Welcome to the everyday p.m. podcast, the podcast. Where we discuss project management principles for your everyday life. My name is Ann campea and I'm a certified project. / program manager, having worked across several different Industries, including Tech marketing consumer goods. Retail Healthcare, you name it. I probably worked in that industry. Reba for, I am so excited to welcome Michelle. Who is our very special guests on this podcast.
She is an award-winning inclusive marketing consultant with line 25 Consulting. The creator of be inclusive, @d, e. I card game, which we will be talking about in this week's episode and the founder of the African American Marketing Association. So Michelle, I know that you are new to our audience and you and I had kind of just connected recently as well. So for those who have not met you yet, please take a brief moment to introduce. Yourself.
Yeah, thanks for having me. So Michelle go met based in Houston Texas and I have a background in corporate finance and digital marketing. I've had my company's since 2013, but the past four years, I've been focusing on diversity marketing or inclusive marketing. So, I've been doing a lot of speaking training and Consulting with companies around that and 2019. I started the African American Marketing Association.
Just to help black marketers with job business opportunities, providing resources for their careers and it's kind of like, all of my work gets intermingled and having these conversations about diversity and it's like, okay it's a sensitive topic. But how can we make it fun and engaging other than a PowerPoint which kind of led me into the be inclusive cards? So that's me in a nutshell. Well, Welcome to the podcast. Michelle, our episode is going to be spotlighting you and the
incredible work you have done. I love that. You used the word intermingled in terms of the career. In all the intersections that have kind of come together to where you are at today. And I know for our audience, you know, there are some project managers, there are some who are not, we're just kind of interested in the field or in the industry who are also kind of in that hunt for well how do I be a p.m.? But also take my love for, I don't know, gaming as well as you know.
I'm really good at doing Accounting like how do I throw that all together? And it sounds like at least in your professional Journey that you have come to a point in your career where it's all kind of intermingled. Like you said, it's all kind of all your expertise or coming together in such a beautiful way. Would you say that's the case for you? Oh absolutely. I think naturally. I've always been a Visionary. I've always been a leader and a planner, right? And I'm one of those people.
I feel like you just need to have a good plan. It doesn't have to be. The 50 or 75 page, business plan, or a marketing plan. But if you have a good three page, five pages plan, and you're able to execute or share that with your team and execute by all means go with it, right? But I think as I've gone older guys, some more education it's like okay how do I compact these skills?
How do I make them transferable? And then the past couple of years, how do I learn And Frameworks that I can apply as well as creating my other Frameworks excuse me, as well as creating Frameworks that I can share with my clients as well.
So, it's been an interesting journey and you've done it in such a way that I was obviously very impressed with not just your background, but what you have become or what you've been able to create as you kind of grown into your own career and where you find yourself today is, you've taken all these ideas that you've In your professional journey and they've kind of culminated to now something very tangible.
And I know that a lot of folks, they have ideas, they think oh while I'm stuck in my day-to-day, how do I have these like creative ideas that I've had in my head for so long that can kind of start to bring these Concepts together and make them something a little bit more tangible? And you're able to do that which I'm so impressed by in terms of the you took you took an idea which right now is just should be top. Of mine for every organization.
Right? Which is this idea of diversity and inclusion and and Equity across everybody. That works at your organization and you've brought that together in a in a way that is actually in a gamified way. I would say right like the gamification of what you're able to do with this concept and I know for folks that are not having been introduced to the product that we should probably talk about first of all, first of all, the idea and kind of what led to the creation of the inclusive.
Of this Tei card game. But also just kind of like the Journey of that like from idea to conception to now having this in customers hands which is incredible. So Michelle why don't you get us started? Where do you want to start with walking us through that Journey? Yeah, I think overall, I was just doing my work, right? Just regular Consulting going into companies from all sizes.
