Latest / Built by Margin with Laurie Chen / The Numbers, Systems, and Decisions That Scale a Business with Jaramogi K. Adams

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The Numbers, Systems, and Decisions That Scale a Business with Jaramogi K. Adams · Built by Margin with Laurie Chen

• 0:04
  Welcome to Built by Margin, where risk meets numbers and better decisions get made. I'm Lori Chen, cpa, fractional CFO and author of Risk Worthy. On this show we Explore how founders, CEOs and high performers think strategically, take intelligent risks and use numbers to build what matters. Because great outcomes don't happen by accident. They're built by margin.
• 0:33
  Hi Jaramogi. Welcome to Built by Margin. Hi, how's it going, Lauren? Great. Let's talk about your origin story.
• 0:41
  So you've moved from dot com consulting to nearly two decades at American Express, then into startup and mission driven COO work. What throughline connects all of those chapters for you?
• 0:56
  Well, firstly, just growth.
• 0:59
  Right.com happened to be the going thing, the new thing when I left college. And so I wanted to learn and be in the mix, understand what this Internet thing was about and how I can contribute and participate from there. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school, but I was unsure if I wanted to go to law school or business school. I got an opportunity to join American Express and Finance organization. I didn't know that I had an intense interest of living and being overseas and American Express gave me that opportunity. So I spent 18 years at American Express, worked in four different countries and then decided that I did want to build on my own. And so that's what led me to go into startups because you can't really build an organization when it's 50,000 people. And in terms of mission driven, as I mentioned, I learned so many different things from so many different places. I wanted to see if there was a possibility that I could use all that skill set for good. Yeah, that sounds amazing. So you're a Stanford MBA and then you're a Duke BA and looks like you have some language skills in Japanese. And you said you lived in four different countries. That's a very unique background and experience. It is, it is. And the funny thing about it, or I shouldn't say funny, but my name Jeremiah. So again, before I was even born, my mother gave me the name Juramaji. It's Kenyan, it's Swahili, it means one who travels often. So born in a small town in South Carolina and in making my way up to Brooklyn and having this expansive sort of education, I knew at bare minimum I wanted to live up to my name. And I felt I could do that through books and I could do that through my career. And so my career followed the trajectory of my name. I wanted to make sure that I did travel, I did see the world.
• 2:57
  It just so happens That I had a passion for it. And that's sort of the through line for that experience. That's amazing. So your bio says that your work has always been make the complex, understandable, build structure where there is none.
• 3:13
  When did you first realize that that was your professional superpower or mantra?
• 3:20
  I will say that that is actually my skill set.
• 3:24
  That is my training, my superpower.
• 3:28
  Oddly enough, I list my superpower is listening.
• 3:32
  And I think there's many layers to that. Listening is not just hearing what someone says, but it's comprehension. And oftentimes within someone telling you what's going on, there lies a problem, there lies a challenge, there lies an issue. And the question is, do you have the toolkit to be able to help solve that problem? You know, this goes back to, you know, high school, that first time I took a calculus class and I realized that two plus two equals four is a myth. Right. There's really these complex issues that we have, and sometimes we can spend years and still never solve them. And so this idea that if you have a toolkit, you can actually go out there and try and solve problems, that is in fact what I did.
• 4:17
  But first and foremost, you have to be able to hear what someone is telling me. Listening is my superpower, but because I can understand and comprehend and then replay what someone says is their challenge, they feel heard and they're interested in further conversation, and then we can begin to pull back the layers of what it is that's hurting them or bothering them, or as we like to say, keep them up at night. And then my other superpower, I would say, is being able to take the qualitative and translate it to the quantitative and vice versa. So the skill set of understanding numbers and data and how it translates to a three bullet explanation of what the issue is, that is, in fact, what I would consider to be my other superpower. That's great. I love that you said that your first superpower is listening.
• 5:05
  I think that's key to all facets of life, whether it's business or personal. That's such a important power to have. The power, the superpower I wish, I wish I had was mind reading. I think that would be an excellent superpower.
