Growth & Grace

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU n b Studio's original program. The following program is underwritten by Crawford management group and Chris glow and does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jaz and Moore the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education

Music 0:18
even better than I was the last time, baby. We back and

Music 0:35
we back and we back and we back and we back and we back. And I was the last to eat that better

Leaha Crawford 0:42
than I was the last time. Hey, hey, hey, good morning, Las Vegas. We it's been an interesting week. Did you see that? No, honestly, so I missed the whole haboob thing that happened here last week, the stuff on Tropicana. Oh, my God, you didn't see it. So apparently there was an haboob, which is an interesting dust storm, and all those power lines that were down on Tropicana. Oh, yeah, when I didn't Yeah. So all down, all down on tropic Yeah, it was bad. So

Julian Rosado 1:21
flatlined.

Leaha Crawford 1:22
Flatline, yeah, the poles. So interesting thing I was actually flying during that time, and it was a boob that was near the airport I was about to fly into. We were one minute from landing, and we had to divert the plane to the to the closest airport because they couldn't get through that. Oh, so I'm sitting there. My girlfriend's like, Yeah, well, the same thing you saw there. We had here. I'm like, oh, okay, so I hope everybody is okay. Power. There were power outages, so everybody should have their power restored by now. But just the wind, the wind, wind is dangerous. Very much, very much. So, very much. So, all right, so how was your week? Are you over the loss for No, because you were, you were, are you over yet?

Julian Rosado 2:06
Oh, yeah, you know you have your heels. Sports are like, you know,

Leaha Crawford 2:10
football season, yeah,

Julian Rosado 2:13
they know they, they got cheated out.

Leaha Crawford 2:18
So, all right, so you move on. Love it. Love it. And those So Brenda, so that you know we're talking about the champions, NBA championships, I see, and he was not happy about the outcome. No, he was not happy. And it took a couple

Leaha Crawford 2:34
of weeks to get somebody was

Leaha Crawford 2:38
I was all right, how Brent, I have a special guest in here today, someone I've been working with, oh my God, for almost 20 years, pretty much, pretty much for about 20 years in this community. I've seen her in her own business and then doing some amazing things, teaching classes, helping entrepreneurs. I would like to introduce you to Miss Brenda Bryant, good morning.

Brenda Bryant 2:58
Good morning. Good morning. Nice to be here. Hey,

Leaha Crawford 3:01
you okay? So first of all, thank you for accepting the invitation. I know you are an advocate for small business owners, and have been for a very long time.

Brenda Bryant 3:10
Our country, our world, is built on small businesses, right? Small and every big business was small

Leaha Crawford 3:17
at one time, at one time. So to start tell us a little bit about you. Like your background, where you're from? Who is Brenda Bryan,

Brenda Bryant 3:27
how much time do you have? Hey. So my background is, my undergraduate work was in finance, statistics and accounting, with a minor in vocal, music, speech and drama. I went to an HBCU. Which one went to Central State University and Wilberforce, Ohio, yes, yes. HBCU, yeah. And I moved to California because I like the music and drama more than I like the finance, statistics and accounting. So you know, my first job in California was to sing at a wedding right across the street from Disney Studios. I don't even know how the people found me, but they paid me.

Leaha Crawford 4:14
That's and that's what I said, Ooh, I'm

Brenda Bryant 4:17
professional. Now I'm in Hollywood and I'm professional. Okay, yeah, so that ended really soon. Okay, I've done, I'm a former sag member only because I haven't paid my dues, and so I've done movies, I've done television, I've done I had a radio show. I've done backup on on records. So that's the music.

Leaha Crawford 4:38
I did not know that about you. Oh my God. See, look at do tell Go ahead. So now you're singing to business owners, go ahead.

Brenda Bryant 4:47
Well, my boss at UNR laughs at me and says, Because I tell him I'm the only sag member that he'll ever meet who hates to be on camera. I look good on the radio. I look good on the radio. Hey,

Leaha Crawford 5:00
we all look good on the right. Hey, right.

