Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Kieth Millner.
An entrepreneur, international traveler, author and servant leader, Keith is a renaissance man. After a three-decade career in corporate america in multiple senior executive roles, he transitioned to entrepreneurship. He is co-founder and President of Coaching Catalyst, LLC a boutique executive coaching and business advisory firm and co-founder and President of Social Capital, LLC, which owns and operates multiple Jersey Mike’s franchises in metro Atlanta. As an executive coach, Keith has enabled hundreds of corporate, civic, and religious leaders to PERFORM BETTER. SMARTER. FASTER
Company Description *
COACHING CATALYST is a professional services firm dedicated to facilitating transformation through performance coaching, leadership/professional development and training. Our expert team delivers customized coaching, consulting, training, and facilitating. We integrate decades of practical, real-world experience with current theories and research-validated methodologies to produce measurable performance improvements. Our objective is to co-create rapid, sustainable, and measurable changes that enable optimal performance so that individuals, teams, and organizations Perform Better. Smarter. Faster.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I am Rashan McDonald, the host of Money Making Conversations Masterclass,
where we encourage people to stop reading other people's success
stories and start planning their own. Listen up as I
interview entrepreneurs from around the country, talk to celebrities and
ask them how they are running their companies, and speak
with dog profits who are making a difference in their
(00:26):
local communities. Now, sit back and listen as we unlock
the secrets to their success on Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome everybody. This is Rushan McDonald. Welcome. I am the host,
the weekly host the Money Making Conversations Masterclass. The interviews
and information that this show provides are for everyone. It's
time to stop reading other people's success stories and start
living your own. If you want to be a guest
on my show, Money Making Conversations Masterclass, please visit our website.
(00:56):
It is Moneymakingconversations dot com and click to be a
guest button. If you click to be a guest button,
it'll ask you for information. Please submit that information press submit.
After you filled out all the information, it will come
directly to me, my staff and I will examine your information.
Contact you to be a part of this show, and
this shows an information based show. I am not an
(01:19):
expert in everything. I am a person who brings on experts,
people who are very experienced in certain levels of this business,
from financial literacy, from entrepreneurship, to motivation to life and
I in turn have a conversation with them, and that conversation,
I hope inspires you, gives you information to make enable
(01:42):
you to make a decision, a decision that will turn
your life around. That's what Money Making Conversation Master Class
is all about. If you're listening for the first time, welcome.
If you're a regular listener, thank you for coming back.
Let's get this show started. My guest left Corporate America
and it's the co founder and president of Coaching Catalysts LLC,
a boutique executive coaching and business advisory firm, and co
(02:06):
founder and president of Social Capital LLC, which owns and
operates multiple Jersey Mike franchises in the metro Atlanta area.
Please welcome to Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Keith Milner. How
you doing, Keith?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I am terrific, sir. I hope you are as well well.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Cleech. We met at a live broadcast. Steven A. Smith
was in town and your wife introduced to me. She said,
you have to meet my husband. He has to be
on your show, Money Making Conversation Master Class. Now tell
me Keith. She was your manager, she was your broadcaster.
Why was she so inspired to get you on Money
Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Well, first of all, I am extremely blessed to have
met my soulmate, my partner in life, love and philanthropy,
Miss Charmaine Ward Milner. And next to next to my mom,
she is She is my biggest supporter and my biggest advocate,
and it's always always always putting me first. And what
it is that we try to do together as a couple.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, you know, the interesting thing was, first of all,
when I met you man use your regular clothes on,
no suit. You didn't look like corporate, didn't look like
a person who had multiple jersey mikes around the city.
But you looked like a guy who believed in himself,
a person who has lived a life of success. Tell
us about your background before we get into the journey
(03:28):
of being a person in the corporate world and then
leaving the comfort world to believe in yourself and be
an entrepreneur. Let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Sure, I was born and raised a small farming community
in North Carolina, Readsville, North Carolina. Both my parents were farmers.
My dad was a second or third generation sharecropper, and
I just learned by watching what they did every day.
They got up early every morning, they worked from sun
(03:56):
up to sundown in the fields, and then they migrated
to the factories. My dad worked multiple jobs throughout my lifetime.
My mom then also went into went into text to work.
And it was a household that was full of love,
but it was also a household that was full of discipline.
I learned personal accountability at an early age. I learned
(04:20):
the value of your word. If you said you were
going to do something, you did it. If you were
told to do something, you got it done, and quite frankly,
if you didn't, there were consequences. And one of those
one of those key lessons that I learned early in
life that had served me well throughout my adult life,
both in my personal life and in my corporate life,
is choices and consequences. We make choices every day, Rashan,
(04:44):
and and if you make if you don't make the
right choice, there's going to be consequences, and if you
do make the right choice, it's going to be consequences. So,
you know, just growing up in that household, there were
just so many things that I watched my parents do,
I watched my relatives do, And at the time, I
didn't know that those were going to be lessons that
would propel me to the level of success that I've
(05:07):
been blessed to achieve. But in looking back that they were,
it was. It's a tremendous foundation.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Let me talk about this, the tobacco farm era you're
talking about rule So I'm sure you know radio, TV
wasn't wasn't many options back there. But what what made
you saw a seek out college? What was that your
parents inspiration? What your was the your student, the other students,
or your teachers in school said you can do more,
(05:35):
you can be better.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
It was primarily my parents. As you know, Black parents
and the African American community in America and around the world,
we have always, always, always valued education. For so many
years during slavery and then the Jim Crow era, we
were denied slavery, as you know, we were not even
allowed to learn how to read, uh, And so black
(05:58):
families you know, put a high value on education, and
my parents weren't any different. I was fortunate that I
found out when I was in elementary school that I
was I would say, had above average intelligence, and I
liked school. I enjoyed learning. I just have an innate
curiosity about everything, and then school came easy to me.