• 5:23
  Yeah. So, okay, so we've talked about, you know, you worked at American Express for 18 years. So if you worked inside these huge global organizations, giving you a lot of experience and corporate, and now you're working with early stage companies with very little structure, which environment has taught you more about decision making? Under uncertainty, I believe you learn uncertainty and how to deal with uncertainty in both environments. Of course, my training is very much corporate. As you mentioned, it's been 18 years at American Express, first and foremost. And while I could look at my career and say that I've had these many different roles, these many different titles, I was always chasing the challenge. My first boss that I ever had at American Express, he said, find the biggest issue and raise your hand for it. And that's what I looked to do in my career. Whatever someone else did not want to do, whatever someone else didn't want to work on because it was messy or it was too sloppy or it looked like the risk reward was too high, I looked for those opportunities in my career. And that ultimately has led me to where I like to sit now, which is in smaller organizations. Because now it feels like no problem can't be solved without strategy, conversation and then following on execution.
• 6:49
  Right? So how do you get to the point of execution? It's not just about identifying the problem or diagnosing the problem, but it's about execution. And that's where my toolkit, my toolkit comes into play.
• 7:01
  So what risks did you feel like you were taking on the most professionally, financially or identity wise when you moved into the startup world?
• 7:12
  Was that proverbial sort of leave your comfortable behind?
• 7:16
  Right. Nothing drove me away from the American Express except my own desire to do something different.
• 7:24
  I had an 18 year career, I was doing well. I had stock options, you know, that sort of golden handcuff idea, which is that, you know, as long as you keep going, they'll keep giving you stock options and you keep accruing money to put in the bank.
• 7:43
  But there was a part of me that felt like if I did not take this opportunity to see what I could do in the startup realm, then I would just feel like I was missing out or hurting myself or my future self. And so this idea of wanting to learn and build and execute without a safety net of a big organization was something that again, upon talking with my partner, talking to my wife about this, we decided that this would be a good idea for me. What I will tell you, Laurie, is that I actually was looking to join startups straight out of American Express. And everyone that I talked to said, well, you come from a big organization, you don't know what it's like to roll up your sleeves and deal with a startup environment. And I probably had that conversation about four or five times with people turning me down, not even really taking interviews, but because of my background, they took the conversation and so I Decided to leave American Express and go to Stanford and take on student debt just so that I could reposition myself as someone who can work in a startup environment by putting myself within that network. So that was a conscious decision I made to leave that sort of safety net of step function change in my career in American Express versus go full board to startups and really see what I can do.
• 9:10
  So you've been working with Jakara strategies for five years now. Looks like you started in May of 2021.
• 9:17
  How did you come up with that name for that company and what inspired you specifically to start in this space?
• 9:25
  So really, really interesting Jakara Strategies strategy, I would say is my core skill set.
• 9:33
  My name Jaramaji. So what you see is the J A R from Jaramaji. My middle name is Kareem that starts with K A R and my last name is Adams.
• 9:45
  It just starts with an A. So Jakara Strategies is really a boutique consulting firm, but it's just me. So Jakara is actually my name tied together.
• 9:56
  And what started this is when I graduated Stanford, I graduated in the middle of COVID and I knew that I wanted to do startups. But what ended up happening is instead of joining a startup, I started doing these contracts, these contracts and organizations that had this sort of strategy and operations departments. And I took a three month contract here and a six month contract here and I said, okay, well instead of doing this, maybe I should just tie this all into an LLC. So that's what happened in 2021. After doing a couple projects at say Twitter and a couple other organizations, I spun up my llc. And since then I've been doing a lot of projects from that.
• 10:38
  How do you retain customers? Because you know a lot of, especially if you're working with larger corporations, their projects are very defined. There's a defined scope of work, defined timeline. How do you juggle delivery service, delivery to the customer at the same time retaining the customer or getting new contracts like it's a hamster wheel. That I understand.
• 11:00
  But I would like to know how you, how you view it.