Based off of people, right? Not necessarily Revenue because it's been for profit nonprofit and what I would do, I would have one-on-one conversations with the leaders and I'm okay. What are you concerned about personally, as well as collectively with your company? And then what are some of those challenges, right? And I think a lot of us are willing to learn but we don't want to look stupid when were willing to learn, right? We don't want to say the wrong
thing. Yeah, we're trying to get under Ending. So I think it was just an accumulation of all of my clients, right? All of these conversations from leadership to the person that just walked in the door three weeks ago. And here we are in the middle of work remotely and social justice. And you know, in this case the black experience or whatever the case may be, and I told my assistant I'm like let's come up with about 20 questions.
So we can create a quiz on my website, as a landing page, and then people kind of can gauge on what their diversity is. Sure that was the initial idea and then I was going to read, we through those and probably use about 10 questions. And he came back with, I think 179 questions. Oh my goodness. Exactly. So I'm reading through the questions and that's when the light bulb went off, that's when the aha moment occurred. Third and I'm like, I can create a card game and it's like I can
create more work for myself. Well, don't we all? Oh yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, absolutely. So so that's really what it was. And then so now my objective changes, right? So we go from 10 quiz, landing page to, we need a physical product like that. That's a big adjustment when you think about the objective and the planning and all that kind of stuff because you can go online and maybe get some quiz software for free. If it's under 10 questions.
But if it's more than that you know, now you got to pay five to ten dollars a month which is nothing versus putting in thousands of dollars into a product. Yeah. So it's like, okay, do I really want to do this? And I was like, I do because it's different and one thing I really haven't shared with people, I was also thinking about writing a book. Hmm. So it's like and I've done that before was like, do I write a book or do I create Cards.
And I really had to think about my time and my finances and I went with the cards because I just felt like it was more different. Yeah. I was thinking about, you know, how do you set yourself apart from your competitors? And I felt like the cars was it? So I just got to work, we did through the questions, came up with a hundred questions hired. An editor for grammar, went to my graphic designer to design the cards.
All of the packaging And and then while they were doing that, I was trying to find a manufacturer and then it's like, okay, made in America versus China. Particularly trying to figure all of that, which is a new learning curve for me, and I settled with a vendor and Florida. I just thought it was better for a couple of different reasons. I'm requesting test samples. I'm paying for these Samples. Yeah, for the actual cards, as well as the boxes to put the cards in.
So this is the actual deck, but if you order the set, you get a bigger box. Uh-huh. So just, you know, reaching out to different vendors getting privacy and getting samples. And then I technically, I finished everything and then I sat down for six months.
Oh, wow, this is expensive. So you got to so so to break this down because you know, there's that we we do have some listeners who have been in the kind of the creative space who have Paris project managed a product from concept to all the way to a tangible product on the Shelf. It's a lot of work. You said that yourself, you said when you said had that, aha moment, let me create this card
game. Instead of writing a book or doing a landing page, which we all know, Landing page becomes kind of that first option for everybody because it's quick, it's kind of, it's efficient, it's not that expensive and then you've got a place to point people to. So again, you going back to your decision to go with the card route, there were all of these steps that you just outline.
And so, if you're a p.m. that's project managing a product, it's not just you, you have to consider that and Michelle is, what Michelle is saying, is she did all the steps on her own, which I think is just mind-blowing to me that you not only wrote all of the cards you had to hire somebody to edit it. You had to understand the concept of like the design of the packaging and of the cards in the materials and go through sourcing and hire vendors, get test product.
Look at the quality of it, that's like a 15-person job. Normally and Michelle. You did that all on your own which again is incredible. So, I think so, you get to this point. Now if I'm if I'm hearing the journey here, you pause for a second. You are you at kind of the Prototype, or is this ready to be kind of mass? Manufactured at that point, that you took the break. Yes. So I definitely have, I have the Prototype and so, now, I'm kind of talking to people, I'm bragging.
