IAM1394 – Real Estate Investor Teaches Others How to Buy their First Property
Podcast Interview with Pam Hill
Pam Hill, founder, and CEO of My Smart Cousin, is a real estate investor who owns 25 properties and 31 units, all purchased for the price of a car, and in some cases, a bicycle, at $2,500 to $35,000. Pam began her real estate investment career ten years ago during the Great Recession, as a side hustle while working as an executive at an electric utility company. Since then Pam has become the ‘Smart Cousin’ to everyone in her family with personal finance and real estate advice, as well as a real estate investment coach, teaching others how to buy their first or 101st property for the price of a car. Pam received her Bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and her Master's degree from Harvard University. Pam coaches her clients in English, Spanish, and Mandarin, Chinese when required, as a graduate of Johns Hopkins’ Chinese studies program in Nanjing, China.
- CEO Story: After serving in executive jobs in the Energy/Electric utility companies. Pam turned into a real estate investor taking advantage of the affordable yet good investment property.
- Business Service: Blogs and content videos – on-demand materials for free to access. Courses. One-on-one coaching.
- Secret Sauce: The willingness to pull back the curtains. Staying very humble. Staying connected to her 8-year-old self.
- CEO Hack: 1. Writing down the momentum 2. Gratitude 3. Proof points
- CEO Nugget: It always seems impossible until it's done. You can’t see it is until it becomes a reality.
- CEO Defined: Servant leadership. Understand what the greater mission of the group is.
Website: mysmartcousin.com
Instagram: MySmartCousin
Twitter: smartcousin
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Transcription
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00:22 – 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 Harkless 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.
00:50 – 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 Pam Hill of My Smart Cousin. Pam, super excited to have you on the show.
00:59 – Pam Hill
Super excited to be here. Gresh, thank you very much.
01:01 – Gresham Harkless
Yes, I love everything that you've been doing and am always excited to have the opportunity to kind of feature and talk about some of those awesome things. And before we do that, of course, I want to read a little bit more about Pam so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And Pam is the founder and CEO of My Smart Cousin, is a real estate investor who owns 25 properties and 31 units, all purchased for the price of a car and in some cases a bicycle at $2,500-$35,000.
Pam began a real estate investment career 10 years ago during the Great Recession and as a side hustle while working as an executive at an electric utility company. Since then, Pam has become the smart cousin to everyone in her family with personal finance and real estate advice as well as real estate investment coaching and teaching others how to buy their first or 1st property for the price of a car.
Pam received her bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and master's degree from Harvard University. And Pam coaches her clients in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese when required. As a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Chinese Studies program in Nanjing, China, Pam, super excited to have you on the show, and now we get to have you as a Smart Cousin. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
02:10 – Pam Hill
I am. Hello, I AM CEO community.
02:14 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's make it happen then. So they kind of kick everything off. I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit. I know I touched on it, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about your CEO story. We'll let you get started with all the awesome work you're doing.
02:23 – Pam Hill
Sure, absolutely. So I founded My Smart Cousin 10 years ago, right around when the Great Recession happened. And how I got involved in real estate, as well as kind of formally advising folks was serendipitous, like so many things happen. So on the real estate front, I had always looked at real estate. It's just something to make good and sure, you own because that is something that black and brown folks so often are disenfranchised up right at the front end.
So that was always number one in my mind. But my husband at the time we were dating, was renting and so he was looking to buy his first home in the US as he was looking in Wilmington, Delaware, we were shocked that houses were the price of a car in the $20,000, $25,000 neighborhood. These were good neighborhoods. They reminded me of the kind of neighborhoods that I grew up in.
Black, working class, but just good folks. So once we saw that I certainly could not look away from an investment perspective. I couldn't look away from an investor perspective, I couldn't shut up from an evangelist perspective about telling folks why this is just so important and really helping them along the way. So that's how My Smart Cousin began. And then prior to that, as a CEO on the electric utility front, I was the CEO of the electric utility in the Bahamas, Bahamas Power and Light, and I was the chief financial officer of the electric utility in Jamaica, the country of Jamaica, Jamaica Public Service Company.
