We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jay Veal. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jay below.

Jay, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

So, my original background was in the IT and Tech space working at Microsoft, Verizon, ATT, Baylor Healthcare IT, etc. Then, in 2008, I made a transition to the education space by way of listening to what God told me to do. I literally heard his voice tell me, “You need to be in Education.” Then, He disappeared. From then on, I was confuse and didn’t know how to proceed. So, I quite my healthcare IT job at the time and went into a teacher prep program. Then, started teaching at my alma mater, Townview Science & Engineering Magnet HS. I was a Freshman at 12 years old and graduated when I had just turned 16. I wanted to give back so was assigned to my old school to teach a very unique class called Fast Track Mathematics. If you can imagine teaching Freshman 3 years of Pre AP math in one year (Geometry, Algebra 2, and Precalculus), that’s what I needed to do at then the top #3 National HS. After my first year of teaching here, all my students got 100% perfect scores on the state exam. I figured that I must have a give for this so I continued teaching. I then taught in Cedar Hill ISD, Uplift Education, and Duncanville ISD. I ended up teaching all math content areas in HS known to man at every level (Regular, Pre AP, and AP) in only 4.5 years and became one of the only black male educators at that time in Dallas to achieve that at an 85-100% success rate. Then, I became the top black male math tutor in DFW and still am today. I went on to become a Math Instructional Coach, Math Interventionist, District STEM Instructional Coach (in central admin), and an Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at a University. In the middle of all this, I noticed a gap for what students of color were not getting in the classroom for support and what they weren’t getting outside the classroom for support. This is when I came up with the idea for INC Education and then executed on it.

I wanted to build a holistic approach for tutoring primarily for BIPOC students that was unorthodox, but could fill the gaps of learning in a better way while building solid relationships. So, I did just that. INC Education starts off with a deep consultation with parents and students that builds great relationships first to not only build rapport, but to get to the root of the problems that the students have and to get to know them so we can apply what’s needed for the students to learn the content and apply it outside of the 4 walls of a classroom. Then, we include different stakeholders in the student’s learning process like teachers, counselors, students, coaches, and our team to ensure everyone is on one page academically and pedagogically. We mentor the students after and provide back end support when tutoring is complete. While mentoring, students are looking up to us as big brothers and sisters all while asking about scholarships, life, college essays, FAFSA, and more. Utilizing this approach, we have had a 95% success rate of students earning As and Bs in over 55 content areas throughout the US.

I started the company as a one man show, bootstrap, grass roots, knocking door to door with no venture capital. Now, we have 85 tutoring consultants nationwide between DFW, Austin, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, and NY. We service students from Kindergarten to Doctorate level in STEM subjects, test preps, English, Reading, Writing, and Foreign Languages. We are an education and training company that also does professional development, training, mentoring, ghostwriting for authors, curriculum development, college and career readiness, and more. We are a 15 time award winning brand and was the first BIPOC owned tutoring brand to ever make the Forbes List last year for our impact with the BIPOC community. INC Education is now one of the top tutoring and education companies in the country and has serviced over 11,000+ students over time. Currently, we are looking to scale the organization by implementing edtech solutions and more so we can reach more populations.

Jay, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born and raised Northeast of Los Angeles in San Bernardino (Apple Valley). I was 12 years old as a Freshman in high school and used to play the B flat clarinet. In addition, I’m bilingual in Spanish. I didn’t know that I was going to be in the Entrepreneurship space or the education space. I kind of just fell into it. It wasn’t planned for sure. I spent time in my career in these industries: Retail, Sales, Engineering, Telecom, IT, Tech, Military, Banking/Finance, Education, and more. To be a latter millennial, I’ve done a LOT. I tested myself out in the education industry and did really well. I was always good at tutoring my peers in math and science in middle school and high school. So, this seems to be a hidden talent that didn’t get it’s wings until my adult years. I didn’t see the gift back then and considered it just a talent and wanted to help others.

I was raised in a military family as well. Both of my parents retired AF of 22 years so I have much discipline and structure which helped me cut out a lot of BS out of things that didn’t matter in my life. Once I attended the U.S. Naval Academy for school, my emotions got less and less in terms of caring what people think and focusing on what is going to help me succeed. If it didn’t align with the goals and my life, I didn’t provide energy to it. Period. Once I started the tutoring brand, I was hell bent on solving problems. INC Education creates educational experiences through holistic, prescriptive, private tutoring supported by a 360 degree environment of success that closes opportunity gaps, achievement gaps, and belief gaps. There are over 5 million private tutors in the US, but no AA owned private tutoring/education brands making significant changes for our babies at the level we are doing it at. So, we were created to assist in that manner. We created our own lane and didn’t wait. The holistic system of support that we build around students has allowed us to have a 95% success rate of students earning As and Bs in over 55 content areas nationwide now.

I’m most proud of the moment that INC Education made the Forbes list last year for being the first education brand that is BIPOC owned to make the differences we have made for students in marginalized communities. We have given them not only knowledge in their content areas, but we have given them character, confidence, mentorship, and more so they can be the best version of themselves. That was for the CULTURE, not just our company. I’m also proud of building a team that is super brilliant that has a passion for helping students succeed and that is creative enough to continue to improve on building the organization to do what’s best for students. We came from a one man show to now an 85 person organization that is now one of the top education and tutoring brands in the country.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I believe one of the pillars of building your reputation within your market is your knowledge within the industry. How has your passion been amplified due to your market knowledge? Provide your RECEIPTS. When I got into the education industry, I didn’t want to be a “mediocre” educator when either admins saw my classroom or when students experienced my teaching practices. My first year of teaching yielded a situation where 100% of my students got perfect scores on the state exam. Then, the subsequent years yielded between 85-100% rates of my students passing or mastering the state exam. Once I was done teaching in the classroom within 4.5 years, my reputation preceded itself into leadership within the education space. I was known for leading students to success and then leading teachers to success with students. As I became an instructional coach and district level admin, I built my reputation on growing students and off the way that I ran my classroom which was similar to a tutoring environment. Once my reputation was built in the education space, I built enough personal brand equity to start building my business brand. Because folks knew what I did in the industry, it was like whatever I touched turned to gold in education. This gave me the capacity to execute.

Then, I was able to garner media coverage/PR for what I was doing in the tutoring space. I built a proof of concept with the holistic approach I built for tutoring. Once we started to gain great success, we were covered by Black Enterprise, Business Insider, NBC, Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes, Roland Martin Unfiltered show, and much more. I am now a 3 time TEDx speaker and 15 time award winning entrepreneur/educator. All of this built my reputation within my market. So, now I am looked at as one of the authorities in tutoring and education and one of the top people to ever do it across the US. Earned media counts if you understand how to get it. I am not a big fan of paid media as it is more organic to prove your worth in your industry.
What was my proof of concept and what gave me the capacity to execute?

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients for our organization has been social media. Primarily Facebook and Instagram are the bigger modes of SM that bring us new clientele. LinkedIn is another frontrunner in exposing myself as a brand and the business. Word of mouth and displaying results has been another great source for us. I wholeheartedly believe that showing your craft on “live” videos and letting the potential clientele get a glimpse of your service or product, will give you a baseline for new clients as well. Being a steward of your craft is important and being SO good at it that you can’t be denied in any room is a formula for success there.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.inceducationllc.com www.blacktutorsofsocialmedia.com www.thejayvealbrand.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thetoptutor
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/INCEducationLLC
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/inctutoring
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/INCEducationLLC
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/Q3TyVZfmNRY