I'm trying to show people my stuff and everyone's like, oh, you should change this, you should change this. And I know people mean well, but what they don't. Stand is changes costs money. Yeah and that has a solopreneur yeah that is very difficult like I'm not apple and yes exactly Chase or whatever the case may be and it was just one of those things where everyone has something to say good or bad and
it can get overwhelming. And I just I was just too close to it and one of those people like you can't read inside the label, right? Yeah. And Is what happens when you're the leader. And I just had to take a step back for a moment and I have some other business things that were going on which was really good. But when I came back, I came back refreshed and it was more of self-assurance. I'm like, this is the product. This is what it is.
We're going to put it out there and we can always do revisions at a later time, right? And then I think once I have that confidence Other ideas started to flow, the feedback was a little bit better. I did an online beta group. I did it in person beta group, so it's more of a okay. How do I take all of these suggestions, put them in the bank and just be mindful of them at a later date.
But, yeah. So we had a soft launch from October to December 2020 to which, you know, those early adopters got the, I guess the Price the lowest price. They participated in the focus groups and then we did a full launch January, 20 23, amazing. And that, and then, how did you feel? I guess when it was finally launched into the general public, I feel good. Another. Another hang up is the inventory. Yeah, right.
So, even though, because during my soft launch people were ordering and Part of it was my budget. Well, let me back up. So, when I made the first order of the cards, I think, March, 20, 22, I was okay, right. So by the time I came back, I already had my budget and everything. I wanted to make another order. And like, september/october, they went up on the price. Of course, they, oh, wait, what year was this just want to hear? Okay, got it. Yeah, but it was six months.
Got it, I don't know what up, they went up on the price and then they went up on the quantity, the minimum quantity. So I'm like, oh my God, I got to go recap a break at. These are all things that are very, very unexpected, right? Product development, even just in the last year, there was so many curve balls that were thrown at people. In terms of supply chain issues. How do we procure the actual
material to create the product? Your lead time, if you were manufacturing, I know you manufactured in. America. But if you're a Mac Manufacturing in China or somewhere else that lead time to get your product over was infinitely extended, because now you've got multiple companies competing for the same cargo that has the come over on a ship over to America.
So there's this like all these things that you had a factor in that I'm sure Michelle. When you were putting more work on yourself to create this very, very exciting and very needed product. By the way that those are all mean I heard change requests. Her change management. Therefore, the for those that are p.m. in any type of product right now, I'm also hearing additional costs that people tend to forget are associated with any types of those changes.
There's also minimum quantities. That, it sounds like you had to adhere to so I'm sure your first batch had to be a certain amount of product and then now we're now to your second batch which you're saying is now cost of Supply gone up and moq has gone up. Okay awesome. Okay, I'm following him. Here we go. So that's so then. What happened with the second
batch here. A place to order, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do. Especially, I guess as a marketer, I'm already kind of promoting and teasing. And you know, people are inquiring and and I probably lost some customers, right? Because on my website, I was saying there was a six week time period because another Factor the holidays. So I've made I placed an order. I think, right before Thanksgiving.
And then within that six week period, you already have Christmas New Year's people are taking off. So, it's going to take at least a minimum of four weeks for me to get my order. And then, I'm adding an additional two weeks for you to get the product. Right? And and this Amazon Society, people are not trying to wait, six weeks? Yeah, yeah. That's very true at thanks. Just kind of were now trained to expect to order a product and have it either same day or next day?