Brenda Bryant 5:02
Today is my day. Yes, so and my graduate work was in human resources and organizational development. In essence, my degree is in the organization. It's the diagnosis and treatment of organizations. So it's how organizations grow, how they merge, how they divest, how and so I was the divestiture trainer for Northern California when AT and T went through divestiture, okay, and some of the stuff for national AT and T,

Leaha Crawford 5:35
nice, nice. So that's the background. And you got more than that, though, because you were in Hawaii, because my favorite is Hawaii always is Hawaii.

Brenda Bryant 5:43
I spent 10 years in Hawaii. I worked for the University of Hawaii, and I was the distance learning trainer for the state. Which island I I, well, my job was over all islands. I lived on Oahu. Oh, wow, because that that's where the main

Leaha Crawford 5:57
University is. Oh, nice, nice. And you've been in Vegas for how long since 2001

Brenda Bryant 6:03
right before the towers fell?

Leaha Crawford 6:05
Oh, wow, wow, that's September 11. Yeah, I remember that day. I was in DC during the time.

Brenda Bryant 6:10
I remember that date, I was with a client whose wife was a flight attendant, and knew the flight attendants on the American Airlines.

Leaha Crawford 6:20
It's it's fun. Yeah, we knew that it was rough, so the children that were on one of the flights were from the elementary school in DC. So yeah, it was very, that was a rough day. It was a, it was a very, it was a very rough day. It was a very,

Brenda Bryant 6:33
and I had a good friend from Hawaii who had just gotten a job with NBC and was on top of a building, and they were doing some B shots. The B shots are like the, well, you know what that is, the shots where you don't really have a lot of of main people talking, but you're picking up atmosphere shots got it. And so they were up on a building, and they saw, they saw this firsthand, and had their cameras, and their cameras were were the first ones to actually show what was going on. It's

Leaha Crawford 7:06
interesting because that day I was living, so I'm living downtown. Well, I live downtown DC, okay, and we saw the towers. We were watching the news and them talking about the towers, and we were thinking, you know, it's no way, because DC, you know, there's a limit on how tall the buildings can be, and not in New York, not in New York, but for it also to impact DC, for for them to come in, and for the planes to come in. It was, it was a very solemn day around the country. But, I mean, I can only remember us walking everywhere, because the whole city was basically in shock. The whole city wasn't

Brenda Bryant 7:42
shocked. My lip. My aunt lived since you know, DC, my aunt lived out Suitland Parkway in Alabama Avenue. Yeah. Okay, the neighborhood, yes. I said neighborhood,

Leaha Crawford 7:55
DC, yeah. I know southeast.

Brenda Bryant 7:56
And I had sung for a change of command for a captain, a Navy captain and Pearl Harbor who had gone to the Pentagon, nice, and when that happened, all I could think about was him and his family, because I didn't know where he was. Well, the

Leaha Crawford 8:14
thing about it is, is that when we think about especially natural, big natural disasters, and we've had several in this country, it's a time when people come together and really show support of each other, love of each other and

Brenda Bryant 8:25
and why can't we continue that? Why can't we continue to holding on to that? I

Julian Rosado 8:30
think it's really, I think you will really find how really we all come together if something really, really bad happens,

Brenda Bryant 8:38
you, why does it, why does it have to be something bad that happens? Why can't we be together? Because we're humans, because every life is precious,

Leaha Crawford 8:49
okay? Yeah, we been on a whole nother time, yeah?

Brenda Bryant 8:52
Oh, shit. I mentioned that my father was a preacher, so sorry about that.

