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Beyond Normal
Crafting Authentic Corporate Conversations: A Journey with Zachary Nunn
In this episode of the Beyond Normal Podcast, we sit down with Zachary Nunn, founder and CEO of Living Corporate, to unpack how he’s using AI, analytics, and storytelling to change the way companies think about equity and experience at work. From consulting with Fortune 500s to amplifying marginalized voices through his own platform, Zach shares a transparent look at what it takes to build trust inside today’s workplace.
Listen in as we explore the role of strategic communications, executive alignment, and the power of staying true to your values—even when it’s uncomfortable. Whether you’re a founder, people leader, or creative builder, this episode delivers a masterclass in building impact that lasts beyond the moment.
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Welcome, welcome to another great episode of The Beyond Normal Podcast. I am your host, Kenny Groom. As you know, our little motto or our saying is, every founder story is a journey worth exploring. we have a founder here with us today by the name of Zachary Nunn. he is the, I'm not sure you go by founder, right? You're. You go by a different title, you go by Chief Executive Officer. I had to make sure that I got that, that that note. Correct. He's the Chief Executive Officer of Living Corporate. They are an experience management, company. They focus on prioritizing workplace fairness. In addition to that, he's also. got an amazing content engine, if I can call it that, behind Living Corporate, where they put out some amazing, video-based conversations, podcasts, if you will. And so this is right up my, angle in terms of talking to a fellow podcaster. So without further ado, let's bring Zachary to the stage. How's it going, Zachary?
Zach:Hey, it is going well. Thank you for having me, brother.
Kenny:I'm so excited to, dive into, the, the conversation today with you, as we both have been on this content journey. I have definitely. I think at first I was admiring your content strategy from afar and as we've connected over the, say the last year or so, it's been really exciting to see, you grow with your, you're building that live in corporate. So let's start out. From the beginning,
Zach:Yeah.
Kenny:you were actually, you took that leap of faith and, became the CEO of Living Corporate. What were you doing with your life?
Zach:Yeah, man. great question. Shoot. I was just, I mean, I'm, I feel like I still am, man, I was just outside trying to figure it out, right? Like, you know, I, you know, I'm thinking about, I graduated from the University of Houston back in 2011, and I started my career in human resources at Target. And I just remember being one of the onlys in any space, six to 2 85, big dude, right? Trying to just navigate the world of work, and in majority white spaces and dealing with the micro macroaggressions of work and being one of the only in any space I, any room I walk in. I think over time I realized I, and I kept on looking for the solution and like you might ask a question like, what do you mean? Like, what do you mean by solution? Like, what is the solution for the, for the people on the margins? Like where do they go for affirmation and where do they go for real authentic support? Where do they go for advocacy? Where do they go for unfiltered guidance? And I kept looking for those solutions. In the context of my jobs. So I'd go to the employee resource groups, I would go to Human resources. I would try to stand up things internally. I would go to older mentors, potential mentors or people that looked like me who had been in position longer. and you know, I would have varying degrees of success, but that was me before Living Corporate. It was, hey, young, new, professional, large black dude, just trying to navigate the world to work and figure out. Where I fit and how I can, you know, finish every day without being so utterly drained or feeling like I failed in some way, which is a really common experience for those on the margins.
Kenny:As you were talking and you said something at the beginning, you said 2011 Houston. In my mind, what instantly popped up was what a time to be alive. I'm not sure how Houston was at that time. As somebody who has just recently, visited Houston the last couple years, I can
Zach:Yeah.
Kenny:it was an exciting place to be that time. But like you're saying, from a corporate perspective. there was some juxtaposition there, right? Where it wasn't the, what I can imagine Houston is on a day to day, right, going out and, you know, experiencing the city versus living that corporate life like you, like you were talking about.
Zach:Yeah, I mean, so it's interesting, right? Like 2011, obviously economically we were like in a different place. also you think about like, I think, and especially I think about. like 2011, 2012,'cause that's really when those were really critical years for me. I graduated 2011. I started working in June of 2011. but then I remember I bought my first home in 20. Was it 2012?
Kenny:Wow.
Zach:20 12, 20 13. But, but, but I just remember that season, like it was different, right? Like, I mean, I was just talking to my wife about this, right? So like for context, you know, our first home. Our first home, we bought our first home and it was a two bedroom, no, three bedroom, two bath, and we, we bought it well under six figures and like there were several of those homes in Houston at the time. You know, 1 35, 80 5,000, a hundred, like a little over a hundred thousand dollars to get you a nice home. Some like a hundred thousand,$120,000. Get you a nice two, two story house in Houston in certain parts of Houston. Right? And so the landscape was completely different. Work was different. the idea of just like the, the idea of like, yes, yes, I came into work looking for these very like, affirming experiences, but the job market was different, right? Like you didn't have to have your own brand. The concept of having a brand and working for someone was kind of new. That was kind of niche. Everybody didn't have 30,000 followers on Twitter, and didn't, and had like four different side hustles and also had a nine to five job. Right. Like, so it was a different time and then, Yeah. like to your illusion, like what a time to be alive. I mean, also. Like, musically, like the culturally I would say like the space and the spot was different because, because I think the economics were different. People were outside more and they were outside differently. Whereas to whereas now I think Houston is still, obviously It's Houston is Houston, but it's not popping in the same way, in my opinion, that it was shoot, what, 15, 12. to 15 years ago.
