The Inclusive Networker
The Inclusive Networker is a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners, solopreneurs, and network marketers develop inclusive marketing and sales processes that help them authentically reach diverse audiences and subsequently grow large, diverse networks of customers, business partners, or team members.
The Inclusive Networker
Interview on The Get Unstuck Podcast with Mutita Panmook: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Business
In this episode, we feature an interview on The Get Unstuck Podcast with Dr. Raymona as the guest. This time she joins Mutita Panmook, host of the Get Unstuck Podcast, to share her passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and her journey to becoming the founder of iEngageU. Tune in to discover her strategies for inclusive recruitment, effective onboarding, and the importance of clear communication in building thriving communities within businesses. Join us as Dr. Ramona provides valuable insights into creating impactful systems and fostering a culture of inclusion.
In this episode, we talk about the following...
1. The importance of inclusive recruitment practices.
2. The difference between orientation and onboarding.
3. The importance of clear communication and well-defined terms.
You can find Mutita on…
Podcast https://getunstuck.podbean.com/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mutitapanmook/
Want more from Dr. Raymona?
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drraymonahlawrence/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/drraymonahlawrence/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/drraymonahlawrence/
Thank you for listening!
~Dr. Raymona
Hey, hey, hey, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1:Welcome to this week's episode of the Inclusive Networker podcast, where we help network marketers, small business owners and solopreneurs become aware of gaps in knowledge or awareness that could be keeping their networks and businesses small. Tune in as we give tips and simple practical tools to make your business more inclusive and we teach you how to build inclusive communities that support diverse customers, team members and business partners. So if you want to authentically build relationships with diverse communities of customers or business partners, you are in the right place. But be warned you will be challenged. But here's the thing you won't be judged. I'm your host, dr Ramona. I'm a speaker, coach, consultant, public health professor, wife, mom and a fierce challenger of broken systems that keep people from reaching their highest potential. I'm so excited to be with you on your journey to becoming an inclusive networker, so let's jump right in.
Speaker 1:Hey, hey, hey, and welcome, welcome, welcome to this week's episode of the Inclusive Networker podcast. Well, this whole last couple of episodes, I have been really highlighting these amazing podcast hosts where I have been a guest. I'm always telling you about who I am calling into conversation, but I have been called into conversation too. This next podcast is the Get Unstuck podcast with Mutita Panmuk, we talked about how individuals and organizations incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion into their business strategy, and we talked about how you do that in a way that's authentically done, so that you connect with, recruit and retain diverse networks of customers and team members. So if you already hop in to this episode of the Inclusive Networker podcast, which is a replay of my interview on the Get Unstuck podcast with Mutita Panmuk- Hi, get Unstuck nation.
Speaker 2:Today my guest is we are excited to share this story. So we come back to our jam about system and operation and automation again. So please welcome Dr Ramona Rollands here with us today in Get Unstuck radio. She is the founder of INGXU, a speaker, coach and consultant, which her life work is. She has a mission that she would like to help individuals and organizations to incorporate diversity and building the teams by building software, that called INGXU, which we will cover about that a little bit shortly. That solve the problem that we all business owners have Right Like when you recruit someone and you find like, okay, it's not coming together just yet, how can you find team members easier and how can you connect the dot better when you assign the task and also keep the workflow together and keep all the back ends together impact. So please welcome Dr Ramona here to Get Unstuck radio today and share her knowledge and expertise today. Hi, dr Ramona.
Speaker 1:Hi Mutita, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be on your podcast and to share with your audience, so thanks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm so excited because, like I speak to you offline, I was like, wow, this podcast is going to be a golden one. Okay, so please share with me, before we start, a little bit, how you started your entrepreneurial journey, though.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I always. I'm a person that is really passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion, and so I love to tell people my lens, you know. So people say introduce yourself. And I like to say, well, here's what my lens is. My lens is my background, it's how I see the world. You know the way that I see the world, it shapes why I do things. And so a little bit about my lens.