(06:22):
And sometimes when things come easy, you know, you want
to do more of it. But it was really my
parents more so than any of the teachers. I'll tell
you Rashan. I went from elementary school to middle school,
to high school and college and I had only two
two black male teachers in twenty plus years of formal education.
(06:46):
And I think I might have had three black female
So no more than than a half a dozen black
male instruct of black instructors from Hype from elementary school
all the way through graduate school.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You know, when we talk about discipline, you know, because
that's what people needed to understand. That's a major part
of being an entrepreneur, you know. Like when I worked
at IBM, I had to get up to go to work.
In other words, they told me I had to be
working at eight o'clock. I had to get up to
go to work eight o'clock. As an entrepreneur, you set
your own rules and if you become lazy or you're
(07:21):
a person who wants to hit the snooze clock, that
is an option. That's an entrepreneur. And I say that
because you had discipline, because you were an athlete, so
that gave you added value of consistency, meeting standards, people
depending on you. And plus you are a quarterback. You
played a position where all eyes on you, keith everything
(07:42):
you did, and then you became a quarterback who set
a standard that was never set at this particular school.
Let's talk about that racial journey and the school you
went to and some of the setbacks you felt you
emostly had to take or go through to be the
person you are today.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah, it was. It was quite the journey. Rashaan I
attended Guildford College, which is a small liberal arts Quaker
institution in Greensboro, North Carolina. Did not intend to play
college football. I was a three spoored athlete in high
school football, basketball, and track and enjoyed it. But my
high school football coach thought that I had the talent
(08:22):
to go on and play at the next level. So,
unbeknownst to me. He was shopping my film around and
Guildford came and offered me a partial scholarship. But Guilford
was also a school that had a high academic reputation
at the time, and that's really what was more important
to me. But I did matriculate the Guildford College. Out
of fifteen hundred students there, there were only about fifty
(08:43):
African Americans and about fifty five football players. There were
only seven of us on the football team, and I
was the first starting black quarterback in the history of
the school. And it was not without a lot of
trials and tribulations. I learned that being the best is
not always what makes the decision in terms of who
(09:05):
gets on the field. I thought that was the case
growing up, because you know, typically teams want to win,
and if you want to win, you put the best
players on the team on the field. It's going to
give you the best chances of winning. But I learned
that at the collegiate level that there are other factors
that go into who gets on the field. And I
learned in corporate America that the best don't always get promoted,
(09:27):
the best don't always get the raises, the best don't
always get the great assignments, and so that prepared me.
My experience at Guilford prepared me as being the first
black quarterback and leading, you know, a group of minority
individuals on off the field.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Well, you know, it's interesting because I use sports a lot,
and I think sports is important if you just you
don't have to play sports to understand how it works.
You know, right now, the Atlanta Falcons, they got a
quarterback who's lost his game, and they got a rookie
quarterback sitting on the side, like everybody say play him,
play him, and like you just said, he may be
(10:03):
the better quarterback just sitting on the sideline, But that
doesn't mean he getting into the game because people trying
to get this other quarterback to get his act together.
And so, but that happens in corporate life because just
because employee is struggling, don't mean you just walk up
to him and say you fired. You sometimes have to
sit down and coach them, talk about and talk to
about audience, how being an athlete, being a leader, how
(10:26):
you've used athletics, sports teamwork in your managerial style and
in the corporate world. And then as an entrepreneur and
leading franchises absolutely well.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
First and foremost, there's very very few things that happen
in life that you can do alone or do by yourself.
It's usually involved a number of other individuals, whether it's
in a team setting or a corporate setting, or again
in a franchise or a small business operation. So you
start with that mindset, right, I can't do this alone.
(11:00):
I need people, I need employees, I need workers. Then
the second thing is establishing a common goal. That was
one of the things that team sports taught me early
on is that regardless of your race, or your background,
or what your religious affiliation or political leanings are, when
you decide to join a team, there is a common goal.
(11:22):
And that common goal usually revolved around winning. Okay, So
in the corporate setting or in the entrepreneurial setting, winning
might be defined as making a profit, Winning might be
defined as generating the additional market share. Winning might be
defined as keeping the doors of the business open. And
so with that common goal, then you go into making
(11:44):
sure that you've got people who can play their positions,
people who can contribute to you winning. And when you
have individuals who may not be performing at the level
that you think they should, then there's an opportunity to
frame them, there's an opportunity to coach them, there's an
opportunity to motivate them, if they have bought into the goal,
(12:08):
if they have bought into the vision of what it
is that the team or the business is trying to do.
And you have to be patient. You really do have
to be patient because sometimes people it takes them a
while for the like to go on, if you will,
or sometimes it takes them a while to demonstrate the
skills that they need in order to do the job.
And so as a business owner, as a leader, as
(12:29):
a team sport participant, you have to practice. You have
to teach them and give them an opportunity to grow
and learn and be willing to allow them to make
some mistakes until they get it.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
But come on, Keith, now, just like a football team,
some people can't make the team. Now, some people got
to be cut from this court now, so no doubt,
no doubt. Now, So how do you know you're president
of Coaching Catalysts LLC, boutique executive coaching and business advisory firm.