Yeah, that's yeah. I was like I'll pass no. I mean, I don't know. Who knows, right. But I kind of had that feeling about what a challenge. Yeah. Absolutely. But I think people that really know me that were in my network. They were understanding and supportive, but I do kind of feel like if someone just saw the product for the Sami and the product for the first time and they went to my website, they
Oddly past, you know? So I had to learn to place one, big order pretty much so I can have inventory, actually. A good example. Good story is, some a gentleman based in New York called me. I'll say November 1st and he's like, I just saw your post. I think this is great. I want to order 15 decks and I literally had Two decks on me. And this was my company, culture deck and I was like sir, I only
have one deck. As I said, I am going out of town tomorrow to present a workshop with the cards so that was one of the decks. Hmm. And I said, if you place the order today, I can know that
dick to you. Wow. I think, you know, and and companies look, I know you're a solopreneur like you said, but even the bigger companies, the, I never understood forecasting and I, maybe I won't, I will never, because that's just not my background as a p.m. and often as a p.m. what we get hit with is having to figure out the balance of supply versus demand, right at towards the tail end. Of delivery of the product. Whereas, up front, you know, that's such a challenging thing, I think.
Yeah, I think it's like Wizardry sometimes to be able to predict how many of this product is the customer going to want and you have to get as accurate as possible to that at least that initial batch of orders that's going to come in. So that way you understand, what is the flow of product after
that? And so I imagine for you, Michelle, that was challenging to have to tell the customer like hey, who wants It's 15 Dex. I only got one, but if you can hang on, for whatever a few weeks that we could get you some more like, yeah, that's that's timeless. It was heartbreaking because, you know, that speaks that cash flow kind of similar to the forecasting and supply and demand and even prior to that, I wasn't even ordering them.
Many I would probably order five to ten decks at a time and now you have this one person within four weeks of Being available and they were like, I want 15 decks one for each location as I all mad like that, literally, I was on the plane just with the broken heart. Yeah, that's so tough. Gosh. So but you know, it happens but I think it's one of those things where that's what I was hoping that's what I was expecting. I just didn't think it was going to happen so soon. Right.
Yeah, it's e and and it looked at in that way a little bit more positive light is kind of the validation of like, hey people want my product? There's Thing about it that people are wanting and they want multiple copies of it to share across the organization, which I think is incredible. So I think so now we've got the product I would do want to spend a little bit more time on, just kind of the topic of the eye because I know that it has existed forever.
Like look don't get me wrong D. I should have been a topic of conversation across all organizations forever, right? But I think in the last I don't know. What would you say Michelle handful of years? It's Really become kind of the it has risen as a top priority for a lot of organizations in terms of making sure that they have a real focus on D EI. Yeah, and I always say, you know, DIYs it's a really tricky and sensitive topic.
And obviously there's been a lot of emphasis, a lot of training and Consulting and Powerpoints. And usually, you have the presenter telling you all of the things that you should be doing you and your company, what you should be doing. Right? And the way I look at it is we all have experience when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. And I think anyone can do this work and my thing with the car and says, how can we facilitate
conversation? How can everyone bring their perspective to the group and whether it's black white, red blue men, women non-binary religion, culture and sexuality. All of these facts is going to the workplace or decision-making and like even when I'm doing the workshops, I'm learning myself because there's someone that is 10 15 years older than me, that has A New Perspective. There's someone that seven years younger than me, that has a totally different perspective.
So, one deck is on diversity and that's centered around, you know, all things diversity. How does ageism affect the workplace? What we talked about in her Section ality, you know, the especially as women the multi facet of women of color when they enter in the workplace. We talk about pay as well. Like which job would you take and then with the company culture deck, we spend a lot of time on hiring retention as well as leadership. Like, do you understand your company's?
You're not just your company's goals, but your employees goes sure, right? Like how do you manage? How do you lead your team and it gets kind of tricky sometimes because you know leaders don't always like to do it Workshop or training with their employees. But I do think these are pivotal questions that we should at least ask and answer ourselves whether you're with someone or not.
And I, yeah, agreed. And I do think that just like the idea of doing it in this fashion in a kind of a game game format. Oops, people create the space, you know, give the space or take the space as needed to have these what you said could potentially be very sensitive conversations and people don't know how to bring it up, or people don't know if they have the space to share how they're really feeling and have that be okay.