So I try to pick companies that are going to be in locations that are like. And then before that, I had several executive jobs in energy companies, and electric utility companies in the southeast part of the US as well as right in the Philly Baltimore area.
04:24 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more on how you're helping your clients and how you're serving them. Could you take us through a little bit more about that and what you're doing at My Smart Cousin?
04:33 – Pam Hill
Absolutely. So how I'm helping folks, first of all, is through on-demand material that is for free that folks can access whenever they'd like. And so that is a combination of both blogs as well as video content. So if they go on our website, mysmartcousin.com that's where they'll see almost every day some new topic being addressed. So that's one way.
A second way is when someone wants something a little longer than maybe one on their 2000-word article. Now you get to an ebook also for free. So being able to see how you buy a house for the price of A car that way. And then for folks that want to hold my hand a little longer, then there's a course. So we have a few courses and those are three-hour courses. And then for folks that say, hey, how about let's turn this into a relationship, then we do one-on-one coaching. So that's how I work with folks.
05:34 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. I appreciate you sharing that. Especially the different ways that again, you meet people where they are. As you said, you know, you might want to read or watch a video or a blog, but getting that opportunity to kind of read an ebook, take a course or get that one-on-one, you know, kind of interaction again provides people not only with their temperament, but I think also too where they are in that journey, that information that they need to continue to kind of get the ball rolling.
05:59 – Pam Hill
Absolutely. And this is the kind of information that I talk about not just in terms of a potential client or actual client perspective, but also just in day-to-day. So for instance, with my tenants, I talk to them about buying their own house. I tell them, I don't want you all to keep renting, I want you to own.
And now let's figure out for those who do want to own, how you can do that. So it's been a success story where I've worked with one lady who was receiving, receiving the housing choice voucher and we were able to successfully work with the housing authority so that she was able to qualify for mortgage assistance. Housing authorities do provide. When you are persistent enough, and believe me, I am a specialist in the maxim make your problem their problem. So we were persistent in making sure that she qualified for that and now she's on the road to home ownership. So, you know, that's just what I want to see.
07:05 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And I know you had mentioned, you know when you started the black and brown people, and sometimes I usually say that, you know, a lot of times your environment becomes your reality. But if you don't see that that's possible, you don't see that that's even a route, then it doesn't become something that ends up being a reality.
So I love one, of course, the work that you do, but also, you know, how you're doing in the way you're meeting people where they are because for some people it's not even a reality. You know, their parents, their parents, parents, and so on and so forth. Generationally this has been the path and they're not even aware of other paths. So I think part step one in a lot of degrees is creating that awareness. So I Love that you've been able to do that.
07:42 – Pam Hill
Absolutely. And you know, I'm pretty transparent. So I'll also tell folks that, you know, the house that I and my husband live in is also a house for the price of a car. So we paid $35,000 for it, we bought it in 2016. So we're not talking, oh, I bet y'all got that 30 years ago. No, we got this recently and we got it. Like I said, working-class neighborhood, I guess, teachers, firefighters. It's kind of a mix of black and white. It looks.
When I watched the school bus, who got off? That's my barometer. So it looks like about half and half and it's a good solid neighborhood. The fact is, I tell people this so that they don't feel that they have failed if they don't get a six-figure house. Success is like, in my case, no mortgage. But even if you have to have a mortgage, how about a mortgage that has to do with the number of fingers on your hand, like a car loan, five years, seven years, as opposed to a whole generation, three decades, 30 years?
08:50 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think it becomes part of the, I guess normalized to have that and you don't hear the alternative and hear that there's a better way, there's an alternative way. And when you start to hear it, you're like, okay, well that makes sense. Why is it this amount or is there an alternative way? Because it just becomes a default. And a lot of times when you don't ask those questions, we don't see that other narrative, see that other option, then you don't realize that you can even take that. So I love that you've been able to kind of do that. And of course, you know, take your own medicine, so to speak.
