IAM1377 – Coach Helps Seniors as a Patient Tech Support

Abbie Richie is the host of Senior Living Foresight’s newest production, Tech Tuesdays on LinkedIn, FB, and YouTube, Senior Savvy With Abbie (premiering in 2022 on SaltboxTV), the founder of Senior Savvy, has been featured on The List TV, ABC, FOX, USA Today, and Yahoo News. You can reach out to her online at www.seniorsavvy.net and on social media, where she shares more tech tips via Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

• CEO Story: Started the company in 2018 after having been unemployed for 7 to 8 months in her 15-year employment company. After researching and serving others in need. Abbie knew the secret of giving, and so she found her passion to be of need to other people.
• Business Service: Teach workshops that lead to private sessions. Expanded into virtual, not just in other states but globally.
• Secret Sauce: One-on-one tech support on a portable device that answers the client's questions.
• CEO Hack: Long drives were utilized by listening to audiobooks, which had a huge impact on her growth.
• CEO Nugget: Stick to your zone of passion – that propels you.
• CEO Defined: A leader. Guide and mentor. Coach someone to greatness.

Website: www.seniorsavvy.net

Instagram: abbie_richie

Linkedin: abbie-richie

Facebook: abbie.h.richie

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Transcription

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00:21 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:48 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Abby Ritchie of Senior Savvy. Abby, it's great to have you on the show.

00:57 – Abbie Richie

For having me.

00:59 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, super excited to have you on. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Abby so I can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Abby is the host of Senior Livings for Sites newest production, Tech Tuesdays on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. Senior Savvy with Abby premiering in 2022 on Saltbox TV.

The founder of Senior Savvy has been featured on the List TV, ABC, Fox, USA Today, and Yahoo News. You can reach out to her online and on social media where she shares more tech tips via Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Abby, appreciate you for taking some time out to be on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:36 – Abbie Richie

I am. Let's do it.

01:38 – Gresham Harkless

Let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock here a little bit more on how you got started. What I call your CEO story.

01:45 – Abbie Richie

Great. Well, I started this company in 2018. It was after I was unemployed for about 7 or 8 months. And that was a big surprise to me. My last company I was with for 15 years and I was a partner and completely surprised in 2017 when I was let go, but I knew that I could only do something that I was truly passionate about. And so I searched and searched and I served. That was one thing I did, I served. And I have found over and over, when I'm kind of lost when I give, when I help someone, it helps get me oriented to where I need to be.

And several months into my unemployment, I just found myself helping my in-laws. They had just downsized and they needed help with their technology, then their neighbors, and then their neighbors. And then I found myself in this position over and over again, helping an older adult with technology. And I thought, What? I like this. So one day in January of 2018, I thought to myself, I'm going to see if this has got legs.

And I called 5 senior communities in my area. I live in Scottsdale, Arizona, and there are many of them. I called them and I offered a free workshop. Never taught it. I had never written it. I just knew that if there was a need I could do it and the name of the workshop was cell phone secrets for seniors. And by the end of the week, I had 3 bookings and I knew he's got legs.

03:23 – Gresham Harkless

Nice, I absolutely love that. I especially love, you know, service is the way and kind of leaning into your passions and your gifts and being able to kind of help serve others. So many times with our organizations, we forget that the heart of, it is at being a service. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more, hear a little bit more about your brands, all the awesome things you're doing to help serve, and how that first class turned into all the awesome things you're doing. Can you take us through that and what you feel kind of even sets you apart and makes you unique?

03:48 – Abbie Richie

Yeah, so probably the cornerstone of what we do is we teach workshops. Now, the workshops lead to private sessions that all just took a huge 360 during COVID and we ended up taking all of our services on video and connecting remotely with people. This really extended our reach significantly. So we went from maybe serving 7 communities here in Scottsdale to serving 7 states. And then a couple of years later serving every single state in the nation. And just in these last couple of months, we went global, which is amazing.

So we do workshops, they're on Zoom, they're on Tech Basics. We focus on the basics, we don't get complicated, and we keep it simple because we know that when our students learn the basics, they have a foundation and then they can begin to build from there. That foundation brings confidence, it brings empowerment and allows them to search for things and work independently. So we do these workshops. We also do tech cafes, and these are often in-person in the community.

It's sort of like our version of a genius bar. Community has us come in, maybe it's once a week, Maybe it's once a month. And the residents signed up for an hour, I'm sorry, a half hour of one-on-one tech support on their portable devices. And they'll bring it to the library or the computer room and we help them, we answer their questions and they don't have to leave their community to help. And then additionally, we do one-on-one tech support. It could be in person and it can be remotely.

05:25 – Gresham Harkless

Nice, I absolutely love that because for lack of a better term, it sounds like you meet people where they are, whether you're talking about at the communities or virtually are doing these classes as well too, people have the ability when it can be sometimes frustrating and I imagine something you don't even wanna do, but it's so necessarily important, I think for everybody, especially for your target segment to be empowered and have all those great benefits. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

06:00 – Abbie Richie

Okay. I started doing this in August. I've got 2 kiddos, one's in seventh grade, and one's in ninth grade. They go to different schools in different places, at different times. I find myself in the car driving. And at first, I was really annoyed. Oh, it's like an hour here, an hour there driving around. But I revamped that and instead, I listened. I listen to audiobooks and I've found that that has had such an amazing impact on my growth.