(13:04):
How do you work that into the model of your
teachings or your motivation When people come to you going,
I got my employees. I'm trying to get my staff
to a point of they understand what we're trying to
do at this company. How do you start sorting out
people who get it and people who don't get it?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Sure? I asked a lot of questions, and the first
question is usually, are you sure that they know what
their duties and job responsibilities are? You would be amazed,
or maybe you wouldn't because you're in this space.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
No, no, no, no, no no. I was looking at
my friend across the ground, said that's the number one.
But people don't know. People do not know. I would
tell you, I want you to finish the story, but
I want to tell y'all something. When I was at IBM, key,
I sat down. I started with two other white guys, right.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
And.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I walked in the room and my suit asked me
what I wanted to do at IBM. I told them
I did not know, right, He said, okay, Rashana, well
get back with me when you when you figure out.
So I'm sitting on the sidelines right watching these white
guys just move up, move up, move up, move up,
(14:17):
and then I come back in you know, mad. Three
months later, he said, I see, I see them doing
things that you know, I'm not being offered an opportunity
to do. He said, Rashaan, they told me what they
wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Mh.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
They told me their goals, they told me their aspirations.
At IBM, you yet to do that. And so I'm
just telling you I've been there. You know, I'm getting
the check showing the work, working hard, but I didn't
know what I wanted, what I was supposed to do
because I never asked the role that can inspire me
to be a benefit at the company. So continue your story.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, well, and I appreciate you sharing that absolute So again,
as a you know, owner of a small business, several
small businesses, you cannot take for granted that your employees
are clear on what their job is or what their
expectations are. So you start there, and then the next
thing is you really have to assess whether or not
they have the skills, knowledge and ability and the determination
(15:19):
and motivation to actually get it done. If the answer
to that the second question is yes, then it's incumbent
upon you as a leader and the manager to train them,
you know, and after that you get give them an
opportunity to demonstrate and if you know, after a certain
period of time and it just depends on the complexity
of the responsibility or whatever. If they are consistently underperforming
(15:40):
or not demonstrating that they can actually get the job done,
then you have to free up their future.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I like that, so nice, free up their future. I'm
talking to Keith Mildner. When we come back, We're going
to have more of this Free Up your Future conversation
on Money Making Conversations Masterclass. I love it. Don't go nowhere.
If we were right back, we will will be right back.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashaan McDonald. Money Making Conversations Masterclass
(16:22):
continues online at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making
Conversations Masterclass on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I'm speaking with the co founder and President of Coaching
Catalysts LLCA at boutique executive coaching and business advisory firm,
and a co founder and president of Social Capital, which
is he owns Jersey Mike's franchises in Atlanta. You know,
because when I was coming up, you know, franchising or
(16:51):
the idea of black people owning in McDonald's and Burger
Kings and all these things. Jersey Mike, Why Jersey Mike?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Sir? Well? Relationships, Rashaan, My partner, mister Eric Harrison, had
a relationship with the owner of Jersey Mikes, and he
came to me. Eric came to me and said, Hey,
this is a great franchise. They've got a great product,
great brand, great reputation. I think we should go in
and buy some franchises. And I trusted him. He's a
(17:22):
great business mind. He knew the owner directly, and the
power of relationships got us a bit a good deal
with Jersey Mikes and we haven't looked back.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Okay, so now you are corporate the yep, thirty five
years trained. Now they told you when to come to work,
They told you your vacation days, your sick days, health benefits.
Now you really gotta tell with teenagers and people how
to make sandwiches. How did you get in ad they
(17:53):
teach you how to make sandwiches? Did you rather go
to sandwich making school? Tell us what went on that
keid you just say you just walked in the room
with a dude and he just hooked you up.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Well, I'll tell you it was a thirty five year
journey to get my mind right to kay, because because I,
like many of my contemporaries, I was addicted to the
corporate paycheck. My definition of success and my assessment of
risk led me to believe that I had needed to
(18:25):
work for a fortune five hundred company, and my goals
were to get as high as I could, to get
to a point where I was responsible for a profit
and loss statement that I had as many people as
I could report in to me, and those things usually
led to you were making quite a bit of money.
What I didn't really understand was that that was probably
(18:47):
the riskiest path to take because you were not in
direct control of your own destiny. You were limited by
how much you could actually make. You were limited by
what you could do by somebody else's assessment of what
your potential was, or about somebody else's evaluation of what
your contributions have been during the course of the year
(19:08):
to the business. And we all know that entrepreneurship and
small business ownership is the best way to create generational wealth.
But it took me a long time to break that,
that break that shackle of the mind that no I
needed to work for, you know, a big company. So
it was it was a journey. It was definitely a journey.
(19:29):
So you're absolutely right. It did not happen overnight.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Okay. Cool, Now let's get back to this sandwich making. Okay,
because you can do You're not gonna get past that
because the big Kahunah, the big kohnah. Now I'm not
gonna have to now, you know, I'm gonna NPR.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
They you can't say you like anything, you can't say
you love something, but the big kohouna with those hol.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Opinions, Yeah, number fifty six, come home, Keith.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Do you make those?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Brother?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Do you know how to make a big khoda?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Absolutely? I can do everything that's required in the store. Absolutely.
I can work the grill, I can shop the letters.