Kenny:Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that is a good point because when I went to Houston this time, I was actually surprised at the scale I.
Zach:Mm-hmm.
Kenny:Houston, it has grown to, and I think when you, when in some of the cities we've ex we we've seen like when they grow to a certain point, then like culturally, there may be something that's missing, right? Like, or it, it morphs into something else. Like we're going through that here. Folks know that my local market is Charlotte, North Carolina, where the city has grown to the point where there's now more people who are not from here. than people who are actually born and raised here. And so that brings a different dynamic. And from a cultural perspective, that definitely changes things, I'll tell you. All right. Now, one of the things that's changed since I've been in Charlotte is the food. the food is not as seasoned. say that as it was when I first came to the city. Believe it or not,
Zach:No, I'm, I, no, I, no, it's, it's interesting, right? Like I think the landscape, the l the landscape of food is cha like, man, it's so interesting. I think, especially with COVID, right? Like there was, man, my wife and I just talked about this last week. Like there was so many spots in Houston that I loved, man, that COVID, that pandemic man. They just got rid of them spots. Like a lot of those restaurants just aren't there.
Kenny:Mm-hmm.
Zach:then to your point about like, where we're at from like, to likeI think some of it also has to do with just like the lack, the the amount of deregulation and just kinda where we are, like from likeas a late stage capitalist society, like you start seeing experiences degrade while prices increase, right. So like when I talked to my mom, I asked her, I was likeHey, you know, I'm curious, like you've obviously been eating. Your whole life, like, do you feel like food has gotten worse? She's like, yeah, food's gotten way worse. She's like, you know, she's like, so like some of the food, like, you know, you might go to like some southern, southern style restaurant, right? And get like the fried chicken and the. greens and da da da. She's like that kind of food. She's like, we used to eat that at lunch when I was in elementary, middle school and high school. She's like, because she's like, because them, those people was cooking food from. likethey likethis idea of even like being local only. Like, that just wasn't the case when I was coming up because obviously it was gonna be local. We didn't have a bunch of frozen stuff coming in. People was cooking the same stuff that you might eat from so-and-so's house, you're gonna eat at the school because that lady works at the school. Right. and so she's like, she was just talking to me about just how experiences over time degrade. Like even she was talking to me about like JC Penney as an example, like back in the day, JC Penney used to. So, and tailor and fix your clothes, but then as time goes on, like that service don't provide, that's not anymore. I remember, I remember, shoot, I a smaller example when I was at, when I used to go to Walmart, when I was a kid, Walmart would fix your watch at the, at the Walmart. But they outsource. They outsource all that stuff now.
Kenny:Mm-hmm.
Zach:I'm, and I'm only 35, right? Like, so imagine if you 60 or 60 plus and you looking around the world, like how many things you just see kind of degrade, have degraded over time. It's not the same, not the same quality, not the same experience, but it's real, man. It's real.
Kenny:Yeah, for sure. That's a lot of perspective there. just thinking about likeyou said, just being able to, the shopping experience over the years and food especially, just something that's not the same as when my mom used to cook fried chicken. don't know what it is. I'm sorry folks. I had to go to fried chicken, but there's just something nowadays when I taste somebody else's food, it ain't, it's not the same experience. And I think a big part of that is like the, I don't know if it's culture, but just the, like the time that we were in, everything culminated. And when you had a meal and you sat down, and me and Zachary May have broken bread like that, food tasted different.
Zach:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kenny:All right,
Zach:It's true.
Kenny:so let's, let's, let's pivot now, to your corporate experience. Let's, let's talk a little bit about, so you spent, you, you touched on this, briefly, right? But you spent your corporate career in hr, That is not a path that a lot of people. Select, right. In terms of, Hey, I'm gonna go into HR rather
Zach:Yeah.
Kenny:career. Like what did, like, what was what triggered you to go down that path? What did you see as an opportunity there?
Zach:Yeah. Look, I've always just been passionate about people. and I like the idea of like being of service to folks and supporting people and helping them grow and be successful. I like, I, I believe that, I believe then, and I still believe now that people are the center of anything, any organization. It doesn't matter what it is. If you don't have people, whether it's your people that work for you or people that you need to consume your product or experience, you don't have anything. And so. I believe that, and I still believe that. And so that's why to, for me, human resources was the closest thing I could get to the people, and that's why I chose it.
Kenny:Short and sweet. I like that. Now let, I wanna pivot.'cause as you were just talking, a light bulb went off in my head. Now when you make the decision in your head or you start to think about, Hey, how do I create something of my own?