Leaha Crawford 8:58
So currently, what are

Brenda Bryant 8:59
you doing? Currently, I am an instructor at UNR extension, and the extension is a land grant program that is through colleges and universities nationwide. In fact, Central State is a land grant school, and a land grant school is the philosophy of taking education to the people, rather than having people come for the education and getting something. They get a degree. This is where you go to the people and give them practical knowledge. So it was based on agriculture. That's that was its start, starting point. But as you

Leaha Crawford 9:38
and are one of the oldest universities in the state? I

Brenda Bryant 9:42
actually can't answer that question, because I don't

Leaha Crawford 9:45
know. Don't know. Okay, I know you. I know you and our UNLV. I mean, there's several schools here you and our UNLV,

Brenda Bryant 9:49
right? And there's a bunch of schools all throughout the state. And so there's an extension in every county. We have 17 counties in Nevada, and so there's an at least one extension in every. Every county that's a good that's and so what we do is our division is economic development, business and economic development. And so we have classes that are offered, usually Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, okay. And so I have a colleague by the name of Shiva, who does classes. I have a colleague by the name of Reyna, who does classes, and her classes are Spanish classes. So she's one of the smarter people who is bilingual and very good in both languages. So she reaches out to the Spanish speaking community. My boss is Mike, and he is bilingual, so he gets stuck with both of us. And then we have an E Learning director, and her name is Amanda, and so she's amazing at doing all the production stuff that to make us look good. We look good and we sound good because of Amanda. And then we have a lady in our office who is working on her degree, and her name is Leslie, and so she's doing a lot with small business owners and come in combination with Nevada grow. Yes, okay, so helping people find out who, not only who their clients are, but where their clients are located. What are the specifics about the metrics of the clients, so that they know when they step into that role, whatever that role is, whether it's retail or whether it's service or whether it's a product, where are these people, and how do I reach them?

Leaha Crawford 11:44
Okay, so it sounds to me that you basically, you're there for small business owners

Brenda Bryant 11:50
as everything, everything we do is the focus is on small business because some people, some of the students that we have, want to conquer the world, and some just want to conquer the block, okay, but you can't conquer the world till the block is taken care of,

Leaha Crawford 12:05
right? One block at a time, one block at a time, one block, one customer at a time. And when you get good, you can do two, three customers and 10 customers and 100 customers

Brenda Bryant 12:13
at a time, but you have to learn to grow that, because what we don't want them to do is success themselves into failure. I got a big contract, but I have nothing to back it up with. I don't have the foundation. I don't have I don't have the resources, I don't have the employees. I don't have the procedures in place. So we take it one step at a time to teach them how to do the basics first, so that when that contract comes, you can grab it with open arms.

Leaha Crawford 12:41
So you know that I have a different view on failure, right? Because I think failure is a part of success. And I know, I know, I know, but that's, that's me, you know, you know, I think failure is a part of success. I think

Brenda Bryant 12:51
failure, I think, I think it can be but I think there's a way to be successful without having to go through all that pain. Let's, let's find a way to I'll go back to my Sunday school class. Let's find a way to do it right, because we've been taught by how others have done it wrong.

Leaha Crawford 13:12
That is true. But I also believe that there are some lessons that being an entrepreneur that you learn, because I call it baptism by fire. It is even when you have the class.

Brenda Bryant 13:23
But I don't want, I don't want to be baptized by fire. I want to be baptized by

Leaha Crawford 13:27
water, by water, right? But no, sometimes I call it baptism, because I think there are lessons that you learn even when you're small. There are certain things you learn about. It's the process.

Brenda Bryant 13:37
It's interesting. You say that because I was just talking with a client yesterday, someone that I worked with when I was with SBDC here at UNLV, and she is now at the point where she her business is growing. And she said to me, you know all those things that we talked about at the very beginning, when I you know, the things I wanted to do with my business? And she said, I realize now I wasn't ready. And I said, that's why you spend the time. And I thoroughly believe in getting in touch with SCORE mentors and getting in touch with SBDC advisors and having somebody to talk to, because there are times this stuff happens in your business and you have nobody to talk to and you don't know how to synthesize it yourself.