I can make the sandwich we call it sprinkling. I
put the huge song, I can bake the bread. I
can sweep the floor and I can and I can
balance the cash register at the end of the night. Absolutely. So.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
So if you go in there, you know, everybody looking crazy,
don't want to work, you just send them all off
the front door, which I got this call your wife.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Huh. I try. I try not to send them all
out because it takes at least it takes at least
two people to keep keep the store open. But trust me,
there there there have been days when we just you know,
came from an event, a nonprofit event. We got to
sun our Sunday best clothes on and let's let's just
run by the store and check on it, and it
was in disarray. All you do is go to the back,
you grab grab an apron, wash your hands, you put
(20:45):
the gloves on, and you get behind the counter and
do what needs to be done to satisfy those customers.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I love it. I love it because some people detach
themselves from that part of it, you know, because entrepreneur
is what it is. It's like it is twenty four
and you wake up thinking about the business, you go
to sleep thinking about the business. I would tell people
you can, you can work a forty hour week job,
but you're gonna work an eighty hour week job being
an entrepreneur, and you will love working those eighty hour
(21:13):
jobs eighty hours versus living that forty hours because, like
you said, the early key it's about controlling your future.
It's about I've been fortunate.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Man.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I work for IBM, I work for the United States
Post Office, so I've worked as a young person for
a lot of great, high paying jobs. But as an entrepreneur,
I don't know if somebody gonna buy my product. I
don't know if somebody gonna show up and buy a
ticket that I'm trying to get them to buy. I
don't know if somebody I'm managing gonna keep me and
(21:45):
say let's ride or die. But I do know that
I feel a certain value and a certain responsibility to
the people that like you that I talk to to say, hey, man,
you can do it, and you can be different, and
you do not have to be not I want to
use the word slave, because I think that's just too strong.
(22:05):
You do not have to be a committed to a
Foyer week. If your vision is bigger, talk to us
about that.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Keith, Yeah, You've hit on a number of very very
important points. And I mentioned earlier in the broadcast risk
We tend as African Americans, we tend to look at risks,
particularly financial risk, from a very conservative standpoint, not really
understanding or having had someone show us that if you
(22:33):
own your own business, it is less risky than working
for someone else. I mean, Georgia is like many states
what's known as an at will employment state, meaning that
you could walk into your place of employment tomorrow and
they could say thanks, but no thanks. You know, you're
free to go without any reason and you have no
legal recourse, and a lot of people don't understand that right.
(22:54):
And there is by definition of capitalism, there is a
limit to how much they are going to pay you
for your time. The inputs of capitalism land, labor and capital.
And the way you make a profit is that you
generate more wealth than what it takes what it costs
to get those get those inputs. But when you own
(23:16):
your own business, you control the labor, you control the inputs,
and therefore you can charge what you want to charge
as long as you are generating enough value that your
customers are willing to pay for it. So that's that's
really the formula, if you will, that is the formula, And.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
That's very true. I would tell you you pay what
people think you're valued at, you know, and that's why
you know quarterbacks are being paid sixty million dollars a
year even though they have not won Super Bowls, and
that's what the value is going. Same thing I learned
that long time ago when I was at IBM. I said,
if I want to get a raised, I got to
act like I. If I walk out that door, something
is not going to go good if I don't come
(23:56):
back the next day. That's how you get a raised.
You don't get a raised infecting it. I've been here
ten years, or I've been here fifteen years, I should
get a raise. That's not how it works, they are.
It works when you walk out that door. How do
they feel about you coming back in that door the
next day? If they feel they need you to come
back in that door the next day, you will get
(24:17):
paid to come back in that door the next day
at a valued rate. At a valued rate. Now, as
we close this interview, Keith, it's been wonderful. Thank you
for coming on my show. What advice would you give
to aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Well, I break it down this way. First and foremost,
it's your attitude. Okay, I'm a big proponent and server
and the one hundred Black men of Atlanta, one hundred
black men of America, and one of our mottos is
what they see is what they'll be. Okay, So if
you see people in your neighborhood, if you see people
(24:57):
in the city, if you see people in your church
that are entrepreneurs, then you can believe that it's possible
and you can talk to them and ask them what
was their journey like and how is it that they
got into the business, Much like what you and I
are talking about tonight, but it starts with having an
attitude and a growth mindset, and then I break it
(25:19):
down to what I call the five p's for Sean.
You have to plan, you have to prepare, then you
got to produce. Chances are you're gonna have to pivot,
and then you've got to preserve, persevere Wow, because everything
is going to not always go the way you wanted
it to go. And once you're an entrepreneur a small
(25:40):
business owner, what you did yesterday is not going to
have any impact on what you need to do today.
Every morning you get up and as the old sand,
as the old Swahili sand, every morning in the jungle,
the line wakes up running and the antelope wakes up running,
and the question becomes Who's gonna run the fastest, whether
the line's gonna eat or the antelope to live to
(26:00):
see another day.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
I love it, brother, Thank you. Next time I want
you to studio with me. We want to take some
phone calls. Is that a deal?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
That the deal?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Sir, your special brother, and I keep motivating and keep
making those big khunahs, man, because every time I eat
one from now on, you know what I'm gona think
about it. I'mnna think about you. I'm gonna think about you.
I appreciate you coming on Money Making Conversations Masterclass, Masterclass.