• 11:05
  Let me start by saying I'm not great at it. What I will tell you is one of my mantras is good work begets more work and therefore execution on what's in front of you is absolutely mandatory from my standpoint, it always has been. And so when you talk about retention, it's a matter of my brand is the work that I deliver and then that becomes memorable. And so the projects that I have been brought on is someone remembers work that I did at some other point and will either refer me to others or bring me back in to do that work again. And so the great part about being a fractional chief operating officer is that I've had such varied careers, I actually get to dabble and do different types of work. So the one thing about joining a big organization is you get one type of role and then you focus on that role. But because I've had a role in operational excellence and business transformation and finance and planning and analysis and you know, sitting in scrum rooms with product and engineering teams and leadership meeting with a fractional COO role, I have the ability to jump in any of those worlds and execute. And so that's what I like about it.
• 12:26
  It's talking to individuals again, listening, hearing what their problems are or their challenges are, being able to give a response that suggests I understand your problem. And I've worked on that before and then being brought into a meeting. And that's what's led to the bulk of my sows.
• 12:46
  So you've built financial models, you've done pricing strategies, hiring roadmaps, financial fundraising materials, different COO advisory roles. What numbers do you think leaders under use when making strategic financial decisions?
• 13:04
  I would say definitely KPIs and OKRs. It's hard to measure where you're going unless you know where you are. I think a big skill set in what I do do, and it's so baked into everything that I do that I barely speak about it, is change management.
• 13:20
  And the challenges that most organizations have is that they show up and they say, well we're this today and we're going to be this tomorrow and expect everyone to just wake up the next day and be back tomorrow.
• 13:31
  Well, no, change doesn't happen. It's called change management.
• 13:36
  And so that management piece means that it has to be a step function change.
• 13:40
  So if I'm talking to a leader in particular and they have this sort of North Star, but they exist as this today, then my goal is to convince them that you don't just show up and you're this tomorrow, you actually have to do step function change to get there.
• 13:54
  And what does that look like for your organization in terms of roles and responsibilities, in terms of investments, in terms of milestones and all of that gets measured with proper okrs and KPI's that simply say that this is what I look like six months from now, 12 months from now, versus this is what I'm going to look like, which is a three year roadmap tomorrow. It doesn't happen. That's the one that I see leaders overlook.
• 14:22
  I'm glad you mentioned OKRs and KPIs because the clients that I'm working with on a fractional CFO basis, the ones that are not measuring their KPIs are not doing a good job of measuring their profit or, you know, tracking. Tracking the metrics that matter the most in their business. There's definitely a difference in how they're operating when they have KPIs versus when they don't. I absolutely agree with that from the CFO perspective. Now, one of the engagements that you've worked on is called Live Fit Fitness.
• 14:56
  Yes. So you helped build the financial model and map the revenue growth from $250,000 to $2 million in revenue. What did the numbers reveal that intuition alone might have missed?
• 15:11
  Sorry, that who would have missed that intuition alone might have missed.
• 15:20
  It sounds simple, but you just have to write it down. You have to have a plan. Many business owners have a talent, they have a skill, they have a craft. The reason why, like you Laurie, you do CFO work is because there's a lot that gets missed in the numbers.
• 15:39
  For me, there's a lot, as you just stated, it gets missed in the operations.
• 15:42
  You have to operationalize the business plan. You have to operationalize what you're going to do. And so what gets missed is what are the opportunities that are actually out there? If someone is managing a solopreneur that's managing a business today, sometimes they don't understand what it actually means to scale their business. What you can't do is duplicate yourself. You can't replicate yourself. AI is trying to make some people believe that you can. But your scale and capability and your growth trajectory is only limited by what sometimes people think they can do in a 24 hour day.
• 16:19
  And so what does it look like when you're used to handing out flyers to people who walk bastard shop versus walking into a corporation and say, hey, you need this sort of training.
• 16:30
  Because mental well being and physical well being is an important part of your return to work package. And therefore I'd like to offer you these services at a group rate.
• 16:42
  If you just buy this many subscriptions, I'll offer you training.
• 16:46
  That's a whole different mindset shift that allows for someone to go from X to 8X.
• 16:53
  And that's the ideas that I brought to the table for lifted that allowed them to look for a different type of customer which isn't just someone walking in front of the storefront.
• 17:05
  How have you utilized AI in your operations work, both in your service delivery as well as with the client.
