IAM2305 – President and Co-Founder Helps Clients Find Their Voice to Tell Complex Stories

Title: Transcript - Wed, 27 Nov 2024 05:46:21 GMT

Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2024 05:46:21 GMT, Duration: [00:16:57.19]

[00:00:00.36] - Calvin Dark

What I think is really interesting about what we provide is that we have amazing flexibility and just a breadth of skills because as you can tell from my accent, I'm from North Carolina. We can do things that are very completely American, like police crisis communications, but then the very same day, we'll be doing a media training for a West African country, conducting it all in French. So what our clients get from us is that you never know what you can't pigeonhole us into what we can do. And I think they found that useful and interesting.

[00:00:35.06] - Intro

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[00:01:00.17] - Calvin Dark

Hello, hello, hello.

[00:01:01.07] - Gresham Harkless

This is Gresh from the I Am CEO Podcast. And I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Calvin Dark of RC Communications. Calvin, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:01:08.78] - Calvin Dark

Glad to be here.

[00:01:09.50] - Gresham Harkless

What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Calvin so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Calvin Dark has built his reputation as a creative branding, media and communications professional for a diverse group of clients and partners. In 2014, Calvin Co founded RC Communications to help clients find their voice to tell complex stories. Throughout his career, Calvin held several leadership roles where he advised embassies, international organizations, foundations, and multinational corporations on their strategic communication, public affairs, and media outreach. Calvin appears regularly in US and international media as a commentator and analyst on foreign affairs, US politics, current events. Calvin is a graduate of Duke University, a Fulbright scholar to Morocco, and speaks English, French, Spanish and Arabic. First question I had was to hear a little bit more about your CEO story and what led you to start your business?

[00:02:01.09] - Calvin Dark

Well, I think I had always envisioned having my own business simply because I learned a lot from my father, who was an entrepreneur. And one of the things my father taught me from a very early age is that when you do something that you love and you want to put yourself into it, you've got to be your own boss. That's what he always told me. And growing up, he had two service stations and a restaurant, did a tourism agency. So he lived what he had said. Now with my story, I think I always had that in the back of my mind as that would be a goal down the road. But I was more focused on the substance of what I wanted to do, which is international communications commentary, strategic communications. What ended up happening, which life always throws that in there better than I would have planned, is that I had an opportunity, you know, almost five years ago where I could do what I had the amazing privilege to do my whole career, but on my own. So I found myself, you know, now an entrepreneur and doing what I love. And I don't think it's any irony that in the rush when I was, you know, doing the paperwork and everything, getting started, ordering business cards, doing all that, when I registered the company, it was within a week of when my father had registered his company name 40 years ago. So I don't think that's.

[00:03:22.30] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, that definitely probably is not. It's probably by design, so to speak.

[00:03:27.05] - Calvin Dark

Right, exactly.

[00:03:28.12] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, like you said, oftentimes we make plans and things just sometimes kind of happen, but usually they happen for the better in the grand scheme of things and what we look like, what it looks like. And it sounds like that happened for you. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about what you're doing with RC Communications. Could you tell us how you're supporting our clients?

[00:03:45.22] - Calvin Dark

Yes. Well, RC Communications, we have a really, really interesting story because we're a small team. My co founder had a background in fundraising and media relations with donors for some, you know, very big national channels. I had an international background where I did communications for several foreign governments. And so we've been able to combine those skills and serve our clients. We have represented heads of state and an opioid treatment center just around the corner. We represented police departments on the east coast, on the west coast, and we've also helped very prominent civil society and non governmental organizations with their projects. What I think is really interesting about what we provide is that we have amazing flexibility and just a breadth of skills because as you can tell from my accent, I'm from North Carolina. We can do things that are very completely American, like police crisis communications. But then the very same day, we'll be doing a media training for a West African country conducting it all in French. So what our clients get from us is that you never know what you can't pigeonhole us into what we can do. And I think they found that useful and interesting.

[00:05:04.70] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it kind of seems like it doesn't matter what type of organization or business you have, you could definitely benefit from your services. Would that be accurate to say?