09:19 – Pam Hill
Absolutely. Eat my own cooking.
09:21 – Gresham Harkless
There you go. That's the best thing to do. So would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? The thing you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique. It could be for yourself, personally, the business, or a combination of both. But is it that ability to eat your own cooking, to take your own medicine, is that what you feel like sets you apart?
09:36 – Pam Hill
I think so. I think so. It is that. I think a. It's the willingness to pull back the curtain. Pull back the curtain in terms of both. Talking about mistakes that I've made in my life staying very humble and staying very connected to almost my 8-year-old self. So when my parents moved into the house, the one and only house that they ever bought. You know, those kids, I'm still friends with a lot of them.
And so just staying connected to how paths diverged again, back to systemic differences. In my case, my mom, shouldn't have had to do this, but she advocated for me to be bused because the local school was not a quality school. I see that as the difference maker ever since. And as a result, I feel obligated and thrilled but obligated to do more. When you have more, you must do more. So I do think that that's what makes me different, is that not only that awareness but I'm tied into it.
10:48 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely love that. And 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?
10:59 – Pam Hill
Sure. So for me, a CEO hack is making sure that I do at least three things every day. So one is kind of writing down the momentum, the thing that I've done to kind of keep the flywheel going. Because I think that when you don't do that, and I don't mean like, hey, Pam, did you wash your dishes? Or something that you know is very mundane, but something that's germane to your business, let's write that down. I'd say a second thing to do as part of that is gratitude.
Gratitude sometimes seems a little cliche, but it's a way of reconnecting you to the thing that you have and you might not appreciate enough. And then the third thing is the proof. So maybe not every day you're going to have a proof point of the flywheel that you're generating. But as those proof points come, write them down. Because it's so easy to let life just run through your fingers. So this is a way to hold on to those moments and see them in real time.
12:03 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. I love that. And so I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your friends, favorite clients, or should I say your family. Family member, so to speak. Or it's something you might tell your younger business self. You hopped into a time machine.
12:20 – Pam Hill
Absolutely. So of course, my clients quickly become my family members because that's just how Pam Hill rolls. But I would say it's a quote. I think it's Nelson Mandela, which is “It always seems impossible until it's done”. And you know that that too is just another aspect of being human. You can't see it into reality until there it is, reality. So just keep at it one step at a time. And remember, these things are iterative.
Just the same way that having a conversation. We don't have conversations by writing down the next 20 sentences that we're going to say in response to the possible 50-sentence variations that someone else might say. We don't do it that way. It is iterative and in the moment. So allow the development of your business or of your housing journey or whatever it is that you're pursuing in this only precious life. Take that same form.
13:23 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely love that. And so I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quotes, and unquote CEOs on the show. So, Pam, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:34 – Pam Hill
What a CEO means to me is Servant Leadership, which is a book I know was written at least 20 years ago, but I really live by that principle. When you are a CEO, your job is to understand what the greater mission is of the group that you're trying to take in a direction, but then to serve them so that they can get there, as opposed to just pointing the way and saying do it. So your job is to understand what their needs are and give them those resources and take them in that direction.
So as the CEO, CEO of a large energy utility where I had as many as 1000 employees working for me, that meant one of the first things I did was demonstrate that I valued all voices. So when it came time to do the round-robin discussions with each of the groups, I started off with the janitorial staff to give the message that these voices matter and we will start with them. As a CEO now of a much smaller company, with My Smart Cousin there, the clients really are the ones who I am leading and making sure that I understand where they are, what their needs are, following their agenda.
14:59 – Gresham Harkless
Pam, truly appreciate you for, of course, providing value to us. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak. Just see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people get a whole view. Find out about the videos, blogs, courses, and all the awesome things that you're doing, and can get ahold of My Smart Cousin.
