Curated Collection Of The Best Interviews From Our Chattanooga Studio
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James Dawson ft. Alex Lavidge// Text Request 
What is the single biggest pitfall entrepreneurs run into in the startup world?
Chattanooga entrepreneur, investor, and marketing consultant Alex Lavidge joins James Dawson to discuss the importance of Market Research in the beginning stages of business development. They discuss not only the types of research, but also the tools available and things needed to get started!
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Stefanie Crowe // SmartBank
As the introductory guest for our April-May series on start-ups and entrepreneurialism, Stefanie Crowe of SmartBank joins our Women in Business program for a discussion on the relationship banking trend and how it’s rising to meet the new generation of female entrepreneurs. As Chief Experience and Strategy Officer for SmartBank, Crowe is responsible for directing, guiding, and facilitating the company’s strategic planning process. Crowe admits to having a personal life mission to “help women and girls realize their fullest potential,” and during her time on-air she shares tips and insights for women seeking to launch their own businesses.
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James Dawson ft. Andrew Bennett// Text Request
A small business owner’s introduction to working with ad agencies. What are the first steps? How should a SMB owner manage their expectations and what is a realistic timetable for ROI? James Dawson of Text Request and Andrew Bennett of talk through the questions you should ask when looking for an agency, and what to expect from them out of the gate.
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Lucas Harrison // Hilliard Lyons
Originally from Dallas, TX, Lucas graduated from Pensacola Christian College with a degree in Business Administration and Finance and is registered as a Series 7 General Securities Representative as well as a Series 66 Investment Advisor Representative. Lucas has spent the last three years in the wealth management industry with Hilliard Lyons. He has also recently partnered with two tenured advisors with a combined 65+ years of experience. Distinctly different, yet complimentary, perspectives enables Hilliard Lyons to provide a well-rounded, excellent level of service to their clients. Hilliard Lyons was founded in 1854 and has been in Chattanooga since 1986.
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Sheri Young // Feminology
Sheri Young is the results-driven founder of a boutique agency who has facilitated campaigns & projects of all sizes for a variety of non-profit, B2C & B2B entrepreneurs and organizations. She is also a skilled marketing and PR strategist, writer and public speaker. CEO and founder of Feminology, a family of companies committed to bringing a full-suite of brand development, public relations and media services to emerging and aspiring brands. “We are a women-owned, female-led team of skilled facilitators, designers, writers, illustrators, content marketers and public relations professionals. We offer both agency and accelerator or risk-based agreements dedicated to fueling market launch for a highly selective portfolio of women-owned businesses. We collaborate with both investors and executive management as fully-integrated extensions of their teams.”
Claire Bartlett // Empower Sport and Performance Enhancement
Claire Bartlett is a the founder/sport psychology consultant at Empower Sport and Performance enhancement as well as a tennis professional. She played tennis Girls Preparatory School where she won 3 individual and team state championships and went on to play tennis at the University of Florida from 2009-2012 where they won back to back National Team Championships. She has a masters from the University of Tennessee in Kinesiology with a focus in Sport Psychology and Motor Behavior.
Cherie White // The Pampered Chef, Ltd.
As an independent Executive Director Cherie educates healthy, quick food preparation through hands on cooking demonstrations . Guests see and try The Pampered Chef kitchen related products and tools as well as prepare and sample recipes that fall in line with their mission to bring people together and enhance shared meal times, catering to busy lifestyles. The products make entertaining simpler and easier transforming the everyday meal into an extraordinarily effortless experience, which has built a brand people recognize.
As a Leader in one of the Top Leading Direct Sales organizations, Cherie recruits, trains and mentors consultants to build fulfilling income producing home based businesses. My Pampered Chef, Ltd (Berkshire Hathaway company) organization currently consists of 470 overall consultants and 2 million yearly sales. Cherie has been with the company for 20 years, 7 months.
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James Dawson ft. Erik McNair // Text Request
As part of their weekly series, Text Request is talking about tackling the misconceptions of professional web development and marketing with their guest, Erik McNair of Papercut Interactive.
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Ginger Birnbaum // Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Ginger Birnbaum, mother of a child living with CF, is the President of the local Board of Directors for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. An active volunteer in the community, it was only natural that she begin working with the Foundation when her child was diagnosed with the disease. She is an advocate, a fundraiser, and an event planner.
Kathleen Puri // Fitsi Health
Kathleen began nursing more than 30 years ago in critical care, working as a staff nurse and charge nurse. After earning her masters degree in nursing management from the University of Connecticut and relocating to Tennessee she began teaching Fundamentals and Medical Surgical nursing at Chattanooga State Community College. She has always been bothered by the fact that patients have a difficult time independently performing hand hygiene and basically do not perform this most basic health promotion activity while hospitalized. With the help of her daughter and a medical designer she developed a patented bedside solution so patients can easily access hand sanitizer and have a place to store personal items such as glasses and cell phone. This innovation, called Fitsi, recently won second prize at the Patient Safety Movement Foundation conference where more than 60 international entries competed for the awards.
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Renee Tayag-Grande and Darrell Wyke // We Sacrifice We Excel Personal Training Facility
Darrell Wyke, former strength and conditioning coach for Baylor, and head trainer at Signal Mountain Athletic Club opened the doors to his own personal training facility in September 2015. Mr. Wyke’s mission is to provide a Christian based training facility which offers the Chattanooga community the best in equipment, trainers, service and nutrition counseling and overall fitness experience. Renee Tayag-Grande is the newest addition to the team. Renee, former borderline obese smoker, turned passionate personal trainer, aspiring wellness coach is dedicated to helping her clients make long lasting change through small habitual shifts in areas of stress management, nutrition, and exercise.
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Daniel Leake // My Smart Garden
Daniel Leake is a local business owner and innovator. He’s using his food-service background technical expertise to teach even non-gardeners to grow food for themselves and others.
Sam Parfitt // The True Athlete Project
Sam Parfitt is the director of athletics at St.Peter’s School in Chattanooga, and the founder of The True Athlete Project. He is an NCAA Division I women’s tennis coach and three times British Tour winner. While playing college tennis, he created multiple holistic sports programs for which he won multiple public service awards. He has twice presented at the Muhammad Ali Center Athletes and Social Change Forum and has worked in diverse areas such as the House of Lords and national museums in the U.K.
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Tiffany Malapanes / Positiffitea Tea Company
Tiffany Malapanes is the owner of Positiffitea, a herbal tea blending company in Tennessee that hand blends organic, loose leaf herbal teas.
While attending Middle Tennessee State University in pursuit of a B.A. in Global Studies with a concentration in Nutritional Science, Tiffany started Positiffitea as a fun side hobby to share her herbal tea passion with friends and family.
The company took off and upon graduation she opened The Tiny Tea Factory, a small tea shop in Murfreesboro, TN. She also started partnering with some amazing companies in Nashville by creating custom unique herbal tea blends just for their businesses.
Now Tiffany has closed the Tiny Tea Factory and moved to Chattanooga TN in hopes to expand and develop Positiffitea to its full potential. She still works closely with her Nashville partners and has also developed some new partnerships in Chattanooga.
Though extremely passionate about herbal tea blending, Tiffany’s true passion is in education and teaching. She loves to study traditional herbal medicine, tea culture, nutrition, botany, gardening, bee keeping, neuroscience, fitness, yoga, mindfulness, health and wellness; and loves to find how everything links and works together. She also loves to teach and share what she knows with others and works to do so with Positiffitea which has given her an outlet to educated and inspire everyone she meets.
