Mon, 1 June 2015
Storytelling with Jennifer Brown for "30 Days – 30 Voices – Stories from America’s LGBT Business Leaders" [Podcast]
Storytelling with Jennifer Brown of Jennifer Brown Consulting The Manhattan Jazz Transfer For more information on Supplier Diversity: #008: Expert Interview with Heather Cox of Certify My Company [Podcast] Listen to the episode by clicking the play button below! Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below! I am pleased to be talking with Jennifer Brown today. She is our first guest starting off the 30 Days, 30 Voices: Stories from America's LGBT Business Leaders Podcast Project. You may remember Jen from an interview she did with us back in February, and because she had so much great wisdom to share then, I had to have her back here to kick off this special Pride Month series. So for those of you who do not know, Jen is the founder and CEO of Jennifer Brown Consulting which is New York City based consulting firm that is both a woman-owned business and an LGBT-certified business. She is a social entrepreneur committed to making an impact that creates healthier workplace cultures for all of the clients that she serves. Jen it is fabulous to have you back on the show, how are you? |
Thu, 28 May 2015
#60: Filmmaker Gina Capristo-Gajdosik shares the power of coming out and living authentically [Podcast]
On today's episode of the Gay Business & Marketing Made Easy podcast, I talk to Gina Capristo-Gajdosik, the filmmaker behind the film Make Me Blush! We talk about her personal coming out journey, the journey of being a filmmaker and seeing your project through to the end. This interview is one of the most raw and heartfelt episodes I've done in quite sometime, where you'll learn a bit about the film industry and a lot about how to communicate with your LGBT clientele. Today's episode Listen to the episode by clicking the play button below! Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below. So a couple of things that I want to mention before I really kind of dive into who I'm speaking with today, is in the last podcast I mentioned that I have a new webinar, so I want to talk about that briefly again if you don't mind, because I'm super excited about this new webinar called Sales and Marketing Strategies for Reaching LGBT Customers. And the primary objective of the webinar is to help you find, market and sell to the LGBT community in as few steps as possible. So this webinar is just under an hour or so, it's available on my website, you can go and find a date that makes sense for you to come and attend the webinar. And you'll just learn a whole bunch of stuff as it relates to really thinking about how you're going to market your product, service, business, et cetera to the LGBT community. You know it covers things like how to target, what LGBT clients are going to be right for your business, and how- it'll give you some tips and tricks around how to make sure that you're not treating your LGBT marketing efforts as one big mass marketing approach, and identifying things like what pain points are specific to your LGBT clients that may not be pain points for other clients of yours. So that's really kind of the short and dirty of the new webinar, so again you could head over to www.JennTGrace.com/webinars and you can totally check that out there. The other thing that I wanted to mention is I have not mentioned my running endeavors recently; and to be honest I don't even know if I told you that I was running a half marathon in May. So this episode is airing on May 28th, if you're listening to this live, the day it comes out. But I actually ran a half marathon earlier this month in the first weekend in May.
Direct download: epi-60-gay-business-marketing-the-power-of-coming-out.mp3
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Thu, 14 May 2015
Listen to this great (and entertaining) interview with Heather Cox as we discuss - • Supplier Diversity • LGBT Business Certification • Certification as a marketing tool • Buying from each other I had a chance to sit down with Heather Cox of Certify My Company recently and ask her a series of questions around supplier diversity and certification. We talk about LGBT certification, women-owned certification, disability-owned certification, veteran-owned and minority-owned, etc. She teaches us about NAICS codes, the Small Business Association and her past experience as an acro-gymanst! Hit the play button above or head over to iTunes to listen to her answers. This week I am talking with Heather Cox, the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Certify My Company, which is a diversity certification business. She helps women, minority business owners and LGBT businesses that qualify; certify their businesses to become part of the ranks and privileges that certification brings. Welcome to the show Heather are you ready to get started? Links discussed in the show: WBENC - Women's Business Enterprise National Council Here are the many ways you can get in touch with Heather: Certify My Company Listen to the episode by clicking the play button below!
Direct download: gay-business-marketing_epi-59_Heather_Cox_Certify-My-Company.mp3
Category: -- posted at: 12:05am EDT |
Thu, 30 April 2015
Welcome to the podcast! Today's podcast episode is going to be a dive into the archives going back to episode #19. I've been very busy and haven't had a chance to record a brand new podcast, however I do talk about my recent experience speaking at Salem State University which is partially the reason I wasn't able to record a full new episode. Have a listen because everything in this episode is absolutely applicable to today, as it was when it was first recorded. After hearing so much chatter about the CEO of Barilla Pasta and his anti-gay remarks, I have my own thoughts on this. I take a different angle than you may expect and share it all in this podcast. Marketing to the LGBT community is not for everyone Listen to the episode by clicking the play button below! Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the podcast? No problem! Read the transcript below And what I want to start off with is talking about two recent blog posts that I've written. And they're very much intertwined with what's happening right now with what's going on with Barilla. And just recently I wrote a blog post titled, 'Marketing to the LGBT Community is not for Everyone.' And I find this post to be very relevant, and because in this post I just talk about how if you really want to market to the community you need to be authentic. You need to be genuine, you need to be transparent in what you're doing. You really just need to be doing it for authentic reasons. So if I say to you, "Why do you want to get involved with the LGBT community?" And you respond back to me with, "Because the community has a lot of money, and I want to tap into it." I'm going to push back on you and say, "I need more than that, that can't be your only reason, that can't be your motivating reason." And of course you're listening to this podcast because you're interested in knowing more about the community and how that can help your business. So clearly at the end of the day, I'm here to teach you how to go about this in a way that's going to produce more revenue and bring you more sales.
