle Phippen: 1:13:30

Now, I tell the team they always like Heidi's, like my tether, which I love, but sometimes I'm like, hey, debbie Downer. I'm like Mexico. She's like, well, the peso. I'm like Canada. She's like the value of the dollar. I'm like Hawaii. They're like six hour transfer, you know, but we do it together right. So she's the driver and I'm. I like to be the dreamer, but we work really well together. So I just say, in your personal, in your work, I like, stop being afraid. That's what I think is in the future for people who will really drive business is don't be afraid. It's okay to fail. We fail all the time. We've lost money, we've made money, we've Kelsey Kay, we lost employees but, like, we survived and I think it was a drive to continue moving forward and I feel they're going to have a chance to change the cycling path.

Heidi Brown: 1:14:18

It's not really a great specific answer, but I just want to echo what Jenny said is put a plan together. But the biggest thing that you said, jenny, is break it out, break it down into quarters. Don't do this oh my gosh, five years because that can get also pretty overwhelming. So definitely break it down into quarters. But I do want to answer what do we see in the future? Or maybe for us?

Heidi Brown: 1:14:40

Even again, I like to break it down in the smallest segments in the next three years and again, this might only pertain to our industry. So I apologize if it's not relevant to you guys, but it's really looking at those second-tier cities that was in Annapolis, louisville, right, and so renewers, if you want to expand, how can you expand? How can you bring your expertise into an area that may be already saturated, and so just looking at maybe other markets to help with that. So again, might not be relevant to what you guys are doing, but that's just from kind of an industry standpoint. Is that we're looking. A lot of our clients are seeing very expensive cities that are the traditional tier one cities like California and New York that are really expensive, and they're trying to think outside the box of locations to go. So the trends that we're hearing is that they're really clients, are pushing their stakeholders to look at different areas to be able to do their events.

Shannon Martinez: 1:15:42

Our so is also the same.

Shannon Martinez: 1:15:44

We got about out to five years with our plans. It's so hard to see where that I see the future five years from now just with how fast everything's changing and with us being like on the very beginning infancy stages of AI and speaking personally for ourselves in Lucia, we're just getting started and I feel like we're drinking from a fire hose right now. Our main goal right now is to really make sure our foundation right here is solid. We've dabbled in other states right now currently with Olive and Poppy and with Strike Crew Now with merging the two of those together into one company. We really want to settle in and dig roots into Denver, make sure that foundation is solid and then go back out to those little remote cities that we started trying at.

Shannon Martinez: 1:16:32

But it's hard to say where I would see the future of our industry in five years. I'm excited to see that, but it's changing so fast. I mean, I look back to five years ago and that was pre-COVID, and we start thinking about that stuff like look, how much has changed in the last five years completely unexpectedly. So it's exciting to see the growth in our industry though.

Danielle Phippen: 1:16:58

I have one. Sorry, brian, I'll add one quick thing. So in our industry, when private equity entered the destination management industry, probably seven or eight years ago, private equity and investment bankers look at highly fragmented industries that surpass the billion dollar mark, and so I think it's important to look five years down the road and I'd say something like what you're doing, I think of our decor company how can you build something? There's a lot of investment banking companies that'll buy your business and if you can replicate it, there's something to be said of what is the highly fragmented mom and pop, and it's what we hope to do by being privately owned.

Danielle Phippen: 1:17:43

But across 40 cities in the United States, companies want a single contract. That's where I think our industry is going. Is a single contract, single contact, things that ease their ability to do business. Every corporate client doesn't want to come into every town and find every florist, every decor company. If you look for our decor company, cort AFR, there is consolidation happening. We talked about team building. People want ease of service. That's where I think five years is how do you make the planners life easier? What's the next billion dollar market that someone wants to consolidate? Are you in it and are you a big player?

Bryan Rossmanith: 1:18:23

My drop on that last answer. I love it. Thank you all so much for being here. My name is Brian Ross Manneth, owner of Ignite Experiences. Thank you so much for joining our wonderful panelist, jenny, danielle, heidi and Shannon it is a privilege to host everybody. Our president, presdez of the Magery KCo, got you all a gift.

Bryan Rossmanith: 1:18:56

Thank you, that's really heavy, thank you guys, so many gifts in there and then we'll end our panel with what we started with, which is I am empowered and we can go about our day feeling empowered that we can change the world. Ready, I am Empowered. I am empowered Love it. Thank you all so much.