• 17:14
  So I'm still learning a lot. I think now that I'm firmly entrenched into Quad, it's up next for me is perplexity and to see what that can do, really look into agentic AI and see I can begin to create a workforce for myself. But for me, it's been a thought partner. I consider myself to be an incredibly strong thinker.
• 17:40
  But even for myself, there's going to be things that I miss.
• 17:44
  And so what I'm not looking for ChatGPT or Quad or any other AI to do for me is do the fainting. What I do want is thought partners.
• 17:55
  So rather than say, hey AI, give me this answer, what I prefer to do is say, hey AI, this is my perspective. Give me six alternate perspectives to mine. Now all of a sudden, once they spit out those six perspectives, there's seven different perspectives sitting around the table. And I get to pick and choose what I think makes the most amount of sense for this decision that I'm trying to make.
• 18:20
  And so that's how I use it most. I am a knowledge worker. People bring me in to think about how to strategize or operationalize their business plan. The best way that I can do that is to bring a bunch of different thoughts and ideas to the table. And that's how I use my AI. Absolutely. I love how you framed it as using AI as a thought partner because you wouldn't want AI to write your book for you. People want to read your thoughts, not AI's thoughts. Although AI is very smart, I've used it a lot in my research, my own book writing, it's very, very smart. It has great ways of putting things, but ultimately it's about using it as a thought partner, a research partner. But ultimately it's my human brain, your human brain, that is the most valuable and that's what we should capitalize on. AI is here just to make things faster and give us a different perspective. So I love the thought partner term. Have you used AI to help you build financial models in your work? I have not. For me, it's still a matter of.
• 19:24
  And again, I don't go to sheets. I'm a bit old school. I grew up in Excel and so I like Excel.
• 19:32
  My background is not so much about typing in numbers, it's about figuring out the formulas that are going to give me the best results and error proof my financial models. And so for me, it's still better to go from A formula driven. As if someone else starts doing that. If I get someone else to, well, I don't know if they have an error in their formula. So I prefer to just go in, give me a data dump and let me go ahead and create the model myself.
• 20:01
  So I have not done that yet. Okay. Yeah. I was just curious your experience because I know a lot of startups are utilizing that because it's probably a cheaper route than using a fractional CFO for, for some startups, not. Not all of them. How do you think about financial discipline in mission driven organizations? I know you work with a lot of mission driven organizations. How do you. How do you balance profit with mission?
• 20:33
  That's a very interesting question. And here's why.
• 20:38
  I don't have a challenge balancing those two.
• 20:42
  The challenge often comes when I'm supporting someone who is a mission driven leader or individual.
• 20:49
  The reason is, is the mission is more important than all other things.
• 20:54
  What I like to say, first and foremost is that a nonprofit doesn't mean no profit. It just means there's a different way that you're looking at your financials. And so for me, it is about financial stewardship. The most important thing for me when I'm looking at the finances of a nonprofit is I want to make sure that whatever we're doing and how we're doing it, 65 to 70% of the budget is going towards program.
• 21:20
  30% is going towards your fundraising and business development and general administrative. So first and foremost, I'm going to look at those numbers and I'm basing it strictly off of rough percentages. What are we doing? How is the money being spent?
• 21:35
  That's called good financial stewardship, which is also considered to be good financial discipline. But for me, I think there is a way that you can run a nonprofit and still look to make a profit, even though that's not the sole goal.
• 21:50
  I think we owe it to those who are donating money to us to optimize the dollar, the return on investment of their dollar for the programs that in fact they're paying for. And so for me, that's the most important part. What is the mission? What are our goals? Are we doing things because they make sense? Sometimes what you'll find with nonprofits is that they'll take on a lot of adjacent work which is more costly than the core work. And therefore it's a nice to have, but it's really not financially savvy to do.
• 22:25
  So we talked a little bit about taking big risks and one of the big risks you did was starting your own company and you've been doing it for five years. What do you think has been from a ROI perspective, both quantitative and qualitative? What has been the ROI for you?