Direct download: epi-58-gay-business-marketing-is-authenticity-dead.mp3
Category: -- posted at: 12:05am EDT |
Thu, 16 April 2015
In this episode of the podcast I talk with Ebone Bell - founder and managing editor of Tagg Magazine. If you have been looking to market to the lesbian community but haven't been certain on where to start, this podcast will point you in the right direction. Tagg Magazine is a lesbian publication and as the founder, Ebone knows more than a thing or two on how to effectively reach the lesbian market. You'll hear Ebone break down the myth that the LGBT community is monolithic and much, much more! Today's episode Listen to the podcast by clicking the play button below! Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below. |
Thu, 2 April 2015
Today's podcast episode is going to cover the ripple effect that supplier diversity opportunities can have on your business, whether or you are part of the LGBT community or an ally to the LGBT community. It doesn't matter if you are a diverse supplier or if you are selling to corporate - no matter what your business there is a world of opportunities that you are probably overlooking completely! Who doesn't want access to new opportunities to expand and grow your business? I don't think many people would say no to that. Today's episode will talk about all of the ways your business can benefit and grow as a result of these opportunities. You don't want to miss it. Set up a call with me! Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below. So that's going to be today's episode, but of course before we get into the actual meat of the episode, I want to just talk about three particular things. So the first of those three things is that I am looking for additional guests to feature on this podcast. So I have a pretty large network of people that I can go to and ask if they want to be on the show, and I personal just enjoy interviewing people that I somehow get along with, or somehow I see some sort of synergy between what they do and what I want to talk about here on the podcast. But I actually want to hear from you, and who you think should be on the show. I've been inviting people based on my own personal preferences, but at the end of the day, you're the ones listening to the show and I have a continuously increasing amount of listeners, and I want to know what you want to hear. So if you yourself would like to nominate yourself to be on the show, or you have a client or a colleague, a friend, a partner, spouse; whomever it happens to be that you think would be a good fit for this podcast, please let me know. I would love to hear from you. So you can do so by going to my website, going the Contact Me page, sending me an email that way and then I will get back to you and we'll see if it's a good fit. So that is item number one. And item number two is that I am still accepting new coaching clients. I've been talking about it for- I don't even know, a couple of months maybe now, that I have been increasing the amount of coaching clients that I'm taking on. I only have five spots remaining at this point, so if you would like to be one of those five, please feel free to reach out to me on that.
Direct download: gay-business-epi-56-growth-opportunities-for-your-lgbt-or-allied-business.mp3
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Thu, 19 March 2015
#55: Storytelling is critical to the success of lgbt businesses everywhere! Are you telling yours? [Podcast]
Hello! Welcome to episode #55 of the podcast. Today's episode is a rerun of a podcast episode I aired back in August 2013. I am doing this because I am currently in Miami speaking at the New Mainstream Business Summit! Since I have so many new listeners each day, giving you a throw back to episode #15 when we are on episode #55 seemed like it could be a cool thing to do. This episode covers a lot of ground about LGBT business, marketing and communications. It is co-hosted with Paul Collanton of the Gay Ambitions Podcast while sitting together at the NGLCC Conference. Overall, it's a great episode and I hope you enjoy. I promise episode #56 will be a new episode! Thanks for being a listener - you are awesome! Gay Ambition Podcast Paul Collanton NGLCC – National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Justin Nelson CABO – Connecticut’s LGBT Chamber of Commerce Chamber of the Year IGLTA – International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association Listen to the episode by clicking the play button below! Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below!