And I think you're right, I think there's also organizations where the D EI activities are separated in terms of. You've got your leadership team, doing it in a pod. And then you've got the rest of the Tactical teams doing it in a pod and they don't connect and in such a way that the I feel like the whole point of this is, everyone's played a card game right in your life, doesn't matter. Young old. I'm sure you've picked up a deck
of cards. You've either stack them to build a tower or you've actually played like poker or something else. Right? So already this is creating Equity because everybody like tangibly knows like Hey, I've held a card before, right? And then to bring the leaders of the organization together with kind of those that are doing the Tactical day-to-day work, you create that Equitable environment already.
You have something familiar in terms of a card game and then it's just a matter of. I like this idea of being in that setting holding one of the cards. And then having and I'm Michelle, please walk us through how you typically would do a workshop.
But if I had this in my And I use this with my team, I would just maybe have everybody have a card and be able to kind of sit there with the card and what the question is and kind of just have everybody have equal time to go around and ask the question and kind of give their responses. But I do believe that in this way. This, this alone just the idea of this will help a company gain better insight into not just company culture, but you know what? The perspectives are D on, D EI
so I'd love to hear more. In terms of how you've worked with companies on that. Yeah, so one thing we have a consultation I'm like okay well what do we want to focus on, right? Because there are two decks so we can focus on one deck or we can mix the cards together. It also depends on how many people will participate if there's more than 10 people will create many breakout groups. So other like three to three to five people per group and then
they'll get through 24 cards. And then I'll give people about 30 to 40 minutes, 32 L 30 to 40 minutes to discuss the cars amongst her team members after that, we'll spend the last 20 to 30 minutes on just sharing insights going around the room. What was your question? What did y'all talk about? What was the most popular question? It's interesting because people will get carried away. It's like we're back in school and fell. I got the microphone I want to share. Yeah. Things, right?
So that's one way to do it. I think one thing that has really blown me away and my first Workshop, I don't remember which question but they literally came up with an idea and went back went back to the office and created a whole strategy. That's right. And that's the thing is also about sparking ideas. Planning brainstorming ice breakers is not meant for you to go through all 50 cars in one session. Session. But let's take these 10 to 20 cards, divide and conquer, or before a meeting.
Okay, what are we going to talk about today? Does this card fall in line with the agenda, the topics that we're going to discuss today and it kind of gets you going. So it's very flexible and it's been fascinating just getting the feedback on how I can leave a company and then how they continue to use it and ideas are happening. And strategies are being created. That's amazing. I love the kind of the follow-through of that, which I didn't even consider, right?
So it's like you're having your conversations facilitated maybe with Michelle doing a workshop but the takeaway that's incredible. So you've seen that quite a bit with organizations to kind of go through the exercise and then actually have a plant. That's so incredible. It's amazing. And I've done stuff. I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago. So now you have a very diverse audience because these people
are not working together, right? But then they can take stuff that they did at the conference and then actually go back to work or, you know, they'll support me in different ways. So it's been a good journey. It's been a very good journey in the past couple of months and you said a lot of surprises to it sounds like things that you didn't expect to come out of these that you're seeing as well.
I definitely have ideas for more decks because once again, diversity is Broad, but I think there is a sweet spot like if I created a deck, Nick only focused on neurodiversity or people with disabilities, lgbtq leadership by itself and maybe not 50 questions. But 15 to 25 questions that really focus on these Niche, categories to get the conversation going in a different direction as well. I love that, I love that so much.
And for those that are actually watching this interview, I we've obviously been kind of flashing the outside of the packaging of the deck, but Here's kind of one of the cards, so I'll show you. And for those that are listening on the podcast, please, we'll have a links to Michelle socials and everything so you can actually check out the product, but it's it's just beautiful.
I mean, I just the quality of it as well and I love the fact that again, I'm very much like I have like a fidget thing that they use, so I can imagine if, and when we use this for my team, what we would do is you know, have somebody, hold it. So that It's just like, it's almost like something tangible that you can kind of hold and and that card then becomes
yours. And then that topic you're much more invested in because now this is your card and you are kind of championing the conversation around that.
