Voices Of Impact With Ryan France

The Importance of Community and Finding A Place to Call Home When I first met Tiesa Hollaway — as we sat face to face in her modest back office — she pointed down the hall and said to me, “Let me tell you something, one of the most humbling things you can do in life is to walk through those doors.” The doors she was referring to, were the front doors of Hill Country Community Ministries — a Leander-based nonprofit that provides services to more than 2000 people in need, across ten zip codes. It’s a ministry that Hollaway has shepherded for the past two years. A community that has seen explosive growth, rapidly expanding its reach, by any number of important measures. And with those words, mind you, she was not simply paying lip-service. No, in fact, it wasn’t all that long ago that Tiesa found herself in the same shoes as many of the clients that she has the privilege to serve, as Executive Director, today. As she explained in our interview, “I moved to Central Texas in 1999 with my two children (at the time)

How to Manage Yourself Out Of A Job Of all the guests I’ve had the privilege of interviewing for Voices of Impact and of the hundreds of entrepreneurs & business owners I’ve met, not a single one has confessed to growing up with an eye on one day occupying the Oval Office. That is, until I met and interviewed Harlan Scott. “We all have our plan,” he told me. “I wanted to be President. I remember when we were getting our first email addresses in the 90’s, mine was ‘Pres-HMS,’ my initials. Kinda ridiculous right?” Sure, these types of admissions sound silly, in hindsight. But truth was (and still is), Harlan not only talked the talk, he walked the walk. Corp of Cadets at Texas A&M University, military appointment, plans to become a pilot and an eventual Naval Officer. However, as it’s prone to do sometimes, life intervened during his junior year at Texas A&M. According to Scott, his “financial and emotional apparatus started to fall apart.” As a result, his path shifted beneath him. Fortunately, tho

Two Flawed Mindsets That Hold Us Back From Our Potential When you visit Wendy Irwin’s website, you’ll notice, in bold letters across the top, three words: Dig, Discover & Design. Clearly, that’s no accident. In my recent conversations and interview with Wendy, I’ve come to the quick conclusion that a good business coach does exactly that: Helps you Dig Deeper To Discover the Real Questions you need to ask/answer In order to Design a Blueprint for success And most importantly . . . design a blueprint for success, on one’s own terms. One of the first things Wendy told me, when we sat down for the first time is "I understand the DNA of an entrepreneur." Growing up with a father who owned his own business, Irwin had a front row seat for what some, in today’s business environment, might call the entrepreneurial roller coaster. Despite having entrepreneurship in her blood, Wendy decided to take a different path out of college. For a while, she “worked for others.” But it didn’t take long before she realized t

A Cure For The Headaches Of A Long Office Commute It’s been said that some of the greatest entrepreneurs create products and found companies as a way to “scratch their own itch.” That seems to be a theme that is interwoven throughout Darren Westenhaver’s entrepreneurial journey. Darren grew up in the Pacific Northwest, working alongside his father and brother in the family lumber business. A business he turned down the opportunity to run, after college, instead opting to map the family DNA and start Your Vision Video. For nearly a decade, Westenhaver and his company helped other businesses “tell their story through video and multi-media.” Along the way, working with the likes of Intel, Nike and Hewlett Packard. A move to Salt Lake City — to help with the 2002 Winter Olympics — brought about new challenges and opportunities. A self-proclaimed “Apple nerd,” Darren quickly realized that there was nowhere suitable to buy or have his Apple products serviced. So, what's an entrepreneur to do? Well, he negotiated an

Five Strategies For Marketing Without The Agency Price Tag You could say that Mike Rozelle’s passion for marketing developed at a young age. “I was the kid who could memorize TV commercials all the way through,” he told me. The art of positioning a product, of finding an angle to make things easier for a consumer base, seemed to thrill him to no end. It’s what led him to pursue a graphic design degree in college, with an eye on the visual style of creating great offers. But as is the case with most entrepreneurs I come across, the real work and the real intense study doesn’t actually begin until after the final class bell rings. Rozelle’s story is no different. He credits a lot of his success and growth as a business strategist to the three very large bookshelves that line the walls of his home office. Rozelle said that it was that experience and quest for knowledge that eventually pushed him into the digital space. We tend to forget that Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, Pinterest … they’ve only really

Four Critical Aspects of a Thorough Home Inspection Collin Nowak learned the art and importance of careful craftsmanship from a young age. As a kid he spent hours — holed up in the garage with his father — working on furniture and cabinetry projects. A practice, he said, that taught him that cutting even the slightest of corners can significantly effect the outcome of the final product. It should come as no surprise then, that a quick search for Panther Inspections turns up a number of client reviews that read something like: “Collin is a man that dots his i’s and crosses his t’s … or … Probably the most professional and thorough inspection I’ve ever experienced … or … He analyzed every detail possible and walked me through exactly what he found.” “I guess you could say that details are in my genes,” he explained to me in our recent interview. But like many of us, through high school and even into college, Nowak said he lacked clarity about what he wanted “to be.” That is, except for the fact that he was cert

