December 20, 2024 • 26 mins
Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Karla Trotman.
She is president and CEO of Electro Soft, Incorporated (ESI), an electronics manufacturing and engineering firm in the United States. She holds a B.S. in Business Logistics from Penn State and an MBA from Drexel University. The breadth of her experience in business extends to supply chain logistics, purchasing, global scheduling and e-commerce, where she served in key roles in companies to include Honeywell, Gap and IKEA. She is the author of Dark, Dirty, Dangerous: The Vibrant Future of Manufacturing.
Trotman welcomed her two sons during her time at IKEA, giving her firsthand experience with the difficulties prenatal and postnatal mothers face in their professional and personal lives. While on maternity leave, she founded the Belly Button Boutique, an online shop for pre- and postnatal women. Over the span of eight years, her business expanded to celebrity and international clientele, earning her features in PEOPLE and on NBC 10, CBS News, HuffPost Live and more.
The success of Belly Button Boutique inspired Trotman to propel ESI, founded by her parents in 1986, even further forward. Over the past 15 years, she served in the roles at ESI as special projects and marketing manager, executive vice president, COO and currently CEO and president. Under her guidance, ESI implemented both online marketing and acquisition strategies, dramatically increasing revenue.
Through her leadership at ESI, Trotman was named an Enterprising Woman of the Year, Transformational Woman in Family Business, Top 25 Leader Transforming Manufacturing, and most recently Entrepreneur of The Year® 2024 Greater Philadelphia Award winner. Trotman recognizes the plights and potential of minority business enterprises (MBEs) and how their power can be used to help close the ever-widening minority wealth gap. Leveraging her connections to funding, access, and networks, she advocates for minority business owners and educates on how investment in minority businesses uplifts minority families and communities.
Trotman is a board member for the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation, Museum of the American Revolution, African Women’s Entrepreneurship Collective (AWEC) and Forum of Executive Women Foundation. She is co-chair of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Manufacturing Alliance (SEPMA) and a member of both the Drexel University Board of Governors and President’s Council.
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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'm Rashan McDonald, the host of Money Making Conversations Masterclass,
where we encourage people to stop reading other people's success
stories and.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Start planning their own. Listen up as I interview entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
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 local communities. Now,
sit back and listen as we unlock the secrets to
their success on Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Hi, this is Rashan McDonald.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
You know I'm the weekly host of 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
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(00:57):
guest button. Feel out your information. It will come to
me and my staff. We will review it and contact
you to be a guest on my show. That's all
it is. We are not a show. I am not
an expert. I want to let everybody know that, but
I am a person that brings on experts in financial literacy, entrepreneurship,
motivated most people, motivated to change your lives and give
(01:19):
you information so you can have a better day and
also make decisions because you've heard it someplace else, many
many times. If you're a first time listener, welcome. If
you've been here before, welcome back. My guess is the
president and CEO of Electrosoft. That's right, the President and
CEO of Electrosoft Incorporated, ESI and Electronics Manufacturing, the engineering
(01:41):
firm in the United States. She wrote a comment of
age book that is a semi autobiographical because her family
owns a manufacturing business that she wanted no part of.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Nothing.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
She didn't want to be a part of it. She
tells that journey in her book and more. The book
is called dark, Dirty, Dangerous. Please welcome the Money Making Conversations,
Mastic Class, Caler, Trotman.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
How are you doing, Caller, I'm great, How are you well?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Thank you for coming on the show. This is the
second time I've interviewed Carler. The first time I interviewed
I had not read her book. And my reason I
say the book is, first of all, the book is
very entertained, and it's humorous, it's it's filled with sarcasm
and facts, and it also has an edge to it
because it allows you to see a side of a
(02:32):
person who's in the industry and their perspective. Why did
you write the book, dark, Dirty, Dangerous Caller?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Well, honestly, people always ask me, how did you and
your family get into the electronics industry, into manufacturing, because honestly,
I've not ever met anyone that looked like me that
did what we did. And so the opportunity came up
for me to write a thought leadership book on electronics manufacturing,
(03:01):
and I thought that sounds horrible quite honestly, who wants
to read about that? But I realized that I was
in a unique position. My family was in a industry
that has high barriers to entry. My parents went to
college just like a lot of parents do, and they
had this opportunity to bet on themselves, and that bet
(03:23):
ultimately changed the entire trajectory of our family and thus
creating generational wealth. So I wanted to use the backdrop
of the manufacturing story to really tell a story about family,
about the industry, about wealth, and about succession planning.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Well, first, of all, thank you for that opening, because
the book is about her, okay, and there's also a
book about how people can be perceived. This is the
way you could see success. And she went through that
journey because she didn't want to be in manufacturing and
she says a book, I want to be a dancer.
(04:01):
I want to be a dancer. And then she also
was by watching TV, swayed by what she saw on TV.