[00:05:12.55] - Calvin Dark

Yes. And I will say one of the Challenges with that, though. And I wouldn't even. I'm not even complaining about it being a challenge, but it's something you learn around the CEO journey, is that when you do things that are very outwardly one thing, and I mean, like, say, international. So when we represented a, you know, one of the foreign government in West Africa, people began to think about, oh, when I need something that fits in that box, let's call RC Communications. But like I said, we also work with police departments. We also work with here in Washington, D.C. various government agencies with the district government. And so one of the challenges was, is that when people would see the work that we do, they would automatically think, oh, well, they're representing a foreign government. They can't do our work. Or vice versa. That we're doing something very domestic, like working with the opioid treatment center so we can represent a country when they come to the U.N. we've done a good job of balancing that in how we describe what we do to our clients, but also in our social media because we want to make sure that people see we have a very broad breadth of what we can provide. So that's been a challenge. But if that's the kind of challenges you're dealing with, I can't complain.

[00:06:18.85] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, there you go. That makes perfect sense. And you might have touched on this a little bit, but I was going to ask you for what I like to call your secret sauce. And this is your differentiator. What you feel kind of sets you and or your organization apart.

[00:06:29.89] - Calvin Dark

I think that one of the things that separates us is our passion and that we actually love what we do. As a person. I have a really hard time unplugging because, you know, it's very important. Got to have balance in your life. But the reason is because I don't consider what I do work. You know, even when it comes to going on vacations, I. Because, you know, I love to travel in and out internationally. My last few vacations have been tied into work trips. Not because I don't have an imagination of where I want to go when I'm not working, but it's like, that's the cool part, you know, just going to another country, being a tourist. No, that doesn't really appeal to me. Going because we represent the head of state and I can tack on another few days to go to their beaches. That's my idea of a vacation, you know, So I think the seat. I would say that we have passion about what we do and that because of our size, we're very particular in what we take on. And I know that every company says, you know, you can get the tailored approach. Everybody here is passionate and all of that. It really comes through with us. And I really stress with our clients that, yes, we want your check to clear. That is a high priority, but that's not why we're doing it. That, of course, enables us to have a business, but that when we come into your organization, say, here's our ideas, here's what we want to do. They need to understand that we get up every morning really excited, that we have a really cool client and that we have. We take it personally, whether it's getting them out on social media or getting them prepped for an interview. I don't have children. I think the closest I've come to that is helping somebody do a difficult interview and just like, sitting behind, just being so incredibly proud and be like, yes. So I think that's something that we can offer. And being small. I'll say two things about that being small. We can offer that in ways that a bigger firm can't, because, you know, you're a bigger firm can't laser focus all their resources on this one client, no matter how great it is. Second part is, you know, what I mentioned about. There's the entrepreneurial side of starting a business, but then there's a substance of what you actually like to do. I now realize that while I had great employment situations before, where I got to learn how to do the great things I'm doing now, even when I held leadership positions, it wasn't mine, it wasn't my baby. I was a babysitter of it. Now, when it's mine, that passion goes into it, and that's something that we can offer. So that's what I always try to tell clients.

[00:08:47.49] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

[00:08:57.86] - Calvin Dark

Well, I think that having a routine is very, very important and not losing sight of what the vision and the goals are. And the third point of that is not being so discouraged or distracted when there's something that you know you want to do that you need to do, but you can't directly connect it to a check or a client payment or something tangible that progresses the business side. So, like, for example, because we work with such diverse clients in several languages, I get up very early in the morning and What I must do is I have to have my hour of my coffee and on social media, Facebook, Twitter, the different news sources that I'm subscribed to, because that's how I get my day started. So for example, we have a really busy day where I have to be somewhere at 8. I already know, well, that means that I gotta get up at 6 because 6 to 7 has to be my time to do it. Now here's why that's hard is when I first started doing that, like, you know, most people would say, well, if you have the luxury of looking at Facebook for 30 minutes in the morning, kudos to you. But that's not like work or, you know, doing some of the other things that aren't directly for a client. I felt guilty because I said, you know, I need to be doing things that I can draw a direct line between what I'm doing and money. But what I realized is that those things help you for the future. And when I say looking at Facebook as part of my like morning ritual, it's because I would say that 25% of either leads or things we can put on social media or things that we can pursue, I see references to on social media. You know, and entrepreneurs always have to be looking ahead. That's the hardest thing about this, is that light bills come due and they don't care about your five year plan. Your five week plan, it's due when it's due. It would be fake for me to say, can't deal with that little stuff because you have to. But the balance with that is you can't just be about that when you start in the morning, because what you do today, those things like for example, the routine in the morning and doing things that promote our company, like writing op eds and you know, focusing on our social media natural for our clients, those are things that are going to help us down the road. And what helped me to see that is if I look at some of the things I was doing a year ago, some of the things we're doing today wouldn't have been possible had I not laid that groundwork. So I guess my hack would be find the way that you need to get started and don't be so hard on yourself when there's something you know you need to do and know you need to prepare. Don't feel guilty that, well, it doesn't pay this bill that's due tomorrow. Like find that balance. Because in the long run it's those things that you can't necessarily quantify that are going to make a business successful.