Speaker 1:I'm an African American female from the rural, deep South right. I was raised in South Georgia, united States, and I was raised, I always say, at the corner of black and blue, because I was a I am an African American female, but my dad was the chief of police in the city and so I got those perspectives and so, even though I had this marginalized identity as a black woman, I also have privilege because I could walk into a police department and say, hey, just buzz me back Right, and I realized that not everybody has that experience. And so being at those intersections of female, black, blue, all of that, it really bought me to a space where I understood, understood diversity, equity and inclusion from that lens. But I also have a doctorate in public health and so I learned about social justice and health disparities and health inequities and all of that in my training, my formal training and my education. So I also had that lens.
Speaker 1:And then I moved into business and I started. My very first business was in network marketing. So when I came in they said everybody can do this business, everybody can get to the top, anybody with skin and hair can do this business. But when I looked at the top of the company I did not see people with skin and hair like mine and that I was like wait a minute. But if anybody can do this, in the 40 years that this company has been around you can't tell me that there is no African American female who has worked hard enough to get to the top of this company.
Speaker 1:So that combination of being in that business and having that doctorate in public health and also being at the corner of black and blue as I was raised in the deep South, it all kind of came together at an intersection to where now I am, who I am. I really look at things through this diversity, equity and inclusion lens. I think in systems and I think you know why does this work this way and how does it fit in the bigger picture and I absolutely love the breadth and depth of human difference and human experience, and so that all came together to make me really have that lens of how do we look at systems, whether they be DEI systems, whether they be business back end systems, how do we look at those things and fix the breaks, and that makes life better for everybody. So that's how I got here, hmm.
Speaker 2:Why? Why are you interested in the system and operation? Because other people may say that it's kind of boring things, but what? What are you interested in for you?
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, I mean, I think I've really done the work to understand my brilliance, right. And so, um, the hard work and thinking about what is it that I've always really been drawn to and even in, uh, high school, I was really great at geometry and thinking about theoretical, you know, concepts and all these different types of things and just putting things together. And when I look at systems, when I look at diversity, equity and inclusion, I realize that it's not just this one piece that needs to be fixed. We often focus on one thing, right, but when we really look at what is the bigger picture of things, we realize that the system does a lot, of a lot of things to the individual, right. And so we've got to look at the bigger picture.
Speaker 1:Because if we look at these individual things, even if it's in business systems, if we just say, okay, I, I want more leads, but we're not looking at how we market to those people, how we now take those people from I just met you to converting them into an actual lead with an email and all of that, you know there's things missing in the system. If we just post on social media and don't have anything behind it, we're missing something in the system. So we all a lot of people think in those individual pieces of of things and it never, ever works. And so with me I'm able to think and kind of connect the dots, and so that's what got me interested. It wasn't even the training that I have or anything like that. It's a natural gift that I've had since I was little. I always wanted to connect the dots between things, and so that's kind of how I got to where I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Do you think everyone actually already working in operation but they just like don't know themselves that they already like working in that?
Speaker 1:I think that we all have a place. I don't. I wouldn't say that everybody's already working, because some people actively don't want to work, right, they actively do not want to give up the systems that keep themselves in power. I do feel like, though, that everybody has a place in getting rid of, or at least mitigating, oppression. I think that one thing that we have to remember is that we have to choose our disruption, and that's what I always say to people.
Speaker 1:People think that when I talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, I want them to get out on the road with a sign and protest. That's not what everybody's thing is right. So if that's your thing, yes, that's your level of disruption to the system, but if that's not your thing, then you can just discover your own lens. First, right, discover why you're thinking the way that you are, start to question why you do and say the things that you do, and so it's, there's levels to it, and so we're not all you know Martin Luther King or doing these great, great works, but we all have something to do, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So at the very beginning, like before, even recruiting helps or any assistant. What do you think a business owner should do first?
