The Value

Today, we are with Cherie Williams, an accomplished entrepreneur and visionary. Cherie is the founder of FIRM1040, a tax firm assisting clients in different aspects of their financial lives, and owner of Veekle.

Purposely driven, Veekle is a digital peer-to-peer car renting business. She is an experienced accountant holding certifications from the New Jersey Certified Public Accountancy Board, an MBA in Finance, and a Bachelor's degree in Accounting. Having gained valuable experience in corporate leadership roles before starting her own ventures, Cherie is well-positioned for the entrepreneurial journey. She has a deep passion for helping others. 

In this insightful episode, Cherie glances at her journey as an entrepreneur venturing into various start-ups. She shares with us the inspiration behind Veekle, how she turned this concept into reality, and how she manages the challenges any self-funding business faces.

Highlights:

• Cherie's journey to entrepreneurship
• How the concept of Veekle came to being
• What is MVP and why utilize it
• How to keep your sanity through the process
• How the Veekle platform works
• Pitch competitions, their benefits, and how to prepare for them
• Taking the business to the next level
• Biggest challenges in growing the business
• Advocating your business, getting feedback, and taking the risk
• The actuality of running a business
• Cherie's advice for entrepreneurs

Contact Cherie Williams:

LinkedIn: Cherie Williams, CPA, MBA

Instagram: @iamcheriewilliams

Find out more about Veekle:

LInkedIn: Veekle™

Facebook: facebook.com/justveekle

Instagram: @justveekle

Twitter: @justveekle

In this episode, we are with the well-known Caribbean media professional Samantha Best. Samantha is widely known as a former prime-time news anchor at CCN TV6, but more than that, she is an accomplished author, content consultant, and insurance agent. It was her ability to connect with the audience and her personal touch that made her one of the most popular media personalities on television and radio. In 2023, she made a career shift as she became a member of the Guardian Group as an insurance agent, making a positive impact on people's lives.

Samantha enjoys empowering people to work smart and make more which is what this episode is about. She shares her journey from her humble beginnings in the media industry to transitioning in different career paths. Moreover, she emphasizes the benefits of insurance and the importance of time management in achieving success.

Key Takeaways:

• Samantha's life before entering the media industry
• Finding her path in media and handling the pressures of being a beginner
• How can you improve your craft
• You must have different layers and be in different places to build your brand.
• Learn from your mistakes.
• Dealing with burnout and negative comments
• Samantha's journey on rebranding and getting back to her passion
• Being a woman in media and Samantha's advice to those aiming to get into the media industry
• Samantha's unique approach to insurance and financial freedom
• Build a system of content creation that fits your routine. It can be different for everybody.
• How to manage your time and get organized.

Resources:

• The Balance Block Method: A Guide to Improved Time Management and Productivity by Samantha Best
• Transform Your Life With Samantha's Balanced Success Checklist 

Watch this video on YouTube here

Contact Samantha Best

Website: samanthabest.life

Facebook: Samantha Best • Insurance Agent

Instagram: @your.personalinsuranceagent

YouTube: Samantha Best • Insurance Agent

In this insightful episode, we are with Ocey Phillips, an expert on digital transformation, focused on assisting companies in keeping up with customer needs in a technologically advanced world. He helps companies grow revenue by matching their perceived value with the problems consumers are looking for solutions to. As an experienced digital consultant with over ten years of successes and failures in the digital, technology, ICT, and telecoms sectors, he is adept at handling various projects and challenges.

As Ocey sits down with us in this episode, we take a deep dive into the Caribbean financial services sector and talk about reinventing the process to adapt to the technologically advanced world. He also shares his insights on managing and adding value to businesses.

Key Takeaways:

• Defining Digital Darwinism
• People management through framework and autonomy
• What inspired Ocey to reinvent himself?
• Introducing Inifye: A brief overview
• Key challenges in the Caribbean financial services sector
• The benefits of reinventing the process and going digital
• Total customer experience: What determines a value of a company
• Constantly be proactive with your market research
• Upscaling your business with a marketplace business model
• Go into business thoroughly, and understand every aspect.
• Staying ahead with prompt engineering
• Business vs. Hobby: What makes a business
• It is essential to have an understanding of the various business models.
• Going back to the core business principles
• Finding value in the Caribbean Fintech sector
• Challenges in funding within the Caribbean region

Resources:

• Disrupt You: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation by Jay Samit

Watch this interview on YouTube here

In this episode of The Value podcast, host Kevin Valley sits down with Jynynn Edwards and Keron Rose of “The Digital World” radio programme on 106.5FM for an insightful interview about his work as a Chartered Business Valuator and podcaster. The conversation covers a wide range of topics related to business valuation and entrepreneurship, including:

• Kevin's professional background in business valuation 
• Understanding what a Chartered Business Valuator does 
• Basic steps to building an investible business 
• Why do small businesses fail to access capital from banks & available alternatives 
• How to value intellectual property and brands
• Knowing when to choose a business canvas over a business plan 
• The story behind the Caribbean Power Lunch Podcast and subsequent transition to The Value Show
• Views on podcasting as a medium in 2023 

Throughout the episode, Kevin shares his expertise on these topics and provides practical advice for entrepreneurs and business owners. He also discusses his mission to educate business owners at scale while working with investors to source profitable opportunities.

Overall, this episode provides valuable insights into the world of business valuation and entrepreneurship and is a must-listen for anyone interested in building a highly valuable and investible business.

Resources:

Unlocking Investment Potential: How Chartered Business Valuators Drive Business Success

Kevin Valley visits his high school alma mater to address the current cohort on the topic “What I Have Learnt”. This series was designed to engage young men in conversations with past students on key lessons they have learnt after leaving the school. The speeches take on a well-rounded perspective on life not limited simply to everyday career advice.

In this speech, Kevin leaves the students with three potent lessons:

1. Daydreams are powerful;
2. It’s not about you; your purpose is to serve
3. Resilience wins the long game.

Smartly intertwined with stories about his own failures, determination, and success, he drives home the key lesson of listening to your inner voice because it knows you best.

Feeling a bit uncertain in your journey? Press play for some inspiration.

Resources:

From Daydreams to Purpose: How Environment and Resilience Drive Performance

In this episode, Jarrod Best-Mitchell, a sales consultant with almost two decades of experience, shares his insights on the art of sales. He has worked at several top local and international corporations and has trained hundreds of sales professionals in current sales techniques to improve their performance and achieve their goals. His company, Help Me Sell, offers sales team coaching, sales process auditing, and helps C-level executives optimize their LinkedIn profiles.

Jarrod firmly believes that "nothing happens until a sale is made" and has a track record that speaks for itself, having generated over 2 million organic views of his content in the last 22 months. He delves into topics such as the importance of mindset in sales, debunking the myth of the sales personality, the real key to learning how to sell, using content to answer customer questions and reach more people, and the importance of using video content to build trust and authority with strangers. He also touches on how to identify your ideal client and close the sale, understanding your value, and pricing appropriately, as well as the importance of data and insights to solving business problems.

This episode is a must-listen for business owners, sales professionals, and service providers, as it is filled with powerful insights that can help improve your sales performance and achieve your goals. With Jarrod's impressive track record, you can be sure that the advice he shares is practical and actionable.

Resources:

• Sales Success: Why Personality Is Overrated and Process Is Key
• Maximizing Your Sales Strategy: Targeting Prospects and Solving Customers' Problems with Data-Driven Insights

The Indomitable Tishauna Mullings takes the interview mic on this episode of The Value.

Self-described as a Jamaican “pracademic” who loves to question orthodoxy, Tishauna loves and believes in academia to the extent it can help create real solutions for people’s lives. She is a social entrepreneur who believes the world is full of too many issues for folks to go into business ONLY for profit.

With a resume as long as it is inspiring, Tishauna wears several hats as a youth leader, community builder, and social development practitioner. Her work centres around building community wealth through rural regeneration. She is the founder of the Little Genius programme and NexxStepp Lifelong Educational Services, a social enterprise focused on empowering young people by equipping them with practical skills for employment.

Additionally, Tishauna is a Caribbean 30 under 30 Award recipient, Chevening Scholar, the winner of the 2013/2014 Farm Queen competition, Recipient of the Governor-General’s Award for St. Thomas in 2015, and a delegate for President Barack Obama’s Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative.

This episode is an inspiring and informative conversation on:

• How to tap into your potential to make change in the space you live in
• Tishauna’s testimony of how life coaching impacted her life and how she has used her experience to empower others
• A brief introduction to her Ready-Set-Go Coaching Model and How it works
• The Little Genius programme and NexxStepp Lifelong Educational Services and their respective social impacts
• Understanding the value of social enterprises
• How entrepreneurs can use the cross-subsidization model to meet profit goals while investing in social enterprises
• Differentiating between Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship
• How profit-led businesses can better serve social causes

Tune in to this episode as we learn how to build community wealth with Tishauna Mullings.

Resources:

Building Community Wealth Through Social Entrepreneurship

Operating at the intersection of technology and business analytics, Jason Valley has spent over 2 decades using technology to add value to businesses. 