15:17- Pam Hill
Absolutely. So I encourage them to go on our site, mysmartcousin.com that's my M y smart S M a r T cousin C O u s I n.com and that's where they'll find the free ebook as well as the blogs and the videos. And then to follow us and like us or love us on Instagram as well as on Twitter. Ysmartcousin is the handle and likewise, they'll be able to sign up for our courses on mysmartcousin.com we have a free webinar coming up on Monday where they'll be able to sign up there as well on our site.
15:58 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome, awesome. And to make it even easier to like and love, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well. So Pam, thank you so much for allowing us to come to the dinner table, be part of the family, and hear about all the awesome work that you're doing and the impact that you're making. So I appreciate you so much and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:14 – Pam Hill
Have a fantastic day. Thank you again, Gresh.
16:17 – 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.
00:22 - 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 Harkless 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.
00:50 - 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 Pam Hill of My Smart Cousin. Pam, super excited to have you on the show.
00:59 - Pam Hill
Super excited to be here. Gresh, thank you very much.
01:01 - Gresham Harkless
Yes, I love everything that you've been doing and am always excited to have the opportunity to kind of feature and talk about some of those awesome things. And before we do that, of course, I want to read a little bit more about Pam so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And Pam is the founder and CEO of My Smart Cousin, is a real estate investor who owns 25 properties and 31 units, all purchased for the price of a car and in some cases a bicycle at $2,500-$35,000.
Pam began a real estate investment career 10 years ago during the Great Recession and as a side hustle while working as an executive at an electric utility company. Since then, Pam has become the smart cousin to everyone in her family with personal finance and real estate advice as well as real estate investment coaching and teaching others how to buy their first or 1st property for the price of a car.
Pam received her bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and master's degree from Harvard University. And Pam coaches her clients in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese when required. As a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Chinese Studies program in Nanjing, China, Pam, super excited to have you on the show, and now we get to have you as a Smart Cousin. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
02:10 - Pam Hill
I am. Hello, I AM CEO community.
02:14 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's make it happen then. So they kind of kick everything off. I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit. I know I touched on it, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about your CEO story. We'll let you get started with all the awesome work you're doing.
02:23 - Pam Hill
Sure, absolutely. So I founded My Smart Cousin 10 years ago, right around when the Great Recession happened. And how I got involved in real estate, as well as kind of formally advising folks was serendipitous, like so many things happen. So on the real estate front, I had always looked at real estate. It's just something to make good and sure, you own because that is something that black and brown folks so often are disenfranchised up right at the front end.
So that was always number one in my mind. But my husband at the time we were dating, was renting and so he was looking to buy his first home in the US as he was looking in Wilmington, Delaware, we were shocked that houses were the price of a car in the $20,000, $25,000 neighborhood. These were good neighborhoods. They reminded me of the kind of neighborhoods that I grew up in.
Black, working class, but just good folks. So once we saw that I certainly could not look away from an investment perspective. I couldn't look away from an investor perspective, I couldn't shut up from an evangelist perspective about telling folks why this is just so important and really helping them along the way. So that's how My Smart Cousin began. And then prior to that, as a CEO on the electric utility front, I was the CEO of the electric utility in the Bahamas, Bahamas Power and Light, and I was the chief financial officer of the electric utility in Jamaica, the country of Jamaica, Jamaica Public Service Company.
So I try to pick companies that are going to be in locations that are like. And then before that, I had several executive jobs in energy companies, and electric utility companies in the southeast part of the US as well as right in the Philly Baltimore area.
04:24 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more on how you're helping your clients and how you're serving them. Could you take us through a little bit more about that and what you're doing at My Smart Cousin?
04:33 - Pam Hill
Absolutely. So how I'm helping folks, first of all, is through on-demand material that is for free that folks can access whenever they'd like. And so that is a combination of both blogs as well as video content. So if they go on our website, mysmartcousin.com that's where they'll see almost every day some new topic being addressed. So that's one way.