You are a special brother. Thank you, Thank you. Cool
when we come back, don't go nowhere. We got a
fantastic guest. She's from the Philadelphia area talking about her
(26:31):
manufacturing journey. It's amazing. Caller tropman, don't go nowhere. This
has been another edition of Money Making Conversation Masterclass posted
by me Rashaun McDonald. Thank you to our guests on
the show today and thank you O listening to audience now.
If you want to listen to any episode I want
to be a guest on the show, Visit Moneymaking Conversations
(26:53):
dot com. Our social media handle is money Making conversation.
Join us next week and remember to always leave with
your gifts. Keep winning,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I am Rashan McDonald, the host of Money Making Conversations Masterclass,
where we encourage people to stop reading other people's success
stories and start planning their own. Listen up as I
interview entrepreneurs from around the country, talk to celebrities and
ask them how they are running their companies, and speak
with dog profits who are making a difference in their
(00:26):
local communities. Now, sit back and listen as we unlock
the secrets to their success on Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome everybody. This is Rushan McDonald. Welcome. I am the host,
the weekly host the Money Making Conversations Masterclass. The interviews
and information that this show provides are for everyone. It's
time to stop reading other people's success stories and start
living your own. If you want to be a guest
on my show, Money Making Conversations Masterclass, please visit our website.
(00:56):
It is Moneymakingconversations dot com and click to be a
guest button. If you click to be a guest button,
it'll ask you for information. Please submit that information press submit.
After you filled out all the information, it will come
directly to me, my staff and I will examine your information.
Contact you to be a part of this show, and
this shows an information based show. I am not an
(01:19):
expert in everything. I am a person who brings on experts,
people who are very experienced in certain levels of this business,
from financial literacy, from entrepreneurship, to motivation to life and
I in turn have a conversation with them, and that conversation,
I hope inspires you, gives you information to make enable
(01:42):
you to make a decision, a decision that will turn
your life around. That's what Money Making Conversation Master Class
is all about. If you're listening for the first time, welcome.
If you're a regular listener, thank you for coming back.
Let's get this show started. My guest left Corporate America
and it's the co founder and president of Coaching Catalysts LLC,
a boutique executive coaching and business advisory firm, and co
(02:06):
founder and president of Social Capital LLC, which owns and
operates multiple Jersey Mike franchises in the metro Atlanta area.
Please welcome to Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Keith Milner. How
you doing, Keith?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
I am terrific, sir. I hope you are as well well.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Cleech. We met at a live broadcast. Steven A. Smith
was in town and your wife introduced to me. She said,
you have to meet my husband. He has to be
on your show, Money Making Conversation Master Class. Now tell
me Keith. She was your manager, she was your broadcaster.
Why was she so inspired to get you on Money
Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Well, first of all, I am extremely blessed to have
met my soulmate, my partner in life, love and philanthropy,
Miss Charmaine Ward Milner. And next to next to my mom,
she is She is my biggest supporter and my biggest advocate,
and it's always always always putting me first. And what
it is that we try to do together as a couple.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Well, you know, the interesting thing was, first of all,
when I met you man use your regular clothes on,
no suit. You didn't look like corporate, didn't look like
a person who had multiple jersey mikes around the city.
But you looked like a guy who believed in himself,
a person who has lived a life of success. Tell
us about your background before we get into the journey
(03:28):
of being a person in the corporate world and then
leaving the comfort world to believe in yourself and be
an entrepreneur. Let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Sure, I was born and raised a small farming community
in North Carolina, Readsville, North Carolina. Both my parents were farmers.
My dad was a second or third generation sharecropper, and
I just learned by watching what they did every day.
They got up early every morning, they worked from sun
(03:56):
up to sundown in the fields, and then they migrated
to the factories. My dad worked multiple jobs throughout my lifetime.
My mom then also went into went into text to work.
And it was a household that was full of love,
but it was also a household that was full of discipline.
I learned personal accountability at an early age. I learned
(04:20):
the value of your word. If you said you were
going to do something, you did it. If you were
told to do something, you got it done, and quite frankly,
if you didn't, there were consequences. And one of those
one of those key lessons that I learned early in
life that had served me well throughout my adult life,
both in my personal life and in my corporate life,
is choices and consequences. We make choices every day, Rashan,
(04:44):
and and if you make if you don't make the
right choice, there's going to be consequences, and if you
do make the right choice, it's going to be consequences. So,
you know, just growing up in that household, there were
just so many things that I watched my parents do,
I watched my relatives do, And at the time, I
didn't know that those were going to be lessons that
would propel me to the level of success that I've
(05:07):
been blessed to achieve. But in looking back that they were,
it was. It's a tremendous foundation.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Let me talk about this, the tobacco farm era you're
talking about rule So I'm sure you know radio, TV
wasn't wasn't many options back there. But what what made
you saw a seek out college? What was that your
parents inspiration? What your was the your student, the other students,
or your teachers in school said you can do more,
(05:35):
you can be better.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
It was primarily my parents. As you know, Black parents
and the African American community in America and around the world,
we have always, always, always valued education. For so many
years during slavery and then the Jim Crow era, we
were denied slavery, as you know, we were not even
allowed to learn how to read, uh, And so black
(05:58):
families you know, put a high value on education, and
my parents weren't any different. I was fortunate that I
found out when I was in elementary school that I
was I would say, had above average intelligence, and I
liked school. I enjoyed learning. I just have an innate
curiosity about everything, and then school came easy to me.
