We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Annie Skamangas-scaros a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Annie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Many states have adopted self-paced teacher training models that don’t allow students to interface with instructors. While this might be the most efficient way to get trainees to complete modules, is does not produce the maximum learning outcome. ECETA began offering highly engaging live training sessions for teachers in training that allowed for real time questions and answers and highly interactive sessions with a live instructor. All of our instructors are trained in this online delivery approach and the feedback that we consistently receive is that our trainings are the closest experience to a face to face training as you can get.

For the Baklava Goddess business, the food industry fills our food with unhealthy ingredients. Our product is mostly organic and used whole ingredients that you can pronounce!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been training teachers in the early childhood education field for over 20 years. I’ve been in the field of education in general for over 30 years. I first began in this particular portion of the industry in 2009 when I worked for an organization that held a state grant for teacher training. It was my job to find instructors, schedule topics, find places to hold events and market them to the field. We were quite successful and innovative and grew the grant to 5 times its size by the time I left that position. In the state of Pennsylvania, we had a restructuring of grant allocation for training. Most organizations did not want to remain in the industry if they weren’t given the grant money to operate. I saw this as an opportunity to tap into the free market. The field still had required trainings, but very few people were offering them. Additionally, private instructors who remained in the game more than quadrupled their price for a training. For example, under the old system, a teacher could receive live-saving CPR classes for $25. That climbed to $125. It became very unaffordable for teachers to keep up with their required trainings. We decided to keep our trainings affordable (they range from $15 – $35) and due to that, we are now one of the largest professional development organizations in Pennsylvania. Our claim to fame is that we do offer the Child Development Associate (CDA), which is a nationally recognized credential in the early childhood education field. This is coursework for individuals who do not have college experience or who have a degree, but not in education. We have about a 90% completion and success rate with the CDA, whereas other organizations have about a 40%-50% completion and success rate. What really sets us apart is our instructor training program and process for choosing instructors for our trainings. We look for charisma, warmth, excitement and engagement capabilities. We are most proud of this specific work we do in our field.

In my other life, I am a baker. The Baklava Goddess is an online retail pastry business that sells traditional and chocolate baklava in the months of November and December. This has been a labor of love. I love to cook for people and I love to create beautiful and wonderful things for people to enjoy. That might be in the form of a great training session, or a delicious piece of baklava.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Programs such as Head Start and Early Head Start, which are often housed in larger organizations are beginning to turn to us for help in management of their professional development records in the Pennsylvania system, the PD Registry. This system is very unique and is generally unlike any other state’s system. Word of mouth within these organizations has been a great source of new clients.

Additionally, relationships that I have built over the years also feeds new clients to us. As co-workers from past organizations move on to another employment opportunity, they often bring up the use of ECETA for professional development needs.

For The Baklava Goddess, we build new clientele through word of mouth and gift giving.

Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses.

Over the years, I have purchased, started, and sold a number of businesses, from produce stands to herb, spice and tea businesses, and I’ve also purchased and sold real estate. I built The Baklava Goddess from the ground up. I always chose things I was interested in and could get excited about and I had an exit plan. I thought about how long I wanted to hold a business or property and what my plan was if I could not make it profitable. The two acquisition stories I think are valuable are the herb and spice shop I purchased and then my method for buying real estate. I used to shop at a local farmers market and I frequently purchased my herbs and spices from a stand there. I often chatted with the owner about new products. One day, she asked me if I might be interested in purchasing the business. I asked to see her books and she told me that she never really kept good books. She threw out a number – I want to say it was $10,000 – but I told her that I had no way of knowing how much the business made if she didn’t keep accurate books. I didn’t think it would work out. About a month later, she told me that she was done and was going to close the following week. I offered her $1500 for her inventory and fixtures and she accepted. I held the business for 7 years and then sold it for $35,000. It was a fun business!

When I first wanted to get into real estate, I decided to be very conservative with what I was going to purchase. I looked in a number of areas and really studied them before I purchased my first house. I settled on college towns being my niche. At this time, in 1998, you could still pick up a 3 BR 2 BA house for 50-60K. My method was to purchase something I could afford the mortgage for out of pocket if the house sat empty. It rented right away and stayed rented until I sold that property last year. After that first purchase, my rule was to buy something where I could afford to pay both the first and second mortgage with the rent from the first property, and kept building that way. I think the key to real estate is to really follow a market and specific neighborhood before you purchase.

The Baklava Goddess produces the absolute best baklava you will ever try. It is a family recipe and it’s beautifully packaged for gift giving. When I started that business, it was through the school where I taught that gave me the boost. I used to make it for families and board members. I was looking to make a little extra money and so I decided to create a flyer to let people know that my baklava was for sale. I sold 200 dozen. A local news station picked up the story and then it just grew from there.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.eceta.org www.baklavagoddess.com
• Facebook: ECETA Baklava Goddess

Image Credits

I took the pictures myself and my mother sketched the goddess on The Baklava Goddess. Here name is Despina Skamangas. I designed the logo for ECETA.