I mean I just everything about this is speaks to just the the from from what we covered in the beginning of the podcast, in terms of just having innovative ideas and that can come from anywhere, right, you Lea Michele were the head of project manager plus 50 other hats to get the product even created and then just to see kind of the outcome of it and what you're seeing in terms of the conversations and and Company culture, and that
sort of thing that just this idea that may have created more work for you, but I think it's creating more positive work for organizations to have those real conversations around the EI and asking the right questions. And I think that's a big thing too. Is often times people don't. Know what to even ask to have the right conversations and I think Michelle you've done that for us, you've kind of done the legwork for us, which is great. Thank you so much.
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a labor of love and I'm just trying to as I move the positive agenda forward. Now, how can we have fun in the process? Yeah, and exactly of kind of changed the tone around this idea of the eye because a lot of people probably their first thought. About it, it's like oh it's scary or it's uncomfortable or it's a very sensitive and tough and complex questions that I have to answer, but it doesn't
have to be that way. And again, I think you do that, you, you nail it with the fact that you present it in this in this form and this fashion. So Michelle, I think for those that are interested, will make sure that they have access to, where they can see more of the product, but you yourself, in terms of your line of work are also a consultant in this space.
So I want to make sure that if people want to continue the conversation with you, they also know where to find you outside of just looking for the be inclusive. D EI game. Yes, thank you. So, yes, if you go to be inclusive, the card game, you can get the details there and you can use code project for $50 off for all of the listeners. But yeah, I'm easy to find.
Michelle last name in Gom me. That's my website as well as LinkedIn. And I just love talking about inclusive marketing, diversity equity and inclusion. It's just one of those things that we could. If we open up, we can all learn from each other in the process. And I understand we're in different spaces within our journey. But there's so much to learn because every day something is changing. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it sounds like you've got a lot of great work ahead of you.
You're able to kind of execute on some of those other products that you're thinking about as well, which would generate a lot, a lot more conversations across organizations that I think are absolutely absolutely necessary and even project managers who are listening, you can grab one of these decks and utilize that to kind of enhance your experience with your own
project teams. I think there's just so many facets of how this can be executed and Michelle if folks want to actually engage with You because it sounds like part of your work is also to consult for some organizations on how to even just get started. Is that also a service you offer alongside selling the product? Yes. Yes. I do General consultations as short and long-term, as well as facilitating workshops, which can be in person. Our virtual.
Awesome, awesome. Well, I have had the tremendous honor of meeting you twice now and having this conversation ation with you and I hope that there will be plenty more of these along the, you know, down the line. I'm I also hope that as a p.m., you know, if you're listening to this podcast and maybe if you're not a p.m. that there's an opportunity for you to also step into the space as well, D EI doesn't have to be led by just you know an industry leader or
consultant. You can be a part of that actually be a champion or a part of that conversation as well because you're working with people across the organization to so definitely feel empowered to do that. So That will do it for Michelle. And I and this installment of the everyday p.m. podcast I know Michelle you plugged your website. Can people also find you on LinkedIn? Or is there any other
connections there? Yes, LinkedIn is definitely the preferred platform, feel free to connect and shoot me a message. Awesome. And I am also on LinkedIn if you want to connect with me, but I definitely implore you to continue the conversation with Michelle on this topic and to learn more about the inclusive. So support the everyday p.m. podcast while You're at it, give us a five star review, we are available on all the podcasts and platforms just search for the everyday p.m. Spotify.
Anchor Apple podcast, Google Play, you name it. The every everyday p.m. will be there. You can watch the video version of this where you can see the actual product, you can kind of look at the cards and then that sort of thing as well. You can watch this video on my YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash and campea. While you're there, take a moment to like this video, leave a comment, click the Bell. All for notifications of when new content goes up and subscribe to the Channel.
All right, thanks so much for joining us and until next time, take care.