• 22:47
  The ROI is learning, right? I think the ROI is. It's easy to categorize it as just the revenue and of itself, but there's such a cycle, there's such a macro and microeconomic impact to the work you do when you're starting an organization, for instance. Yes, I started an organization since 2021. Yes, it's been five years. The Precipice of that or what started that was coming out of Stanford. I had three and a half job offers. They all dissolved. Because Covid, we all know what was going on during that point in time, and people bringing on new people at that time, it just was not an option. So I went into survivor mode, which was, can I get contracts to sort of think about how I'm going to a. There's twofold. One, yes, you do need to pay your bills. But two, when you're spending time not working, you're also not growing your skill set, your talent. So many other things at play. So once you start thinking about, okay, I'm doing this, this is going to work. I'm going to make this work. Fast forward. Now, all of a sudden, you're building out these AI tools, but people don't want to adopt AI. So I did that at a company called Diverse, where I was coo.
• 24:07
  We were building out workforce tools for people to use AI as a way to get sentiments and test sentiments for what we would call, you know, the.
• 24:20
  The anti eeoc, which says that either you're black or you're white or you're Asian or you're Latino.
• 24:27
  And so you're a series of ors versus who we all are, an intersectional life, which is we're a series of. And. And so if you can get AI to be more broad and look at the.
• 24:39
  The complexity of an individual and ask questions based on who they are as an intersectional, then you can get more complete data that didn't work. Then moving out of that sort of AI bubble to, oh, the SCOTUS decision is hitting. So now these workforce tools around DEI are not anyone's cup of tea. Well, how do you shift out of that? Okay, well, great, I'm going to shift it to nonprofit work. Oh, look at all the nonprofits in 2025. They've all lost their funding because the administration has pulled back on spending. So in and of itself, you're reinventing yourself and thinking about what it looks like to grow in this organization. But as soon as you figure one thing out, it's time to figure another thing out, which I think also is where everyone is, because we're trying to figure out what, again, what I would call. You said the same thing. Right. You have human intelligence, you have artificial intelligence. I call it collaborative intelligence. To what extent is this collaborative intelligence now taking over the workforce? We don't necessarily know, but by all means, you should learn it because you don't want to be the person who doesn't, right? Absolutely.
• 25:51
  So you talk about building operating systems and execution frameworks. What does a good operating rhythm actually look like inside a growing organization that you work with, starts with communication, has to start with communication. It feels like overkill at first, but when you're starting on organization, there has to be a constant reminder of what's the North Star, what's the vision? What's our mission? Vision, if we think about vision, is normally five to 10 years out. You always should be working to something that's greater than its current sum.
• 26:28
  What's the mission? We're all showing up here to do what? What do we stand for? What are our core values? What is the thing that sort of brings this whole culture together?
• 26:39
  And so when you're working with an organization, you try to think through the operationalization of it. Is everyone aware of what everyone else is working on? And does everyone feel connected to the mission? And the only way you do that is to reinforce the messaging through constant communication and contact. That might be weekly standups, that might be understanding, even at a company like American Express. I remember when I was a chief of staff to say, I, oh, one of the things I tried to implement was this thing called Blue Talks.
• 27:11
  Yes, it was a complete ripoff of TED Talks. But I just had this idea of what if we could have someone in the Philippines, one of our colleagues in the Philippines, get in front of a video and talk through something that they're working on for five to 10 minutes, put it in a repository, and someone in Phoenix can wake up the next day, read and look at it.
• 27:33
  Now we're doing a level of idea sharing that wouldn't previously exist. And so it's always about communication, understanding what someone is working on, understanding how you and your work tie to the mission. I think that's the biggest operational sort of stamp and footprint that you need.
• 27:53
  Absolutely. I feel like the level of technology that has improved over the last several years with meetings, zoom, Skype, I Don't know if people even still use Skype. I used it many years ago, but just all the tools that we have now, even with the AI note takers, all of that has increased our level of communication. Especially when you're talking about cross country, cross border teams. Right.
• 28:21
  I used to work for a large organization called World Vision and I had people in the Philippines that I would meet with on a weekly basis. And so they actually had a whole data center in the Philippines. And so there was a lot of communication back and forth. And so there's just so much importance with cross cultural communications and teams that makes operating so special.