Zach:Yep.
Kenny:did see during your time as a hr, um. HR executive, HR business partner. Right. as what did you see as, hey, the companies themselves don't necessarily have the capabilities or the solutions in place to do this, but I can come in as a strategic partner and fill this need. Like what, what did you see that that helped you make that jump to, starting your own business?
Zach:You know, I, for me, I realized that human resources and is really a function ultimately, like at its most pessimistic human resources is a risk mitigation tool. Or office for the comp for the corporation. They work for the company they work for. Human resources exist to serve at the pleasure of an executive leadership to help tamp down risk, be it employee pushback or any type of litigious risk or repu brand reputational risk. That is really what human resources at the corporate level is for Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't people who operate in human resources, who aren't authentic and genuine about their care for employees, but if you were to ask like the CEO and the COO, what the Human Resources Office is for, it's meant to make sure that the ship don't leak too bad. That's the goal. So for me though. I am passionate about advocacy. I'm passionate about systems reimagining. I'm passionate about org transformation. And so what happened for me was I started as an HR manager at Target, but then I continued forward and position and pivoted out of, retail and out and then into like a human HR business partner role within energy and pharmaceutical. But I eventually got into consulting. Right. So I started at Accenture, then I went to Capgemini, then I went to PricewaterhouseCoopers. And so it was during that season, that consultative season where I'm I'm ex I'm, I'm external, and I'm client facing. And I'm talking to all these different businesses, these different business owners and unit unit leaders and chief
Kenny:Uh,
Zach:and chief decision makers that I'm realizing Okay, so this is how. Because I was able to kind of sit on the outside of it and like really kind of step outside of the, of the, of the, of, the machine. Even though, again, I'm, I'm working for a consulting firm, but again, I'm looking at it just much more like a shark. I'm not really looking at it with all the emotion. and personal personality attached to it.'cause I'm looking at the entire enterprise. And So that helps me understand, okay, here's the real for here's the real function and purpose of this space. And so as time went on, like I said, I'm like, okay. Well, where does all, all these things, the things that I'm really passionate about, they can exist and people try to practice them internally, but they are ultimately at odds with Like, the core penultimate function of human resources.
Kenny:mm-hmm.
Zach:And so for me, living Corporate came about and the podcast came about because I said, you know what? We're real talk in the corporate world, meaning. We're gonna have conversations outside of, the gaze of corporate hr. we're gonna name harm
Kenny:car,
Zach:and we're gonna name parties. Without having, to apologize, without having to look over our shoulder or double. check that we can say it. You know, when We have a po, when Living Corporate Drops a, podcast, I'm not sending it.
Kenny:it
Zach:to, the chief people officer or our legal or a legal. team to edit it to make sure that no one's offended or that we don't violate X, Y, and Z. We're having. a real conversation
Kenny:Mm-hmm.
Zach:that That degree of authenticity and lack of. apology for any one person or party or group is appealing to brands. Because brands do want to be able to have the conversations. They recognize that there's internal red tape and frankly, even just some from a brand perspective, like they know they're not Gonna be. heard and seen as authentic as authentically as they would as like a living corporate would because we're an outside entity coming in to talk
Kenny:Mm-hmm.
Zach:opposed to them. As opposed to them trying to have a fireside chat where it's really just gonna be a bunch of back pat and self-congratulatory nonsense. You know what I mean?
Kenny:That is, uh. I'm glad you, you touched on the, oftentimes the, the imagery of HR is rather Sinister, right? Like, it's like, hey, like. HR is there to support the business, right. But I think there is always that people element, like you said, like at the heart of a business, right? There should be, there's probably some amazing people adding value for the business and why not have a honest dialogue with them? can imagine for a lot of executives to, when you get to a certain scale. They can also, they can kind of deem some of those conversations as not worth having it because there's so much downside risk. And they themselves saying it versus having another party such as yourself come in kind of, not mediate, but like, you know, like open the sandbox up. Like let everybody have an opportunity to stand on the soapbox in their own way and say what they want to say. so that, that, that's really cool that you found that niche and. necessarily see a lot of people, um, putting the time and the energy into their HR function, in-house, or why not work with a strategic partner like Zachary in that case? I love that.
Zach:Well, no, I mean, and here's the thing, right? We're all, because we're coming, and this is also just the benefit of just hiring a contractor, consultant, fractional person, whatever. You're not having to worry about managing my emotions or like. You know, getting me to believe in the bigger picture. I'm coming in to do a job and I'm here to make sure that you're successful. I'm here to support, I'm here to give, I'm here to drive impact for you as best as po, best as I can. And then when this contract is up, we can either renew the contract or we don't. And that's okay. Right. I think like there's a benefit to that and I think especially in this market where folks continue to cut and head count, full FTEs are very expensive. There's a, there's an economic lever to it as well, right? We're, we're gonna come in, you don't have to onboard us the same way that you would an FTE. We're gonna come in and we're gonna provide the solution or product or service that. we've agreed to that we're gonna go, right? And like, so example, like we do brand storytelling. We do, we have an e-learning platform and we have data transformation and analytics, right? And so. If you were to come in, if, if we're gonna come in, you don't need to talk to us about whatever, because we already have, we're coming in with the expertise and our delivery time is pretty sharp when our analytics solutions can't even talking about, you know, we're delivering you insight from, you know, you ingesting your data, your HRS data, or your customer experience data, or your survey sentiment data. Your salary data or all data
Kenny:Mm-hmm.