Speaker 1:So I mean, when I talk about diversity, equity and inclusion, I always talk about the personal work, right? And so you can't put on your DEI hat at work and then take it off at home. People know the difference, right. So you have to think about who do you want to recruit and why do you want to recruit them? That's number one, because a lot of times we think about this idea of the ideal client and we say this is the person that I want. How do they fit within the culture of my organization? And when we think about culture fit and we think about these idea of ideal client, we bring in a lot of bias because we're like this person kind of looks like me, they have my personality, they are a fit, and we get rid of the diversity and all of the different things that are so important for really making a business work. So when we think about culture ad versus culture fit, we think about how is a diverse person going to be a little different than me, right? And how are they going to add to the culture that I have for my business? Even if you're a solopreneur, you have a culture in your business and you need to think about how is a VA going to add to that? How is this person that you have as your copywriter? All of those people are contributing to the culture and so it's an ad, and those people are going to be a little different than you. They're going to think a little bit different than you. But if you are biased and you're saying this is the one person that I want, then you often are cutting great people out.
Speaker 1:So I have the concept of the thriving community versus the ideal client, and so what's the difference in that? The thriving community is? If you close your eyes and you imagine the perfect place, the perfect community. Most people are not going to think about all white people or all white men. They're not going to think about all black women. They're going to think about a lot of different types of people. They're going to think about different sizes, shapes and all of that. That's what I try to get people to think about is what is your thriving community look like versus your one ideal client? And yes, we have to kind of think of our ideal client when we're messaging. We want to talk to that person. We always say those types of things, but then if we get a person that doesn't look exactly like that, doesn't talk exactly like that, doesn't think exactly like that. We need to think about what is the culture ad that they have that's going to make my thriving community, so that I'm not cutting people out when I'm trying to recruit.
Speaker 2:So, and how can we know what works and what doesn't work?
Speaker 1:then, I think that some of it is. You're going to have to try with anybody. So I think that you have to set a certain amount of values. What is your value for your company? If your value is inclusion and you have somebody who is coming and they're very much not inclusive they don't think like that then clearly that might not work for you. But if you're like my ideal client is a white woman who's 25 years old, has long blonde hair, blue eyes that type of thing keeps you super, super stuck, and we're often told, even put a picture of her up and all of that, and so that's great. But once you bring that person in, you still need to look at okay, here's how this person aligns with the value that we have. Here's how they're a little bit different than me, but here's what they add. And so you're looking at are they adding? How are they adding? Even though it's not just like me what are they adding to the culture or the business? And are they? You know, there's some things that you're just going to say can they actually do the copywriting? Can they actually do the job? That's something that's important.
Speaker 1:But when I talk to people about interviewing, I tell them check me check. We now question them. So what does that mean? Check me. I need to check my internal biases and what I am thinking when I'm interviewing this person. Check we.
Speaker 1:If we are interviewing together, we need to say, hey, I'm kind of we got to be honest with each other and we got to say I'm kind of biased towards people who are more energetic. I'm kind of biased towards these types of people. Right, we've got to be honest about that as a team. What do we need to unlearn about people? Okay, the question part is think about the questions that you're asking. Now, sometimes, when we're asking questions, we say you need 15 years of experience and all of this you know. We say all of these things, all of these things that you need, but we don't realize that sometimes certain people have not been given the opportunity to get that experience Right. So do we have a growth mindset where we can grow with the individual? They have great potential, they have all of these other things, but maybe they haven't had as long of an experience or as extensive of you know experience as this other person in a majority race or ethnicity, right?
Speaker 1:So we look at our questions. Are we screening people out versus screening them in, right. So how am I working to screen people in with this growth mindset where I'm saying I want to bring in diversity, but I've got to think about how do I, how do we grow together versus me? Just automatically screening you out because you're not fit in the mold, okay, and then question them. That's the piece where you got to evaluate the candidate. Do they know how to do the job? You know, if they don't know how to do the job, then it's okay. Sometimes you got to say no, you're not going to just hire people just because they're diverse. They do have to have the skill set. So check me, check we, and then your questions and then check them. And so when you use that formula, then you're able to have more inclusive interview.
Speaker 2:Wow. So have a way a little clear and then investigate and also know your bias. Have that clear as well. Yeah, screening in, not screening out. Oh, that's a good way of thinking. So, once we could, though, how many from your experience? How many? How to say that? How many level with I just cannot get the word right now how many how many layers of recruitment Like normally? I see, like three, three step of recruitment, or something like how normally you do.