A second way is when someone wants something a little longer than maybe one on their 2000-word article. Now you get to an ebook also for free. So being able to see how you buy a house for the price of A car that way. And then for folks that want to hold my hand a little longer, then there's a course. So we have a few courses and those are three-hour courses. And then for folks that say, hey, how about let's turn this into a relationship, then we do one-on-one coaching. So that's how I work with folks.
05:34 - Gresham Harkless
Nice. I appreciate you sharing that. Especially the different ways that again, you meet people where they are. As you said, you know, you might want to read or watch a video or a blog, but getting that opportunity to kind of read an ebook, take a course or get that one-on-one, you know, kind of interaction again provides people not only with their temperament, but I think also too where they are in that journey, that information that they need to continue to kind of get the ball rolling.
05:59 - Pam Hill
Absolutely. And this is the kind of information that I talk about not just in terms of a potential client or actual client perspective, but also just in day-to-day. So for instance, with my tenants, I talk to them about buying their own house. I tell them, I don't want you all to keep renting, I want you to own.
And now let's figure out for those who do want to own, how you can do that. So it's been a success story where I've worked with one lady who was receiving, receiving the housing choice voucher and we were able to successfully work with the housing authority so that she was able to qualify for mortgage assistance. Housing authorities do provide. When you are persistent enough, and believe me, I am a specialist in the maxim make your problem their problem. So we were persistent in making sure that she qualified for that and now she's on the road to home ownership. So, you know, that's just what I want to see.
07:05 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And I know you had mentioned, you know when you started the black and brown people, and sometimes I usually say that, you know, a lot of times your environment becomes your reality. But if you don't see that that's possible, you don't see that that's even a route, then it doesn't become something that ends up being a reality.
So I love one, of course, the work that you do, but also, you know, how you're doing in the way you're meeting people where they are because for some people it's not even a reality. You know, their parents, their parents, parents, and so on and so forth. Generationally this has been the path and they're not even aware of other paths. So I think part step one in a lot of degrees is creating that awareness. So I Love that you've been able to do that.
07:42 - Pam Hill
Absolutely. And you know, I'm pretty transparent. So I'll also tell folks that, you know, the house that I and my husband live in is also a house for the price of a car. So we paid $35,000 for it, we bought it in 2016. So we're not talking, oh, I bet y'all got that 30 years ago. No, we got this recently and we got it. Like I said, working-class neighborhood, I guess, teachers, firefighters. It's kind of a mix of black and white. It looks.
When I watched the school bus, who got off? That's my barometer. So it looks like about half and half and it's a good solid neighborhood. The fact is, I tell people this so that they don't feel that they have failed if they don't get a six-figure house. Success is like, in my case, no mortgage. But even if you have to have a mortgage, how about a mortgage that has to do with the number of fingers on your hand, like a car loan, five years, seven years, as opposed to a whole generation, three decades, 30 years?
08:50 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think it becomes part of the, I guess normalized to have that and you don't hear the alternative and hear that there's a better way, there's an alternative way. And when you start to hear it, you're like, okay, well that makes sense. Why is it this amount or is there an alternative way? Because it just becomes a default. And a lot of times when you don't ask those questions, we don't see that other narrative, see that other option, then you don't realize that you can even take that. So I love that you've been able to kind of do that. And of course, you know, take your own medicine, so to speak.
09:19 - Pam Hill
Absolutely. Eat my own cooking.
09:21 - Gresham Harkless
There you go. That's the best thing to do. So would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? The thing you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique. It could be for yourself, personally, the business, or a combination of both. But is it that ability to eat your own cooking, to take your own medicine, is that what you feel like sets you apart?
09:36 - Pam Hill
I think so. I think so. It is that. I think a. It's the willingness to pull back the curtain. Pull back the curtain in terms of both. Talking about mistakes that I've made in my life staying very humble and staying very connected to almost my 8-year-old self. So when my parents moved into the house, the one and only house that they ever bought. You know, those kids, I'm still friends with a lot of them.