Leaha Crawford 14:30
Baptism by fire,

Brenda Bryant 14:31
well, I'd rather, I'd rather have an ear so that I can talk. Yeah, I don't need you to tell me what to do. Sometimes I just need you to

Leaha Crawford 14:41
I don't mean it that being an entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur, because people talk about being an entrepreneur, and because I look at the when your livelihood depends on what you do, it's different. Because when you have the job and you have the. Bad thing that you do that's different. But when your livelihood depends on this, there are sometimes things that happen, and I say fire, because there's some lessons learned. And, you know, sometimes fire is healing, you know, sometimes you got to burn stuff to rebuild it. And the thing is, you have to, because they're both elements water, fire, right? They both can do damage, and they both can be good as you use fire to I use fire to cook my food, right? I use water to swim in, but water can also drown you. So both are both elements, being an entrepreneur, and even with some people, because doing all the coaching and doing, you know, they're still mistakes. There's still things that happen that you don't foresee, right? You know, COVID 19 was one of them. Nobody foresaw that. And some people pivoted, well, absolutely. Some people did not absolutely, you know. And there were restaurants that succeeded. There were restaurants that failed, you know, just what you were able to do. And I see a lot of them. Some businesses started and are flourishing. Some businesses ended. And how well can what I've learned as an entrepreneur, can you pivot? Well,

Brenda Bryant 16:08
I was telling her yesterday that my philosophy of business comes from Casey Kasem, okay, Keep reaching for the stars, but keep your feet on the ground. So I was telling her that don't don't give up on your dreams. But also know, know that you have a firm foundation to stand on. Build that foundation first, because when that contract comes or when that perfect client is in front of you, you want to be ready for that person. You

Leaha Crawford 16:38
want to be ready. You want to be ready. You know, you want to be ready. But I watch big companies, even when they big, get big contracts that they have to go and scrounge. And, yeah, people. I mean, I watch large companies. So that's not just the entrepreneur, the small business that does.

Brenda Bryant 16:50
A lot of big companies have forgotten what it was like to be small, yeah, that's true. And so they get so big that they don't remember what the foundation

Leaha Crawford 16:58
should look like. And is that that's so big to fail? Too Big To Fail?

Brenda Bryant 17:01
Yeah, and I don't think there is such a thing. I think if you're big and you screw up, you fail.

Leaha Crawford 17:07
Okay, that's true. All right, so what are the type Well, talk to us about the classes. What types of classes?

Brenda Bryant 17:12
Um, well, I'll push my class. I'm the one that's here. Come on. So we so on. Last Thursday, we did a class on communication nice, and it was with some small business owners. And we're talking about networking. How do you get in front of people, especially shy folks who are running businesses. They know about their product or service. They don't know how to talk about their product or service. So I was we were talking about, when you network with people, don't do what I did, which was I told people I had the best business in the whole world. And I could talk to you for hours about my business. There are people still in this world who are shaking me off of them and try to walk on the other side of the street when they see me coming. That is not what you want to do. What you want to do is introduce yourself, reach out to shake the other person's hand, if they like to have their hand shaken, and then ask them who they are, and then shut up. Let them talk about themselves. Let them tell you who they are, because you don't know if this is a potential customer or potential vendor or potential lender or even a potential supporter, but you won't know that until you let them tell you yeah they are Yeah, and then how do you fit into their world? Because we already know. You don't know how to fit, whether they're going to fit into yours now, because you don't know anything about them. Yeah. And then common courtesy says once that they have told you about what they do, they're going to ask you, Hey, by the way, what do you do? That's when you are understandable, concise and brief, oh,

Julian Rosado 19:01
this is you're speaking about, like, in social events.

Brenda Bryant 19:05
I'm speaking about, anytime you meet a person, yeah, I can be standing in the grocery

Julian Rosado 19:09
store line, okay,

Music 19:12
Hmm,

Brenda Bryant 19:13
yes, I have met, I have met people in the grocery store line, and we get to talk. And I'll talk to anybody, which is the bane of some folks consternation that you just talk to them in a grocery store line. But I've met some awfully nice people in the grocery store line. And I'll ask people, hey, what do you do? And some of them are, you know, I'm, I'm a stay at home mom. I'm a nurse at the hospital down the street. You know, I'm thinking about starting a business. I mean, I get all kinds of answers, but it's just a conversation. Because how long you gonna be in a line? I won't be in the line till my groceries are paid for. Right, right, right, right. I met a guy at some some place a couple of days ago. I. Yeah, and just a very nice, upbeat guy, very working kind of guy, right? And, and I don't even know how we got into this conversation, he was very positive, and I said something about having a in now, what one of the things that that COVID has taught us is that you always need to have a plan B. Okay, you need to have something that you can maneuver to while you get your plan a back on course. And so he said, Oh, do you have a plan B? And I said, Sure. Would you like to know more about it? And he said, Yes. So I gave him a business