His exemplary career spans the finance, oil & gas, and telecommunications sectors where his projects improved turnaround time on business processes. His unwavering commitment to efficiency and excellence earned him the honour of ‘Employee of the Year’ in 1998 and 2010 while his team was recognized as Best-in-Class globally for process optimization.

Following these successes, he ventured into the rewarding world of entrepreneurship seeking to help small to medium-sized businesses optimize their operations.

This interview is jampacked with stories, lessons, and advice on:

• Opening doors for emerging talent using tech
• The Importance of Passion and Profits in deciding whether to pivot or scale
• The difference between being "One in a million" vs "One of a million" and what that means for your value
• The importance of market research and testing seemingly good ideas to identify the right business opportunity
• Using free trials to sell your Value proposition
• The importance of a database of leads to build brand awareness and facilitate new business development
• How to generate client trust with technology
• How Caribbean service providers can use tech to maximize time and money.

Resources:

From Accountant to Tech Trailblazer

Steven Jasmin recognized Guyana’s investment potential back when he first arrived in June 2017. The stark similarities between Guyana and Louisiana; the off-shore centre for oil & gas production in the US; made him a believer in Guyana‘s investibility.

5 years after settling in, Steven and his team have a clear understanding of the Guyanese people as well as the opportunities that lie ahead for the "land of many waters". What he brings to the table and offers to multi-generational blue-collar business owners hoping to have a piece of the oil & gas pie, is his ability to speak the language of Fortune 500 companies. 

He bridges the gap between local businesses seeking to work with large energy conglomerates by overseeing investments and handling key operational tasks required for big business collaborations. 

This episode explores the realities of Guyana’s investibility including

• Key challenges faced by foreign and local investors;
• Opportunities for wealth building, investment and economic growth;
• Capital solutions for investment; Guyana’s diversification options; and
• The impact of technology on sector development.

Tap in to hear more on Guyana’s investment climate and how Steven and his team are working to create greater opportunities for Investment. 

Resources:

Investing in Guyana

Jay Harris makes an appearance on the podcast to discuss the exciting world of Web 3.  Web 3 or Web 3.0 is referred to as the next generation of the internet’s technical, legal and payment infrastructure. Its focus is on ownership and incorporates technologies and concepts such as decentralization, token-based economies and blockchain. 

Our conversation sheds light on some important themes in Web 3 and instructs listeners on the key differences between these digital platforms & technologies. 

We discuss:

• Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, NFTs and the Metaverse (what they are and how they are used) 
• The first step in building a crypto wallet
• Mitigating risk in an unregulated market
• How businesses can capitalize on these digital platforms

Jay Harris is the Founder of the W3 Podcasts (Digital Leaders, Web 3 Leaders & World Tech Forum); audio shows aimed at educating and encouraging Web 3 communities. 

The tech expert is an engaging speaker who effortlessly connects with the needs of his audience, inspiring performance, collaboration and change. In fact, many of Jay’s listeners credit him with providing the motivation they needed to launch their Web 3 projects. 

In the corporate world, he is known as a creative thinker and provider of robust tech solutions for complex business problems. 

Plug into this episode to learn more about the next generation of digital platforms.

Resources

Web3 for Business

Every year, I see top talent leaving the country to go live and work somewhere else. And every year it stings - the loss of opportunity.

If you are in a developing country, you've most likely felt this as well, and if you are in a developed country you've probably benefitted from this - the Brain Drain.

Here are my thoughts on how to fix this.

Click here to join the conversation on LinkedIn.

Kimberly Ofori is a digital entrepreneur and growth step strategist who transformed lessons learnt from her eye-opening entrepreneurial journey into a personal leadership brand. 

She serves as the Managing Director at Ofori & Co. - A Strategy Innovation Agency where she helps scale-ups and corporations to innovate their business models and overall strategic positioning in their respective markets.

Thanks to her rather unconventional corporate and entrepreneurial career; from climbing the career ladder starting at a very young age to working and living in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe where she founded and sold two companies - she has amassed a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience on what it takes to choose to be in the lead of your own life, in your career and on leading others. This is why she has been coaching leaders and leadership teams on personal leadership using The Lead method, a personal leadership methodology developed by Kimberly herself.

Kimberly deep dives into critical business lessons learnt from various ventures and provides brilliant insight into reasons companies fail, selecting the right business model, value chain positioning, and the importance of innovation to remaining resilient. 

Kimberly also shared a Five-Factor Model for scaling your business.

Watch this interview on YouTube here

Resources

Should I Sell My Business?