Zach:we're giving you, we're giving you analytics and analytical dashboards and consulting like in a, in a two week. Turnaround,
Kenny:That's incredible.
Zach:right. We talking about brand storytelling, like, you know, we are the ones standing up all the content for you, right? I think about the, the, the campaigns that we have, we've had in the past with Amazon and Pfizer. I think about the campaigns right now that we're in the middle of with, with Intuit, right? Like we're, we're to end support. You don't have to worry about having to look over our shoulder. I'm gonna give you the project plan. We're gonna align on it, and we're gonna execute.
Kenny:I like that. So there, there's something that I've been wondering lately, for a lot of jobs, that I've applied for say, over the last five years I've noticed something.
Zach:Hmm.
Kenny:The applications are getting longer and longer, and maybe this may be off on a tangent, Zachary, but just, just stay, stick with me. A lot of the
Zach:I'm here.
Kenny:That they collect on these applications isn't necessarily for the job itself. It's some of the, I don't wanna say the back officey stuff, but the stuff where it's like, race, a what do you recognize yourself as? Maybe gender, military, of those types of questions. Right. What are companies doing? Like you mentioned analytics, right? And so that was, that was really key, key to me. Like what are companies able to do with some of this data that they may not necessarily be doing now once they partner with you?
Zach:Yeah. So, you know, here's the thing. Every company has some sort of, data arm, right? Where they have a dashboard or something. Every HR team has a dashboard. so it's not a question of if they're doing nothing with. I'm gonna say at least like 70% of their data, they typically have some type of platform that they're using that gives them some type of visualization that they're, they're able to look at and and use. What we continue to notice that live in corporate though, is that the digestibility of those visualizations is all over the place, right. So like, I think because when it comes to data visualization, a lot of times it's data scientists putting these things together. But it takes, it's more, it's a, it's a, there's a delicate balance between org strategy and data science to make effective visualizations. you have to really? Understand The nature of work and understand like your audience. To build something that people can actually use. Having a bunch of bar graphs and charts and lines and stickers and numbers everywhere. Like, yeah, it looks really busy and it looks very informative, but what are you actually doing with that? So that's the first thing is some of these reports are very, they're very busy, but they're not actually very insightful. they look busy though. They look, uh. Smart, but if you can't really action on them, then what is it really for? The other, the other piece is that organizations often are, like, they have a, they might have a bunch of, they have a bunch of data and they're pulling the data, but they're not connecting the dots between their DA data sets, so. they may have their sentiment data in one place. Their payroll data. Another place their headcount data, another place their, their Performance data, in another place, their benefits elections in another place, their app, their hiring and recruiting data in another place. and then they also might have their, their compliance.
Kenny:Clients,
Zach:and, and complaint hotline data. in another place. And there's nothing wrong with having that data in a bunch of different places. That's the nature of just technology. Like, and like, yes, Workday and a DP, some of these places can sell you on having everything in one consolidated place. That's fine. The, the, the, the labor and the differentiator for us is we are passionate about stitching all of it together. So What does. Your Gen X black engineer who is a woman and a caretaker, on your, on the, on, on the West Coast, How, what is their, level? what is that group's level of trust compared to white baby boomer executives on the East coast? Who are not caretakers, right? So it's like that the ability? to connect everything together and see what that person's or group's experience might be in terms of how long it takes for'em to get promoted, how long, what their average performance rating is, what kind of benefits do they typically elect and why, what their, again, what their trust or sentiment is of their leadership and organization. But you can't really get a complete picture of any employee if you're not connecting all the, all the data together. And the last thing I'll say about the, about it is, is that. That's one thing a lot of, A lot of times when it comes to data, at best, people are looking at where they're at, right? now, but Most people are looking at where they, where they, where they've been. So they're looking at historical data. You're looking, at old data. You might be looking. at data from last quarter or last year, The future of this space. And when you, when you talk about like really driving for impact is being able to build out predictive analytics so you can understand what's coming. And so living corporate we do that work a lot, right, we're able to take in your historical data and then get, leverage. that to build out predictive models and then connect that to a return on investment, right? So, Hey, here's the turnover. of this particular group. Here's what it has been based on trends and a variety of factors right? Basically just I guess the calculations we build and the. Formulas we build, Here's where it's gonna be going. If you pull this lever, maybe turnover goes down If you pull this other lever. turnover may go up. And also, here's the cost. to your enterprise. Because of that decision. Here's the cost If you are, if you do nothing, here's the cost. If you do B, here's the cost. if you do see. And so like that level of insight helps organizations make better decisions. and at least helps them make and also can accelerate decisions because it's not a bunch of people kind of licking their fingers, sticking in the air or arguing anecdotally about what has always. worked versus what won't work. We're being informed by the data.