[00:11:49.52] - Gresham Harkless

And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

[00:11:57.90] - Calvin Dark

I would tell my younger business self that don't be overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment and to not get frustrated when you can't see past a particular circumstance. You know, I'm not being Pollyanna when I say it's all going to work out. It's not that simple. But a lot of times in the moment, the things you're dealing with, you know, sometimes it can be financial, sometimes it can be just, you know, you do something for a client, they don't like it, and then, you know, you're up all night, like, maybe this isn't what I'm cut out for. Maybe I just made the wrong decision. My life is a mess. You know, you're going to have those moments. And what I would tell myself then is ride those out. And I'm fortunate that I had a lot of great people in my life who told me some version of that as I was starting this journey. But I would just rein. I would reinforce that, because I think young entrepreneurs and what I've learned, and I would tell myself is that the things that you experience and your fears, 99% of the time, they're real. I mean, it's not like you're making it up or you're being dramatic and, like, making them bigger than they are. However, they do not define you. And I have days, which I'm sure everybody does, where I'm just like, you know what? Maybe I just need to start from scratch and just do something else. And I always laugh and remind myself there will be no life decisions made in a day on what I'm feeling in that moment. And so that's something that I was told before I started, but I would go back and reiterate that, like, just chill out. It's going to be fine.

[00:13:21.07] - Gresham Harkless

And now I wanted to ask you 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 the show. So, Calvin, I wanted to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:13:31.79] - Calvin Dark

It means being able to do what you love and answering to yourself. You know, not everybody's cut out for that. Not everybody wants it. But when you're doing what is your passion? What is like, literally what you are made of in your Heart. I don't care how great of a working environment you have, when you're working for somebody else, you're always doing it for them. Now in an ideal employment situation, they will allow you the space to be creative and take ownership. And that works great sometimes and it's great for some people. But what being a CEO means to me is that I don't have to ask someone above me, you know, just me and my business partners. I don't have to ask for somebody above me, my approval. And in those proud moments when we get to brag about the good things that we do, I don't have to do it on behalf of anybody else. It sounds trite, but it is so true. The buck stops here, you know. Now fortunately, most of the time that's a good thing. And that I can, you know, we can take credit in this company for what we do, but you know, occasionally there are things that bids we don't get, clients we lose. We also have to take that too. But all in all, for me, because this is very personal because like this is my passion, being a CEO is great and that has been what has made me not give up when the business side of being a CEO gets really challenging.

[00:14:55.63] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And Calvin, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and then how best they can get a hold of you.

[00:15:07.10] - Calvin Dark

Well, yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity. And what I'd like to say to everybody, you know, listening is that if you need that specialized communications and branding and marketing from a team that gets really passionate, call us. Our website rccomsdc.com social media, which I'm proud of just because personally I'm on Twitter and that's how I understand the world and comment on it and we do so on our social media channels. But if you're a small business or let's say somebody, you're building your own brand and you have an interview opportunity, but you need media coaching and training. That's something that we've decided, you know what, while that's wrapped up usually into our bigger projects, we're going to offer that as a one off because one of my favorite parts, because like I said, I like being behind the camera saying yes, they're doing it. So I would encourage folks go to our website, rccomsdc.com they can find out more information about, say you're not ready for your venture to hire a communications or PR firm but you want something very discreet, specific. We can do that and with the blessing of technology we can do it from anywhere around the world and still be effective.

[00:16:11.99] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes perfect sense and that's definitely a great reminder. So Calvin, truly appreciate you. We'll make sure to have those links in the show notes just so that anybody can follow up with you. And I love what you're doing and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:22.17] - Calvin Dark

Okay, you too. Thanks a lot.

[00:16:23.46] - Intro

Thank you for listening to The I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at Imceo Co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Check out the latest and greatest apps, books and habits to level up your business as CEO. This has been the IMCEO Podcast with Gresham Harkness jr. Thank you for listening.