We were lucky to catch up with Stephanie Fortune recently and have shared our conversation below.
Stephanie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?
My business did not have employees from day one. Essentially, I was the first employee. It started when I was working for a previous employer and my current clients or prospective clients would continue to ask me whether or not I could assist in other areas. They would ask if I could support in securing talent, offering general liability insurance, do specialized and individual consulting for their business.
Once I realized their needs were greater than what I could provide with my current employer at the time, I essentially had the wherewithal and knowledge to understand that I personally needed to do something to better serve my community. From that point on, I did decide to go ahead and start my organization and I knew that I would need to be someone that was as enthusiastic, passionate, and more importantly have a WHY that was bigger than myself. I knew that I needed to empower. As my business began to grow and my clientele began to have greater needs, I realized once again that I needed more support. At that point it was a matter of how, how do I get more support, how do I pay them, and how do I make sure that I have the best talent to deliver excellence.
My clients had grown accustomed to a certain level of, well service, they expected excellence. That in and of itself was a fear factor for me, because I knew that talent, and hiring, was a critical aspect for businesses and one of the most important when it comes to an organization in delivering a high level of service. Once I was able to secure more funding by saving, I was an able to bring on folks one at a time to continue to deliver excellence.
My strategy for hiring is simple and it results in having the best talent for my clientele. It’s unconventional in a sense as a big part of it is simply based on my gut feeling. It’s based on passion, their WHY, our mission vision and values, and if that person aligned with all of those things.
A lot of organizations hire based upon skill set, based upon experience in the industry, or something of that nature. I chose to focus more so on the human, the individual, their passions, their love, their contribution, and then I focus on the skill set after that. As long as they were coachable or teachable then they could be a fit for FBC.
If I were to start today I would’ve implemented things sooner, but that does not say that I would change anything. I believe that everything that I went through in hiring my team, bringing on talent and bootstrapping my organization has taught me so many invaluable lessons. Lessons that if I had all the funding at one time, if I had the best talent from day one, I would not have had the opportunity to learn from experience. So I’m grateful for everything that I’ve learned and experienced however I do know that now that I have that “how” the funding is a big aspect of being able to scale to a greater degree to be able to serve my community and truly empower individuals and businesses so that way we can all be empowered as a human race.
Stephanie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a first generation Haitian American in this country. I am one of 13 and I come from Haitian immigrants who have now passed along. My life has been full of trials and tribulations, but I am of the belief that everything that I go through has a purpose. That purpose for me is truly to empower.
My life‘s mission is to empower. That I take on and apply to every single thing that I do. Having been award of the court, having parents that passed away, and a father that abandoned us when I was only seven years old has taught me so much.
My mother is the cornerstones of everything that I do and she passed along when I was around 10 or 11. Because of all of these things and so many more I have a sense of grit, resilience, determination, and a desire that cannot be quenched to truly empower every single person that I encounter in this life.
Because of that Fortune Business Consulting is my baby right now. FBC is a consulting firm that helps businesses become empowered. We do this by providing solutions and resources in the area of payroll, human resource services, Worker’s Compensation, employee benefits, as well as general business consulting from inception or start of a organization to succession planning, retiring, and selling. We do this by hiring not only top talent, but by partnering with vendors and organizations that are at the top of their level and area of expertise.
By being able to combine resources we are able to deliver Fortune 500 level solutions and service to our clientele at the best rate available. We truly believe in empowerment and that again is in everything that we do. We focus on education. We empower by educating our clientele as well as providing them with solutions and resources to make sure that their businesses have the necessary tools and resources to empower their team. We believe that the human in human resources is the first line of defense for any organization. With that in mind everything that we do is to empower the talent of an organization, who will then empower the organization. When people are empowered, inspired, passionate, happy, and feel loved and appreciated they go to bat. We want our people to go to bat for their organizations, and organizations to go to bat for their people. When a company has everyone supporting each other, loving each other and contributing to the greater good of not only themselves but others we create a world of peace and love.