Taking A Holistic Approach to Financial Planning By almost all accounts, Kevin Douglas had exactly he wanted … everything that he’d studied and worked for. A good job. A great salary. Nice benefits. And yet, after almost a decade as a financial analyst — working for three different companies — he made the decision to essentially risk it all and start over from scratch. Why? Well that story begins with a shift from Great Expectations. The book by Charles Dickens, to be exact. “What struck me as I finished that book by Dickens,” Douglas told me, “was here is this guy who wrote a book while he was alive … that some kid in Austin, TX read a couple hundred years later … that shifted that kid’s perspective on how he viewed the world. His life’s work was spent creating something greater than himself that would have a positive effect on another human being many generations afterward.” That reflection led Kevin to start questioning his own ideas on the concept ‘legacy.” Not unlike my previous guest, Alicia Hoffman, Do

Tips to Maximize Insurance Coverage & Minimize Your Risk Not unlike many of the successful business owners I interview on Voices of Impact, Patrick Kofron’s entrepreneurial seeds were planted at a young age. Growing up in small town Texas, he says, “you either were a small business owner or you worked for one.” And yet after college, Kofron opted for a more traditional career path, working somewhat dispassionately as an engineer for 13 years - before a late night New Year’s Eve conversation with his best friend and college roommate sparked an idea that eventually became “The Coffee Guy.” He and his business partner grew the coffee chain to five stores but before long, Patrick recognized that something was still missing. He realized that despite the benefits of running a “scalable retail business,” what he really loved was the process of building relationships along the way. Working with vendors and mentoring employees. So, he set his sights on finding a business that would allow him to focus on scaling im

Your Guide for Uncovering Hidden Gems in Austin's Backyard Meagan Fritts may not have been born in Texas but as the saying goes, "she got here as fast as she could." Graduating from the University of Arkansas amidst “The Great Recession,” Fritts found herself looking for employment anywhere and everywhere. She moved to Austin sight unseen and followed that up by answering an internet ad that read “Do you want to get paid to travel?” The rest of the story can be told through a series of passport stamps. A self-proclaimed "professional gypsy," Meagan worked as a tour director for five years, spending as many as 200 days a year leading group tours through six different countries. After she tired of living out of a suitcase, Fritts decided to return to Austin, where she founded a local sightseeing company - Access ATX Tours. In addition to being a full-time business owner and operator, she is an Austin Community College adjunct professor, teaching students about the tourism industry and the importance of travel.

A Blueprint For Turning Passion Into a Practical Business It’s not often that you run into someone who is fortunate enough to live at the intersection of talent, passion and purpose. Then again, if you were to draw up the schematics of a successful business, you’d likely find all three of those elements on display. Meagan Miksch grew up with a keen eye for interior design and a desire to own her own furniture store. And yet as many often do, in college, she gradually distanced herself from that dream, in favor of pursuing a more traditional career path. It wasn’t until she and her husband purchased and remodeled their first home that she once again felt the pull towards interior design. The first house led to a second, and then a third, all of which she ended up ‘staging to sell.’ It was that experience that sparked a business idea, which has fueled her entrepreneurial journey as owner and lead designer at Beckett Staging & Design. In this episode we discuss Meagan’s methodical path from first time homeow

A Bold Move to Impact a New Generation of Business Owners Like most purpose-driven entrepreneurs, Alicia Hoffman’s work was born out of a powerful mission. After nearly two decades in the fields of finance and accounting, she made the bold move to leave behind the comfort and security of a corporate paycheck to passionately pursue her vision of empowering our community’s next generation. When the 'Great Recession' hit, like many, Hoffman found herself unemployed and under appreciated. Though, that time away from 'work' nudged her toward a class in entrepreneurship, which ultimately turned this one time "spreadsheet jockey" into a full-fledged entrepreneur. Hoffman founded Whiz Biz Kids - think Shark Tank for teens and tweens. She is using that platform to inspire young people to explore their inner-entrepreneur, build habits for a life of financial success, and to show her own teenage daughters what is possible when you have the courage to follow your dreams. In this episode Alicia shares her concerns about t

Five Reasons To Have A Real Estate Attorney On Your Side As is often the case with entrepreneurially minded business owners, John Hay’s story is a journey of a hundred pivots. In the span of the past fifteen years, Hay went from temporary ‘college dropout,’ to budding tech entrepreneur to top producing mortgage broker and now, Managing Partner of the Hay Legal Group – a full service legal and title services firm in Austin, Texas. During our pre-interview discussion I asked John for his ‘official role’ in the company and he responded by saying, “I’m the CEO, the COO, the CFO, basically anything that has an ‘O’ behind it. I’d prefer not to wear all of those hats but I’ve chosen to invest in my people first.” I think that tells you just about all you need to know about John’s philosophies on what it takes to build a great team. Distilled to the core, Hay’s success can be attributed to two things: surrounding himself with great people and leveraging those relationships to give back to the community. In this episo

In this first, solo episode of the Voices of Impact Podcast, Host Ryan France explains his drive behind building a platform to amplify the voices of honest, hardworking business owners, purpose-driven entrepreneurs, and inspiring community leaders.  Interview Post:  http://www.voicesofimpact.com/introduction/