• 28:48
  Agree, agree. When I, when I worked in India and I got a feel for what it's like to work in India, the appreciation, which, it sounds a bit off, but I can specifically remember working in New York, talking to my colleagues in India and oh my God, I have to take a 7am call. This is crazy. This is insane.
• 29:12
  Then working in India and taking calls at 10pm at night because someone in the U.S. decided there was no way they were taking a call, not within the workday, so it had to be at 10am and just thinking to myself, wow, this is a revelation to me.
• 29:26
  When you get an opportunity to sit in someone else's shoes and just see what it feels like and how hard they have to work to partake in the culture in and of itself, then you have a newfound appreciation for what it means to even sacrifice on your side. So when I moved back to the States, there were times that I would take a call at 10pm or 11am, 11pm My evening, just so that in India they can take a call during their workday. And you know, these are just little things that you learn about what it means to, to just be a good global citizen. Absolutely.
• 30:00
  So you've served as chief, chief of staff, CEO, strategic advisor, and you know, is there any particular decision making framework that you use with your companies?
• 30:18
  No, I don't have a, what I would call a rinse and repeat structure. I think part and parcel of listening to whatever the challenge is figuring out, okay, well, you know, this customer, am I going to have to go into my toolkit and pull out my hammer and my saw? For this customer, I'm going to have to pull out my screwdriver. For this customer, I'm going to have to plot my compass. So to the extent that I look across my career and it started off in corporate finance, it started off in P and L management, started off in financial planning and analysis, and then moved over into operational excellence, where you're really diagnosing a challenge, whether it was figuring out what was. Either it was a new product being developed or they were cutting expenses or cutting this or shifting an organization.
• 31:09
  What I've come to realize now, and this is not so much a framework as it is my operational mindset, is that everything is all about people, tools and processes. When it comes down to people, that can be relationships, that can be teams. When it comes to tools that can be AI, it can be the organization that uses Google versus the organization that uses Microsoft, the organization that uses ADP versus the organization that use gusto. You have eight people who are using adp.
• 31:43
  And then your processes are. You know, it's whether it's how you communicate, it's, you know how frequently you're going to meet.
• 31:54
  It's about what your handover is, it's about your, you know, it can be anything. You know, it can be something like your. And so again, it's not so much a decision making framework of. It's just these things fall into these buckets. For me. It's about people, about tools, is about processes. Yep. And how are you optimizing on either of those three? And I generally go into each conversation listening for clues into any of those. If your people are broken, if your tools are broken, if your processes are broken, then that's when I start digging a bit deeper and trying to diagnose how best I can support you.
• 32:31
  Great. The closing question is looking back across global finance, enterprise transformation and founder advisory work that you do, what is one decision you made that became more valuable over time than you could have measured in the moment? It would be accepting the role at American Express. And there's a whole story to that. I don't know if I should just go into that story, but yes, there's a story. I was expecting them all in America.
• 33:02
  Okay, great. What you mean do you want to expand further on that or.
• 33:10
  At the time I had actually was coming out of the dot com era, I was looking at roles. I actually had two job offers at the same time. One was at American Express, it was as a financial analyst. The other was at McMaster Carr, it was a more senior role, but it was in construction, doing some type of role. I can't remember what it was, but I remember getting the call from American Express first, knowing that I was going to take the McMaster car role and move to Atlanta.
• 33:40
  And I told American Express, I said, no, thank you. And then I called McMaster Carr to accept the role. But the Person who offered me the role was not in. They weren't going to be in for two days. The very next day, a leader from American Express called me and said, what is it? Was this the money? You should be in this role. And he pretty much talked me into taking that role.
• 34:03
  It wasn't the money, but pretty much I was thinking maybe I need to go to business school before I decide to go into finance. But ultimately it made more sense to actually see if I like finance. Before I just had to pay for business school to do finance. And so I did take that role. And again, taking that role led to an 18 year career. I'm not sure if that same thing would have happened at the 19 MasterCard, but to work into all these countries, meet all these people, get all these experiences, learn all these different things, that pretty much was the beginning of what is my career today.
• 34:38
  Wow. Well, things. Well, we all know that things happen for a reason and that's just another professional example of that. So thank you for sharing. Yeah, thank you so much for joining and sharing your experience. You have a very, very unique experience. I love what you said.