She wanted to be that personal TV. So let's talk
about that journey because I think it's important because here
your career that you are now living in, now that
you're not journey. Being the president of this company your
(04:22):
family started was not a journey you saw. Why didn't
you see it?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Carla?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
I think a lot of us don't see the family's
business as something we would want to do. We look
at the hard work, the sacrifice, the second mortgage, the
struggle that it takes to go from zero to one
hundred in building a business, and it's not always a
pretty thing. We are taught in school to get good grades,
(04:49):
go to a good college, get that good corporate job
with those good benefits, and everybody fight for the c suite,
but we all can't be in the c suite. And
I think that there's a great diss service that schools
dude for all of us, not just the black community.
But they don't really realize, or we don't realize that
(05:11):
most of the businesses that run this country are small businesses.
The ones that are employing people are small businesses. And
a majority of the businesses in the world are family businesses.
And so there's a lot of mis education. And I
just went along with what we were told, just go
get a job. And that's what I wanted, that fancy
job where I were nice clothes and rode the train
(05:33):
into the city and made a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Now, okay, now my father was a truck driver. Okay,
So when I said my father was a truck driver
to my friends in college, they were okay, Now, what
if didn't people have a different reaction to you when
you told them what your father did that didn't start
seeking in that truck driver owner of a manufacturing company.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Well, I'll tell you this, so quite honestly, that shift
in people wanting to be an entrepreneur is relatively new. Okay,
everyone wanted to work for those big corporations. Now when
we are as people of color. When we say our
family owns a business, the thought is not that we
(06:21):
own a multimillion dollar business, right, The thought is that
we own you know, we're just trying to make things
ends meet. And what I didn't realize was that our
small business was actually a multimillion dollar enterprise.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And that's what this book is all about. Dark Dirty, Dangerous,
a person who her journey, her journey through their realization.
But also it's some unique things that you talk about
in the book because you talk about manufacturing and then
you talk about technology, how technology has changed the game
in their lingo and social media and how it was
(07:00):
become hip where manufacturing feels dark, dirty, dangerous and technology
feels cool and fly talk about that because I found
that very entertained.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
There was one of the more entertaining parts of your book.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Absolutely well, you think about it, like the title says, dark, dirty, dangerous.
Who have this image of manufacturing as these workers leaving
when the whistle blows and they come out in their
overalls with foot on their faces and they're carrying a
lunch pail. That is the way that media sensationalizes it,
and that's what we believe. But honestly. I mean, think
(07:36):
about right now politically, how much money and time and
energy is being put into the manufacturing industries. And they're
not talking about like you know, minerals and coal. They're
talking about chips, and they're talking about building products, building technology,
and it's really a huge industry that people think oftentimes,
(08:00):
specifically in my industry of electronics, that it overseas manufacturing,
but when you think about it, so our company, what
we do is we build what I call the brain
and central nervous system of a device. So think of
an iPhone. Apple has no manufacturing facilities in the US.
They have none at all, quite honestly, but they outsource
their drawings, their intellectual property to a company in Asia
(08:24):
that builds their products for them. My company does the
same exact thing, but for industrial and defense companies, and
we build the items that are inside of electronics, like
the printed circuit board assemblies, the cables, the wiring harnesses,
the panel assemblies. And the way that we've been doing
this is that we focus not on the product you
(08:45):
would buy at a major retailer, but the products that
are in industrial and defense, and that allows us to
focus on a high mix of different products and assemblies
at a lower to mid range volume, So we don't
compete with Asia. We just work with companies that want
to protect their IP and their intellectual property and make
(09:06):
sure that they it's not going to be stolen because
it's hard to enforce once you leave the country. So
our client yes, and so it's an area that is
not talked about. It's hardware technology. We are a big
part of making products come to life Without manufacturers like me,
a lot of ideas don't come through fruition. We're the
(09:28):
hidden secret. And so when you think of manufacturing now
you have to think of it from a technological perspective
of wires and cables, but you can also think that
manufacturing is about taking something from its raw state and
adding something some additive value and making it into something else.
So that could be someone that puts together office furniture
(09:51):
that is considered a manufacturer. It could be a baker.
They are taking raw material and they're making it into
something into a finished grid. So manufacturing has a huge
array of definitions that you can choose from, but we
really need to start focusing in on the fact that
this is a hot industry that people need to start
(10:12):
looking at for opportunity, especially in the black community.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Wow, I'm talking to Caller Tropman. She's the president and
CEO of Electrosoft. Her book Dark, Dirty, Dangerous. It's a
boy manufacturing industy and industry, that industry that she didn't
see her future in. In fact, she wanted to be
a dancer, like I said earlier, and she went to
corporate America, was working for other people while the company
(10:37):
was over there just doing his thing. She was looking
at it, but she was over there trying to do
her thing in corporate. In fact, she started another business.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
She started another business.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Y'll tell everybody how you started another business while there's
other big business was still running over there that you
had nothing to do with at the time.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Talk to us call her absolutely again. I didn't want
to have anything to do with my parents because I
wanted to originally be a dancer. And my father said,
you're a great dancer, but you're used to nice things,
so you might want to think about a career where
you can make some money. Right. So the few options
I came up either engineering or business, and I settled
(11:14):
on business logistics, which is basically supply chain global scheduling,
getting something from point of origin to point of consumption
using math and computers and a bunch of things. So
I worked in that career and I got married and
had gotten two had two very difficult and complex pregnancies.