Julian Rosado 20:38
card, okay, okay. Do you have anything for like people that really, really, can that really shy from speaking to people like introverts

Brenda Bryant 20:49
or Well, that was the whole point of talking about introduce yourself first, and all you have to do is say who you are, not, what you do, who you are, and ask the other person and you are, and they'll tell you, Oh, my name is Brenda. Hey, Brenda, tell me about what you do, just that's and then just shut up. So

Leaha Crawford 21:11
let me ask you, have you ever seen because sometimes I've seen this community people, we're like in silos. Oh, huge. And they're really not they're really not talkative here as much, and

Brenda Bryant 21:22
a lot of that comes to the fact that we don't allow them to

Julian Rosado 21:26
got it. Okay, what do you mean, like niche, like niche groups? Well,

Leaha Crawford 21:32
we're saying, like, when you're in the grocery store, some people are very standoffish, just by their and

Brenda Bryant 21:36
that, you know? And that's okay, okay, okay. I have, I have spoken to people who will not even look me in the eye. Okay, that's their choice, but my choice is to always be joyful, yes, and always be positive. Now, if you decide that you don't want to accept that, that's your choice, not mine. It didn't stop me from saying hello to the next person.

Leaha Crawford 21:58
I love it. I love it. So you So you did communication. What other classes do

Brenda Bryant 22:03
you do? I teach classes on finances, like how to read and understand your financial data. So, oh, part of my history, I was a consultant on the road for 10 years all over United States, 44 states and two countries. And so the basis of what I did was back to that accounting and finance and statistics thing. So what I did was I taught people how to read their financial data.

Leaha Crawford 22:26
Okay? And that's class now,

Brenda Bryant 22:29
yes, okay, because the thing that I want them to know is that that's why you talk to a financial professional. You want to know what the financial professional is taking all those transactions that you do, and they come into, they come out with these reports. They send you the reports, and you look at them, and you don't know what you're looking at. I've had people say, Oh, what is the profit and loss statement? Oh, well, see, I can see how much I made. No, you see how much you sold. It's difference. Okay, yeah. And then I look at the bottom to see what my what my profit is more low? Yeah, no, no, you're not no, because all you know is what you sold. And you know that there's something at the bottom, but you don't know what it means. That's how much you netted. Yeah, yeah. So the little I'll give you a quick example. I was, I was teaching a client this, and I don't even know where I was in the United States, and I come in the next morning, he meets me at the door, and he goes, where's my money? And as I have no idea, let's go sit down and talk about it. So we go into the office, and he had been trying to show his wife at home, what I had been what I taught him. And first thing she said was, so we don't have this Ron, where is this money? So we looked his profit and loss statement, and I said, Okay, So walk me through it. Okay, so he could do what I had taught him, and his net profit was $10,000 his bank account was under 1000 he wanted to know where that other $9,000

Leaha Crawford 24:05
went, 11,000 because, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead and so the the

Brenda Bryant 24:12
CPA had taught me that whenever that question comes up, you go to your balance sheet, you pull out your liabilities, and You show them why they have to have a profit, because they have to pay those loans back. They have to pay on those vehicles, they have to pay on that equipment. And that's they have a touch of financial Yes, it does. It doesn't, it doesn't. It's not on your profit and loss statement

Leaha Crawford 24:34
until, well, the thing about it is, but that's when your depreciation, and because they don't do depreciation monthly, they do it in most, most small business owners do it. Do it annually. Do it annually. And QuickBooks is trying to help, you know, get better at it. But, yeah, it's interesting.