My life‘s mission is to empower and that is done with every single thing that I do and especially when it comes to FBC, my baby. Fortune Business Consulting is my pride and joy. My first child and I put my blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights and unfortunately my health (which I no longer do) into this baby. My passion exudes out of me and anyone that encounters me knows this. In other news, my hobbies are dancing, making people happy, and spreading love, I’m a servant leader, I’m a nonprofit organization director for many organizations and I’m very involved in my community. Again, the impetus of it all is to empower that is my life‘s mission that is my core that is why I live in breathe. Everything that I do is done to empower and I would not be here and feeling the way I feel, confident in saying that, if it were not for my mother. The woman that showed me strength the woman that showed me love the woman that showed me passion the woman that showed me everything is possible because she made the impossible possible as a single mother of 13 kids in this country (two still in Haiti) that she is foreign to in a time when she was not accepted, when we as Haitians and her an immigrant were not accepted because of that I am who i am. Because of that I empower through Fortune Business Consulting.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
My advice to managing a team and maintaining high morale is to truly care. Honestly it’s that simple. When you care about your staff, when you care about people, they see that they feel that they know. By showing that you care you will do the things necessary to not only empower them but have them empower others. You help them to learn, grow, become confident, become invaluable. When they feel invaluable when they feel confident when they feel that there is passion behind what they do and love for themselves that is then demonstrated in their contribution to the company.
When they feel inspired, confident, appreciated, valued, they contribute to your organization to a greater degree. Because we are in the people business, specifically Payroll, HR, Benefits, Workers Compensation and Business Consulting we know that not only are their financial aspect to supporting your staff, but there are intangible and non-financial aspect. Again, that leads me back to just simply caring and showing how much you care. You can show how much you care by providing bonuses, raises, and paid time off. You can show that by offering maternity and paternity leave. You can do that by simply giving a Friday off or not working on a Friday at all. You can do that by getting request from your staff in acquiescing to those request because they are reasonable. You can do that by creating team activities, creating days where you guys just do nothing, when you sit around and talk about life maybe have drinks if that’s available within your organization coffee lunch something of that nature. Ultimately it’s doing and showing that you care about your people and ways that are feasible for you.
A lot of times business owners believe that the only way they can show appreciation is by providing a raise to their team or giving more money. But the truth is that is not the one and only way to do that. People want to make more money so that they can have a better quality of life so if you can help them provide themselves and their family a better quality of life your people will be happy. Again, there is more than one way to happiness than just money. By “just money” I don’t mean that money is the only key to happiness, however, it is the key to a sustained life according the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in a western society. So show your team that you care and that you love them and they will then show you and your organization that they care and love your organization.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
I have shared a part of my story that made me more resilient, have grit and tenacity that I have and needed to have in order to start and continue to grow my business. Therefore, I will focus on funding of my business. When I started my business there was no initial capital in the sense of business loans, grants, or money from family or friends that I could use to support and start my organization. I simply bootstrapped like some business owners.
I used my savings and the money that I had saved up while I was growing up, in college and working, and that was the money that I used to start my organization. I had roughly $10,000 that I had saved up and I used that to start Fortune Business Consulting. Because I am based in South Florida, I got my business registered, open a business bank account got my EIN, and got the different certifications needed for the different cities and counties that I was in. Then I went for it.
I started knocking on doors, cold-calling, networking, all the things that I had already known to do but I started doing aggressively because I knew I needed to fund not only the business but honestly myself and my family. When you start a business and you bootstrap you are essentially taking all of the money that you have that you can put into your organization and you have no choice but to make it work. So I knew that I had to make it work and I’m still thankful to this day that I bootstrapped because the invaluable lessons that I’ve learned I would’ve never had the opportunity to learn in that manner. Not to say that I look at people that have those in a different light, however, I know for me personally that changed the way that I view things and do things.
I’ve always been someone that has been cost conscious because of I grew up poor in the hood. I’ve been someone that was frugal in a sense, but more importantly I’ve been someone that’s been intentional about how I spend a dollar because I know that a penny spent is a penny earned. I earned every cent of my funds especially coming from the upbringing that I came from and the circumstances that I came from and the things that I endured. I knew how valuable a dollar was I know how valuable penny was, so I stretched out as much as I could and I’m so grateful for that. With the knowledge base that I now have, i am prepared to receive grants and more funding so that we are able to serve and empower at a greater scale.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fortunebizconsulting.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fortune_bc/
- Facebook: facebook.com/FortuneBCLLC/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fortune-business-consulting/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLlcMLGEzxM-2RffUyO7iWA
Image Credits
Marckinson Fortune #PoweredByTheAUX The Aux The Aux Conglomerate Fortune Business Consulting