(06:22):
And sometimes when things come easy, you know, you want
to do more of it. But it was really my
parents more so than any of the teachers. I'll tell
you Rashan. I went from elementary school to middle school,
to high school and college and I had only two
two black male teachers in twenty plus years of formal education.
(06:46):
And I think I might have had three black female
So no more than than a half a dozen black
male instruct of black instructors from Hype from elementary school
all the way through graduate school.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You know, when we talk about discipline, you know, because
that's what people needed to understand. That's a major part
of being an entrepreneur, you know. Like when I worked
at IBM, I had to get up to go to work.
In other words, they told me I had to be
working at eight o'clock. I had to get up to
go to work eight o'clock. As an entrepreneur, you set
your own rules and if you become lazy or you're
(07:21):
a person who wants to hit the snooze clock, that
is an option. That's an entrepreneur. And I say that
because you had discipline, because you were an athlete, so
that gave you added value of consistency, meeting standards, people
depending on you. And plus you are a quarterback. You
played a position where all eyes on you, keith everything
(07:42):
you did, and then you became a quarterback who set
a standard that was never set at this particular school.
Let's talk about that racial journey and the school you
went to and some of the setbacks you felt you
emostly had to take or go through to be the
person you are today.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah, it was. It was quite the journey. Rashaan I
attended Guildford College, which is a small liberal arts Quaker
institution in Greensboro, North Carolina. Did not intend to play
college football. I was a three spoored athlete in high
school football, basketball, and track and enjoyed it. But my
high school football coach thought that I had the talent
(08:22):
to go on and play at the next level. So,
unbeknownst to me. He was shopping my film around and
Guildford came and offered me a partial scholarship. But Guilford
was also a school that had a high academic reputation
at the time, and that's really what was more important
to me. But I did matriculate the Guildford College. Out
of fifteen hundred students there, there were only about fifty
(08:43):
African Americans and about fifty five football players. There were
only seven of us on the football team, and I
was the first starting black quarterback in the history of
the school. And it was not without a lot of
trials and tribulations. I learned that being the best is
not always what makes the decision in terms of who
(09:05):
gets on the field. I thought that was the case
growing up, because you know, typically teams want to win,
and if you want to win, you put the best
players on the team on the field. It's going to
give you the best chances of winning. But I learned
that at the collegiate level that there are other factors
that go into who gets on the field. And I
learned in corporate America that the best don't always get promoted,
(09:27):
the best don't always get the raises, the best don't
always get the great assignments, and so that prepared me.
My experience at Guilford prepared me as being the first
black quarterback and leading, you know, a group of minority
individuals on off the field.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Well, you know, it's interesting because I use sports a lot,
and I think sports is important if you just you
don't have to play sports to understand how it works.
You know, right now, the Atlanta Falcons, they got a
quarterback who's lost his game, and they got a rookie
quarterback sitting on the side, like everybody say play him,
play him, and like you just said, he may be
(10:03):
the better quarterback just sitting on the sideline, But that
doesn't mean he getting into the game because people trying
to get this other quarterback to get his act together.
And so, but that happens in corporate life because just
because employee is struggling, don't mean you just walk up
to him and say you fired. You sometimes have to
sit down and coach them, talk about and talk to
about audience, how being an athlete, being a leader, how
(10:26):
you've used athletics, sports teamwork in your managerial style and
in the corporate world. And then as an entrepreneur and
leading franchises absolutely well.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
First and foremost, there's very very few things that happen
in life that you can do alone or do by yourself.
It's usually involved a number of other individuals, whether it's
in a team setting or a corporate setting, or again
in a franchise or a small business operation. So you
start with that mindset, right, I can't do this alone.
(11:00):
I need people, I need employees, I need workers. Then
the second thing is establishing a common goal. That was
one of the things that team sports taught me early
on is that regardless of your race, or your background,
or what your religious affiliation or political leanings are, when
you decide to join a team, there is a common goal.
(11:22):
And that common goal usually revolved around winning. Okay, So
in the corporate setting or in the entrepreneurial setting, winning
might be defined as making a profit, Winning might be
defined as generating the additional market share. Winning might be
defined as keeping the doors of the business open. And
so with that common goal, then you go into making
(11:44):
sure that you've got people who can play their positions,
people who can contribute to you winning. And when you
have individuals who may not be performing at the level
that you think they should, then there's an opportunity to
frame them, there's an opportunity to coach them, there's an
opportunity to motivate them, if they have bought into the goal,
(12:08):
if they have bought into the vision of what it
is that the team or the business is trying to do.
And you have to be patient. You really do have
to be patient because sometimes people it takes them a
while for the like to go on, if you will,
or sometimes it takes them a while to demonstrate the
skills that they need in order to do the job.
And so as a business owner, as a leader, as
(12:29):
a team sport participant, you have to practice. You have
to teach them and give them an opportunity to grow
and learn and be willing to allow them to make
some mistakes until they get it.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
But come on, Keith, now, just like a football team,
some people can't make the team. Now, some people got
to be cut from this court now, so no doubt,
no doubt. Now, So how do you know you're president
of Coaching Catalysts LLC, boutique executive coaching and business advisory firm.
(13:04):
How do you work that into the model of your
teachings or your motivation When people come to you going,
I got my employees. I'm trying to get my staff
to a point of they understand what we're trying to
do at this company. How do you start sorting out
people who get it and people who don't get it?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Sure? I asked a lot of questions, and the first
question is usually, are you sure that they know what
their duties and job responsibilities are? You would be amazed,
or maybe you wouldn't because you're in this space.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
No, no, no, no, no no. I was looking at
my friend across the ground, said that's the number one.
