Today’s guest and I go way back! Curry McDaniel Owner & Lead Designer of Curry & Co Events, LLC is joining us today and I’m so excited to share with you all the details of her journey and how she has trusted and achieved her goals! Sometimes you have to live it to know what it is like, it’s challenging and sometimes impossible to help someone understand an experience if they haven’t experienced it themselves. And if someone is giving you advice on something they haven’t experienced themselves, why are you even having the conversation in the first place?!
Dive in with us as we talk about how to identify and address needs that you see in your space of expertise and use your uniqueness to stand out and create change, and achieve your goals while you’re at it!
Main Topics:
*How to identify and address needs that you see in your space of expertise
*How you plan to find your uniqueness and to stand out and what lessons you learn
*How to strategize a path for your future
Key Takeaways:
*Why to hire an experienced professional.
*Why All Inclusive is the way to go.
*Trust the process
More About Our Guest:
Curry & Co Events, LLC is known for taking one idea and turning it into an amazing blueprint. With the help of our luxury event décor, high end fabrics, and glamourous table accessories; we can design anything your heart desires.
Our specialty is not being well versed in one particular design, but specializing in making any design custom. We can create free form, modern, high-end, and classic floral designs. We take pride in giving a stylish, unique, and creative approach to all of our wedding and social events; in Nashville and beyond.
Today's guest, Nancy Wood Stabell, is a business attorney with a focus on entrepreneurs and founders who are interested in scaling their business. I'm gonna be honest, before I got into the Entrepreneur Organization, I had no idea what that meant. So if you don't know… you don't know what you don't know. And that's okay!
Nancy started her career in big law and spent a period of time doing high end health care finance for hospital systems, before going in house with a multinational marketing company that worked with financial institutions. She brings all that experience to smaller companies and founders who are working to be that big; meaning they have plans to scale. The stories that she shares are absolutely mind blowing. If you're an early company, especially if you're raising money, or doing anything with equity, it's so important to just have a relationship with somebody that you can reach out to before you sign your name away.
We have been very schooled on how attorneys are expensive and unaffordable. But that’s not always the case, you have got to do your homework. Make sure that you have the right legal setup before you do anything. And if you don't have a business attorney or, or you don't have an advisor or someone that you can call, please, please, please go to Nancy. Because not only is she an amazing attorney, she really freakin cares! Listen into this episode for all her top takeaways and steps to point your business in the right legal direction.
Main Topics:
*What having a go-to business lawyer who understands your business can do for you
*Key legal agreements that every creative business needs.
*The power of a good partnership agreement between you and your partners... and what happens if you don't have one.
Key Takeaways:
*Invest in a relationship with a good attorney who can help protect your business and achieve your goals. That person should understand your business, its drivers and key risks.
*Ensure that you have key protections in place for your business -- limited liability structure, partnership agreements, NDAs, employment agreements and 1099s, employee proprietary rights agreement, noncompetes, etc.
*Focus on your strengths - outsource the rest.
More About Our Guest:
Nancy Wood Stabell is the Founding Member of Wood Stabell Law Group. As a fourth-generation attorney with over 20 years of experience, Nancy knows the law; she loves business; and she is committed to being a strategic partner who delivers results, improves the bottom line, and protects stakeholder value.
As an attorney with an M.B.A., she doesn’t just provide legal advice to businesses; she gives sound, creative business advice supported by legal knowledge. Nancy is known for her innovative approach to representing growth-focused businesses, sophisticated entrepreneurs and high net worth individual investors in complex transactions.
Nancy routinely advises senior management and investors on capital raising solutions, which may come from bank financing, friends and family, angel investors, and/or venture capital or private equity funds. She tailors capital raising transactions to a client’s unique needs or to serve the investment objectives of the investor, the venture capital fund, or the angel investor, and ensures compliance with investor guidelines. Nancy also drafts and negotiates business to business agreements; reviews and negotiates commercial loan documents; prepares employment agreements and advises human resources on employment matters.
Prior to founding Wood Stabell Law Group, Nancy was Vice President & Senior Counsel at Affinion Group. Working directly with the C-Suite gave Nancy a deep understanding of how executives communicate and how businesses face unforeseen circumstances. Nancy spent 10 years in private corporate practice with two AmLaw 200 firms where she honed her clients-first approach. Nancy uses all of her experience to find lean, creative solutions for her clients and to position them for future success.
Nancy is active in the Nashville community and enjoys cooking, entertaining, and traveling. She can be spotted around town supporting her son in his sports and activities or walking her dog Charlotte.
I'm so excited to share today's guest, Bree Carroll. She is a rockstar military spouse, and first and foremost we want to say a huge thank you to anyone that does service for our country. She's an event planner, a community builder, a speaker, she transforms spaces, and most importantly, hearts.
Bree has a background in civil engineering, you heard that right, she's an engineer! She brings her brilliance of problem solving, strategic thinking and design to transform experiences into amazing things. Bree holds the title as the 2020/2021 Air Force spouse of the year and advocates to strengthen military marriages on her internationally broadcasted podcast Hearts and Stripes. She's the founder of Military Marriage Day, a national holiday celebrated annually on August 14th, and she just got back from the White House!
In this episode we are diving into what made Bree switch from weddings to B2B planning, how evolving in business is many times necessary and when you do, having a solid strategy is essential!
Main Topics:
*What made Bree switch from weddings to B2B planning
*The CARE Method
*Why having a unique strategy is important
Key Takeaways:
*It’s okay to evolve in business, and many times it’s necessary
*You can determine and achieve your goals using the CARE Method
*Following what everyone else is doing is a recipe for failure. You have to be strategic about what works for you
More About Our Guest:
B Carroll Events, LLC is a strategic events and marketing agency focusing on helping change agents grow their brands through live and virtual events & aligned partnerships.