Speaker 2:So you are you saying, like, as far as bringing people in, like three levels of interviewing to do yeah, like screening and also like first interview, like second interview and also like recruiting interview finalize or something like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it depends on the job. I often will do the first level of screening and I'll look at somebody's resume. I will, you know, see, I will try to screen them in and say here's the experience that they have. It may not have this exact thing, but how do I screen them in versus automatically screening them out? Okay, so once you do that, then you come in and I do an initial line of questioning. Then I want you to do something for me, to show me that you're able to do the job. So I would say three, because I'm gonna talk to you and then I want to see what you do, if I can work with that and we're able to grow.
Speaker 1:You may not be at absolute perfection, all right, it's okay, because part of that is me being a leader. Can I lead you to grow? You're, you're not just coming here. And that's what I want people to understand is that when they're coming into a Position, it's not just that they're coming to serve the person. The job needs to do some for them too. And so we think about when we're inclusive, there's bi-directional Communication happening. There's a bi-directional exchange.
Speaker 1:It's not that you're just coming and you're benefiting them. How do they benefit you, and so you know, that's kind of my thought process with that is that, yes, I have the initial screening, I want to talk to you and then I want to see what you're able to do, and so they perform some sort of task for me, if it's building a website or if it's building a funnel, or if I want a person to do. I had someone to Come in and I need them to do the orientation for my platform. So I need for you to talk me through something like I'm pretending to be a customer and I need to you to tell me how to do it right, so those types of things. And then if you're not perfect at it, it's okay because I know what to do.
Speaker 2:I'll teach you, but you got to have some potential, so yeah, and okay, you mentioned about orientation and how you onboarding the team members thing. Is there any difference between onboarding team members and onboarding new clients in your opinion?
Speaker 1:I think you go through the same process, but of course, you know onboarding a team member. They need to know the back-end systems, they need to know the where they fit in the culture ad. They need to know Exactly how I work and how to communicate with me a person that's using the system. They need to know how to communicate with us. They need to know how to to use the system all of those types of things, and so it's a little bit different. But I think there's a process that I use and it's it's called never lose a customer again, and it's Joel, I think Joey Coleman, I can't remember exactly what his name is, but I use that process, and so he talks about the fact that you know when you bring somebody on, they have buyers remorse. Right, they're like that. No matter what happens, they're gonna have this type of remorse because they're like you're. You're in the process of oh, I'm excited, I got this customer coming on and we're ready to get them going. Now Let me get all this paperwork together, and while you're doing the paperwork, they're thinking, they're overthinking it, right, so you have to do something that gets them excited About their purchase or about the fact that they came on to the team. So what is it that's unique that you do that says, hey, you made the right decision, right, hey. So then you take them through steps where, okay, I'm helping you to understand that you did make the right decision. I'm also helping you to understand the process that you go through. You know those technical types of steps, and Then I am getting to the point where I am trying to make you a raving fan, where you bring on other people and you are excited to get other people into the system, right, and so it's that type of process, and if you all look that up, I can find his name. I think it's Joey Coleman, joel or Joey, it's. So he uses those steps and he has a book that's never losing employee and never lose a customer again. Two different books, same steps, but a little bit different nuance within those steps for employees versus Customers, and so that, I think, is just an amazing process to go through, because we have to remember that Orientation is different than onboarding.
Speaker 1:Onboarding is a process. It's nine to twelve months, is definitely a big thing in the first 100 days, and that's what he talks about. So when you go into onboarding, you're helping that person see where they fit into the culture You're helping them to. You're looking at what makes them tick, what makes them really in enjoy being in your environment, right, and so those things take time. It's not just orientation, like let me show you how to do the job and then you get to it and move on.