But people don't know. People do not know. I would
tell you, I want you to finish the story, but
I want to tell y'all something. When I was at IBM, key,
I sat down. I started with two other white guys, right.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
And.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
I walked in the room and my suit asked me
what I wanted to do at IBM. I told them
I did not know, right, He said, okay, Rashana, well
get back with me when you when you figure out.
So I'm sitting on the sidelines right watching these white
guys just move up, move up, move up, move up,
(14:17):
and then I come back in you know, mad. Three
months later, he said, I see, I see them doing
things that you know, I'm not being offered an opportunity
to do. He said, Rashaan, they told me what they
wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Mh.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
They told me their goals, they told me their aspirations.
At IBM, you yet to do that. And so I'm
just telling you I've been there. You know, I'm getting
the check showing the work, working hard, but I didn't
know what I wanted, what I was supposed to do
because I never asked the role that can inspire me
to be a benefit at the company. So continue your story.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, well, and I appreciate you sharing that absolute So again,
as a you know, owner of a small business, several
small businesses, you cannot take for granted that your employees
are clear on what their job is or what their
expectations are. So you start there, and then the next
thing is you really have to assess whether or not
they have the skills, knowledge and ability and the determination
(15:19):
and motivation to actually get it done. If the answer
to that the second question is yes, then it's incumbent
upon you as a leader and the manager to train them,
you know, and after that you get give them an
opportunity to demonstrate and if you know, after a certain
period of time and it just depends on the complexity
of the responsibility or whatever. If they are consistently underperforming
(15:40):
or not demonstrating that they can actually get the job done,
then you have to free up their future.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I like that, so nice, free up their future. I'm
talking to Keith Mildner. When we come back, We're going
to have more of this Free Up your Future conversation
on Money Making Conversations Masterclass. I love it. Don't go nowhere.
If we were right back, we will will be right back.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashaan McDonald. Money Making Conversations Masterclass
(16:22):
continues online at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making
Conversations Masterclass on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I'm speaking with the co founder and President of Coaching
Catalysts LLCA at boutique executive coaching and business advisory firm,
and a co founder and president of Social Capital, which
is he owns Jersey Mike's franchises in Atlanta. You know,
because when I was coming up, you know, franchising or
(16:51):
the idea of black people owning in McDonald's and Burger
Kings and all these things. Jersey Mike, Why Jersey Mike?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Sir? Well? Relationships, Rashaan, My partner, mister Eric Harrison, had
a relationship with the owner of Jersey Mikes, and he
came to me. Eric came to me and said, Hey,
this is a great franchise. They've got a great product,
great brand, great reputation. I think we should go in
and buy some franchises. And I trusted him. He's a
(17:22):
great business mind. He knew the owner directly, and the
power of relationships got us a bit a good deal
with Jersey Mikes and we haven't looked back.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Okay, so now you are corporate the yep, thirty five
years trained. Now they told you when to come to work,
They told you your vacation days, your sick days, health benefits.
Now you really gotta tell with teenagers and people how
to make sandwiches. How did you get in ad they
(17:53):
teach you how to make sandwiches? Did you rather go
to sandwich making school? Tell us what went on that
keid you just say you just walked in the room
with a dude and he just hooked you up.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Well, I'll tell you it was a thirty five year
journey to get my mind right to kay, because because I,
like many of my contemporaries, I was addicted to the
corporate paycheck. My definition of success and my assessment of
risk led me to believe that I had needed to
(18:25):
work for a fortune five hundred company, and my goals
were to get as high as I could, to get
to a point where I was responsible for a profit
and loss statement that I had as many people as
I could report in to me, and those things usually
led to you were making quite a bit of money.
What I didn't really understand was that that was probably
(18:47):
the riskiest path to take because you were not in
direct control of your own destiny. You were limited by
how much you could actually make. You were limited by
what you could do by somebody else's assessment of what
your potential was, or about somebody else's evaluation of what
your contributions have been during the course of the year
(19:08):
to the business. And we all know that entrepreneurship and
small business ownership is the best way to create generational wealth.
But it took me a long time to break that,
that break that shackle of the mind that no I
needed to work for, you know, a big company. So
it was it was a journey. It was definitely a journey.
(19:29):
So you're absolutely right. It did not happen overnight.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Okay. Cool, Now let's get back to this sandwich making. Okay,
because you can do You're not gonna get past that
because the big Kahunah, the big kohnah. Now I'm not
gonna have to now, you know, I'm gonna NPR.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
They you can't say you like anything, you can't say
you love something, but the big kohouna with those hol.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Opinions, Yeah, number fifty six, come home, Keith.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Do you make those?
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Brother?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Do you know how to make a big khoda?
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Absolutely? I can do everything that's required in the store. Absolutely.
I can work the grill, I can shop the letters.
I can make the sandwich we call it sprinkling. I
put the huge song, I can bake the bread. I
can sweep the floor and I can and I can
balance the cash register at the end of the night. Absolutely. So.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
So if you go in there, you know, everybody looking crazy,
don't want to work, you just send them all off
the front door, which I got this call your wife.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Huh. I try. I try not to send them all
out because it takes at least it takes at least
two people to keep keep the store open. But trust me,
there there there have been days when we just you know,
came from an event, a nonprofit event. We got to
sun our Sunday best clothes on and let's let's just
run by the store and check on it, and it
was in disarray. All you do is go to the back,
you grab grab an apron, wash your hands, you put
(20:45):
the gloves on, and you get behind the counter and
do what needs to be done to satisfy those customers.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I love it. I love it because some people detach
themselves from that part of it, you know, because entrepreneur
is what it is. It's like it is twenty four
and you wake up thinking about the business, you go
to sleep thinking about the business. I would tell people
you can, you can work a forty hour week job,
but you're gonna work an eighty hour week job being
an entrepreneur, and you will love working those eighty hour
(21:13):
jobs eighty hours versus living that forty hours because, like
you said, the early key it's about controlling your future.
It's about I've been fortunate.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Man.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I work for IBM, I work for the United States
Post Office, so I've worked as a young person for
a lot of great, high paying jobs. But as an entrepreneur,
I don't know if somebody gonna buy my product. I
don't know if somebody gonna show up and buy a
ticket that I'm trying to get them to buy. I
don't know if somebody I'm managing gonna keep me and
(21:45):
say let's ride or die. But I do know that
I feel a certain value and a certain responsibility to
the people that like you that I talk to to say, hey, man,
you can do it, and you can be different, and
you do not have to be not I want to
use the word slave, because I think that's just too strong.
(22:05):
You do not have to be a committed to a
Foyer week. If your vision is bigger, talk to us
about that.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
Keith, Yeah, You've hit on a number of very very
important points. And I mentioned earlier in the broadcast risk
We tend as African Americans, we tend to look at risks,
particularly financial risk, from a very conservative standpoint, not really
understanding or having had someone show us that if you
(22:33):
own your own business, it is less risky than working
for someone else. I mean, Georgia is like many states
what's known as an at will employment state, meaning that
you could walk into your place of employment tomorrow and
they could say thanks, but no thanks. You know, you're
free to go without any reason and you have no
legal recourse, and a lot of people don't understand that right.
(22:54):
And there is by definition of capitalism, there is a
limit to how much they are going to pay you
for your time. The inputs of capitalism land, labor and capital.
And the way you make a profit is that you
generate more wealth than what it takes what it costs
to get those get those inputs. But when you own
(23:16):
your own business, you control the labor, you control the inputs,
and therefore you can charge what you want to charge
as long as you are generating enough value that your
customers are willing to pay for it. So that's that's
really the formula, if you will, that is the formula, And.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
That's very true. I would tell you you pay what
people think you're valued at, you know, and that's why
you know quarterbacks are being paid sixty million dollars a
year even though they have not won Super Bowls, and
that's what the value is going. Same thing I learned
that long time ago when I was at IBM. I said,
if I want to get a raised, I got to
act like I. If I walk out that door, something
is not going to go good if I don't come
(23:56):
back the next day. That's how you get a raised.
You don't get a raised infecting it. I've been here
ten years, or I've been here fifteen years, I should
get a raise. That's not how it works, they are.
It works when you walk out that door. How do
they feel about you coming back in that door the
next day? If they feel they need you to come
back in that door the next day, you will get
(24:17):
paid to come back in that door the next day
at a valued rate. At a valued rate. Now, as
we close this interview, Keith, it's been wonderful. Thank you
for coming on my show. What advice would you give
to aspiring entrepreneurs, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Well, I break it down this way. First and foremost,
it's your attitude. Okay, I'm a big proponent and server
and the one hundred Black men of Atlanta, one hundred
black men of America, and one of our mottos is
what they see is what they'll be. Okay, So if
you see people in your neighborhood, if you see people
(24:57):
in the city, if you see people in your church
that are entrepreneurs, then you can believe that it's possible
and you can talk to them and ask them what
was their journey like and how is it that they
got into the business, Much like what you and I
are talking about tonight, but it starts with having an
attitude and a growth mindset, and then I break it
(25:19):
down to what I call the five p's for Sean.
You have to plan, you have to prepare, then you
got to produce. Chances are you're gonna have to pivot,
and then you've got to preserve, persevere Wow, because everything
is going to not always go the way you wanted
it to go. And once you're an entrepreneur a small
(25:40):
business owner, what you did yesterday is not going to
have any impact on what you need to do today.
Every morning you get up and as the old sand,
as the old Swahili sand, every morning in the jungle,
the line wakes up running and the antelope wakes up running,
and the question becomes Who's gonna run the fastest, whether
the line's gonna eat or the antelope to live to
(26:00):
see another day.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
I love it, brother, Thank you. Next time I want
you to studio with me. We want to take some
phone calls. Is that a deal?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
That the deal?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Sir, your special brother, and I keep motivating and keep
making those big khunahs, man, because every time I eat
one from now on, you know what I'm gona think
about it. I'mnna think about you. I'm gonna think about you.
I appreciate you coming on Money Making Conversations Masterclass, Masterclass.
You are a special brother. Thank you, Thank you. Cool
when we come back, don't go nowhere. We got a
fantastic guest. She's from the Philadelphia area talking about her
(26:31):
manufacturing journey. It's amazing. Caller tropman, don't go nowhere. This
has been another edition of Money Making Conversation Masterclass posted
by me Rashaun McDonald. Thank you to our guests on
the show today and thank you O listening to audience now.
If you want to listen to any episode I want
to be a guest on the show, Visit Moneymaking Conversations
(26:53):
dot com. Our social media handle is money Making conversation.
Join us next week and remember to always leave with
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