Top entrepreneurs and foundations with large communities know how beneficial events can be for the overall brand. These leaders know that there is also an equally high risk should the live event not go as planned. This keeps entrepreneurs from taking the leap for fear of not getting a return on their time, energy and investment. That is where BCE comes in. We execute events through concierge-style planning and a proven process focused on strategy–resulting in higher profit margins and greater impact.
We believe in the art of storytelling and leveraging experiences to convey impact and to attract opportunity.
Listen as we dive in to the experience of Chateau Challain! Our guest, Cynthia Nicholson's story is one of family and determination to restore history. The creation and development of Chateau Challain, one of the grandest private homes in the 19th century, was not an easy task, but with hard work and a talented international team of craftsman,Cynthia and her family succeeded in revitalizing this French estate home.
Together they created a breathtaking destination to host special events - like romantic weddings – while bringing back all the beauty from its midieval past. There’s no doubt that their journey has been one of passion where art, architecture meets culture for visitors and locals alike!
Main Topics:
*The difference in destination venues and venues that are “close to home”
*The journey of revitalizing and giving new life to historic properties
*Intentionally prioritize business and personal life so you can give quality to both
Key Takeaways:
*Each wedding is a new business and you don't know what kind of rocky roads you're going to go down
*Self learning is many times the avenue to success
*When you drive the client experience and anticipate their needs your guests have a lifelong memorable experience
More About Our Guest:
The earliest recorded chateau on our site dates all the way back to the medieval age in 1050, in a time of knights and chivalry. The original castle was probably part of the ‘Les Marches de Bretagne’ a series of fortresses that acted as a defensive line that protected the people of the ancient region of France known as Brittany. That chateau, and many others that followed it were destroyed in the wars, and conflicts that wracked the area in the centuries that followed.
But our story truly starts with Louise-Ida de La Potherie, an exceptional woman that lived through some of France’s most turbulent times. She was the last of her line, from a noble family steeped in history. Her was father a famous colonel that fought in the Spanish wars, and against the forces of revolution, her only brother was killed in a duel. Alone, in this difficult period she finally found the love of her life, Le comte de La Rochefoucauld-Bayers. They married, and sought to make a refuge for themselves in the seat of her ancestral home. Together they set about to build a sanctuary, a testament of their love, and it is this monument that we know as the ‘Chateau Challain’.
Work began in 1847, they commissioned Parisian architect Louis Visconti, famed for designing the Louvre extension, to replace the original 16th century castle. The owners chose Rene Hode, a well-known Angevin architect to oversee the building project. The chateau was designed to commemorate the passing of time. Its 4 towers represent the seasons, 12 turrets represent the lunar months, 26 spiral staircases represent the fortnights per year, 52 fireplaces represent the weeks of the year, and 365 windows represent each passing day. It covers an area of 7,600 square meters (nearly 82,000 square feet).
Over 700 artisans worked on the construction, and although worked progressed quickly it was far from straightforward, with the work being delayed by yet another revolution in 1848. With the work close to completion tragedy struck once more. In the early winter of 1854, and in the shadow of the nearly completed chateau Le Comte died. Heartbroken, and with two children, Louise, now Countess La Rochefoucauld-Bayers, was determined to see the project through to the end, and personally oversaw the final stages of construction.
Ultimately, the chateau became one of the grandest private French homes of the 19th century. It boasts a wealth of architectural detail, including intricate woodcarvings, Gothic panelling and sculptures, large working fireplaces, and hand painted ceilings. It is situated on a beautifully manicured estate, which occupies one corner of a quaint village. Because of the property’s ambiance and the design of the castle itself, Chateau Challain is often referred to as the "Neo-Gothic Jewel of Anjou" or "Le Petite Chambord.”
In 2002, the Nicholson family purchased Chateau Challain and began the painstaking process of restoring the castle to its original splendour.
Today's guest requires no introduction if you tuned in to our previous podcast episode together, this is part two! As a business owner we are often pushed into being really uncomfortable. It's those uncomfortable situations where growth can happen.
Johanna White is an award winning graphic designer and visual branding strategist who designs premium brand identities that create impactful first impressions. As the founder of Design by Jo studio, she believes that if someone is the best at what they do, they deserve to look like it. For the past decade, she's worked with individuals, startups and fortune 200 brands worldwide, to help them cut through the noise, attract more of their ideal clients and be as delightfully expensive as they can deserve to be.
So it's funny, like, let's define expensive, right? Because everyone may have a different approach to what that actually means. She knows there's no limit to success, and she's proved it several times when she took life by the horns and started three companies within a year while battling a brain tumor! Wow, no words. At a time when everyone else in her life was suggesting that she quit working and go on her social security to cover her medical bills, she chose to do the complete opposite and defy the odds.
As a result, Johanna is a dreamer extraordinaire for top performers, goal oriented individuals and brands specializing in premium brand identities from start to finish. She assists her clients in a large range of needs, from brand messaging to visual brand identities to premium custom websites that convert visitors into customers. She believes that excellence applied across all customer touchpoints results in brand experiences that matter.
To find out more about making every brand moment count visit https://www.designbyjostudio.com/.
Main Topics:
- Consistent brand touchpoints for max ROI
- Your brand is more than a logo
- What you believe matters, what you do about what you believe matters more
Key Takeaways:
- If you don’t say it about yourself, and show it about yourself, you can’t expect your customers to know it about yourself!
- If you want to attract the best, you need to look the best
- If you are stuck undercharging because your leads are not qualified then you have a branding problem