• 34:56
  Tell us more about where we can find you and where we can find Jakara Strategies. Okay, well, so I'm on LinkedIn of course, and so even though it's Jakarta Strategies, but I'm on LinkedIn as myself, Jeremiah GK Adams. So you absolutely can find me there. I have a website, it's Jakara J A R K A R a dot com.
• 35:20
  That's another place that you could find me. Also I've been blogging some there as well. And last but not least, my hope and expectation is that I'm starting to write a book.
• 35:32
  So in addition to writing a book, my hope is that thereafter I'll be in more places to speak. And also I'm looking to begin teaching as well. So these are the places that you can find me currently online and then hopefully in person. So. Okay, great. And you're based in New York, New Jersey? Yes, I'm in Newark, New Jersey.
• 35:55
  And then you work with clients nationally or only locally?
• 35:59
  I'm currently working with some clients in Newark, New Jersey, but I'm also working with a few clients in New York City, but for companies that are located naturally as well. So I've done some travel, but mostly I'm in the Tri State area. Okay, great. Really interesting that you said that you're wanting to write a book. Have you started at all?
• 36:21
  I have, I have the spine of it, I have the framework, I have the chapter Outlines at this particular point. Now I just have to just start writing. Writing. Writing. Yeah.
• 36:33
  Okay, well, I suggest you look into Manuscripts llc. So the company that I'm working with, my publisher, they are led by Eric Koster, who's a professor at Georgetown and he's written several books. But they really help first time authors really not just write a book, but also establish their brand and their platform into speaking engagements and consulting engagements. So it sounds like something that would really fit what you're looking for. Manuscripts llc.
• 37:07
  And are you using them currently? Yeah, they're my publisher. I have, I have a contract with them.
• 37:14
  And yeah, I'm currently writing a book. I'm 75% done with the manuscript. I still have like 10,000 words to write and then it goes into the revision process. But what's been great about it is my publisher has like a person at every stage of the manuscript. So, you know, the writing piece and then the introduction and then the revisions piece and then marketing, there's different teams to guide you through that and they also guide you through a pre sale campaign so you can tell all your supporters so they support you in all of that. So I would be very lost without them.
• 37:50
  I would feel very not confident without them.
• 37:54
  Well, that's good to know because I mean, I honestly was thinking, oh, well, you know, do I go that route or do I just try to self publish? I was unsure, but this is something I definitely will look into. Yeah, I definitely think you should look into it. I think it's, it's going to be a little bit more expensive than self publishing, but I think the process, the people that they have supporting you in the process I think is top notch for like a first time author.
• 38:19
  Okay, I'll do that, I'll do that. Because also I think it feels like there'll be a great accountability. Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the key, is the accountability is like they're on top of it with like the weekly, weekly accountability, weekly meetings. I would be so much more lost without them.
• 38:40
  See, I point you in that direction. But yeah, no, that's great to hear that you're working on your book and so I will Definitely add your LinkedIn and company page to this podcast episode when it publishes and then you look forward to following you with your updates.
• 39:00
  Thank you so much, Laurie. And I will look forward to following you as well.
• 39:04
  This has been a great experience and I appreciate you reaching out. Absolutely.
• 39:07
  Go Duke. I'm always, always a fan of other Duke alumni, so it's really cool to see what you're doing, especially other founders, people that are doing their own firms and working with various clients and projects. I think that's always very, very interesting. And yeah, I love the experience that you have. Yeah, I love the fractional, the freedom that comes from being a fractional. Like I said, I think sometime in the fall, I expect to also be a guest lecturer in a couple of the business schools out here in New Jersey. So it's just really opened up a lot of avenues that I appreciate. That's great. Yeah, that's awesome.
• 39:44
  Yeah, that's something that I haven't had time to.
• 39:47
  To really build yet is that speaking consulting piece.
• 39:51
  But I think with the book, that's going to be like the first gateway for me is getting that piece started. Yeah. So thank you so much for joining Built by Margin. It's great having you.
• 40:02
  Likewise, Lori. Thank you for having me.
• 40:08
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