Kenny:I like that. data storytelling. It seems like that's gonna be a skill that you just touched on, but I think that's definitely for those that are like tapping into new wave of like analytics and ai, like that's an area where, to your point, Zachary, like you're, I appreciate you telling that story. Some people aren't the best at telling that or having that. They don't have that ability to tell the story. And so they're gonna be willing to connect with somebody who is strong and leverages that as a superpower. So. As you were just talking about that whole scenario, like you really painted a full picture, like if I can think of this as like the movie, the HR movie, right? In terms of the data coming in, maybe there's a problem and then you come in and you provide that solution to your customer or your client who's the main character. Talk a little bit about pricing just real fast. Not, you don't have to get specific, but how do you, how do you price
Zach:Mm-hmm.
Kenny:like this that sounds rather nuanced and complex for. An executive or somebody who really, really needs to make a decision on this rather quickly, and they don't, they may not care about the, the ins and outs of it, the nuts and bolts, or they
Zach:Mm-hmm.
Kenny:talk. a little bit about how you price, what living, corporate, offers to the world.
Zach:Yeah. I love. contextualizing it in terms of like a team. So if you were to go out and hire. analytics team for your enterprise. You're probably gonna spend, let's say you, let's say let's, let's say you hire three people. Let's say you hire like a senior data scientist, A junior analyst, and like one more junior analyst, right? Let's say you have a small team, you're probably gonna st on the low end, probably still spend about$500,000.
Kenny:Yeah. Easy.
Zach:Right. Like that's not just salary, that's total comp. And I feel like I'm being really conservative when I say$500,000. So for us, we like to say, Hey look, we're a fraction of that over a year, right? we love coming in and like being that partner over a set period of time because we want to be able to stand up some solutions and be an ongoing point of support. And that really is how we operate. and it's been successful so far when we've contextualized it that way, right? So if I come to you and we put$150,000 price tag on something and it's analytics over the course of a year, and here's all the pieces you're going to get, and here's what you're saving. Because if you went out and hired a, just if you hired a single data scientist. You're gonna spend at least$80,000 in salary, like, let alone benefits, right? If you were to hire a senior data scientist who, like is coming in, who has experience in working with various visualization tools, who understands Python, who's gonna, who has experience, and and understanding people data and other types of data sets, that's gonna be expensive. And so we like to, we always like to see, we always like to position ourselves as a fractional. Partner to organizations who are looking to accelerate in, to, accelerate themselves to insight.
Kenny:That fractional word. I've been seeing a lot more of that, lately. and I, I appreciate you breaking it down that way because first glance, somebody could say, Hey. You're selling it for cheaper, but not necessarily because like you said, there is a, a cheaper component, but you're doing things in, in a much more efficient way and then you're,
Zach:Mm-hmm.
Kenny:like the, the cost of benefits and some of the other things that come with making somebody full-time that factor in as
Zach:Mm-hmm.
Kenny:of just that base price that we, that we all think in terms of the way that we pay people. I like that
Zach:100 per 100%, man.
Kenny:Yeah. No, I, I always ask folks, I'm, I've been asking more and more folks lately around the, the, the way that stuff is priced, products and services and your business is an example of that. When we're, we're. on a B2B marketplace. Um, I certainly think that we, we have some opportunities for more folks, specifically black founders, to go in that space. And the, the point to which you just explained is a perfect example of that, where there's so much value to unlock. Once you figure out the need for that business. Businesses have to do some of these core functional. Like domain areas, like they have to have HR expertise in some form or fashion, right? And so they can go out and they can kind of build out a, a function internally. Right. and waste a lot of resources. Or they can be, uh, much more precise, like Swiss Army knife, right? So have somebody come in like a Z right, and really get to the pain point in an effective way, for whatever duration of time. But then that value is unlocked for them. and a lot of times they're willing to spend that. They're, they, they're gonna spend that money regardless. Why not spend it a little bit more effectively? B2B is the, I I I, I've been preaching this for like the last year or so. I really want to see more black founders get into the B2B space. I think it, the,
Zach:Yeah, man.
Kenny:it's in our face, right? Like every single day
Zach:Mm-hmm.
Kenny:a way to sell a, a product to the consumer audience. But the bag is what? B2B, that's just my, that's just
Zach:Man,
Kenny:moment, Zach.
Zach:man, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump up there with you because like, well, here's the thing, Like I think, so a couple, a couple things for me. Because I spent so much of my career in consulting, and frankly, I have like a fairly consultative approach just in how I think about work. So even before I worked at Accenture, was my fir the first firm, my, my first stop in my consulting journey, I was a HR business partner, right? And so tho and really a, an effective HR business partner operates consultatively. They use Socratic, reasoning and methods to help people. Like, get to a place. They, they ask a lot of questions. they provide a ve a variety of recommendations. They, they, they, they influence without authority. Like, you know, that's what a effective, any business partner, certain, let alone an HR business partner does well. And so when I think about, I think about business and I think about like where I see the most impact. I do think about selling to other businesses. I also struggle as a black founder, a black entrepreneur, a black CEO, selling to individuals. When I can look at the, the market and see that buyer, like the buyer is having a really hard time, the individual consumer's having a really hard time right now, right? Like everything's getting more expensive. Right, like and I struggle'cause and PE and I mean people have pop, like they've told me, Zach, why don't you charge people for this or charge people for that? Like, you know, sell the and sell it. And then we have a Patreon that we do not update. I need to update it. I definitely would love people to support the Patreon. At the same time I got these twins, I got two other kids, I got a bunch of stuff going on. I am not prioritized the Paton as I should, but I'm open to people supporting. Supporting, right. If they want to support and give. They can, for extra content or bonus material or early mat, early content, that's fine. But like I struggle to sell to a, a group of people that they need help, right? likeI'm not gonna sell a webinar to a bunch of black and brown people or other, or queer people on how to navigate the world of work. I should just tell you that, like, that's my own personal, that's my personal. Like ethics though, right? Everybody is different, right? And there's whole businesses built on selling people liberation and like that is their choice. I'm not gonna shame that. I'm not gonna attack that. I, just am not gonna emulate that. what I would much rather, do, and. God has blessed me so far in this is. I'd much rather give away the podcast for free. Our access to our, archive on our website, living-corporate.com. Please say the dash, you can, you can go there. If you make an account, you can see our whole library, right? Not gonna charge you a thing. Now, I am gonna ask for information so you can build, you have to build a profile, but it's free though, right? I'd much rather. do that and then charge Amazon. Charge Pfizer charge. UNICEF charge Intuit. I'd rather charge these institutions, not only that, who can not only, afford it, but are. looking for black-owned businesses to say that they support. You know what I'm saying? And so I'm always gonna be a proponent of B2B. And as I think about the future of work, the future of work is not, really gonna be, it's like I don't think that, that the worker who is like really looking to thrive. yes, Look, you can have merch and you can have other, I'm not, I'm not knocking that we have merch, but merch is not in no way. I don't ever think about. living corporate's merch site as a revenue, stream at living. I just do not, right? I'm like ultimately you're gonna need to figure out what enterprise, solution you're delivering and guess what? You're scale like you can scale with that in a much better way, even when times are tough, right? So down markets and during down markets. You're doing B2B,
Kenny:you,
Zach:you may only need to close like two clients.
Kenny:Mm-hmm.
Zach:to be okay, but if you're a B2C Model and everybody's getting crushed or squeezed by the market, well guess what? now you gotta go extra crazy.
Kenny:Mm-hmm.
Zach:To match your revenue. Whereas before, let's say like if in 2024 you signed a multi-year contract with somebody with a big company and it was like, a hundred thousand dollars a year. Well, guess what? When the, when their tough year comes, you still at least got revenue from it. It's just a different way of working and thinking that I believe is just much more sustainable.
Kenny:Mm-hmm.
Zach:in, it can Be intimidating. It could Be intimidating. But it's, I believe it's much more rewarding and I think it's much. more sustainable, especially in like times like this where companies are closing left and right. Small business are getting crushed right now. Kenny,
Kenny:Speak on it.
Zach:They getting crushed.
Kenny:yeah, I completely agree. for folks that may, see our podcast content and have any inclination that I'm making money off of this, the podcast itself, like to Zachary's Point is really giving away for free. Like we've tried sponsorships and we've tried some different things in the past. wasn't as much a focus on the money in those cases versus like the network or there was like a synergy there in terms of what we want to focus on in terms of content. And so I appreciate you saying that Zachary just like given the, given the game away for free, um. At a certain level to kind of enable, the consumer or the individual to, you know, figure things out in their own way. then on the flip side of that, at that marketplace kind of viewpoint, right? Using those, some of those B2B relationships to, to. To, to really make a living and become whole again. If I can say that from like a revenue perspective, I'm not mad at that at all. I'd appreciate if a big company came along and threw the bag our way for this podcast stuff. but certainly I'm not looking to, to nickel and dime my way, to, you know, a point of consistent or. A surplus of revenue, from, from a content perspective. So I appreciate you throwing that out there. that is a good segue though, because I want to touch real briefly on the content, itself that Living Corporate has. I think I saw on the website you all have a thousand plus podcast episodes. so we're approaching a hundred. I don't even know. What I'll look like if I were to produce a thousand pieces of, podcast content, but that is neither here nor there. Like, talk a bit a little bit about your strategy from a content perspective where it's not just, you having your show, right? You're, you're bringing along others and it's really. This network effect, that, that, that has been really cool to kind of witness, you do that. But talk a little bit about, you know, what other content you have on the platform besides your living corporate base product. And then like, you know, what this does for your business overall. Having this, having this much content at your fingertips to, to give to your audience.
Zach:Yeah, so you know, first things first is we have. Obviously to your point, we have, we have myself, living corporate real talk Tuesdays. man, real talk Tuesdays. We've been like in and around Tuesday.'cause Kenny, I, man, I'm gonna tell you, I'm telling y'all, I'm telling you man, these newborns have been whooping my behind, but we still uploading and when that we're having really frank, unapologetic, unfiltered discussions about, the world of work at the intersection of lived experience. And so we're gonna talk about. Li honestly, everything we talked about today between employee experience, customer experience, navigating, the world of work as an ally, what does it mean to like really be inclusive, managing your own, wellness, and the whole scope of wellness? What does that mean? different types of research. So we're gonna interview academics, advisors, elected officials, influencers, authors, entrepreneurs, civil servants. The list goes on. But that's not the only show to your point on the Living Corporate Network. We also have, we, we also have a show called Your Turn, which is really aimed to be, aimed at, gen Zers and very, very young millennials. And that's really hosted by my siblings who are a band, called None Above. And so they do a really good job just talking about. The business of music.'cause they're,'cause they're a band. So they talk about the world of music and they talk about navigating the music world as young black professionals, young black artists. we have a show called, we Ain't Dying for This, hosted by Crystal Johnson, who is a and a DEI, HR executive. Is, but she's talking about black women and liberation and identity. And then we have a bunch of other, like limited series that we've, that have been on living corporate, so right, so they're not in perpetuity living corporate proper. real talk Tuesdays and the bonus shows that come from me are the only things that'll go on that will never stop. Right? There's never an off season for living c. flagship, but We, have, we've. had a bunch of other shows over the years. Right. I'm thinking about the fact that Living Corporate started in 2018. Right. So we've had a lot of different shows. We've, we've had the access point, which is, which was built on, supporting and advocating for a. aspiring professionals, people, kid, younger people coming out of college. we've had, we've had the tap in with Tristan, tap in with Tristan was All about resume writing and getting a job and like navigating the world of LinkedIn. you know, we've had, we've had, liberated Love notes, which is about black women and identity and and healing and growth, right? So we've had all sorts. of, limited series, right? If you're talking about. 20, 30, 60 episodes. and to, to your, to your question about how does it fill, fill into our larger content strategy. One, we wanna be able to be a resource for folks. So when you go on our website and you type in something where you look for something, we wanna be able to be a thought leader. And so we're passionate about creating content that's engaging. And then on top of that, the content, though our podcast. After a while, Kenny, I had to ask myself, okay, what is the lifespan of a pod episode, right? If you drop a pod on a Monday, What is the value of that pod? Two Mondays later,
Kenny:Mm-hmm.
Zach:Right? and the answer for most people is not that much. Like, you know, you chew the g you spit it out, you pick another piece of g right? And That's not a, that's not a slight, on. That particular pod. I mean like Bruce Springsteen I wanna say. And Barack Obama had. a podcast. Do You go back and listen to them podcast episodes? No. Some of y'all don't even know people listening, don't even know they had a pod. You know what I'm saying?
Kenny:saying?
Zach:So what do you do though? with all the ip, the thought leadership that you've created over time? What do you do? So for us, what we decided to do. We decided to take all of the, we decided to take all the transcripts of all of our podcasts and we decided to build an AI engine called Insight Engine and it, we fed the transcripts into this engine and then turned those transcripts into e-learning modules. And then we took those modules and we put them on a custom. Player like A a custom environment, very similar to like Spotify, but Spotify, but for employee experience and inclusive leadership. And we sell that as a B2B subscription
Kenny:subscription.
Zach:to companies looking to drive engagement and drive learning and training.
Kenny:I wish I
Zach:So
Kenny:cache. I wish I had a cache button.'cause that is like a money, that's a gem right there. like you dropping gems or something like that. A sound.'cause that was amazing. But keep going Zach. I just got excited and I don't know if you could tell my eyes got big as you were talking. but that excited me what you just said and then you explained and I hope people are listening, to that little nugget because I'll be clipping that up for sure.
Zach:No, no. I was trying to find, hold on. I was trying to find. Just trying to, I got my little soundboard thing right here, so I was just trying to find.
Kenny:Yeah, that's a good one. The flex bomb. Yes. Yes. Play it it play it. Please. Because what you just said, I don't think, don't think, people really understand the context of that. If you have a thousand, Play it. Go. Thank, thank, thank you, sir. Yes. Play it again. And play it. Play it one more time if you want. Because that sounded like money being dropped gems, but man, having a thousand transcripts. And then dropping it into the ai. Now that's something informed, right? Like you, to your point, as you were explaining, it was like it's gonna give you something that is really tailored to Zachary's been talking about since 2018, right? Like that's powerful in and of itself, having that, and then you turn around and charge for it. Oh my gosh.
Zach:And so and so look, man, it's a great tool because, and I, man, I just wanna say. I wanna say, man, shout out to Amplify Credit Union. amplify Credit Union. I'm an excellent partner. and Angela? Angela and the whole team over there. Ashley Cunningham. you know, I just wanted Angela Shaw to be clear, Ashley Cunningham, but really like their willingness to be like. An early partner, an early client, for the tool and like it's so dope seeing, seeing them. We have some other clients as well who like will make a playlist.'cause what you do is, so think about it like this. Think about like Spotify. You go on Spotify, you are like, I need to make a playlist for my cousin graduation party. Or I need to make a playlist for my baby's eighth birthday party. So you're gonna go on Spotify or you're gonna type in some songs, right? There's all types of songs. You choose what you want, you take that playlist, and then you can then send it out to people. You send it, you can send it to your partner, who's then gonna stream, who's gonna play it on the Bluetooth speaker, or you send it to whomever. Right? So it's really the same idea. In this platform, it's really about, you can make a playlist. on like, let's say Hispanic Heritage Month. And because we've been talking to so many people over the years, there's gonna be modules on supporting Latinx identity. Why the term Latinx? Why does every, does everyone agree on Latinx, right? Like, what does it mean to be an ally? Like what does it mean? Like we have tons of content like that. Are you on Women's History Month? Supporting women in the workplace, why women are effective leaders. Why this, why that, right? Like, but there's a treasure trove of content from all the discussions we've had over the years. And so then what you are able to do then is you can build out playlists and then share them to your organization's intranet to their environment. So the reason I wanna shout out Amplify is because I love the way that they. They're like, Hey, look, we got our, we got our cultural calendar and we have the things that we wanna highlight, and we're gonna leverage this platform. We're gonna build playlists, and every month we're gonna release a different playlist to highlight different topics. And so and so. Not, it's not a pure LMS, right? So when you click that module, you're gonna get the Audio or video file or. both. You're gonna get a summary of what that conversation's about. You're gonna get discussion questions, and you're gonna get action items. And the reason why I did not want to try to build a Skillsoft or a Udemy is because I'm not looking to replace a pure LMS. I'm looking to be that solution. As brands divest from full scale DEI teams and spending$30,000 on DEI speakers that this can be an ongoing resource that is caught, that is economically feasible for them, and could be something that supplements and sits alongside a pure LMS.
Kenny:Bars. I'm not, I, I don't even need to say nothing else. I, I, I. Just folks listen in, to what he just said. you held that until the end. So I'm glad because that's the clippable moment For sure. Or one of the many. but just seeing, hearing you say that just now, I got a little, I got a little too excited, I just wanna say, thank you for being on as a guest. Like seriously, Zachary, this is, I learned from the first second you started talking until the end and it only got better and better. There was like a amazing ramp up to, to you closing us out with that. speaking of close. I definitely wanna pass it to you. Let folks know how they can tap in with the brand. I think you, you mentioned the URL earlier, but I wanna make sure we get that right at the end so folks know where to tap in.
Zach:For sure. Look, man, it's living Dash corporate, please say the dash.com. But if you just Google Living Corporate, we will pop up. I'll Kenny, I'll give you my LinkedIn on, so that way I'm Zachary nun. Zach nun, look me up. There's really only two Zack nuns. All right. There's this Zack nun and there's some like Republican MAGA dude from Iowa. Like I'm obviously not that Zack nun, but I'm gonna put, I'm gonna give Kenny the information. Y'all click the links in the show notes, but again, it's Living Corporate, Google Living Corporate. We will pop up if you wanna go to a URL living corporate.com or you could do living corporate.co, living corporate.net, living corporate.us living corporate.org, living corporate.tv, living corporate.ai. If you, you can do like we everywhere, just search live in. corporate and we gonna pop up.
Kenny:I like that. so, lasting thought. What do you want as the lasting thought for our listeners who, chime, chimed in, listen today to this conversation? Like what do you want them to take away and remember, from this amazing conversation that we had?
Zach:So my assumption is that the majority of your listeners are like individuals like black and brown, probably Working people, right? They're not necessarily like executive buyers.
Kenny:Yeah, working business owners. But you hit it, right, Dan Nail right on the head. Black and brown for sure.
Zach:Cool. So I. think the takeaway I just want, I want people to hear is that like you're enough, you are not your productivity, you're not your brand, you're not your revenue. You're enough by yourself, and you don't have to be defined by those things, even though capitalism demands that we are. I think the other thing I wanna say is that. You can't outperform white supremacy. So seek to be yourself every day. Seek to be more authentic to your own principles and goals every day, and allow those goals to be things that are not driven by what some white folks told you. Allow those goals to be something that are driven by what your spirit tells you and honor that, and I promise you, as someone who's on that journey with you every day gets a bit more liberating.
Kenny:Appreciate it, Zach. Thanks for tuning into another great episode of The Beyond Normal Podcast folks.