06:30 – Gresham Harkless

I love that. And I think so many times there's, I always say there's, I'm a big believer in binaries. There's a, there's a, you know, hot and cold, there's a good and bad. Sometimes by changing our perspective, it allows an opportunity that maybe we wouldn't have had that existed.

06:42 – Abbie Richie

Yep. Absolutely.

06:44 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? This is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something if you were to happen to a time machine, you would tell your younger business self.

06:57 – Abbie Richie

So I would tell my younger business self to stick to your zone of passion. Because as a CEO, and as an entrepreneur, you end up doing a lot of things you don't want to do, right? You just do it by nature. But if you're passionate about the core mission of what you're doing, that's going to propel you, and really make sure that you keep feeding your passion because that's going to give you the energy to do what you do great.

Here's one other thing too that I heard that I think rings true. Who were you? Who were you at 7 or 8 or 9? Who was that person? What did that person love to do? Because I'm finding I'm back to that 7 or 8 or 9-year-old, which is on camera, helping people teaching, being passionate, and just allowing myself to shine and hitching my own star instead of coming along and someone else's.

07:57 – Gresham Harkless

I love that. And so many times I'll say, if you run your own race, you can't lose. And I love both of those nuggets because part of, I think as you said, like being of service, when you were trying to figure out what to do, you went to be of service. And sometimes we're of service to the thing that we would do if we would have to do it for free because we love doing it. So I love how that has coupled with, it sounds like everything you've been able to kind of work on and do. Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on there. So, Abby, what does being a CEO mean to you?

08:30 – Abbie Richie

Well, first and foremost, it means being a leader. You've got to display leadership, to take ownership, and to also guide and mentor. I find myself often in a position where I need to coach someone to greatness. And quite often that means allowing them to figure it out on their own instead of swooping in and solving it. So that's truly what it means to me to be a CEO.

09:00 – Gresham Harkless

I love that phrase and I'm just going to re-emphasize that coach somebody's greatness because I'm a big believer in helping people to be their own leaders to figure out to kind of even sometimes figure out more of themselves than they think that they didn't even know and we see that as leaders. So I love that definition because it really taps into that and empowering others at the end of the day.

09:20 – Abbie Richie

I want to share one other thing that I just thought of this year, which has been mind-blowing for me. So I've been looking to bring on extra people and instead of bringing on one extra person, I'm looking to bring on many people. Because what's happened is when that one person has to take a break or can't be there, I've ended up being the backup person and I don't want to do that anymore. That's why I've brought on multiple people and allowed them to share in the wealth. So that's been a huge game changer for me. I thought I needed one person, but having multiple people just expands the vision and allows for more work to come in.

10:02 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that during this pandemic, especially too, sometimes we've craved that connection. So I love that, you know, even, you know, that perspective and that add-on that you provided because it kind of lets us, you know, be part of a team, work towards a mission, a goal, especially when you have such a strong goal as you do.

10:19 – Abbie Richie

Yes, yes. Thank you.

10:22 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely.

10:22 – Abbie Richie

If I may share anything else with you, I do want to let you know, that I do a lot of scary things all the time. And that's had, it's had a really big impact on my ability to persevere through more challenging times. So I do tend to take on the scary things first thing in the morning and just get them done. And I find that it really helps me manage my day better.

10:48 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I think that's so huge. And I don't know if you feel the same way, but I almost feel like when you do kind of do the scary things you lean more into, it's kind of like flexing a muscle. And once you start to work out that muscle, it helps you to tackle bigger and scarier and scarier things as that happens.

11:02 – Abbie Richie

I also think a lot in terms of what can I do in this little teeny timeframe. Because sometimes with the kids, I'm out picking them up, I come back, I've got 20 minutes. What can I do with excellence in 20 minutes, right? It doesn't seem like much time and sometimes it's not, but if I can just get my mind around it, like I could just focus on this one thing really well for 20 minutes, boom, I got it done.

11:27 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I think what we were talking about before when you were mentioning with the kiddos and being able to kind of listen to audiobooks. We sometimes can say, I don't have enough time, but sometimes that short period of time allows you to really laser focus and get those things done quicker, and more efficiently. And it starts to create, I wouldn't say it's the mother of invention when you don't have as much time. Scarcity is the mother of a niche. And so you have that opportunity to really use scale from there and execute.

11:53 – Abbie Richie

Absolutely.

11:54 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Abby truly appreciate all those additional nuggets and everything that you're doing. Of course, What I wanted to do now is pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

12:11 – Abbie Richie

Thank you. You can always find me on my website, seniorsavvy.net. I'm very active on LinkedIn. So if you're on LinkedIn, you wanna DM me, please do so. Please let me know how I can help you and your organization. Every Tuesday, I'm interviewing tech innovators on the Senior Living Foresight platform. And so if you're involved in senior living and tech, please reach out to me there as well.

12:38 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes. I think as you kind of talked about, you know, making sure that you're coaching someone to greatness extends to our team, but it also extends to the people that are around us. So I love that you have so many different ways, whether it be a client, customer, or somebody who's listening, to all the awesome things that you're doing, you're coaching them to greatness. So thank you so much for sharing some of that coaching with us today, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

13:02 – Abbie Richie

Thank you. You too.

13:04 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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