And so just staying connected to how paths diverged again, back to systemic differences. In my case, my mom, shouldn't have had to do this, but she advocated for me to be bused because the local school was not a quality school. I see that as the difference maker ever since. And as a result, I feel obligated and thrilled but obligated to do more. When you have more, you must do more. So I do think that that's what makes me different, is that not only that awareness but I'm tied into it.
10:48 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely love that. And 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?
10:59 - Pam Hill
Sure. So for me, a CEO hack is making sure that I do at least three things every day. So one is kind of writing down the momentum, the thing that I've done to kind of keep the flywheel going. Because I think that when you don't do that, and I don't mean like, hey, Pam, did you wash your dishes? Or something that you know is very mundane, but something that's germane to your business, let's write that down. I'd say a second thing to do as part of that is gratitude.
Gratitude sometimes seems a little cliche, but it's a way of reconnecting you to the thing that you have and you might not appreciate enough. And then the third thing is the proof. So maybe not every day you're going to have a proof point of the flywheel that you're generating. But as those proof points come, write them down. Because it's so easy to let life just run through your fingers. So this is a way to hold on to those moments and see them in real time.
12:03 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely. I love that. And so I want to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your friends, favorite clients, or should I say your family. Family member, so to speak. Or it's something you might tell your younger business self. You hopped into a time machine.
12:20 - Pam Hill
Absolutely. So of course, my clients quickly become my family members because that's just how Pam Hill rolls. But I would say it's a quote. I think it's Nelson Mandela, which is "It always seems impossible until it's done". And you know that that too is just another aspect of being human. You can't see it into reality until there it is, reality. So just keep at it one step at a time. And remember, these things are iterative.
Just the same way that having a conversation. We don't have conversations by writing down the next 20 sentences that we're going to say in response to the possible 50-sentence variations that someone else might say. We don't do it that way. It is iterative and in the moment. So allow the development of your business or of your housing journey or whatever it is that you're pursuing in this only precious life. Take that same form.
13:23 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely love that. And so I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quotes, and unquote CEOs on the show. So, Pam, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:34 - Pam Hill
What a CEO means to me is Servant Leadership, which is a book I know was written at least 20 years ago, but I really live by that principle. When you are a CEO, your job is to understand what the greater mission is of the group that you're trying to take in a direction, but then to serve them so that they can get there, as opposed to just pointing the way and saying do it. So your job is to understand what their needs are and give them those resources and take them in that direction.
So as the CEO, CEO of a large energy utility where I had as many as 1000 employees working for me, that meant one of the first things I did was demonstrate that I valued all voices. So when it came time to do the round-robin discussions with each of the groups, I started off with the janitorial staff to give the message that these voices matter and we will start with them. As a CEO now of a much smaller company, with My Smart Cousin there, the clients really are the ones who I am leading and making sure that I understand where they are, what their needs are, following their agenda.
14:59 - Gresham Harkless
Pam, truly appreciate you for, of course, providing value to us. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak. Just see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people get a whole view. Find out about the videos, blogs, courses, and all the awesome things that you're doing, and can get ahold of My Smart Cousin.
15:17- Pam Hill
Absolutely. So I encourage them to go on our site, mysmartcousin.com that's my M y smart S M a r T cousin C O u s I n.com and that's where they'll find the free ebook as well as the blogs and the videos. And then to follow us and like us or love us on Instagram as well as on Twitter. Ysmartcousin is the handle and likewise, they'll be able to sign up for our courses on mysmartcousin.com we have a free webinar coming up on Monday where they'll be able to sign up there as well on our site.
15:58 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome, awesome. And to make it even easier to like and love, we'll have the links and information in the show notes as well. So Pam, thank you so much for allowing us to come to the dinner table, be part of the family, and hear about all the awesome work that you're doing and the impact that you're making. So I appreciate you so much and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:14 - Pam Hill
Have a fantastic day. Thank you again, Gresh.
16:17 - 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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