Speaker 1:Orientation versus onboarding is Is important, and so we often recruit for diversity, but we on board for conformity. So we've got to get to that point where we're like okay, what are the things that are unique about you? What do I need to show you that fit your personality? So then we're onboarding for inclusion versus conformity, okay, and so we tell people we want this diverse team, we want all these people. But then we onboard and we're like this is how you do it, this is what you do next, this is what you do next. So we have to move beyond conformity and move to inclusion as we onboard people as well.
Speaker 2:That's how you include them into the team. Wow, that's so powerful. Do you have any probation period, though?
Speaker 1:I don't have a formal probation period, because that's probably one of my weaknesses as a boss. I give people a lot of chances. That's curious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why yeah but, I mean, some people have super formal ones, like 90 days and businesses that I've seen. But I don't do that. I usually I give people a lot of grace because I really do want people to win and so, but after so many times then I'm not saying you're a fire, but I'm saying you're an expert or experienced and your skill set might be better used somewhere else. Right, because it's just not working.
Speaker 2:I didn't say anything. Okay, I have friends though. Yeah, I'm actually just spoke with someone. Yeah, I think I think I got an interview with, like some, some previous clients and I just told them this is how I fired team members. I told them that it's my fault that I would put them into my team. It's not my fault, it's me. Yeah, so okay, yeah, I understand. Yeah, see, when you recruit someone because you want to see them win, that is totally recruiting for opportunities, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because when I recruit you, I see potential in you. So if I'm just like, oh, you don't know what you're doing, I'm letting you go and that's an issue. And I was on a call, a training, and the person was really challenging us and she does systems as well. And she said, well, you're, you're telling a person that they're not doing what you're supposed to do, but do you have a system, do you have a policy, do you have an SOP for that? So you're assuming that they know what you want them to do, but you never truly train them. And I'm always looking at that self reflection and saying, well, did I really give them the instructions or am I just expecting them to do this exactly like I would, again not being inclusive, saying you got to be me. And that's the issue is that we're always saying you got to be me. So if I'm a professor, right, so it's kind of hard for you to write the way I write, because I practice writing, I've written in, in, edited many dissertations, right, so for me and I have to check myself on this, because for me to tell somebody that they have to write like I do when I publish papers in scientific journals, right, it's not even fair, and so that's the thing is that I have to think about okay, well, am I giving them a chance like this is good enough. Yes, I want to operate with excellence, but how do I teach them either to operate an excellence, like I do my dissertation writers, or do I say, okay, this 90% of what I would have done is is okay, I'm not writing dissertations constantly.
Speaker 1:And so I think that's what happens with us is that we have great experience often and we expect another person to come in with that same exact experience, but we don't train them and we automatically assume and you know. So here's a really easy example of this Our policy is dress professional. So can you say that again? Our policy let's say our policy is just dressed professionally, oh, okay, when you come in, okay, or when you're on a zoom right. So you have younger people that are going to come in and they have just their, their hoodie. So you're like a hoodie. You know that's not professional and you're just going off, but you never told them what dress professionally looks like or what it is.
Speaker 1:We assume people just know everything and that everybody's definition is the same, and so I tell people you know, they are often telling me these people aren't engaged and I said did you find define engagement? What does that mean? What does it look like to both of you to be engaged? Because you're giving them a metric that you never told them the standards for. So you're saying I don't see that, it looks like what I think it should look like. And they're saying I'm doing what I thought it looked like and we're constantly clashing because we aren't. We don't have the same definitions. So we need to clearly define what things we want look like, so that everybody's on the same page, and then, when they're not meeting the metric, you can say we agreed on this and you're not. You're still not meeting it, but don't use terms that are sexy, terms like engagement, and then they don't meet it. And then you say they didn't engage because who knows what that means.
Speaker 2:Do you have like a terminology, like definitions?
Speaker 1:of some things. Yeah, so if I'm wanting my team to like communication, okay, what does that mean? So everybody thinks communication is a different thing? Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, all right, thank you, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So I need you to. You know, talk to me every day, tell me you know, give me an update what's happening. Somebody else might say I just need a touch point once a week, just so you're doing the job. You know whatever that is. Talk to them and tell them. This is exactly what this term means. It means this is what I wanna see, this touch point here in Slack, here. You know whatever it is, and so, yes, something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have to because I can't understand when, like, for example, vsl, like my video editors understand VSL difference than my VSL. So my is a video sales letter, right? Yes, she understand, is something about the graphic terms another way, like totally different things. So we have to come into the same understanding when we use a creation. Yeah, I got what you mean. Let's talk about the software, how you come up with the name. I engage you, though.