(11:34):
During that time. You could not go on Facebook and write,
you know, can somebody help me give me an idea
of orrow? On Amazon and buy something. You had to
basically go on a discussion board and talk to other
mothers like what should I do? So here we are
on discussion boards lamenting about how difficult and terrible pregnancy
can be. And I became the go to person. Because
(11:55):
of my background, I was able to source and identify
products that other women had use to help them from
all over the world. They just didn't have distribution, so
that's that was the missing link for them. So I
learned how to create a website e commerce site, and
had a store for women who were having difficult pregnancies
(12:15):
and postpartums. They were and I was working full time
and the store worked twenty four hours a day and
pretty much people would place an order with me and
I would let the women that had the products know
and they would shift them out. So I got the
money up front and pay the people as they shipped them.
So that was my first foray in a business for myself,
(12:37):
and I learned in that process that marketing was changing,
and it was changing in a way that business owners
needed to have a huge presence online in the way
that they wanted to. People will stalk you from afar
before they approach, so you had to make sure you
had the right image and marketed yourselves in a way
(12:57):
that would attract them. But my family business was not
doing that yet, so I said, and I came to
that epiphany as well. I, you know, had these small children,
and I said, I don't want to work like this anymore.
I don't want to fly anywhere anymore. I should be
helping my family business. Legacy is more important. And so
I just transitioned all of the knowledge that I had
(13:18):
and helped my family business revitalize what was ultimately a
flat revenue streak.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Like I said when I said, I'd love you, let
me just clarify what I'm saying there. I have six sisters,
and my oldest sister is so much like you. I
wouldn't be on this radio show, you know. She when
I was there trying to be a stand up comedian.
She was there listening to my jokes. When I was
there in college and wanted to quit, she told me
(13:46):
not to whenever I had doubt. Now she doesn't even
know these things. If she hears a show, she probably
didn't know the impacts she had on me. But you
have the inspiration because of the fact that you know
life gives you an opportunity. When I tell people who
listen to this show, is that your story is perfect
for so many people to understand that sometimes what you
(14:11):
need to be doing you have blinders on, and once
you take off those blinders, then the work starts. And
I say that because now you're in the family business.
But it's not as simple as people would think, because
you got other relatives, you got the parents.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
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
continues online at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making
(14:58):
Conversations Masterclass Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
So I'm speaking to the president and CEO of Electrosoft Incorporated,
as EESI and electronics manufacturing engineering firm in the United States.
I think I picked up another little sister in my
life here. Her name is Carler Trotman. I hope she
don't mind me saying that, because she's an inspiration. She
has a book called Dark, Dirty, Dangerous, and it's an autobiographic.
(15:24):
It's not a long read. And reason I say that
because she doesn't say that in the book. But when
you realize that she's talking about herself, and she's talking
about how she made a shift. She made a commitment
to not be engaged in her family business, which was
a multimillion dollar business.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
She went to college, she did the corporate world, she.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Started her own business that was not related to the
manufacturing business, and then she looked at us kids, and
she realized, you know, I'm gonna go do this. When
you decided to go into the business, was about that
and some of the things that you had to deal
(16:06):
with in making that transition, which one would think would
be easy.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Definitely not easy. I think the first thing was my
dad always told me that people go into business with
people who have something to offer. And I noticed that
early in life when I would work there in the summer,
work there randomly. It was I really didn't get the
respect that I would get somewhere else as a professional,
and it made me realize that I really didn't have
(16:32):
anything to offer. But when I came back to the
family business, I had a corporate career, I had a degree,
and then I had my own business that was successful
that spoke for itself. But I had also carved out
a niche in this online marketing that the company had
not been experiencing at all. And seeing the proof and
(16:54):
the pudding was really helpful for my dad to really
change his mind about seeing me more as a partner
as opposed to just as daughter. And I think that's
really important in family business. Some family businesses have you
worked there from birth to death. I didn't think that
route at all. I had a different thought. I thought that,
(17:16):
you know, I wanted to do something else. But I
will tell you that that outside experience gave me a
negotiating edge when it came to my family, when it
came to being able to make decisions within the business
and being able to see the business not as my
family business but an asset. This wasn't just you know,
if my parents had a beauty salon, if they had
(17:36):
a liquor store, if they had a shoe repair shop.
I now see it as an asset. It is something
that if I did not want to take over, I
would have found somebody to run it and treated it
as an asset on my balance sheet, as a way
to have additional stream of income. And I think that
that change happened when I had my own business and
(17:57):
I saw what a small business can do for you.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Okay, my daughter, Okay, I apologies, confuses your thought.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
No, go ahead, okay, mine, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
You know that my daughter, she works for my wife
and I and and so she's the only child. And
she she graduated with an honors degree in digital media.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And she didn't want to work for us either.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
So I'm not saying I'm not laugh and I tease you,
but my daughter did not want to work for us,
definitely didn't want to work for a dad. And I
had to convince her, and then she had to move
from another city. And now she says, that's the greatest
thing she's decisions she's ever made.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
One.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I respect her one. I had to show her that
I valued her. She wasn't just a family hire. So
I understand what you're saying, and then now she understands
her value in the company is a necessity. It's not
something that I don't remind her about or or thank
her for doing, because she is an asset to my company.
