0:00:10 - Mark Haney
Yes, this is the Mark Haney Show Super excited today. Of course, you know we are working on the Backyard Advantage, the most connected community in the world for local entrepreneurs, and it's based around this culture of love right, helping one another, showing love to one another. And joining me on the show today is Liz Connolly. She's been on the show before. She's one of the founders of Trifecta Nutrition, but she's got something new that we're going to talk about. So let's get to know Liz a little bit and I want to say thank you to Liz for really being a part of the Backyard Advantage. You and the folks at Trifecta and your teammates you've given so much to the other entrepreneurs in the Sacramento region with your knowledge. You know trifecta. A lot of people may have heard of you, but your company was sizable and it, uh, you know, has a great marketing approach and you, you brought a lot of marketing expertise to the Sacramento region. So thank you for bringing that and I'm really excited to hear about your new thing.

0:01:03 - Liz Connolly
So welcome to the show. Well, I appreciate it, and you guys have brought so much value to us as well, and so has the community, so I'm very appreciative of that too.

0:01:13 - Mark Haney
And yeah, you're a hometown girl too. You went to Del Oro High School and I know you've moved away, but you came back to build businesses back in your hometown or in the Sacramento region, Not Loomis but Sacramento region, yeah yeah, it's so crazy to think about.

0:01:31 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, I mean, I only spent a few years in the Bay area and then I was right back here, so couldn't keep me away long. I love it, that's great.

0:01:38 - Mark Haney
Okay, so a lot has changed in your life. I think you got married, didn't you? I did, yeah, but you're not going by. You're still going by Conley as your last name.

0:01:47 - Liz Connolly
Are you one of?

0:01:47 - Mark Haney
those type women that's, like you know, a powerful woman. I got to use my own last name.

0:01:52 - Liz Connolly
I mean partially. Yes, let's be honest. But you know, have you seen how much paperwork is involved in changing?

0:01:59 - Mark Haney
Especially someone as successful as you, and you've got all this stuff going. So my daughter's kind of got the same thing, but she's on marriage number three, I think, or no, she's not married right now, excuse me. So yeah, but uh, anyway. So she, I think, just didn't want to change it and not the uh the name all the time, so she just kept the name Haney yeah, my parents are still married.

0:02:18 - Liz Connolly
My mom never changed her last name, so I think I'm just out of here, yeah, which was very odd, your very odd.

0:02:24 - Mark Haney
back then your mom never changed your last name, cause, yeah, they're probably older than me.

0:02:27 - Liz Connolly
Yeah Well, I don't know how old you are, I'm 61.

0:02:30 - Mark Haney
I assume they're older than that.

Yes, yes, yeah, so uh wow, yeah, cause I've talked to Greg, your brother, a few times about you. Know where you guys grew up. Okay, so let me divert back to the purpose for having you on the show. We want to find out what you're doing in terms of entrepreneurship, and maybe we can learn a little bit about not just what you're working on, but how it might relate to the rest of us that are trying to grow a business. So maybe just give us a little bit of what you're working on.

0:02:59 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, so with Trifecta, we hired a CEO earlier this year which I know you're familiar with, uh, which was really cool and, um, really he got up and running so quickly, which is awesome. He has very like operational uh mindset and background, which is great for a food manufacturing business, uh. So we really just had to get him up to speed on like how we market, who we're working with that type of thing. But that was relatively quick. And then both Greg and I are starting our own businesses.

0:03:32 - Mark Haney
I heard Greg was starting something too.

0:03:33 - Liz Connolly
Yep, yep, and it's weird not working together, but we live nine houses down.

0:03:40 - Mark Haney
So we still see each other a lot. You and Greg live nine houses from each other. We do In Davis right? Yep, yeah, still see you and greg live nine houses from each other in davis, right? Yeah, yeah, maybe his house. We live nine houses down.

0:03:49 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, just just bar hop over right down the street, okay, um, but yeah, that that was really cool that you know that kind of happened around the same time.

0:03:56 - Mark Haney
So as much as I don't get to see him, you know, at the office I still get to see him, like actually, you know, just right there, yeah, so my whole and his wife kaya's popping out kids, so you probably uh the oh babysitting duty.

0:04:09 - Liz Connolly
I'm here, yeah, they uh. I was watching their son when they were going in for labor and everything like that and, oh my gosh, you know how kids are. They can tell you're tired and they just take advantage yes, uh, I've done some babysitting myself. And I was like, oh all right, I mean I'm not mad about it, but yeah. So from there we both started new companies, which has been exciting, and Katsu is the name of my new company, katsu.

0:04:40 - Mark Haney
K-A-T-S-U. Correct Okay. Katsu K-A-T-S-U Correct Okay.

0:04:45 - Liz Connolly
And so it's the Japanese term, and it actually means to win or winning victory, that type of thing. It's not pronounced Katsu, I've just taken that kind of little spin on it Is it. Katsu. I think it's Katsu.

0:04:57 - Mark Haney
Okay.

0:04:58 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, so I took a little spin on it because of the logo that we came up with. It's kind of like a book cat face, uh.

so we kind of went with, like the, the cat spin interesting um, so it the the idea just being like oh, what do you do when you're home with your cats? You're learning, and and you know. So, um, but anyway, there's just a little bit of a tie-in with the logo. But the new company really stemmed out of Trifecta. At Trifecta, we, as you know, grew really quickly. We were bringing on employees and they were really driven and really wanted to, you know, get promoted, get raises, all the, all the things you want them to want, all the all the things you want them to want. And they didn't exactly know how to do that. They didn't necessarily know how to drive value in their role to get them to the next step. They're, you know, sales manager and they want to be a director of sales, but they don't know what, what it takes. So I ended up building literally hundreds of growth plans for people within the company. I did over a hundred promotions, yeah, yeah.

0:06:09 - Mark Haney
Not just to interrupt you for a second. So anybody out there who has grown a company to hundreds of employees knows that you start off with you know in this case you and your brother and you know then it's like, oh, we better hire our first manager because we now have a few employees. And then you're hiring managers of managers, and then directors, people who are building business units and like there's so much opportunity in companies that are scaling like that if the employees can see that opportunity and know what to do to get it. So I just wanted to set that up because I think that's so important and know what to do to get it.

So I just wanted to set that up because I think that's so important and for a company that if you don't have that, it's going to be really tough to grow.

0:06:51 - Liz Connolly
A hundred percent, and I honestly attribute a lot of our success at Trifecta to how much our team grew with us, and Greg and I had to grow a ton too, like who I was 10 years ago when I started the company. That's a person I don't even know today, which is is cool. Um, and you know, I built growth plans for myself too. You know, you gotta, you gotta take it where you can, and um, so, yeah, we, we ended up. I just built so many of these and wasn't able to find something out in the market that really, like, solved that problem for me. So I was pulling together like Audible and Udemy and books and whatever I could, giving people mentors, trying to figure out how can I up-level them and help them drive not only more value in the role to my benefit as a business owner, but also, you know, helping them get where they want to go and follow their dreams. You know, maybe that's in their role or maybe it's totally different. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with the dream manager.

0:07:56 - Mark Haney
Patrick Lencioni. I'm not sure who it's by, but I read that book. I was going to ask you that, as you were setting this up, I'm like all I could think about was the dream manager.

0:08:04 - Liz Connolly
Yes, it was. I mean, I read that maybe five years ago. Huge.

0:08:08 - Mark Haney
I read it like when I was growing my companies I think we had about a hundred employees and I came across this book and I'm like, yes, and I became the dream manager for our company.

0:08:17 - Liz Connolly
Okay, so you're very familiar. So that that concept I wanted to bring to Trifecta and so I spent a lot of time figuring out OK, what motivates you, what are you excited about, how do you want your life to go literally? And then marrying that with, how can we bring more value to the business? Because that's obviously very important. You can't do anything without also having that component obviously very important. You can't. You can't do anything without also having that component. So with the new company that's really the whole premise behind it is building these kind of growth plans, and I've found over the years that most of my team didn't learn by reading books like me. They didn't love that. They're not like the brainiac type yeah.

I give them a stack of books and they didn't often read them, unfortunately. So I had to think of other ways to really get to that learning and so, like I mentioned, udemy, audible, more auditory is typically what I found to work the best. And visual, like YouTube, even. Like I'll send somebody a youtube video. Hey, watch this 10 minute video. It's exactly what you need to learn for the skill, uh, that type of thing. So the whole new business katsu is, um all all video based, because I want I really want to like hit home for people that way. I actually dabbled in thinking about writing a book in between Trifecta and starting Katsu, but I just thought I would really be able to hit more people and help more if it was more visual.

0:09:59 - Mark Haney
Okay, so who is the customer? Is it the employee, or is it some um business that has employees?

0:10:08 - Liz Connolly
It's a good question. Uh, both, uh, but we're starting B2C just because, uh there's. I've only got a couple of plans up so far. We launched the website a couple of weeks ago, so we're we're just getting started.

0:10:21 - Mark Haney
Okay, so it's, uh guess, personal growth, right, and is it focused on being an employee? Because I'm thinking of the dream manager. Maybe that's where I'm a little stuck, or in my mind is a lot of times. The dream manager was a book around building the employee's dream and how that dream might align with the goals of the company, and in many cases in a fast-growing company those can intersect. The janitor can get what they want out of life by being a janitor. Even though it might appear to be a dead-end job, it doesn't have to be. It could be really part of your dream job, maybe not your ultimate dream job, but part of it.

0:11:02 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a good question and the initial folks that I'm I've built a course for is like a sales leadership. So that's the first course I built. And then the second one I built is about growing partnerships. Just cause I had such a unique experience with that at Trifecta, you know we partnered with the UFC and CrossFit and everybody under the sun and the you know fitness space, so I felt like I could help people in that a lot and so I built a course on that. So that's also for sales leadership, but it's could be CEOs, it could be business development, it could be kind of you know anybody who's looking to break into that.

0:11:44 - Mark Haney
So they're video based. So is the product out of the market yet?

0:11:50 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, Like I said, just just launched, but yes.

0:11:53 - Mark Haney
So when I get, when I buy a course, is it a, let's say, I it's on the partnership one. What do I get? Do I get one video? Do I get a series of videos that take you of videos?

0:12:05 - Liz Connolly
Again, I have a short attention span too, so what do I get? So you're getting a bunch of videos. You're getting templates, worksheets, like a whole program. That is not too dissimilar from what I was doing at Trifecta, except I would have had to individually go through all of that like course. Material is what I would have explained to them over one-on-ones and things like that.

0:12:29 - Mark Haney
Okay, so is it. Uh, is the material that you provide, the content, is it the same um to every client or is it personalized for that person specifically?

0:12:41 - Liz Connolly
So the courses are all, uh, you know. So the courses are all, uh, you know, repeatable like they're. We're not changing them per person, but if they want like extra help, there's a, there's an ability to get that as well. So, um, I'm doing group coaching for executives also oh, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, okay, so what?

0:13:02 - Mark Haney
so I see that you have the experience.

0:13:12 - Liz Connolly
Why did you was there like a big? Why behind? Like oh, this really matters to me. I mean, it's just such a like core component of my life. I'm I don't know if you've ever feel this way, but like I don't think there's anything super special about me. I don't think that I.

0:13:23 - Mark Haney
I think there is I appreciate that anything super special about me.

0:13:25 - Liz Connolly
I don't think that I think there is, but like you know, I don't necessarily like I'm not like some kid genius, like I've just learned a lot and that has translated into a lot of success, and I want to show people that that's totally doable for them as well and give them more direction, because I think a lot of people have the drive to do it. They just like they don't know where to start, they don't know where to channel the energy to like actually make that progress.

0:13:54 - Mark Haney
And after reading so many books, I'm like a book a week kind of person. So what books kind of had an impact on shaping this curriculum?

0:14:09 - Liz Connolly
Oh gosh, I don't know if I could remember off the top of my head I'm a big like biography person. I used to do a lot more of the like almost textbook style books, but now I'm more into more biography type stuff. Like I just read um aina garten's new book I don't know if you know the barefoot contessa I've heard the. I've heard of it, but I don't know what it is it's so random, but she's like she, uh, she basically had like this cooking show for years and years called the barefoot but, um, she's incredibly inspirational because she did this entrepreneurial thing years ago when it was not really common for women to be doing that.

She couldn't get a bank loan without her husband, stuff like that, and it it's a very like, if she can do it, I can do it, type type story. But yeah, in terms of just directly inspiring this idea, I can't say that there was one book, there was the hundreds of books.

I think, all built together to show me like it doesn't have to be that complex. I think one of the biggest areas that I dove really deep into was management. So I read like every management book under the sun and I realized it's not that complicated. You really just set good expectations and then you follow through on what you've set, and that can be hard to actually do, but it's pretty simple in the end. Yeah.

0:15:45 - Mark Haney
So in some of the show notes that Scott made for me here, he jotted something down about our changing workforce. So the workforce I mean, I'd say every day and I do a little bit of looking at YouTube and stuff like that and I guess they're you know they're tracking my viewership and you know they're sending me stuff on AI and the workforce and how AI is going to change our workforce and it's going to change the need for managers at scale, because you're going to be managing AI agents and things like that. So we're going to have to learn all this new stuff. So walk me through how your vision for your curriculum interacting with the new workforce that's going to be heavily influenced by AI.

0:16:37 - Liz Connolly
Such a good question. I think we're all scared. I don't know about you. I'm excited.

0:16:42 - Mark Haney
I'm like it's happening so fast right before my very eyes. What jobs are going to go away? Oh my God, it's blowing me. What's a truck driver going to do when the trucks drive themselves? Oh my gosh. What truck driver going to do when the trucks drive themselves? Oh my gosh. What are we going to do with all these? You know truckers, yeah, and they're in every industry is in the process of being disrupted, and so jobs as we know them, especially these repeatable type jobs, they're going to be done by machines, robots or AI agents. And you know customer service, I think, in a lot of times, is going to be done by. You know somebody who does a better job than the? You know the person at McDonald's today, totally.

0:17:22 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, and, and I say scared, intimidated, but it's. I'm also very optimistic for it. I think we'd all love not to do the mundane parts of our jobs right Like we'd love to get rid of that.

0:17:35 - Mark Haney
Of course, I've already done that. Scott does everything that I don't want to do, so I get a pretty good setup. Yeah, I set it up pretty well.

0:17:42 - Liz Connolly
I love that. Yeah, I think it's important to help re-skill folks. So not just leveling up, which is kind of the core premise. I do want to help people level up, but I also want to help reskill them. So you mentioned customer service is a great example. You know, most company owners don't want to lay off their customer service team if they replace them with a bot. They would love for them to have some other skill set that they could, you know, bring value to the business, and I would love to fit in there and and see you know, can I teach them to do sales or can I teach them to do social media or some other skill set? I think there's definitely an opportunity there.

0:18:25 - Mark Haney
Um well, I think they do. There's so many um, when you think about like leadership, like the chambers of commerce and the different people that are within government that are like concerned about this, I guess this threat. There's a lot of resources being thrown at this topic or this area of concern, and so I feel like you're kind of meshing into a place where everybody's going to be looking for ideas on how to solve this. So it sounds like you're positioning yourself right in the middle of an opportunity.

0:19:00 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hope so, because it's so fun. I honestly love making these videos. I love talking about this stuff because it's you know, it's one thing to learn it from a book, it's another thing to do it, to cut your teeth, teeth, to totally fail. Are you on?

0:19:15 - Mark Haney
the other side of the camera it's like when I get a video. Is it you? Oh, it's me right now.

0:19:19 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, yeah, early days, it's definitely gonna be me for a while. Um, I don't know, maybe it'll always be me, who knows, uh, but yeah, early days for sure. Um, I even learned how to video edit, which, uh, is not my favorite thing, but it was fun to learn, and then I immediately hired an editor.

0:19:37 - Mark Haney
These guys are using AI too. The editor's job is a lot more streamlined than it was even last year, so that's I mean, hopefully you're finding somebody that's not using a VCR.

0:19:51 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, they're incorporating it for sure, for sure. And I think there's also the other end of the spectrum that AI is. It feels like, yes, it's happening so fast, but it's also not happening as fast as maybe we thought it would Like. You know, we still don't have self-driving, we still don't have you know, stuff that probably a few years ago we were like that's right around the corner and we still, you know, don't have those things. I mean it's coming. For sure, my Tesla does a real good job on the self-driving, but you know.

0:20:25 - Mark Haney
And you know, in some of these towns I've ridden in these self-driving cars. That I mean because there's some jurisdictions that allow it. You don't have it in sacramento, but you've got it in parts of arizona and I think in some parts of the bay area too. So it's amazing that you know you got nobody driving you, right? Yeah, so it's coming. It's the technology, I mean, and it's learning so fast. I mean we are learning, uh, so rapidly. We just got to let, uh, you know, let things play out for safety reasons and stuff totally totally, yeah, um.

0:20:55 - Liz Connolly
Can I ask you what it was like? I haven't been in one oh, it's great.

0:20:58 - Mark Haney
It was kind of weird. It's kind of wild and, uh, you know it's, and I've seen them on videos, uh, where they've gotten hung up right. There have been problems where, like on youtube, I've seen that you know something will cause the car to like not know quite what to do yeah, it's like ah, we're thinking your car's stuck right, so uh, uh, no, but it's fun, yeah, it's kind of fun. It's kind of exciting it's just around town slow, going slow, like 15 miles an hour okay, okay.

So we got like a tram so far yeah, yeah, exactly, but it is coming for sure.

0:21:30 - Liz Connolly
That's really cool yeah no, I no, and it definitely is. And I think the other area that I love to provide, you know, some thought leadership is companies. I mean Trifecta, you could use an example how are they going to incorporate AI and how, what strategy do they have towards it? And I think business owners are nervous about you know, safety concerns.

They're worried about their IP. You know, if my employees are going and putting in all our company information in the chat GPT, is that okay? What do we do there? You know, I think there's just a level of like education and strategy that a lot of business owners would love too. So it's honestly it's hard to focus because there's so many areas I want to get into. But uh, I'm trying to stay, stay a little niche to begin, and then I'll continue to expand out so when you say direct to consumer, obviously at trifecta you it was direct to consumer.

0:22:28 - Mark Haney
Um, you had a. You guys were great at, are great at marketing and finding the way to get to the end user, the person that wants to eat the food in that case, and stay healthy in this case. How are you? What's your marketing approach for finding these growth oriented people?

0:22:48 - Liz Connolly
yeah, so not dissimilar from trifecta, I'll be setting setting up partnerships. So, uh, like I mentioned, the first area is sales, so I'm looking for partnerships in the like sales influencers, sales personal development, sales authors, anything in that realm okay um, and then I've started a youtube channel which is is uh, it's like hysterical trying to become an influencer at 35 here, but I'm having fun with it.

0:23:18 - Mark Haney
What is, uh? What is your channel? What? How do we find it?

0:23:22 - Liz Connolly
it's just lizconnelly lizconnelly.

0:23:24 - Mark Haney
yeah, okay, so you are becoming the influence.

0:23:27 - Liz Connolly
Connelly, I should probably just look up, make sure I give you guys the right one. Okay, liz Conley, yeah we'll link it, we'll put it in the show notes. It's new. Okay, yeah, yeah.

0:23:36 - Mark Haney
Okay, cool, so well. I mean, you know this stuff better than I do, but I invested into a young man that was building a YouTube channel and it grew and he knew how to drive the algorithms and so on. He became a significant influencer. He ended up selling his company for a good amount of money and I, luckily, was an investor. But, uh, so your YouTube channel alone could be, I mean, with as much as you know about marketing and building your personal brand and the brand of this, uh, that could be. That's a lot of that sounds really exciting.

0:24:14 - Liz Connolly
It is and it's it's. It's honestly so fun. I didn't expect it to be as fun as it is. It's weird going from like running a big company to and you've experienced this back to like it's me, and we're boots on the ground figuring it out.

0:24:31 - Mark Haney
It's been hard. Yes, I was the man, in my own mind at least, in the security camera world. And then, you know, leave that industry.

0:24:41 - Liz Connolly
And now you're like, oh, just good old marky from down on the block, uh, you know you're kind of kind of starting from scratch again and, uh, you know, in a lot of ways you're not cause you have all that knowledge, you have, you know, some level of connections and all of that. Uh, but yeah, it is a lot of doing, which I enjoy. I, I do enjoy managing, see, that's the thing.

0:25:03 - Mark Haney
I didn't enjoy doing that was always my, you know so we're similar there.

0:25:14 - Liz Connolly
So, okay, you'll be fine. I, you won't have my struggles, you. You don't like doing any of it. I like getting help. Yeah, okay, okay, hey, you're a connector. I'm more of a like a guy that's good at getting help. Okay, I love that. So at least you're clear about it I've always been very clear.

0:25:28 - Mark Haney
But uh, you know you, it wasn't until we had the uh, really until the growth factory. You know, I'm doing the show and doing an angel investing and that kind of thing, but I didn't really have a, a product. I got a show and, uh, you know, a message, uh, for you know, around entrepreneurship, but what are you selling, dude? Well, I'm not really selling anything, I'm just investing. Well, that only. It took me a while to figure out what to do. So luckily, I had some teammates and we figured out the growth factory and it's been, you know, really helpful. But it took us, took me, years to really get to that. So you're starting off smart, more smartly, with the product at the same time. I didn't have that, so good job.

0:26:07 - Liz Connolly
Well, I appreciate that. I'm very much a uh, throw out the MVP, see how it goes, pivot if necessary.

0:26:15 - Mark Haney
So we will see there's a good. I mean, that's the way to do it, I think. So good job.

0:26:21 - Liz Connolly
So I'm excited about the sales aspect. That's my background. So that was, for lack of a better word, very easy for me. For lack of a better word, very easy for me. But I definitely want to get into, like marketing operations, other areas that I've run within trifecta HR, like people operations type stuff. I think there's a lot of like value that I can add in these different areas. And then when we get into like I don't know, maybe we want to get into engineering, that's where I think I bring in actual, you know, experts, content creators in that area. That, can you know, can really teach and do a better job than me who does not know how to code or any of that I love that?

0:27:04 - Mark Haney
Okay, so thinking about that. So the way we ended up with the growth factory is you know, I had this vision of we talked about the Karitsu idea right, where you have these business partners that find synergy by common ownership or working together and they love each other and they help each other and I started having this vision of what it would look like. And it was in my backyard these successful business partners in my backyard that all love each other, and you were looking at the picture on the wall down there from 2019 when we had that backyard party and I was sharing the vision of I'm trying to get you guys to all love each other and help each other. And they're all. These are all my business partners in the backyard.

And there's like 150 people, 200 people, in the backyard at the time. And so that concept, that was the Haney Biz concept, but that led into this vision of now the Growth Factory, the most connected community in the world for local entrepreneurs based on this culture of love, and now it's the collective backyards of all of Sacramento. So once I got it out of my backyard and brought it to hey, this is Sacramento's backyard it became more effective. But the point I was going to make with all that is, I envisioned it. It was like this I call it like a secret friend, this thing before I go to bed at night, I would imagine with that picture down there and I was able to say, okay, what am I go to bed at night? I would imagine with that picture down there and I was able to say, okay, what am I going to do to make that picture come true? So now my question to you is like is there a vision that you're getting to that you can manifest, or we can help you to manifest?

0:28:48 - Liz Connolly
I love it. I'm not as, uh, I'm not as good at, uh, the big picture vision as, I think, my brother and co-founder at trifecta was but I am working on it and, uh, you know, I really want it to be a platform.

So not just like I mentioned, not just me. Obviously, I'm going to do bootstrap it and do it myself initially, but I love for it to be a platform with other really knowledgeable creators that are providing value in these different areas and, above and beyond that, really incorporating the AI piece as it comes out more and more Everything from like, helping people with what AI tools should I be using in my role and to level up to gamifying it. You know if you can have leaderboards and all of that type of stuff.

All of a sudden so much more enthusiasm and excitement for learning. I dabbled with a ton of that type of stuff at trifecta, where I'm like making it competitive to learn, and all of a sudden people are way more engaged they're you know, they're like I gotta got to be the highest learner on my pod or on my team or in sales. So I think that's a really cool aspect, that AI, that's a layup, they can do it so easily. And then, like I mentioned, the reskilling I think will be another big area.

0:30:16 - Mark Haney
I think there's going to be a lot of money going into reskilling for sure yeah, yeah, I agree, so companies yeah, so I could see you. Eventually, you know, start the direct consumer, but eventually people will be. I mean there'll be entire, there'll be billions of dollars.

0:30:34 - Liz Connolly
Oh, I want to go B to B, I want to go B to G. Yeah, when you talk about the big vision, absolutely I completely agree. And also, side note, I think I went to one of the backyard, the one that Greg won an award at.

0:30:48 - Mark Haney
Oh, okay, you were in that backyard.

0:30:50 - Liz Connolly
I don't know if it's that picture you have downstairs. It is. It is that one.

0:30:53 - Mark Haney
Okay. Yeah, greg did win an award. I forgot about okay. So if Greg won an award, he gave like a whole speech. He did everything. Yes, obviously you remember the party, but you don't remember what I said.

0:31:04 - Liz Connolly
I was. I think I was trying to film him. You know I was so proud sister, that's awesome yes, I was.

0:31:09 - Mark Haney
I was recognizing my portfolio companies that had, you know, kicked butt, and so Greg was part of that. Yeah, and all the different, some of the other partners that had helped along the way.

0:31:19 - Liz Connolly
Super cool.

0:31:19 - Mark Haney
Okay, you were there. I'm going to go back and look at that picture and try to find you.

0:31:22 - Liz Connolly
Well, it was so funny because the thing that I actually remember from that party was I don't know if it was you directly, but someone connected me with Lance Loveday at that party. Okay, and I joined his entrepreneur group after that.

0:31:38 - Mark Haney
Yeah, and they never give me any credit. Eo for driving membership. I mean, I've driven so much EO membership.

0:31:44 - Liz Connolly
And so the last five years at least, you know, since I met him at that party, we have, you know, been very close and same with the entrepreneur group and I've met so many great people and so, yeah, it was literally that's when it kicked off was meeting him there well, I'm gonna, um, this isn't for public consumption.

0:32:02 - Mark Haney
So, just if you're listening out there, don't, don't take this. I mean well, maybe it'll make people uh, think about wanting to be in the backyard. We're gonna have another backyard party at my new at haneyville very excited.

I moved from that house. I mean, that house had a nice backyard. I think think you can agree. Uh, it was my dream backyard. I designed it and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna have this big party. I was really proud and now I've moved. So I moved and, um, we have like a town which is way different. It is cool, it's like it's our family. But, um, so the next backyard party will actually be in my new place and you know we have so many more business partners now and so many more. You know the backyard is, uh, I mean, we're gonna have to be super.

0:32:44 - Liz Connolly
How can you even call it a backyard at that point it's so big.

0:32:48 - Mark Haney
It's 74 acres, but we're not. You know, we want to take up the whole thing, but so there's an amphitheater and a pond. I mean it's pretty cool. So there will be another backyard party, uh, coming up, and so, uh, it's going to be interesting to think about, like how big to make it because we have so many partners now yeah, um, does everybody get involved and you know, does the whole founding team.

Come to the sisters and brothers and moms and dads come do I invite all the old people? I don't know yet, but we're gonna have one.

0:33:14 - Liz Connolly
It's coming up I've been following along uh construction on uh stacy's instagram so, yes, I've been seeing as it goes. We had our sign.

0:33:23 - Mark Haney
So in the middle of the town there's a um, uh, the town is like a clubhouse. It's uh like 3600 square foot clubhouse where we can have family dinner parties, stuff like that. Um, we had christmas there and stuff. But, uh, the store. But the town has storefronts to it, and so today one of the signs went up called the Shoe, because we're right off Horseshoe Bar, and so one of the storefront signs went up, so we have one more to put up. Now we're using A&R signs, which they're doing a great job Another Sacramento company to do those signs. But when you see it, you're gonna be like it actually looks like a town oh, I can't wait.

0:34:02 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, it's cool, so you'll be invited.

0:34:04 - Mark Haney
You and greg will both be congrats, that's.

0:34:06 - Liz Connolly
That's a really fun thing to do and it's I mean back to the family thing. I mean you joke about me staying in the area, or come back to the area. It's my whole family's out here. Same, same scenario, uh, where you just want to be close to the family. Yeah well.

0:34:21 - Mark Haney
I feel like that's an advantage. That's kind of an interesting thing because it's an advantage. If you can get out of your own way right, if you can, if you have a routine where you meditate or do whatever you do in the morning, um to get your mind right, you can create a. It can be a good morning and a great day overall. But you, so I think we can create these little advantages for ourselves. But I think having a strong family is an advantage you and your brother and your mom and dad being close and having each other's back and all that kind of stuff. That's an advantage. I think we can do that for Sacramento. We are doing that for Sacramento. I think you even mentioned it at the beginning that you know the fact that we all help each other. It's actually an advantage that you might not get in some big city, even though we're a bigger town than average. There's a lot more to love in Sacramento, I think, than maybe the typical, you know city, our size.

0:35:16 - Liz Connolly
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I'm really impressed by the entrepreneur community here. I really am, uh, and I'm I'm just so grateful for it because I think, before I actually like kind of integrated into it, I I did feel like very lonely on the entrepreneurial journey. I felt like, uh, my friends don't understand me because they're, you know, they have normal jobs, and I didn't feel like there was a ton to relate on once I got you know a little bit into running a business. So it's been just wonderful to be in this community. So I do appreciate it.

0:35:53 - Mark Haney
Now, speaking of advantage, Scott told me to ask you what your personal advantage is. Do you have a personal advantage?

0:36:07 - Liz Connolly
What's the Liz Conley advantage? Well, I think it does come back to, you know, my experience at Trifecta that hyper growth and being able to grow that team is really what I'm putting into this new company and, above and beyond that, all the books and courses and stuff that I did as well throughout. I think that it gives me a really good like no bullshit. Not sure if I'm allowed to cuss here.

0:36:32 - Mark Haney
There was a time we first started the show we were on Sports 1140 KHDK and there was like seven words you can't say you know, so now you can say whatever you want. Um, and there was like seven words you can't say you know, so, uh, now you can say whatever you want.

0:36:42 - Liz Connolly
Perfect, perfect.

0:36:43 - Mark Haney
So my grandkids might get you learn a new word here.

0:36:47 - Liz Connolly
Well, I'll just use the one, but a very like no bullshit approach to, uh, you know, driving value within a company. Because, um, I think a lot of team members and I remember I used to do this as well in my early career I would think like I'm doing this little thing to make us more efficient, or I saved us a little bit of money and I really felt like that warrants a raise or a promotion or whatever it may be. And I think the reality is like you have to drive pretty significant value to earn a raise or a promotion, and so I tried to really clarify that and really point people in the right direction. A lot of people think that their particular role has nothing to do with revenue or the bottom line, and every role has something to do with revenue and the bottom line. So I I think connecting those dots for folks um, just helps them be so much more successful, and I really, really enjoy that, and I think the reason that that that I'm able to do that is my experience at Trifecta.

0:37:55 - Mark Haney
Yeah, that's huge. Okay. So what did I not ask you? What else did you want to make sure we covered today? So we got your YouTube channel out there. Pretty much Should we follow you on Instagram? I followed you on Instagram starting today. It came up on my Instagram, oh.

0:38:11 - Liz Connolly
I'm wounded you just now followed me.

0:38:15 - Mark Haney
I'm not that big on social media. I should be Look what I do for a living.

0:38:19 - Liz Connolly
No, I totally get it. I'm the same way. No, I mean the website's. Learn Katsu.

0:38:26 - Mark Haney
Okay, learn Katsu, and Katsu means winning.

0:38:29 - Liz Connolly
Yep.

0:38:29 - Mark Haney
But it also has a cat emblem.

0:38:32 - Liz Connolly
Okay, yeah, couldn't help it. Couldn't help it, but it's more like a book, uh, but it's it's more like a book, but it's kind of got the like double entendre thing, uh. So yeah, I mean I it's great to chat with you and I honestly, um, I really, really appreciate what you're doing with the community. I I can't tell you enough and, um, I would guess that you probably don't hear it as much as you should.

0:38:55 - Mark Haney
So I really appreciate it, I appreciate it Well, thanks for coming on the show and thanks for everything you've done for me and our family of companies as well. So thank you, awesome Thanks.

Transcribed by https://podium.page