Speaker 1:So the I engage you is a lowercase I, the word engage and then the letter U in a capital letter. So I came up with that because I love engagement. The engagement is what I do for work, for my job as a professor, in my research, I am known for engagement. That's exactly what I do. So I love engaging people in their own health, in their own business, in helping people to feel empowered, all of those things. So that's where the word engage came from. So the I, so it's like I, literally I but it's also inclusion and inclusive engagement, right. And then the I is lowercase because I am not greater than you, right? So the U is uppercase because it stands for you. You are what's important in this business. It's not about me, it's about you. You also stands for university.
Speaker 1:So I engage you is like engagement university. How do you make sure that you bring people together? You teach them the skills that they need to engage, you teach them the systems that they need to be able to thrive in their business and in their life. And then you also make that inclusive, so that you're thinking about what is unique about you and how you want your business to come together. And so, yeah, it's kind of. It means all of those things, but it's a play on words and so I engage you. So it literally means I engage, while you it means inclusive engagement, university. It's literally I engage you, so it's. That's how I came up with that I mean.
Speaker 2:What is this service about? Can you walk me through that?
Speaker 1:Yes, and so it's basically everything that a business owner could need for the back end of their business, and so it has. It's a CRM, so it has the email that you might need. It has funnels, workflows, websites, link tree. You can follow your customers through a pathway and opportunities and you don't lose customers. You know where they are. The little board looks like Trello. It can show you the funnels that you have and where people are in those funnels.
Speaker 1:It has social media management, so you can you don't have to have a different you know social media manager like the Hootsuite or a meat Edgar or all those different things. Of course it has phone texting, the all the automations that you could possibly need. So it's really truly. You know invoicing. It has every single thing a business owner could need in one place, and I really love this system because a lot of people one can't financially afford all of these different things. There is a ton of different things that you have to use for the back end of a business normally, and so with this system it's all in one place, and they can also get the assistance of my team as far as the virtual assistance and copywriting. We help them to develop short form videos or the short videos that they can use on their reels or on YouTube or whatever that is, and so basically, like I said, it's all in one platform and you can get rid of all of that other stuff that you have and actually follow a system all the way through in one place.
Speaker 2:So, in case anyone want to like get to know you or follow your work, or even taste how it's like using this software, where can they like get to know you then?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you can just go to drrimonahlaurancecom and, with the software, I give a 14 day free trial so they could come on to the software. That way, typically, people would contact me and schedule a call and then I make sure that they're set up and they have everything that they need, because you have to put your information into the software to be able to use it, and so it's pretty simple. You can hop on a call, go in through drrimonahlaurancecom and that's it. That's all you have to do, and then it's a free trial and easy, easy, easy to use.
Speaker 2:Okay, so everyone, in case you're interested to use all in one software. So please check it out. All the links will be put in the description below, as well as the show notes, so don't forget to check it out. And thank you so much for Dr Ramona to joining us for the video today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and that wraps up another episode of the Inclusive Networker Podcast. I wanna express my sincere gratitude to you, our listeners, for joining us on this journey of learning and growth. Your support and engagement are truly, truly appreciated. Creating a more inclusive network and beyond starts with us individually and collectively. Let's continue these conversations beyond the Inclusive Networker Podcast, engage with others, challenge your own assumptions, take action to make a difference in your own spheres of influence and share, share, share this podcast with a friend. So here's what you can do next Go to drrimonahlaurancecom and keep up with me. Stay in touch. That's D-R-R-A-Y-M-O-N-A-H-L-A-W-R-E-N-C-Ecom. Don't forget my Y and Dr Ramona, and don't you dare forget your Y, and I'll see you on the next episode of the Inclusive Networker.