(18:56):
And I think that's really a super blessing. And I'm
sure you're your parents or most my parents are passed.
If your parents are both for lat they appreciate that
because of the fact that you want to see that,
you want to see your child understand my dreams. I
wanted to understand my dreams and then maybe create a legacy,
because that's what we're talking about now, which you is
(19:17):
a legacy, correct.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yes, yeah, I mean it's really I think about any
what other thing do you have in this world that
you can put all of your time, your energy in
your relationships and build up and then pass on to
the next generation to continue doing it at that same
level or better and create residual income for generations, Like
(19:44):
you can't do it for a job, you can't do it,
you know, really, the business is one of the best way.
Family business is one of the best ways to pass
generational wealth from one generation to the next.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
To answer this question called it in the book as
an accomplished professional because you talk about it. You went
back to school. I did graduate school, and you winning
back and got an NBA. She discusses this in the book.
She tells you just because you get an NBA doesn't
mean you know how to run a business. How laughed
at that when I read that, how did your previous
experience and influence the tone or approach of writing is dark, dirty, dangerous.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I think that going into business and not knowing what
you're doing as a humbling experience in and of itself.
You're constantly putting out fires and constantly trying to make
thousands upon thousands of decisions to steer the company in
the right direction. And I felt that all the books
that I had read were written from a perspective of,
(20:44):
like Hubris, so oh, this is the right way and
this is how you do it. And I wanted to
come from an approach of I don't know what the
right way is, but this is the way we did it,
and it worked, and here's some other ways that we've
learned as well along the way. We wanted to kind
of quicken the learning curve for other family businesses or
(21:04):
other people who wanted to create family businesses. I wanted
to be able to be honest that entrepreneurship is a
lonely journey and that you need a good network of
people to support you. You need to have your own team.
And these are all the things that I lived. And
I feel that the humble approach that I've had in
business has helped us become very successful because we're not
(21:27):
afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
That's important, asking for help. The word humble. A lot
of people say that around me, and then my wife
tell me, so you so over confident, but in both
of you you have to be both. Though you know,
I'm pretty sure Caller that you're a very confident person,
but you but you value that moment to be humble because,
like I said, some people, shine can't be shined on
(21:52):
everybody because it can lessen them of make them feel weak.
But when you in this book, you've got a lot
of surprise. Accuse, I'm gonna tell you, I enjoyed reading
the book. I enjoyed the storytelling that I think the
storytelling moved me the most because you are a interesting
and entertaining thought provoker. And like I said, we didn't
(22:14):
talk about it. If you read the book when she starts.
She didn't talk about it in detail, but her description
between the difference between manufacturing and technology is very funny.
If you read the book, you'll find it very humorous.
And I'm not talking about it in a nerdy way either.
It's just really instrumental.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
When you see somebody who's in the manufacturing business, they
see another competitive feel that suddenly has blown up, but
they understand why it is blown up because it has
suddenly become cool. And where manufacturing is being perceived as
this dark, unionized, a hard hat you know, pot belly men,
(22:55):
old people, male driven industry. You can you have to
dress a certain way, you know, the whistle blows when
you have to get off from work. That's the image
of manufacturing. Did they Did I miss anything there?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
No?
Speaker 4 (23:11):
You got it. You got it absolutely Yeah. And my
hope was that people would see it differently, but also
think about other industries that they may that may be
flying under the radar, that they could potentially go into
and create their own businesses and create generational wealth for themselves.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Now, so what are some of the reactions that you've
gotten some of the feedback from the readers.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I was actually surprised quite a few. I had a
white gentlemen reached out to me and said, I really
think of myself as an open minded person, open to diversity,
equity and inclusion in general. But your book made me
realize the privilege that I that I still have, and
that took me by surprise. My son, my sixteen year old,
(23:59):
read part of it. He hasn't read the whole thing yet.
He's in school still right now, and he said it
wasn't boring, and I said, well, good, because I wrote
it because I want people, young young people to think
about what they could potentially be. The gentleman that was
on before me had said that they had something similar
to what my father and I always say, if you
(24:21):
can see it, you can be it. We want to
set that example of black excellence as having your own business,
as being engineers, of being in complicated, complex fields in
STEM and seeing yourself there. It's helpful to know that
someone else was successful at it so that you can
see yourself in it. And we spend a lot of
(24:42):
time going out and doing that, and that was part
of the reason, actually a big reason for the book
to reach more people so that we can be the
example one of many of how you can be successful
in stem, manufacturing and business.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Cool as a closer out real quick.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
How do we find this book, Dark, Dirty Dangerous? Number
one on Amazon, by the way, Ladies and Gentlemen, number
one on Amazon, Dark Dirty Dangerous.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
The author call a Tropman.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yes, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, many major bookseller.
Thank you so much for the support.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Well, she sees the light, y'all, she sees the light.
She sees the manufacturing light. Thank you, caller Tropman for
coming on Money Making Conversations Master Class.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
I told you y'all gonna read your book. I told
you I was gonna read your book.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You sure did. I appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Thank you for taking the time to come back on
my show and let me share it with my audience.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
You'll be safe and keep keep keep manufacturing.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Okay, I sure will. Thank you Cool.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass
hosted by me Rushan McDonald. Thank you to our guest
on the show today and thank you for listening audience now.
If you want to listen to any episode or want
to be a guest on the show, visit Moneymakingconversations dot com.
Our social media handle is money Making Conversations and if
(26:05):
you want to join us next week, remember to always
leave with your gifts.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Keep winning.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
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 our listening to
audience now. If you want to listen to any episode
I want to be a guest on the show, visit
Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money Making Conversations.
Join us next week and remember to always leave with
(26:31):
your gifts.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Keep winning.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Rashan McDonald, the host of Money Making Conversations Masterclass,
where we encourage people to stop reading other people's success
stories and.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Start planning their own. Listen up as I interview entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
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 local communities. Now,
sit back and listen as we unlock the secrets to
their success on Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Hi, this is Rashan McDonald.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
You know I'm the weekly host of 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, Moneymakingconversations dot com and click to be a
(00:57):
guest button. Feel out your information. It will come to
me and my staff. We will review it and contact
you to be a guest on my show. That's all
it is. We are not a show. I am not
an expert. I want to let everybody know that, but
I am a person that brings on experts in financial literacy, entrepreneurship,
motivated most people, motivated to change your lives and give
(01:19):
you information so you can have a better day and
also make decisions because you've heard it someplace else, many
many times. If you're a first time listener, welcome. If
you've been here before, welcome back. My guess is the
president and CEO of Electrosoft. That's right, the President and
CEO of Electrosoft Incorporated, ESI and Electronics Manufacturing, the engineering
(01:41):
firm in the United States. She wrote a comment of
age book that is a semi autobiographical because her family
owns a manufacturing business that she wanted no part of.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Nothing.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
She didn't want to be a part of it. She
tells that journey in her book and more. The book
is called dark, Dirty, Dangerous. Please welcome the Money Making Conversations,
Mastic Class, Caler, Trotman.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
How are you doing, Caller, I'm great, How are you well?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Thank you for coming on the show. This is the
second time I've interviewed Carler. The first time I interviewed
I had not read her book. And my reason I
say the book is, first of all, the book is
very entertained, and it's humorous, it's it's filled with sarcasm
and facts, and it also has an edge to it
because it allows you to see a side of a
(02:32):
person who's in the industry and their perspective. Why did
you write the book, dark, Dirty, Dangerous Caller?
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Well, honestly, people always ask me, how did you and
your family get into the electronics industry, into manufacturing, because honestly,
I've not ever met anyone that looked like me that
did what we did. And so the opportunity came up
for me to write a thought leadership book on electronics manufacturing,
(03:01):
and I thought that sounds horrible quite honestly, who wants
to read about that? But I realized that I was
in a unique position. My family was in a industry
that has high barriers to entry. My parents went to
college just like a lot of parents do, and they
had this opportunity to bet on themselves, and that bet
(03:23):
ultimately changed the entire trajectory of our family and thus
creating generational wealth. So I wanted to use the backdrop
of the manufacturing story to really tell a story about family,
about the industry, about wealth, and about succession planning.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Well, first, of all, thank you for that opening, because
the book is about her, okay, and there's also a
book about how people can be perceived. This is the
way you could see success. And she went through that
journey because she didn't want to be in manufacturing and
she says a book, I want to be a dancer.
(04:01):
I want to be a dancer. And then she also
was by watching TV, swayed by what she saw on TV.
She wanted to be that personal TV. So let's talk
about that journey because I think it's important because here
your career that you are now living in, now that
you're not journey. Being the president of this company your
(04:22):
family started was not a journey you saw. Why didn't
you see it?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Carla?
Speaker 4 (04:28):
I think a lot of us don't see the family's
business as something we would want to do. We look
at the hard work, the sacrifice, the second mortgage, the
struggle that it takes to go from zero to one
hundred in building a business, and it's not always a
pretty thing. We are taught in school to get good grades,
(04:49):
go to a good college, get that good corporate job
with those good benefits, and everybody fight for the c suite,
but we all can't be in the c suite. And
I think that there's a great diss service that schools
dude for all of us, not just the black community.
But they don't really realize, or we don't realize that
(05:11):
most of the businesses that run this country are small businesses.
The ones that are employing people are small businesses. And
a majority of the businesses in the world are family businesses.
And so there's a lot of mis education. And I
just went along with what we were told, just go
get a job. And that's what I wanted, that fancy
job where I were nice clothes and rode the train
(05:33):
into the city and made a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Now, okay, now my father was a truck driver. Okay,
So when I said my father was a truck driver
to my friends in college, they were okay, Now, what
if didn't people have a different reaction to you when
you told them what your father did that didn't start
seeking in that truck driver owner of a manufacturing company.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Well, I'll tell you this, so quite honestly, that shift
in people wanting to be an entrepreneur is relatively new. Okay,
everyone wanted to work for those big corporations. Now when
we are as people of color. When we say our
family owns a business, the thought is not that we
(06:21):
own a multimillion dollar business, right, The thought is that
we own you know, we're just trying to make things
ends meet. And what I didn't realize was that our
small business was actually a multimillion dollar enterprise.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And that's what this book is all about. Dark Dirty, Dangerous,
a person who her journey, her journey through their realization.
But also it's some unique things that you talk about
in the book because you talk about manufacturing and then
you talk about technology, how technology has changed the game
in their lingo and social media and how it was
(07:00):
become hip where manufacturing feels dark, dirty, dangerous and technology
feels cool and fly talk about that because I found
that very entertained.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
There was one of the more entertaining parts of your book.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Absolutely well, you think about it, like the title says, dark, dirty, dangerous.
Who have this image of manufacturing as these workers leaving
when the whistle blows and they come out in their
overalls with foot on their faces and they're carrying a
lunch pail. That is the way that media sensationalizes it,
and that's what we believe. But honestly. I mean, think
(07:36):
about right now politically, how much money and time and
energy is being put into the manufacturing industries. And they're
not talking about like you know, minerals and coal. They're
talking about chips, and they're talking about building products, building technology,
and it's really a huge industry that people think oftentimes,
(08:00):
specifically in my industry of electronics, that it overseas manufacturing,
but when you think about it, so our company, what
we do is we build what I call the brain
and central nervous system of a device. So think of
an iPhone. Apple has no manufacturing facilities in the US.
They have none at all, quite honestly, but they outsource
their drawings, their intellectual property to a company in Asia
(08:24):
that builds their products for them. My company does the
same exact thing, but for industrial and defense companies, and
we build the items that are inside of electronics, like
the printed circuit board assemblies, the cables, the wiring harnesses,
the panel assemblies. And the way that we've been doing
this is that we focus not on the product you
(08:45):
would buy at a major retailer, but the products that
are in industrial and defense, and that allows us to
focus on a high mix of different products and assemblies
at a lower to mid range volume, So we don't
compete with Asia. We just work with companies that want
to protect their IP and their intellectual property and make
(09:06):
sure that they it's not going to be stolen because
it's hard to enforce once you leave the country. So
our client yes, and so it's an area that is
not talked about. It's hardware technology. We are a big
part of making products come to life Without manufacturers like me,
a lot of ideas don't come through fruition. We're the
(09:28):
hidden secret. And so when you think of manufacturing now
you have to think of it from a technological perspective
of wires and cables, but you can also think that
manufacturing is about taking something from its raw state and
adding something some additive value and making it into something else.
So that could be someone that puts together office furniture
(09:51):
that is considered a manufacturer. It could be a baker.
They are taking raw material and they're making it into
something into a finished grid. So manufacturing has a huge
array of definitions that you can choose from, but we
really need to start focusing in on the fact that
this is a hot industry that people need to start
(10:12):
looking at for opportunity, especially in the black community.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Wow, I'm talking to Caller Tropman. She's the president and
CEO of Electrosoft. Her book Dark, Dirty, Dangerous. It's a
boy manufacturing industy and industry, that industry that she didn't
see her future in. In fact, she wanted to be
a dancer, like I said earlier, and she went to
corporate America, was working for other people while the company
(10:37):
was over there just doing his thing. She was looking
at it, but she was over there trying to do
her thing in corporate. In fact, she started another business.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
She started another business.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Y'll tell everybody how you started another business while there's
other big business was still running over there that you
had nothing to do with at the time.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Talk to us call her absolutely again. I didn't want
to have anything to do with my parents because I
wanted to originally be a dancer. And my father said,
you're a great dancer, but you're used to nice things,
so you might want to think about a career where
you can make some money. Right. So the few options
I came up either engineering or business, and I settled
(11:14):
on business logistics, which is basically supply chain global scheduling,
getting something from point of origin to point of consumption
using math and computers and a bunch of things. So
I worked in that career and I got married and
had gotten two had two very difficult and complex pregnancies.
(11:34):
During that time. You could not go on Facebook and write,
you know, can somebody help me give me an idea
of orrow? On Amazon and buy something. You had to
basically go on a discussion board and talk to other
mothers like what should I do? So here we are
on discussion boards lamenting about how difficult and terrible pregnancy
can be. And I became the go to person. Because
(11:55):
of my background, I was able to source and identify
products that other women had use to help them from
all over the world. They just didn't have distribution, so
that's that was the missing link for them. So I
learned how to create a website e commerce site, and
had a store for women who were having difficult pregnancies
(12:15):
and postpartums. They were and I was working full time
and the store worked twenty four hours a day and
pretty much people would place an order with me and
I would let the women that had the products know
and they would shift them out. So I got the
money up front and pay the people as they shipped them.
So that was my first foray in a business for myself,
(12:37):
and I learned in that process that marketing was changing,
and it was changing in a way that business owners
needed to have a huge presence online in the way
that they wanted to. People will stalk you from afar
before they approach, so you had to make sure you
had the right image and marketed yourselves in a way
(12:57):
that would attract them. But my family business was not
doing that yet, so I said, and I came to
that epiphany as well. I, you know, had these small children,
and I said, I don't want to work like this anymore.
I don't want to fly anywhere anymore. I should be
helping my family business. Legacy is more important. And so
I just transitioned all of the knowledge that I had
(13:18):
and helped my family business revitalize what was ultimately a
flat revenue streak.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Like I said when I said, I'd love you, let
me just clarify what I'm saying there. I have six sisters,
and my oldest sister is so much like you. I
wouldn't be on this radio show, you know. She when
I was there trying to be a stand up comedian.
She was there listening to my jokes. When I was
there in college and wanted to quit, she told me
(13:46):
not to whenever I had doubt. Now she doesn't even
know these things. If she hears a show, she probably
didn't know the impacts she had on me. But you
have the inspiration because of the fact that you know
life gives you an opportunity. When I tell people who
listen to this show, is that your story is perfect
for so many people to understand that sometimes what you
(14:11):
need to be doing you have blinders on, and once
you take off those blinders, then the work starts. And
I say that because now you're in the family business.
But it's not as simple as people would think, because
you got other relatives, you got the parents.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
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
continues online at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making
(14:58):
Conversations Masterclass Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
So I'm speaking to the president and CEO of Electrosoft Incorporated,
as EESI and electronics manufacturing engineering firm in the United States.
I think I picked up another little sister in my
life here. Her name is Carler Trotman. I hope she
don't mind me saying that, because she's an inspiration. She
has a book called Dark, Dirty, Dangerous, and it's an autobiographic.
(15:24):
It's not a long read. And reason I say that
because she doesn't say that in the book. But when
you realize that she's talking about herself, and she's talking
about how she made a shift. She made a commitment
to not be engaged in her family business, which was
a multimillion dollar business.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
She went to college, she did the corporate world, she.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Started her own business that was not related to the
manufacturing business, and then she looked at us kids, and
she realized, you know, I'm gonna go do this. When
you decided to go into the business, was about that
and some of the things that you had to deal
(16:06):
with in making that transition, which one would think would
be easy.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Definitely not easy. I think the first thing was my
dad always told me that people go into business with
people who have something to offer. And I noticed that
early in life when I would work there in the summer,
work there randomly. It was I really didn't get the
respect that I would get somewhere else as a professional,
and it made me realize that I really didn't have
(16:32):
anything to offer. But when I came back to the
family business, I had a corporate career, I had a degree,
and then I had my own business that was successful
that spoke for itself. But I had also carved out
a niche in this online marketing that the company had
not been experiencing at all. And seeing the proof and
(16:54):
the pudding was really helpful for my dad to really
change his mind about seeing me more as a partner
as opposed to just as daughter. And I think that's
really important in family business. Some family businesses have you
worked there from birth to death. I didn't think that
route at all. I had a different thought. I thought that,
(17:16):
you know, I wanted to do something else. But I
will tell you that that outside experience gave me a
negotiating edge when it came to my family, when it
came to being able to make decisions within the business
and being able to see the business not as my
family business but an asset. This wasn't just you know,
if my parents had a beauty salon, if they had
(17:36):
a liquor store, if they had a shoe repair shop.
I now see it as an asset. It is something
that if I did not want to take over, I
would have found somebody to run it and treated it
as an asset on my balance sheet, as a way
to have additional stream of income. And I think that
that change happened when I had my own business and
(17:57):
I saw what a small business can do for you.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Okay, my daughter, Okay, I apologies, confuses your thought.
Speaker 4 (18:04):
No, go ahead, okay, mine, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
You know that my daughter, she works for my wife
and I and and so she's the only child. And
she she graduated with an honors degree in digital media.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And she didn't want to work for us either.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
So I'm not saying I'm not laugh and I tease you,
but my daughter did not want to work for us,
definitely didn't want to work for a dad. And I
had to convince her, and then she had to move
from another city. And now she says, that's the greatest
thing she's decisions she's ever made.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
One.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I respect her one. I had to show her that
I valued her. She wasn't just a family hire. So
I understand what you're saying, and then now she understands
her value in the company is a necessity. It's not
something that I don't remind her about or or thank
her for doing, because she is an asset to my company.
(18:56):
And I think that's really a super blessing. And I'm
sure you're your parents or most my parents are passed.
If your parents are both for lat they appreciate that
because of the fact that you want to see that,
you want to see your child understand my dreams. I
wanted to understand my dreams and then maybe create a legacy,
because that's what we're talking about now, which you is
(19:17):
a legacy, correct.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yes, yeah, I mean it's really I think about any
what other thing do you have in this world that
you can put all of your time, your energy in
your relationships and build up and then pass on to
the next generation to continue doing it at that same
level or better and create residual income for generations, Like
(19:44):
you can't do it for a job, you can't do it,
you know, really, the business is one of the best way.
Family business is one of the best ways to pass
generational wealth from one generation to the next.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
To answer this question called it in the book as
an accomplished professional because you talk about it. You went
back to school. I did graduate school, and you winning
back and got an NBA. She discusses this in the book.
She tells you just because you get an NBA doesn't
mean you know how to run a business. How laughed
at that when I read that, how did your previous
experience and influence the tone or approach of writing is dark, dirty, dangerous.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
I think that going into business and not knowing what
you're doing as a humbling experience in and of itself.
You're constantly putting out fires and constantly trying to make
thousands upon thousands of decisions to steer the company in
the right direction. And I felt that all the books
that I had read were written from a perspective of,
(20:44):
like Hubris, so oh, this is the right way and
this is how you do it. And I wanted to
come from an approach of I don't know what the
right way is, but this is the way we did it,
and it worked, and here's some other ways that we've
learned as well along the way. We wanted to kind
of quicken the learning curve for other family businesses or
(21:04):
other people who wanted to create family businesses. I wanted
to be able to be honest that entrepreneurship is a
lonely journey and that you need a good network of
people to support you. You need to have your own team.
And these are all the things that I lived. And
I feel that the humble approach that I've had in
business has helped us become very successful because we're not
(21:27):
afraid to ask for help.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
That's important, asking for help. The word humble. A lot
of people say that around me, and then my wife
tell me, so you so over confident, but in both
of you you have to be both. Though you know,
I'm pretty sure Caller that you're a very confident person,
but you but you value that moment to be humble because,
like I said, some people, shine can't be shined on
(21:52):
everybody because it can lessen them of make them feel weak.
But when you in this book, you've got a lot
of surprise. Accuse, I'm gonna tell you, I enjoyed reading
the book. I enjoyed the storytelling that I think the
storytelling moved me the most because you are a interesting
and entertaining thought provoker. And like I said, we didn't
(22:14):
talk about it. If you read the book when she starts.
She didn't talk about it in detail, but her description
between the difference between manufacturing and technology is very funny.
If you read the book, you'll find it very humorous.
And I'm not talking about it in a nerdy way either.
It's just really instrumental.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
When you see somebody who's in the manufacturing business, they
see another competitive feel that suddenly has blown up, but
they understand why it is blown up because it has
suddenly become cool. And where manufacturing is being perceived as
this dark, unionized, a hard hat you know, pot belly men,
(22:55):
old people, male driven industry. You can you have to
dress a certain way, you know, the whistle blows when
you have to get off from work. That's the image
of manufacturing. Did they Did I miss anything there?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
No?
Speaker 4 (23:11):
You got it. You got it absolutely Yeah. And my
hope was that people would see it differently, but also
think about other industries that they may that may be
flying under the radar, that they could potentially go into
and create their own businesses and create generational wealth for themselves.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Now, so what are some of the reactions that you've
gotten some of the feedback from the readers.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
I was actually surprised quite a few. I had a
white gentlemen reached out to me and said, I really
think of myself as an open minded person, open to diversity,
equity and inclusion in general. But your book made me
realize the privilege that I that I still have, and
that took me by surprise. My son, my sixteen year old,
(23:59):
read part of it. He hasn't read the whole thing yet.
He's in school still right now, and he said it
wasn't boring, and I said, well, good, because I wrote
it because I want people, young young people to think
about what they could potentially be. The gentleman that was
on before me had said that they had something similar
to what my father and I always say, if you
(24:21):
can see it, you can be it. We want to
set that example of black excellence as having your own business,
as being engineers, of being in complicated, complex fields in
STEM and seeing yourself there. It's helpful to know that
someone else was successful at it so that you can
see yourself in it. And we spend a lot of
(24:42):
time going out and doing that, and that was part
of the reason, actually a big reason for the book
to reach more people so that we can be the
example one of many of how you can be successful
in stem, manufacturing and business.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Cool as a closer out real quick.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
How do we find this book, Dark, Dirty Dangerous? Number
one on Amazon, by the way, Ladies and Gentlemen, number
one on Amazon, Dark Dirty Dangerous.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
The author call a Tropman.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
Yes, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, Walmart, many major bookseller.
Thank you so much for the support.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
Well, she sees the light, y'all, she sees the light.
She sees the manufacturing light. Thank you, caller Tropman for
coming on Money Making Conversations Master Class.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
I told you y'all gonna read your book. I told
you I was gonna read your book.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You sure did. I appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Thank you for taking the time to come back on
my show and let me share it with my audience.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
You'll be safe and keep keep keep manufacturing.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Okay, I sure will. Thank you Cool.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass
hosted by me Rushan McDonald. Thank you to our guest
on the show today and thank you for listening audience now.
If you want to listen to any episode or want
to be a guest on the show, visit Moneymakingconversations dot com.
Our social media handle is money Making Conversations and if
(26:05):
you want to join us next week, remember to always
leave with your gifts.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Keep winning.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
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 our listening to
audience now. If you want to listen to any episode
I want to be a guest on the show, visit
Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money Making Conversations.
Join us next week and remember to always leave with
(26:31):
your gifts.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Keep winning.
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