Brenda Bryant 24:50
So I, what I'm trying to do is, and I tried to explain to all my clients when I was on the road and as well with my students. First of all, I'm not a CPA. God knows. I don't want to be. One, and I'm so appreciative of those who do because that takes a lot of work. That's way more work than I want to do, but what I want them to do is to be able to have a conversation, whether it is their bookkeeper or it is their accountant, or is there their CPA or their tax preparer have the conversation. Don't sit there and just be this vessel that they tell you all the stuff. And you sit there and go, yeah, yeah, okay. You don't know what you're saying. Okay, too. Huh? I do you

Leaha Crawford 25:36
think there's a difference between the taxpayer, the CPA, the accountant, and the bookkeeper,

Brenda Bryant 25:40
yes, okay, all

Leaha Crawford 25:43
right, yes, I know there's a difference. Yes, I know there's a difference.

Brenda Bryant 25:47
My CPA taught me that before my school taught me that. Mm,

Leaha Crawford 25:50
hmm, okay, yeah, there is a difference. And for business owners, what would you recommend

Brenda Bryant 25:55
depends on where they are in their business. Okay, if you're a startup, I'm not sending you to a CPA. You can't afford one, okay, but you still need to understand your numbers, okay? And in understanding your numbers, maybe you need a bookkeeper, or you need an office manager who knows how to do, excuse me, who knows how to do books.

Julian Rosado 26:20
Okay? I like it. And what do you tell them? Just to pivot entirely if it doesn't make sense, right?

Brenda Bryant 26:25
Well, it but, but my job is to help them understand, because you you don't run your business on the money alone, but you cannot run your business without understanding the money

Leaha Crawford 26:39
that's heavy. All right. All right. I love it now. So we got to the two classes. I don't think we have enough time to get to the next so I'm gonna have to bring you back. What about the what else do you what other classes do you teach?

Brenda Bryant 26:53
They do all kinds of classes. And we have five pillars. We do startups, management, operations, finance and marketing. So those are the five pillars, and they're on our website.

Leaha Crawford 27:04
I love it. And your website is extension.unr.edu, uh huh, extension.unr.edu,

Brenda Bryant 27:14
and I think it's forward slash biz, Dave slash business, yeah, for business development,

Leaha Crawford 27:19
and the phone number where you can be contacted, 702-972-3532,

Brenda Bryant 27:25
that is my work number, and that is a cell so you can either call me or text me, you'll probably be better off texting me or emailing. So let me find out, too, like the young people, it's so funny, because for years, I would I said no to everything, including a cell phone, and I was out on the road, and by the time I got to the hotel that night, which was really, really late, my tire was my I had to rent a car, and my tire was a little low. And I happened to talk to my colleague that morning at breakfast about, you know the the and he said, Do you have a cell phone? And I said, What do I need that for? And he said, well, first of all, you're not in California. And in California, they have phones along the road that you can walk to phone. You can pick up a phone. Nope, you pick up the phone, this Emergency, emergency phone, and you can say a my car ran out of gas, or my car stopped it everywhere, and it's every so many miles. And he said, You, you're not in California anymore. So what you what would happen? He's, I know what time you got in last night, okay, because you weren't here when I got here, right? And so what would happen if you needed help? And I went, Ah,

Leaha Crawford 28:43
so now you got a cell phone, all right? So that brings us to the end of our show. So I want to thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming. This

Brenda Bryant 28:48
was fun. Yes, yes, we have to. That's scary

Leaha Crawford 28:52
because we didn't talk about bales. We didn't bring

Brenda Bryant 28:56
up bail. Oh, you mean the stuff I steal from you.

Leaha Crawford 28:59
We didn't bring up bails. Well, my name is Leah Crawford. This is Julian Rosato, and we want to just give you information about the resources that are out there for small business owners. So we are your tax dollars. We are your tax dollars, our Nevada tax dollars at work, and they are out here to help our entrepreneurs. Again, the contact information is 70297235327029723532

Leaha Crawford 29:28
until next week, please stay cool, stay hydrated and be safe out here in Nevada. Thank you. Bye. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai