After a long hiatus, ElevatePolk is back. In this relaunch episode, Chrissanne Long and Dan Thumberg pull back the curtain on how the podcast started, why it went quiet, and why now feels like the right time to bring it back. They talk honestly about growth, frustration, big vision, entrepreneurship, and what has changed in Polk County since the original show. This is a real conversation about what it means to build something, lose momentum, and come back with a clearer purpose. If you care about small business, entrepreneurship, economic development, and the future of Polk County, this is where the new chapter begins.
After a long hiatus, ElevatePolk is back.
In this relaunch episode, Chrissanne Long and Dan Thumberg pull back the curtain on how the podcast started, why it went quiet, and why now feels like the right time to bring it back. They talk honestly about growth, frustration, big vision, entrepreneurship, and what has changed in Polk County since the original show.
This is a real conversation about what it means to build something, lose momentum, and come back with a clearer purpose. If you care about small business, entrepreneurship, economic development, and the future of Polk County, this is where the new chapter begins.
Resources Mentioned During this Episode:
It's 3PM - Dan's newly launched consultancy
Central Florida Business Expo - Taking place on September 29 & 30 at the RP Funding Center
Dan Thumberg: [00:00:00] Look Chrissanne, everything's gonna be fine. We're going to wing it. We're gonna be awesome.
Chrissanne Long: I'm good at winging it.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah.
Chrissanne Long: Okay. I don't have a problem with
Dan Thumberg: the wing. It's, it's, it's only been a couple years. You'll get back in the groove.
Dan Thumberg: I just wanna read something. Okay.
Dan Thumberg: Hey idea. Want to help me revive the Elevate Polk podcast? Wanna be my co-host? Let's do it.
Chrissanne Long: That's it.
Dan Thumberg: So we're doing it.
Chrissanne Long: We're doing it.
Dan Thumberg: All right. I got some notes. Do you read
Chrissanne Long: the rest?
Dan Thumberg: No, I'm not gonna read the rest. I mean, look, you already posted the, the thing on, on the social medias. I mean, they know what it is, you know?
Dan Thumberg: Yeah.
Chrissanne Long: But the part about my studio,
Dan Thumberg: yeah. So that was, that was a fun one, you know? Um. My AV production goes back to like 1996 King High School. Shout out class of 98. Mm-hmm. Um, and that really is all I have for AV production, so I am like a straight up newbie when it comes to producing podcast. So if the audio and the video are horrible, [00:01:00] we'll work on it.
Dan Thumberg: I apologize for that.
Chrissanne Long: That's all right. It's better than it was 'cause it was silent and completely dead. About three days ago.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, we're good.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah. We're gonna do
Dan Thumberg: this. Can, can you hear yourself?
Chrissanne Long: I can hear myself
Dan Thumberg: in here.
Chrissanne Long: Can you hear me?
Dan Thumberg: You know, I can't, and so we'll figure that out.
Chrissanne Long: Maybe I can't hear me. Maybe I can just hear me because I'm in my own ears, but maybe not through the headphones.
Dan Thumberg: Go ahead.
Chrissanne Long: Um.
Dan Thumberg: Try it again.
Chrissanne Long: There we go. There
Dan Thumberg: go. We just gotta turn these little buttons here.
Chrissanne Long: There's lots of buttons.
Dan Thumberg: There we go. All right. Does that sound better?
Chrissanne Long: Yeah.
Dan Thumberg: Oh my God, that does sound so much better. Yeah, it's amazing when you get things set right. All right, well
Chrissanne Long: it was you just talking to yourself before
Dan Thumberg: it really was.
Dan Thumberg: Alright, so, um, so that was probably the recording line in too, so let's go ahead and start over again. Ready. All right, Chrissanne, I wanna go ahead and start off and, um, read [00:02:00] something. Hey, idea, wanna help me revive the Elevate Polk Podcast? Wanna be my co-host? Let's do it. So, yeah, we can, we can go ahead, we can talk about the other stuff too.
Dan Thumberg: But you know about how the studio was, studio wasn't a mess. It looked like, uh, a bomb went off into
Chrissanne Long: lots of bombs.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah. There was just stuff everywhere. It was, it was kind of crazy.
Chrissanne Long: It's, it's so much more organized now.
Dan Thumberg: Well, I mean, it's pretty, it,
Chrissanne Long: it is
Dan Thumberg: know. I mean, it only took, I mean, what a day
Chrissanne Long: I have come into the studio.
Chrissanne Long: At least 30 times with the desire to start this podcast back up over the last however many years it's been since we last recorded and yeah.
Dan Thumberg: Do you remember when that was?
Chrissanne Long: No, four years.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah, it was, uh, I think it was October, 2021.
Chrissanne Long: Does that include my time with Nate?
Dan Thumberg: Yeah.
Chrissanne Long: Okay. See, I think it, yeah, we went through the pod.
Chrissanne Long: We went through the [00:03:00] co, we went through the pandemic.
Dan Thumberg: Mm-hmm.
Chrissanne Long: And then Nate moved on to being great. Mm-hmm. Because he is great. 'cause that's what I used to call him Nate, the Great, um, Mike and Mike's desserts became his full-time focus. And so the podcast became his no time focus.
Dan Thumberg: I mean, I get it, you know, uh, a lot was changing, you know?
Dan Thumberg: Um, man, 2021. You know, we are coming outta the pandemic or we are still kind of somewhat in the throes of it, trying to, you know, come into some kind of normalcy and, you know, you look at where we are today compared to then, and we're in a completely new realm, and so, mm-hmm. I think a lot of people, you know, they're gonna get this popup in their podcast app and go, what is this?
Dan Thumberg: I still subscribe to Elevate Polk and you know, I haven't seen an episode in four and a half years.
Chrissanne Long: Did I miss something?
Dan Thumberg: Right. Um, you know, the, the world has changed. The world had changed. Yeah. The world was changing and now it's changed [00:04:00] again and it's like four and a half years. Feels like a, a couple of decades.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah. When we were getting ready, you were asking me like. Some questions. What's changed? Why did we stop? I think for me, the, the answer to the question is like, the surface level is momentum, right? Mm-hmm. Like that's an easy answer. Like, okay, Nate moved on. That's cool. No. You know, no real like. Thought about what I was gonna do after that and, and no confidence maybe to do it by myself.
Chrissanne Long: Um, it's kind of boring to talk to myself. I, I don't, maybe that's what it was. It was more boredom. But then, like I said, I've walked into this studio so many different times with this, like, all right, I'm gonna do this. I don't care. I've just need to keep. Keep the conversation going and just couldn't, didn't, don't know why, but why.
Chrissanne Long: I'm wanting to continue the conversation. I think we'll get to as we go through this.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah, I, I think we've got, we got a lot to talk about. I got a lot to talk about. [00:05:00] Um,
Chrissanne Long: well, who are.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah, so we haven't really introduced, I mean, everybody know who's knows who you are, and even though you forgot I've actually been on this podcast before, I was, I was lucky it was like, didn't
Chrissanne Long: forget
Dan Thumberg: I was one of the last guests to be on the podcast too.
Chrissanne Long: So, so for those of you that don't know. We have never really recorded. We actually, no, this is our very first video recorded podcast.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah.
Chrissanne Long: So it was strictly an audio podcast before, um, a little history for those that haven't been listening and are wondering what the heck this is all about and what we're talking about.
Chrissanne Long: Four and a half years ago, um, Rob Arturi was the originator of the Elevate Polk Podcast. He was my co-host. And he spent a year trying to convince me that we should do a podcast together. And I maintained for a very long time that nobody wanted to hear what I had to say, and there was no reason for me to start a podcast.
Chrissanne Long: So eventually he broke me down and. He had this studio, like you can't really see all of it, but [00:06:00] he had this, he had custom built this studio into his own office at the time, and um, I think we just re recorded the majority of all of our episodes there together. Um, and then he moved on and he moved on to work with LRH and do some new things.
Chrissanne Long: And he says he's kind of like. My text message to you, Hey, you want the podcast booth in your office? And I'm like, well, yeah, but I don't know how the heck I'm going to get it here if it's even gonna fit. So where we are right now used to actually be my office and I gave up my office so that we could have this podcast booth here.
Chrissanne Long: So that's kind of cool. So shout out to Rob for cajoling me and staying on it and con convincing me that I had something to say. Um, we had a little. We had a lot of fun together. And, um, now your, your legacy lives on as I'm now less worried about whether people wanna hear what I have to say. And just really ready to just talk about the things that are [00:07:00] important to me.
Dan Thumberg: Your legacy lives on. It's like we need All right, go ahead. Cue the Titanic music, you know?
Chrissanne Long: Yeah.
Dan Thumberg: We need to introduce ourselves.
Chrissanne Long: Yes.
Dan Thumberg: Let's do it. Um, I'm gonna let you introduce me. I'm gonna introduce you. We're gonna completely screw it up. And then we can go ahead and correct each other about that.
Chrissanne Long: Well, I don't know that I'm gonna screw it up.
Chrissanne Long: I really think I know you.
Dan Thumberg: Oh, I don't think you know the whole story, my dear.
Chrissanne Long: Oh, okay. Go ahead. Well, I am gonna start with how I met you. Which was at the downtown Lakeland Farmer's Market when you were doing home brew supplies. Yep. And I think now I understand what you were doing, which was more market research than
Dan Thumberg: literal market research.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like. This guy's cool. He wants to sell home brew supplies. That's really neat. And then you started talking about, I wanna open a brewery. And I think at the time there was already a brewery.
Dan Thumberg: There was, yeah.
Chrissanne Long: And I'm like, how do we need, what? Do we need? Two breweries? No,
Dan Thumberg: we [00:08:00] didn't.
Chrissanne Long: And yet here we are.
Chrissanne Long: So you. Initially as the person that I now know as Dan Thumberg, were the beer guy.
Dan Thumberg: Mm-hmm.
Chrissanne Long: But I also know you as this person now that is a lot more systems interested. Systems experienced.
Dan Thumberg: Sure.
Chrissanne Long: Systems. Knowledgeable.
Dan Thumberg: I'm a process guy.
Chrissanne Long: You're a process guy. Yeah. All right. We'll use that word processes instead of systems.
Chrissanne Long: Um, and I don't know that I would, and, uh, because we had show notes, I don't know that I would've mentioned its3pm but since it's in the show notes, I'm gonna say that so that I don't embarrass myself and say, oh, she's gonna forget. 'cause No, you have been working really hard on. Kind of reinventing the way the rest of the world sees you because everyone sees you as the beer guy.
Chrissanne Long: So I don't really know what to say about its3pm. That's alright. Is it, is it 3:00 PM
Dan Thumberg: Yeah, we'll get there.
Chrissanne Long: Okay. It's not 3:00 PM
Dan Thumberg: Not yet. No. It's 11:38 AM Yes. On a Thursday.
Chrissanne Long: But, um, [00:09:00] so Dan is just a really great human being. First of all. I love being around great human beings. I love around, I love being around deep thinkers.
Chrissanne Long: So I will introduce you as a deep thinker and someone that I can come to with deep thoughts and ideas and deep thoughts with. What's his name from Saturday Night Live? Oh, uh,
Dan Thumberg: something handy.
Chrissanne Long: Jack Handy. Jack Handy. Um, I can, you just
Dan Thumberg: showed our age,
Chrissanne Long: by the way. I, I don't, if you don't know who Jack Handy is, you should Google it or.
Chrissanne Long: Claude it. Is that a verb now?
Dan Thumberg: No, I think it's chat. GPTI think is what most people are using.
Chrissanne Long: I am also using, I know that I wanted to try and be cool like you and use Claude as my reference. Oh yeah. I don't use
Dan Thumberg: Claude. That's okay.
Chrissanne Long: Um, but what was I saying?
Dan Thumberg: Jack handy. Deep thoughts, deep thinkers.
Chrissanne Long: It's deep thoughts with Dan, so I can ask questions and I don't just get a, hey, that school response, I get a deeper response.
Chrissanne Long: I get somebody who's, who's thoughtful and takes the time to, to, to consider where I'm coming [00:10:00] from. And I think that's really what's most important and really ultimately to me, why you're the perfect co-host for me to continue the. Conversation with the Elevate Polk podcast.
Dan Thumberg: You know, I, I, I appreciate that.
Dan Thumberg: Um, we'll, we'll answer some of those. Um,
Chrissanne Long: okay.
Dan Thumberg: The, and this is Chrissanne Ann Long in, in case nobody's, I don't know if you've been living in a closet for the last 15 years and have not been around Polk County. Everybody knows who Chrissanne Ann is. Uh, maximize digital media, bridge local, um, just in and about town into everything you've got.
Dan Thumberg: Um, you know, you got your big expo coming up, um, in September over the RP funding Center. Yep. We're gonna go ahead and plug that one.
Chrissanne Long: Mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: Um, I know that you are a graduate of Free Shoe University.
Chrissanne Long: No, I'm not. Florida State University.
Dan Thumberg: Oh, Florida State. I said Free Shoe University. Wrong. Wrong. Oh wow.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah, I won't hold that against you.
Dan Thumberg: Well go Gators.
Chrissanne Long: Go. No,
Dan Thumberg: see, this is gonna be a perfect dynamic. [00:11:00] It's the idealist and the realist. The Florida State versus Florida.
Chrissanne Long: Ah. Ah. I'm an idealistic. Yeah. 'cause I'm a Florida State fan.
Dan Thumberg: No, I think, I think just because of who you are in, how you see the world. You know, you see the world for how it should be.
Dan Thumberg: And you, I, I think in, in all the years that I've known you, that that is the one thing that I always just take away. It's like, you know, I have not necessarily a pessimistic view, uh, of what goes on, but I, you know, I, and I. I think we've had many conversations about this, but I always ask the why, why? You know, and it's the five why questions.
Dan Thumberg: Right? You know, I, I like to be more of the realistic side. I like to understand not just the greatness and where we are, but how we got there and how we can sit there and replicate it. Right? But you are always just forward looking no matter what obstacles get in your way. It's just an opportunity for you to learn and I, I just love that idealism about you.
Dan Thumberg: [00:12:00] Me, I tend to kind of regress into a pessimistic side and get very, very angry about things. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and I don't know that I've actually ever seen you super. Like really angry. I know it happens. It does, but you, you hold it in very, very well. I don't have the ability to do that.
Chrissanne Long: You should just talk to Craig.
Chrissanne Long: He can tell you.
Dan Thumberg: We'll find out from you, Craig. Um, so if you don't know who Chrissanne Ann is, uh, go ahead, listen to this 60 something odd episodes. Um, get yourself caught up. You'll, you'll understand and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Um. Uh, I will try to slowly introduce myself to you as we go along.
Dan Thumberg: Um, kind of just a couple of things. My background. Yeah. I am the beer guy. I mean, that's kind of how everybody, if you know me, that's probably, you know, where you know me from is we've had a beer at, uh, Swan Brewing or, you know, down at the farmer's market many, many years ago when I was literally doing market research.
Dan Thumberg: Uh, but my background, yeah, I, I graduated, uh, later in life. From the University [00:13:00] of Florida, I actually started right outta high school at the University of South Florida. I thought I was gonna be the world's greatest mechanical engineer. Um, calculus four told me that I was not in fact going to be the world's greatest, uh, mechanical engineer.
Dan Thumberg: Um,
Chrissanne Long: I, on the other hand knew I would never be anything close to any kind of engineer because I couldn't even pa pass college algebra. So we'll talk about that another time. But just so you know, like that's how far on the spectrum. We are,
Dan Thumberg: you know, I, but I think that we, we are a little bit closer than you think because I didn't, I ended up not going down that route because as much as I like being, uh, analytical and I love being process oriented, uh, I think we both have that business mindset.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah.
Dan Thumberg: You know, and, and the business mindset is what we're gonna focus on. And I think that, you know, that's already what you were focusing on in the, in the previous episodes, but I think because everything has changed, we can change a little bit too. You know, the, it's Elevate Polk, and the idea is [00:14:00] that we want to be able to elevate the businesses and the ideas and the great things that are happening in and around our community.
Dan Thumberg: Yep. Not only that, but you know, practice the whole rising tides, you know, lifts all ships. Mm-hmm. Um, and I, you know, preparing for this, I went back and I listened to so many, uh, of the old episodes and just listening to the great stories. You know, the humanity that's out there, the people's reason or Riz Deis.
Dan Thumberg: You know, why, why they do with a throw fancy French words out there. It's for my wife, by the way. Shout out
Chrissanne Long: to Maggie.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah. Um, but you, you know, to, to be able to hear that and to be able to have, um, a show that is focused just on Polk County is really what we need. You know, every, everybody can go and get all of their national news wherever they wanna get their national news.
Dan Thumberg: But we've had, um, kind of a shrinking of our local. News diet around here. We put our local news diet on Ozempic.
Chrissanne Long: Well, and that I think to go back to the origin story of Elevate Polk [00:15:00] podcast. When podcast, when podcasts were. Not everyone had one, right? Mm-hmm. It was a unique way to tell a story and looking at the canvas of the community, there weren't, there were a couple of Lakeland centric podcasts.
Chrissanne Long: Um, I don't know that there are still very many at all in Polk County, but the, the, the desire that I had when Rob and I were dreaming about what we would do, um, was really, truly to try and. Um, expand my focus and my presence outside of Lakeland with a digital conversation mm-hmm. Around more than just Lakeland and I, my heart comes from, I'm a product of Polk County Public Schools.
Chrissanne Long: I grew up here. I love Polk County. I love the people that I grew up around and I love, um, coming home after going, having gone to college and just, I never really had a desire to go anywhere else. Mm-hmm. I mean, I've traveled the world, I've done a lot of things, but I've never really thought. Hmm, no, I think I'm gonna move to Atlanta.
Chrissanne Long: Uh, I'm gonna move to here or there, or [00:16:00] Tampa, Orlando, or anything. It's just like Polk County is who I am and I wanna elevate that. I want people, I want us to stop. Talking about ourselves in a derogatory way. And I think the only way we can do that is to also change the way we think about ourselves. And that's kind of where the Elevate Polk podcast desire to elevate the conversation, but obviously on a, on a trajectory towards economic development and business.
Chrissanne Long: And I think that's where the, where my lane is, you know, and I want the difference between you as a co-host and Nate and Rob. Is that you have a season now at this point in time in your life, you have a seasoned experience as an entrepreneur and a business as a startup, and going through all of those steps in, in a retail fashion, um, which I feel like really balances some of my idealism with the realism of brick and mortar.
Dan Thumberg: I, I was your demo. Yeah, I was the one that the podcast was for.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah, exactly.
Dan Thumberg: You know, um, [00:17:00] I. You are really good at elevator pitches. You know, it's,
Chrissanne Long: oh,
Dan Thumberg: thanks. You know, it was just real, just when I was listening to it, it's like, you know what? What is this about? And you succinctly summed it up in like 30, 45 seconds.
Chrissanne Long: Nice.
Dan Thumberg: Thanks. You know, I have been struggling with that.
Chrissanne Long: How'd you get to the like. 33rd floor, as long as the elevator's tall enough. I've got, I've got good elevator pitches.
Dan Thumberg: I, I, I've been struggling with that for the last, you know, week or so, or ever since, you know, it was like, Hey da, because we really threw this together in like, less than a week.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah,
Dan Thumberg: yeah. Um, you know, it's like, okay, well what, what is this? What is this going to be now? Why is this relevant? And I mean, that's, you just summed it up, you know, we have some stuff to talk about. We have things that not a lot of people are talking about. We all see the. The problems and the opportunities.
Dan Thumberg: Mm-hmm. But that conversation is happening between a couple of people. It's not happening Right. To a greater audience. Right. And it's not the ability to share that conversation is not there. [00:18:00]
Chrissanne Long: Yep.
Dan Thumberg: So, I, I think that this is, this is, this is going to be good. We're gonna have guests right.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah, we're gonna have guests.
Chrissanne Long: Of
Dan Thumberg: course, we're gonna have guests because we're like full on in the digital world now. We're video, we're running the, the programs over here on our computers. We're gonna be on the YouTubes, the ticky talkies, all that. The things, all the, on
Chrissanne Long: the interwebs,
Dan Thumberg: the interwebs, all the, the fun stuff the kids are in.
Dan Thumberg: But we have a, we have a, a lot more stories to talk about. There are a lot of things that have happened in the last four and a half years. There are businesses that have been open, businesses have been closed, people that have gone on to do great things, people that are no longer with us. And, and I think that, you know, we need to be able to tell those stories.
Dan Thumberg: We need to be able to talk about it. We need to be able to talk about the struggles that we're having, whether it's internally within our own businesses or process perspective. Are there things that we need to push for changes in.
Chrissanne Long: Right. And I'm, I have a hard time with that.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah.
Chrissanne Long: I, I don't always see everything as rainbows and unicorns.
Chrissanne Long: I know. [00:19:00] I do get frustrated, I get discouraged. Um, and that was the challenge I think, of trying to do this podcast alone or not having the right person, the right mix. I think we're a good frick and frack, you know, like we're just, we're opposite enough, but same enough that we can really have some really good conversations.
Chrissanne Long: Um, but you're going to, and I'm, I'm encouraging you. To not let me get away with the easy stuff. You're gonna dig a little deeper and not let me get away with stuff. Um, and I feel like sometimes my, my macro view, my, my big picture view sometimes gets concerned with how people are gonna receive. What's really going on in my mind, right?
Chrissanne Long: Like sometimes I just, I have these thoughts going on in my mind and I just thought like, Nope, nope. Your, your mother always says, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. And, and I'm on this podcast now of thinking, how am I gonna say some of the things that I need to say? And I hope that we can unwrap them.
Chrissanne Long: I hope that we can say them in a [00:20:00] way that isn't offensive, but I also feel like that discouraging frustration that I feel have, I've had for a long time. Is relevant and it's relatable and it's real, and it's a lot of people struggling with the same feelings and not really necessarily knowing how to handle that.
Chrissanne Long: And my desire from an entrepreneurial perspective is, man, this place is a mess. And I don't wanna leave it a mess. I wanna leave it better than I found it. And I really just think that that's the direction that I want this conver, these conversations to take.
Dan Thumberg: It's, it's the, our opportunity to do something about it.
Dan Thumberg: These private conversations that we have, we can sit there and complain and complain all day long. This is our opportunity to actually make something happen. Yep. If enough people are gonna listen, we can make things happen. Yeah. But it, it needs to be an elevated voice to be able to get the people in charge, the people, the decision makers to make those changes.
Chrissanne Long: Right. And to not offend. [00:21:00] But to look at continuous improvement as a shared vision, a shared goal, right? If we all understand that we can always be better. There's never a hundred percent Yeah. We're always at, even if we're at 99.9%, well we can get that 0.1% better, right? Um, and I think that that's the challenge is like when we share our frustration, sometimes they're not productive ways that we're sharing our frustrations and they're not maybe the right time or in the right scenario.
Chrissanne Long: And maybe there's no solution. It's just we need to be heard. And maybe this just needs to be cataloged and documented so that when the time is right that it can be pulled back off the shelf and say, we need to revisit that conversation. Mm-hmm. We weren't ready for it, but now we are. Let's see how we can create a solution.
Chrissanne Long: Because I remember when you were. Doing some stuff with, well, I remember conversations with you and multiple other retail brick and mortar people who were opening their businesses and struggling with some of the bureaucratic challenges [00:22:00] that are, are real. Mm-hmm. Like that's just a real true problem that some people have to go through.
Chrissanne Long: Not that all of it is. You know, one sided versus, you know, one side is the problem and the other side is, you know, perfect. But I remember listening to those conversations that we would have and go, well, what's the solution?
Dan Thumberg: Yep.
Chrissanne Long: Right. And it's like at the, the solution isn't raging against the machine. It doesn't solve the problem.
Dan Thumberg: I really like it.
Chrissanne Long: It does feel good, but does it fix anything? And on, and the other question then for me is always, okay, if we fix this for Dan, or if we fix this for John or Steve or Mark or Mary. What about all the other people later that aren't going to have it fixed? Mm-hmm. And that to me is where, that's what, where, where I get most discouraged and frustrated because I don't really feel like it's as important that we just fix it for you as if, as if, as we change the process or the system for the people coming behind you.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah. I, I mean, but that's, that honestly is what we have been doing. We've been making exceptions.
Chrissanne Long: Mm. [00:23:00]
Dan Thumberg: You know, and we'll go into talking about the exceptions. But it's time to stop with the exceptions.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah.
Dan Thumberg: You know, there needs to be barriers to entry. People need to have skin in the game, and whether that's bureaucratic skin in the game, monetarily, whatever the case may be, that's what being a small business owner is, is that fear.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah.
Dan Thumberg: You know, being able to leverage that fear though. Mm-hmm. For greatness. Mm-hmm. There, there's a difference between having skin in the game and having some barriers to entry and there being absolute roadblocks.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah, 100%.
Dan Thumberg: And where we operate right now, within certain environments, there are just dead ends.
Dan Thumberg: There are roadblocks. They're not barriers to entry.
Chrissanne Long: Right.
Dan Thumberg: The normal person who does not have a large sum of cash behind them or a significant amount of influence cannot get past them.
Chrissanne Long: Right.
Dan Thumberg: And those. Are the systematic [00:24:00] inequities that we need to tackle?
Chrissanne Long: Absolutely. And if we're, if I'm being honest about where my discouraged, where I feel discouraged is that there's no one wanting to have a conversation at that level.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah. There's no one really willing to listen and go, Hmm. I never really thought about it that way.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah.
Chrissanne Long: I describe it a lot as the, the leadership in the community has never run businesses. Mm-hmm. Never hired people.
Dan Thumberg: Right.
Chrissanne Long: In the. Business world, right? Never had to stay up late and wonder, am I gonna be able to make payroll?
Chrissanne Long: Where can I borrow some money to get this covered? What do I need to do to get from here to there? Um, the, the, the things that keep us up at night, right? Um, those are different things. Everyone has things that keep them up at night, but the things that keep us up at night are very shared in our common challenges, but not shared in the space where people can help make change happen,
Dan Thumberg: right?
Chrissanne Long: We can only at this point in time, rage against the machine. We wanna create a way for that to become a productive [00:25:00] process change that we can see. Improvement upon, right? Mm-hmm. Continuous improvement. It doesn't have to be, Hey, we're gonna do this all tomorrow.
Dan Thumberg: Right?
Chrissanne Long: It's just, is there a pathway where we can see a better future and,
Dan Thumberg: and what can we do that's not gonna cost a ton of money?
Chrissanne Long: Right.
Dan Thumberg: You know, that that was always the thing, you know, in, in the multiple businesses that I've had at this point is we try to do as much as we can with as little as possible. Right. You know, we resources are finite. You know, whether it's the resources you need to build your goods or it's money, or whatever the case may be, resources.
Dan Thumberg: Resources are finite. And that's the great thing about small business owners is they are really, really, really efficient with their resources. Mm-hmm. They have to be.
Chrissanne Long: We can get along with a little,
Dan Thumberg: we can get along, we can get a
Chrissanne Long: long way with a little,
Dan Thumberg: with very little. Um, and, and how do we translate that for someone who has never been in that position, who has an unlimited budget, who has a giant pocketbook?
Chrissanne Long: Well, let's be clear. No one has an unlimited budget. They just [00:26:00] have a different management process for that budget.
Dan Thumberg: Fair.
Chrissanne Long: Okay. Yeah. I don't, I, 'cause I don't wanna misrepresent the realities for people who may be listening to this and wondering what's Chrissanne going on about? Let me listen to this podcast.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah. And no one has an unlimited budget. We all have d. Priorities and where we wanna focus those priorities is where our money usually goes. And we might have more money in the budget for things that are our priorities. But right now, in the general sense of Polk County entrepreneurship, small business resourcing, supporting the, the, the, the ecosystem is not a priority of any budget that I have seen.
Dan Thumberg: No, I, and I pour through, uh, well at least the Lakeland budget.
Chrissanne Long: Yes.
Dan Thumberg: I, you know, uh. Yeah. Good, bad, or indifferent. That is, that is one of my hobbies.
Chrissanne Long: And it's, it's a priorities game. I mean, it's a, that's a conversation, so I don't wanna diminish the priorities because everything is a [00:27:00] priority, right? It depends on who you're talking to.
Chrissanne Long: Like somebody else has a podcast about social services and somebody else has a podcast about other things that are important and matter to them, right? Mm-hmm. So this to me, for me, is elevating Polk doesn't mean de diminishing things to make other things rise. I also think, um, I've not really.
Chrissanne Long: Articulated this. So this may come out weird, but I also think that, um, we don't that because it's business and because it's capitalism and it's because it, and because we are out to make money, um, people look at it as a selfish. Endeavor. Mm-hmm. That we're, you're going into business for selfish reasons and some people do maybe, um, I don't know that we did.
Chrissanne Long: I think we really both feel that we wanna leave the world a better place and what we can bring to the table are the gifts that we've been given. Right? And so these are the things that we can do. And we just like, oh, if I leave this here, this might make this space cooler than it was before I got here.
Chrissanne Long: And people are gonna come to this place and they're gonna say, oh man, [00:28:00] whoever did this, that's really cool. Right? Along the way, we survive. We make a little bit of money. We can support our families, we can put food on the table, but I feel like there's this really, um, inaccurate, pers, uh, perspective about business that I would love for us to deep dive and explore on some of the episodes ahead.
Dan Thumberg: Uh, yeah, I, I, I. I, I wanted to make some money, but I, you know, I, how much was never, like, I, I, you know, I never said, oh, I wanna get into business and become, you know, the next multimillionaire. I mean, I'm wearing an Apple Watch, not a Rolex, you know, I drive a Volkswagen.
Chrissanne Long: Mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: You know, it's there, there's nothing glamorous about being a small business owner.
Dan Thumberg: You know, it's, it. I if I, I once tried to calculate what my actual per hour rate was.
Chrissanne Long: That's a good exercise.
Dan Thumberg: No, it's not a good [00:29:00] exercise. I, I don't, it's not
Chrissanne Long: a good, the results are not good.
Dan Thumberg: Don't ever do that. It's like I, you know, I would've, I. I made more money at my first job.
Chrissanne Long: Oh my gosh. Yeah, absolutely.
Dan Thumberg: You know, than, uh, from a per hour perspective and, you know, but working that hard did allow me to, it allows me to, to, to be able to provide something to my family. Thank God my wife is a lot more successful than I am.
Chrissanne Long: Yep.
Dan Thumberg: Um, but. You know, I, I don't know that I ever got into anything that I've ever done to, you know, be super rich or super wealthy.
Dan Thumberg: Capitalism just is. That's, that's how we operate. Mm-hmm. That is, you know, that is our, that is our operating system. That is, that's our modus operandi. Mm-hmm. Um, but, but aside from, from that. Small businesses are the backbone of our society.
Chrissanne Long: Mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: You know, when you talk about how are we going to get people employed and keep people employed and to grow along with the massive growth that [00:30:00] we've seen in the last couple of years in Polk County, big businesses, big corporate businesses are going towards automation.
Dan Thumberg: Right. They're going towards having less people physically work for them. We'll get into ai, we'll get into all of this other stuff,
right.
Dan Thumberg: Small businesses are the ones that are actually putting the butts in seats and actually paying the real paychecks to the real people.
Chrissanne Long: Right?
Dan Thumberg: You know, they are the mom and pops.
Dan Thumberg: They are the people that live next door to you. Those are the people that are gonna go trick or treating with your kids up and down your street.
Chrissanne Long: And, and there's a lot of nuance
Dan Thumberg: Yeah.
Chrissanne Long: To jobs and there's a lot of nuance to the importance of jobs. And so when I started down this very deep, painful rabbit hole that I'm in, I started to discover so many, so many things that I was like, okay, that's working really, really well.
Chrissanne Long: But right over here, just adjacent to that [00:31:00] conversation, this isn't working as well. Yeah. And I found the biggest gap was between the kind of the solopreneur, the sole proprietor, the, the non employer firm, as they call it, an economic development. So the person who starts a consultancy and doesn't hire anybody, this, they just create a job for themselves.
Chrissanne Long: That's totally cool. And I love, I love that world. And then there's the. Two to nine. The two to nine jobs. Employer firms that are scalable to a, to a degree, right? Like these are service businesses. These are, you know, your, your trades jobs and your different. Different industries that have multiple employees.
Chrissanne Long: And then when they scale, if they're able to scale to a larger, larger level, then they get into the world of departments. They have a, an HR department, and they have a finance department, and they have a, an accounts payable person and accounts receivable persons, you know, they have different dad dedicated people for tasks.
Dan Thumberg: Alright, Chrissanne, let's, uh, let's talk about why now.
Chrissanne Long: [00:32:00] Why now? Um, man, I was sitting at the Dream Center about two weeks ago in the morning, very early breakfast, listening to city manager Sean Rouse sharing his presentation on all of the great growth that Lakeland AKA Polk County is experiencing.
Chrissanne Long: And I think that's my why now. I think there's a lot of change coming. It's already here, but it's, it's just the beginning. We're still at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what all of that growth is going to mean and how it's going to impact us. A lot of people are focused on infrastructure. A lot of people are focused on, you know, what are we gonna do as far as housing and home, you know, and affordable housing.
Chrissanne Long: There's just so many layers of complexity coming with that growth, and I think the why now is. I don't want small businesses to be forgotten in the mix. That to me, as we grow, priorities are going to continue to be where they are. And there has still yet to be a prioritization of small business and entrepreneurship in Polk.
Chrissanne Long: And that's why Now for me,
Dan Thumberg: what about you? I, [00:33:00] I think it's more important now than ever, you know, we. Uh, there have been some, especially in, in at least the beer business for me, there have been monumental shifts in customer demand and kind of what the demographics look like, and so. I think now is the important time to start talking to our younger potential entrepreneurs.
Chrissanne Long: Yes.
Dan Thumberg: Um, it's my, my son
Chrissanne Long: Charlie.
Dan Thumberg: Charlie is, uh, he goes to school here in town and he,
Chrissanne Long: he's loving FBLA. Right.
Dan Thumberg: They are building their own mock business in school right now. That's now. I have tried to have these conversations with them over the last week. What are you guys into, you know, is this gonna be a service business?
Dan Thumberg: Mm-hmm. Are you guys gonna sell goods? You know, are you gonna do something else? Is this,
Chrissanne Long: yeah.
Dan Thumberg: And I understand that they're, you know, 11, 12 years old and have no idea, but it's over a week and the three of them can't even come together on [00:34:00] what they're going to do.
Chrissanne Long: Oh
Dan Thumberg: man. So I think there needs to be some education for our younger people coming outta high school.
Dan Thumberg: Mm-hmm. In college. Unsure what they're going to do. Understand that entrepreneurship and building small businesses, solopreneur, doing something on a greater scale, whatever it is, is possible and e. It is good to have a business degree, right? It absolutely is gonna help you understand, you know, all of your different formulas and things that you're gonna need, and things you need to watch out for.
Dan Thumberg: But I think having someone to connect to and relate to and understand and hear their stories
Chrissanne Long: right,
Dan Thumberg: is more important than anything else.
Chrissanne Long: So I am. Um, part of, so we plugged the Central Florida Business Expo
Dan Thumberg: mm-hmm.
Chrissanne Long: Earlier where in year three, um, we have, we have decided to make one of the, well, the, the sole beneficiary of proceeds.
Chrissanne Long: We have a 20% proceeds of the expo go back to junior achievement in Polk County. And through the conversations that I've had, because I am also, my history is I was a [00:35:00] teacher for 10 years. We did, well maybe we'll talk about being a teacher in Polk County. Um, but. The experience that I've had this last six or eight months as a coach at 10 Rock High School, going in and coaching their entrepreneurial program.
Chrissanne Long: So the FBLA starts them in the 11, 11-year-old, 12-year-old, and then that continues. If they are at 10 Rock, they get the Junior Achievement 3D, three three DE Academy. Um, and it's just, it's the same thing. They're 11 and 12, or they're 16, 17, and they still are struggling. But the beauty of that experience, so here's my idealistic approach to it, right?
Chrissanne Long: It could be frustrating, but it could also be exciting because they're exposed to conversations that I was never exposed to. I grew up with a dad who was an entrepreneur and we never even imagined that Chrissanne Ann would be one, right? Like he's right there in my house. I'm, my first job was just a paycheck at Long's Gift Shop.
Chrissanne Long: You know, the only job that I had until I got to college and that. [00:36:00] Never became a thing. No one said, Hey, Chrissanne, what if you could start a business? What would you start a business doing? And never, right? These kids are having those conversations and struggling through the pain of ideation and figuring out how to identify what the problem is that they're going to solve, and the importance of having a problem that you're going to solve so that you're not spinning your wheels and trying to figure out how to start a business and not having a problem that you even have even thought about addressing yet.
Chrissanne Long: So that's exciting. I think that that's. That is an important conversation. I've been saying a lot lately that um, there are, there used to be traditionally three tracks out of high school, go to college, get a job, or go to a trade.
Dan Thumberg: Yep.
Chrissanne Long: Right? There's a fourth track.
Dan Thumberg: Absolutely.
Chrissanne Long: And that fourth track is straight outta high school.
Chrissanne Long: You can start a business
Dan Thumberg: 100%.
Chrissanne Long: And there's no reason that they can't except for. I think societally, culturally, we don't embrace that concept. You know? Oh, they, they've gotta grow a little bit before they can, you know, do any of these things. They need to learn a little bit [00:37:00] more. Hey, you kids get off my lawn.
Chrissanne Long: You know, all of that attitude that we, we grew up with. Yeah. And therefore we never thought it was possible, but now we know better and we saw how that diminished us as kids. So we don't wanna do that to these kids, to this generation. And so there are maybe, maybe the percentages aren't like. Skyrocketing.
Chrissanne Long: But if there's 10, 15% of kids that could come out of school with enough experience through these classes and through mentorship and through coaching and through other things, that they could just go right in and start a job, I mean, and start a business. Wow. Yeah. That would be huge.
Dan Thumberg: It, it would absolutely be huge.
Dan Thumberg: We, our population's not gonna stop growing. I think at some point they've calculated, we'll, we'll peak or whatever. We're not anywhere close to there. We have all of these new. Things that are taking over jobs.
Chrissanne Long: Right. Threatening, threatening,
Dan Thumberg: threatening jobs. Mm-hmm. The traditional life path of going to school, getting that [00:38:00] advanced degree.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah. Going to work for that big company. You know, the
Chrissanne Long: Jetsons are here.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah. The Jetsons are here. You know, the trades. The trades are still gonna be there, you know? Absolutely. You guys are, you guys are good. Continue to go to trade school. 100%, but going and getting, you know, so far in debt. That you can never climb outta that hole.
Dan Thumberg: Mm-hmm. Just to hopefully be able to sit there at a desk for 60 hours a week to make somebody else money that's going away.
Chrissanne Long: Mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: The automations are coming for it. Mm-hmm. And it's fast.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah.
Dan Thumberg: Real fast.
Chrissanne Long: It's so fast.
Dan Thumberg: But being able to go and take a little bit of money, you can start a business with a hundred dollars.
Chrissanne Long: Mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: And going and doing it for yourself, building it from the ground up,
Chrissanne Long: right.
Dan Thumberg: Whether it's on Main Street or the internet, it really doesn't matter,
Chrissanne Long: right?
Dan Thumberg: That job is not going to get automated. You can choose to automate it if you want.
Chrissanne Long: Mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: But that's on you, you know? Yep. I think that [00:39:00] that is going to be so important for what we do here.
Dan Thumberg: If, if, if, just to give a little bit more light to be able to give a little bit more information to those students. I, I would, if there's one takeaway that I could have from, from this whole experience here, that would be it. I, I would love to be able to say, you know what, maybe we helped one person, two people start a new business, a younger person, start a new business.
Dan Thumberg: I think that would be awesome.
Chrissanne Long: You know what, you know what other wins I like to, to think about. I would also like us to be able to talk somebody out of starting a new business.
Dan Thumberg: You know, that's not my favorite thing to do.
Chrissanne Long: No,
Dan Thumberg: but,
Chrissanne Long: but it's a necessary thing to do sometimes and I think there's sometimes that feeling, I am not, again, I'm not always rainbows and unicorns when it comes to somebody who has a good solid business idea and has the work ethic and has all of the things kind of in an organized ish.
Chrissanne Long: You don't have to be completely organized, but enough. Of the grit. Mm-hmm. Obviously the grit is gonna, to me [00:40:00] always trump anything else because you can, you can pivot once you've started, you can move in in multiple directions, but if the organizational ideas aren't there, or the willingness to put yourself out there, isn't there, or if there's too much fear there and you're just saying, oh, you know, maybe I, you, you know, Chrissanne Ann need to have that Elevate Polk podcast.
Chrissanne Long: I'd like to start a business. Well. What are you gonna do? Yeah. I wanna talk you out of it. If it's not necessarily the right thing for you. I don't want you to lose, I don't want you to blow your retirement on a job or on a, on a business that isn't gonna work. Right. And then that's not the goal. Yeah.
Chrissanne Long: Right. The goal isn't everyone who can fog a mirror can start a business. That's not what I think we're, we're even here to. To talk about. So yes, I wanna encourage people, I wanna help people get organized with their thoughts. I want to, I wanna, I want to empower and, and give people the confidence that, yeah, you could start a business with a hundred dollars and it's going to take a lot of work.
Dan Thumberg: 100%. Yeah, exactly. Put [00:41:00] an asterisk texts to that. You can start a business for a hundred dollars, it's gonna dig a lot of work. Mm-hmm. It's a lot easier to start with a whole bunch of money.
Chrissanne Long: And you're gonna lose that a hundred
Dan Thumberg: dollars. Oh, 100%. Yeah. You know, fast. Very, very fast. But. All right. Let's go ahead.
Dan Thumberg: Uh, let's, let's talk a little bit about going forward. Okay. Maybe give a few teasers about some things that we want to talk about. I know I sent you this topic, which I think is prescient and we should talk about pretty quick. Polk County. Has been growing leaps and bounds since the last show in 2021. Yep.
Dan Thumberg: Um, you know, at one point I think we were the second fastest growing county in the entire United States.
Chrissanne Long: Yes.
Dan Thumberg: And our infrastructure, both actual physical infrastructure and the infrastructure available to get new entrepreneurs up and going has lagged behind. But not only that. The [00:42:00] ones who are going to come in and start new businesses have been leaving.
Chrissanne Long: Yep.
Dan Thumberg: And I don't know that we have an answer for that right now. This is a question that I have been asking since I moved to Polk County. Mm-hmm. In, uh, early 2013. This is a wonderful place to raise a family. Is it a great place to stay after you graduate college? Yeah. And I don't know that that answer is yes right now, but I think we need to look into it.
Chrissanne Long: I definitely think we need to look into it. I think it goes back for me, conversational, um, memory is when Howard Wiggs was running for mayor and one of the things that he said is, we don't want our greatest export to be our talent.
Dan Thumberg: Yep.
Chrissanne Long: And I think that we have addressed it in some ways. I think we're. Um, parts of Polk County and, and, but yet we don't, we we're not performing.
Chrissanne Long: In unison, in any capacity in that. In that sense, it's, it's a [00:43:00] dog eat dog kind of world. Mm-hmm. And I think that that turns people away. It turns me away. And I know, I've learned that if I'm, I'm not the only one. I mean, I'm pretty special and I'm pretty unique, but I'm not, I have never come up with an idea and gone to like GoDaddy and found a domain that hadn't already been taken.
Chrissanne Long: Right.
Dan Thumberg: Yep.
Chrissanne Long: That's my litmus test. When I have an idea that's like. Then I'm like, it's a crappy idea. It's already been taken. Because some we're just, I remember in, um, literature class at like the 10th grade, my literature teacher said Shakespeare took all of the ideas. So don't worry about anything being unique.
Chrissanne Long: Right. So that's the, the, the idea I'd realize that I'm not the only one if I have this feeling, someone else probably does too. Now the question of market research and all the other things that we need to do is to, to test that theory. Um, but I, I do believe we have to see. Ourselves through change. And I don't know necessarily what that looks like, but I believe that we've, we've, we've got a lot of work to do in that department.[00:44:00]
Dan Thumberg: Yeah, I 100%. Let's save it for another episode.
Chrissanne Long: Yep.
Dan Thumberg: Let's go ahead and talk about maximize digital media because we are our only sponsors right now, if
Chrissanne Long: you, well, the, the main sponsor from my perspective is the Central Florida business expert, central
Dan Thumberg: Florida business
Chrissanne Long: expert. I really wanna talk about what's happening, where we're going with that.
Chrissanne Long: Um, we are launch, we have just launched the Early Bird special for exhibitors and sponsors. Um, and we expect to have a. Packed expo hall like we did last year. We sold out the expo hall last year. Um, we will have, um, a leadership development day, so it's not just an expo hall, but there's gonna be some really great content and some ex excellent speakers, keynotes and otherwise breakout sessions.
Chrissanne Long: Um, the central Florida, the taste of Central Florida will be back and everybody loves that. That was like the food court and everybody gets to, to try different foods from different businesses in, in Polk County. Um, so that's, that's what I'm. Really [00:45:00] focusing on right now,
Dan Thumberg: but so for anybody who's never been who or who didn't go last year, what is it?
Chrissanne Long: It is a full day. Of, of a, a combination of leadership conference and trade show. So you think about your trade shows for, I don't know, there's probably beer trade shows.
Dan Thumberg: Oh yeah.
Chrissanne Long: And you go and you learn all about all of the different things that you can do to bring back to your brewery or whatever. This is a business to business trade show.
Chrissanne Long: So you can go in and learn all of the things that you can take back to your business from business. Possible, um, vendors, but also just new ideas and new opportunities that you can take back to your business as well as a business focused leadership development day in person. Not, not simulcast, not, you know, somebody being recorded and a video being shown, like real leaders having real conversations.
Chrissanne Long: And this year's cen, we're centering that on, on Polk conversations. So people who are known in the community who have really [00:46:00] made a way for themselves and have a story to tell.
Dan Thumberg: You've got vendor spots still open.
We
Chrissanne Long: have vendor
Dan Thumberg: spots. You wanna get in? Yep. Yep. And you've got the presale going on. Yes. Just kicked it off.
Dan Thumberg: Okay. Uh, where can people go to check it out? We'll go ahead and put the links in all the
Chrissanne Long: Yes,
you
Dan Thumberg: know, socials and all that good stuff.
Chrissanne Long: So the website is C-F-L-B-E, so C central Florida. The L is extra. 'cause CFBE wasn't there so we had to improvise. So C-F-L-B-E is the domain and we are at CBE on Instagram.
Chrissanne Long: I don't think we have TikTok. I don't have anything to say on TikTok
Dan Thumberg: yet. I don't know about TikTok.
Chrissanne Long: Um, Facebook and on LinkedIn.
Dan Thumberg: Fantastic. Um, I am going to be there.
Chrissanne Long: Yes, you are.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah. I, I think
Chrissanne Long: we might be able to set up something for our podcast.
Dan Thumberg: Listen,
Chrissanne Long: you see how you could run the show and have guests come and sit down?
Dan Thumberg: You see how efficient we are Now, we don't have all of that stuff over
Chrissanne Long: there. We're not connected to all of the extra wires. No. We
Dan Thumberg: can run the whole thing in. Its battery powered.
Chrissanne Long: Yes, let's do it. I, I know exactly where we can set it up. So yes, Dan [00:47:00] will be there in some capacity maybe. Interviewing you
Dan Thumberg: Ooh.
Chrissanne Long: At the expo.
Dan Thumberg: And we can have speakers set up so that, you know, you can have a little
Chrissanne Long: mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah. This is, this is gonna be fun. That's absolutely what we're gonna be doing. Um, uh, I guess I'm, I,
Chrissanne Long: so what do you need to plug? Who are you? Who
Dan Thumberg: are you, what are you talk about? Let go. I have a beer. Swan brewing. I mean, I know you're doing No,
Chrissanne Long: no.
Chrissanne Long: I think you need to talk a little bit about, its3pm
Dan Thumberg: We didn't, we talked about it a little bit, so,
Chrissanne Long: but tell your version. I told my very terrible version.
Dan Thumberg: I worked, um, for many, many years to build up a lot of the automations and processes for the administrative side for Swan Brewing. And one of the reasons was, is that I, I didn't want to be that guy that was spending 60, 80 hours a week at my business.
Dan Thumberg: I wanted to be able to leave at a decent time and go home and enjoy my family. And, um, my wife works in Orlando or worked in Orlando, so I had to go pick my son up from school every day. And I had to leave at 3:00 PM
Chrissanne Long: mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: And so [00:48:00] I kinda switched how I did things. I, I I, I was a little bit more strategic with my workflows.
Dan Thumberg: I did a whole bunch of automations with things that I was manually doing, and that allowed me to kinda regain about 20 hours of my life back a week where I didn't have to spend at work, and I could leave at 3:00 PM every single day to go get my son from school. Take him to go get an ice cream stop over there at Jumbo's Barbecue for his sandwich.
Dan Thumberg: And it just became this thing that I was leaving work at 3:00 PM every single day. And when I was able to kinda step back from the day-to-day operations at Swan, um, in January of last year, I, you know, just I had the fear like everybody else, okay, what's next? You know, what are we gonna do next? Mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: And I, I realized that those tools could be powerful to other people as well.
Chrissanne Long: Yep.
Dan Thumberg: And so that's what, uh, its3pm is. I can work with you. To kinda see where you're currently living and work within your current [00:49:00] environment, but make it so it's a lot more efficient so you can regain your time back so that you can spend more time with your family.
Chrissanne Long: And everybody needs that, whether they know it or not.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah. So,
Chrissanne Long: and you don't wanna wait until you know it.
Dan Thumberg: No, it, it, it, because
Chrissanne Long: then everything falls apart.
Dan Thumberg: Everything just falls apart real fast. Right. I can tell you by saving that additional 20 hours a week, it made my home life so much better.
Chrissanne Long: I bet, I bet Not having kids, I, I, you know, I admire those families who can make sure that there's that balance.
Chrissanne Long: Right. Yeah. I have come into entrepreneurship as an older. Adult. And so work life balance wasn't necessary, but it is a necessary part of, of mental health.
Dan Thumberg: Of
Chrissanne Long: course, it's a necessary health part of family health, and I think that that's all extremely, extremely important. So what you're offering is going to be.
Chrissanne Long: Become very valuable. And to me the category is business intelligence. Yep. It's, it's really truly being able to not [00:50:00] spend so much time in the weeds figuring stuff out, but having a system or a process that you can look at a dashboard Yep. And understand things that you need to understand that are critical to the businesses operations in a quick and easy fashion.
Chrissanne Long: Hey, how am I doing on my commercial now? For you Right. It,
Dan Thumberg: you're doing fantastic. I, it's wonderful. I mean, but the rea ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. The reality is, is every single business, regardless of what you're in, you are collecting so much information. Yes. And it is so overwhelming, and it is so easy to get into the weeds.
Dan Thumberg: Mm-hmm. We basically can come in and take care of all of that work within your current ecosystem. If you enjoy working off of spreadsheets, don't change.
Chrissanne Long: Mm-hmm.
Dan Thumberg: But just let your spreadsheets automatically build for you.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah.
Dan Thumberg: You know, if you're working inside of Slack or you're working inside a Discord or whatever, your team management.
Dan Thumberg: Is,
Chrissanne Long: or if you don't know what either of those
Dan Thumberg: are, or if you don't know what either of that is, however you operate, you can continue to operate that way. Let's just make it a little bit more efficient. Yeah. So I love it. It's, its3pm its three, the number three pm.io. Uh, or find me on [00:51:00] LinkedIn. its3pm.io, Dan Thumberg, all these socials, all that good stuff.
Dan Thumberg: I would love to have a conversation.
Chrissanne Long: Well, I. I'm glad that we just did this.
Dan Thumberg: Yeah.
Chrissanne Long: I'm super, super, super stoked and I don't ever say stoked.
Dan Thumberg: That is, I mean, it's Shows your age again.
Chrissanne Long: Yeah, exactly. I'm, I'm gonna come up with my word of this season.
Dan Thumberg: Super rad.
Chrissanne Long: Super rad. No, I don't think that's a me word. What did I say in the first episodes?
Chrissanne Long: What did I always say that I never realized? And then I was like, I'm saying it over and over again. Oh, I forget. I have, oh gosh. I don't say it anymore. Apparently that's what's changed since the last, uh. Time we recorded so well, thanks for saying yes. Thanks for being a part of the next chapter, next season of this journey.
Chrissanne Long: I'm excited
Dan Thumberg: and again, apologize. Any audio video, we will go ahead and get everything.
Chrissanne Long: And if none of this recorded then we'll just do it all over again.
Dan Thumberg: We know some of it didn't. That's right. Well, things didn in post.
Chrissanne Long: All right. We'll see you on the next show. Bye. [00:52:00]
Dan Thumberg: That was fantastic.
Chrissanne Long: That was fun. We did good.
Dan Thumberg: We did. We did better than I thought we would.