Direct download: GBM_episode_55_interview-with-paul-collanton-from-august-2013.mp3
Category: -- posted at: 12:05am EDT |
Thu, 5 March 2015
Today's podcast is an interview, finally! It's been since episode #45 with Amy Mayes since I've done an interview - wow. Well, now that we are back to an interview format - you are in for a real treat. I had a chance to talk with Mona Elyafi of ILDK Media. She owns a boutique public relations agency based in Los Angeles. She shared her personal story of how she came to found her company and all of the important milestones she hit along the way. We also discussed the nuances of pitching LGBT stories to LGBT publications and mainstream publications. She provides some solid PR strategies you could take and run with in your own business. I hope you enjoy the show! Please reach out with any thoughts or comments! Check out my survey here! To listen to the podcast, click the play button below! Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below. As always before we hop into the interview I do have a couple of things that I want to announce in advance. So we are in episode number 54, which seems quite crazy that we're already at episode 54. But I want to mention the next webinar that is coming up. I have an absolute ton of RSVP's for this webinar, I'm really excited about it. I don't know- I think I might have said this in the last podcast, I have no idea what it is about this particular webinar that has everybody excited, but it is happening and I'm stoked. So it is on March 24th, so it's a couple of weeks out from the time that you're listening to this. And of course if you are listening to this and it's after March 24th of 2015, don't worry because there will be another webinar available for you. |
Thu, 19 February 2015
In today's episode I cover a few topics. The first is I answer a listener question about what to do when you don't feel comfortable networking in an LGBT environment. The second is I do a deep dive into what the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Corporate Equality Index is. I also review an article shared with me by a Facebook fan, who wanted to hear my personal opinion on the HRC. With the HRC it is usually a love em' or hate em' scenario. I share why I see such a significant importance in the Corporate Equality Index specifically and of course, share how I really feel about the HRC. This is an episode you've been waiting for. And now that I'm back from jury duty I have time to the deep dive you've been asking for! Speaking of jury duty, next week's blog post is going to share the 4 lessons I learned by being a juror on a murder trial - you won't want to miss that post - so come back next week! Corporate Equality Index | Human Rights Campaign Listen to the podcast by clicking the play button below! Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the podcast? No problem! Read the transcript below! AUDIO TITLE: Episode #53 – HRC Corporate Equality Index Jenn T Grace: You are listening to the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast, Episode 53. Intro: Welcome to the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast where you'll learn how to do business with and market to the LGBT community in an authentic and transparent way. We're talking about the $790 billion lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community. We'll help you grow your business, gain market share and impact your bottom line. And now your host - she's an entrepreneur, a marketing maven and an advocate for the LGBT business community. Jenn, with two N's, T. Grace. Hello and welcome! Well hello and welcome to episode number 53 of the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I am your host, Jenn Grace, and I have a very content-filled episode for you today; I'm pretty excited about having the time to actually get this episode done. I've been talking about it and delaying it a couple of times. But today we are going to talk about the Human Rights Campaign and their Corporate Equality Index. There will be lots of information shared in addition to a couple of areas of just my own personal opinion about the organization based on a request from somebody that is a fan on Facebook and somebody that I know. So I want to address a question of hers. In addition I want to talk about kind of an overview of what the Corporate Equality Index is, because you may not have any idea what it is. So I want to share that a little bit. I also am going to reply, in audio format, to a question I received from somebody that was on my webinar last month. So I want to have an opportunity to respond to this because it's a longer question, and I just didn't have enough time to actually type a really thoughtful response. But, also in looking at her question I feel like it's something that you may also feel or have a similar question around. So it can help you at the same time.
Direct download: epi-53-gay-business-marketing-hrc-corporate-equality-index.mp3
Category: -- posted at: 12:05am EDT |
Thu, 5 February 2015
In today's episode of the podcast you will hear an interview I did with my friends over at the Peak Performance Podcast, Mike & Maria Keiser. Their show is "about everything having to do with being a Peak Performer. We discuss high achievers, relationship management, mind management, happiness and well being, and everything we can think of to help you reach your full potential." I had the joy of being on their show a while ago now but I wanted to bring this interview to you because it emphasizes how important having a business coach is, in addition to sharing a lot of details about my own business journey that I haven't already shared here on the podcast or blog. If you came here today looking for this episode to be about the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Corporate Equality Index (CEI) - my apologies - that'll be in the next episode. I'm serving as a juror on a trial and didn't want you to go a week without new and interesting content, so this is what I've got for you. In episode #53 we will cover the recap of the 2015 HRC CEI, promise! As always, thanks for listening - you are the best! Peak Performance Podcast Listen to the episode by clicking the play button below! Would you prefer to read the transcript than listen to the episode? No problem! Read the transcript below! Today's episode is a little different... So I want to use today's episode, which I'm basically going to share with you an interview that I did with Mike and Maria Keiser. They are part of the Peak Performance podcast and some time ago, honestly I don't even remember when it is but I will include the link to it in today's show notes; but I did an interview on my podcast with them, and I want to say it was one of the earlier podcasts. So today we're in episode 52, I want to say with them it was somewhere between like episode 14, 15, 16, somewhere around that time. So I did an interview with them quite some time ago, and it was actually one of the higher listened to interviews that I had done, because they own a coaching company called the Entrepreneur Circle, and for long time listeners of this podcast I'm sure you are familiar with Mental Compass, and that is Mike Keiser. So he and Maria are sponsors of my podcast, I'm a sponsor of theirs, we both get a lot of out of it. So what I want to do with today with you, is I just wanted to share with you an interview that I did on their podcast, and this was a short time ago, I want to say it was probably September of 2013 or so. So it's about a year and a half old; however, the entire content of that interview is really about learning how to achieve your peak performance in your business, and of course in your marketing. So one of the things that I've recently- I guess recently had a revelation about, is when I was just doing my 2015 goal planning,
Direct download: epi-52-learn-how-to-be-a-peak-performer-in-your-business-and-marketing_1.mp3
Category: -- posted at: 12:05am EDT |