Michael Conner: [00:00:00] Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to another episode of Voices for Excellence. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Conner, CEO, and founder of the Agile Evolutionary Group, and of course, the proud host for VFE and today's guest are We are actually in deep with our black excellent series and today's guest.

Michael Conner: Is someone that I look up to from an educational standpoint, business standpoint. I mean, we're gonna get really, really deep into his, uh, his business, his expanded businesses as well. And just the impact that he's having within the education ecosystem. And again, this month, black History Month, we are highlighting black excellence and Dr.

Michael Conner: Heiber just exemplifies black excellence all around. So we're gonna cover all of the dimensions today. But today's guest, yes, is Dr. David Heiber. He is the CEO and founder, but just found out about something with [00:01:00] Concentric solutions. So we're gonna get a little bit into that. You know, that's, to me, that's, that's kind of like a.

Michael Conner: Flex move, as I always like to say, and then his other business endeavors as well. But you know, when you think about, you know, entrepreneurs, I like to say black entrepreneurs, black business sectors within the education ecosystem, we try to reach. We try to reach this pinnacle that Dr. Heiber has. I mean, literally just what he has done throughout the education ecosystem.

Michael Conner: But that pinnacle, reaching that pinnacle from a black entrepreneur standpoint, black business standpoint, is something that we all want to emulate and we are gonna unpack. His intellectual property is strategies that he have for us entrepreneurs as well as startups in this sector, specifically focused on.

Michael Conner: African American males and females. But without any further ado, someone that I absolutely love, man, I I, I saw him at NABSE. See man, we had some internal jokes and, and that's [00:02:00] why I just love this good brother. Without further ado, Dr. David Heiber, what's going on? Good brother, man. Good to see you.

David Heiber: What's going on?

David Heiber: Good, brother? Yeah, man, I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. But I mean, you definitely have been and continue to do your thing. You know, your, your, your space that you've carved out here, your reputation precedes you, your authenticity grounds you, man. So, no, it's, it's, it's powerful to be, to be a guest here.

David Heiber: I appreciate it.

Michael Conner: No, man, I appreciate you being on here, man. And like I said to, at the, at the introduction, I said this to you in person, I won't be like you when I grow up, man.

Michael Conner: We gonna find out why. Me as well as many other entrepreneurs, as well as CEOs of startups and companies who want to be like this good brother, man. I'm telling you, you got listen, no holds back man. You gotta give us a secret sauce.

David Heiber: Man. You know, it's interesting, I've been talking about this more and more so, you know, celebrating your series on black excellence.

David Heiber: It's interesting 'cause my [00:03:00] birthday is actually in February, February 20th and I'll be, I'll be 50 and I remember when I started this journey on concentric I had, or in concentric, I had no illusions or delusions of where it was gonna be. It was really about the work. So similar to what you said I did, I stepped down in October after 16 years.

David Heiber: Was it 16 years? Yeah, something like that. 16, 70 years of being the CEO and founder of Concentric. Still, still on the board. Still deeply involved. It's it, it's in my heart, but you know, as you can attest to many entrepreneurs, whatever the case may be, you know when you start something. As a founder, it's not, it's not just a company.

David Heiber: Uh, it, I mean it, it's literally something that you've birthed and you've given so much to through the sacrifice, the long nights and long days, no vacations, whatever the case may be. So making that transition from CEO, running it day to day, and then the new endeavor is called redemption. And redemption is really just the next [00:04:00] evolution, particularly as for me to give back going into my 50th year.

Michael Conner: Absolutely, and and to my audience. When you transition from CEO founder to a board member, that means you made it.

Michael Conner: Yeah. That means you made it.

David Heiber: It, it was, but, and you know, it, it was absolutely necessary. You know, I, I watched a couple things today and you know, as we're getting older, I used to be obviously the youngest in the room, and then you lick up and you're not the youngest in the room anymore, and you're like, what happened?

David Heiber: And this year, what, just this week, we lost two giants as far as transitioning in the, in the NFL coaching realm. My native ball being from Baltimore and John Harbo. But then Mike Tomlin, shout out to Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and. You know, 18 years and 19 years, respectively, that's a long time to be in one place.

David Heiber: It's a, it's a long time and I, and I thought about like how much I. [00:05:00] Tenacity and innovation that you need in this space. And when you talk about like this secret sauce, you know, I don't know if it's so much of a secret sauce as more of a hodgepodge as you're trying to figure it out along as you figure it out along the way.

David Heiber: And that's kind of what I've, you know, really experienced. And so second, you know, shameless plug, our first book came out, one Do at a Time, came out in the summer and I wrote that with my. Frat brother, as well as my chief of staff at the time, Michael Gary, and then Iry Tolson, your frat brother, who I think is the modern data board.

David Heiber: Uh, shout out to Iry and to Michael as well. And that was really talking about the story of Concentric. And then I have a book coming out. On my birthday, February 20th, presales coming out next week called Centricity. So what many people don't know is that Centricity or they may know Centricity is really my theory of action and change for education.

David Heiber: Concentric just became the company name of it, but it's centricity and it's, it's taken [00:06:00] from directly from Molefi Asante in Afrocentricity, but that book is coming out. But then in August. About that secret sauce, someone really challenged me and said, can you write something about this? How do you build a black business and how do you scale it?

David Heiber: And I've spent some time and came out with, come out with a book August called The Grind is Real, 10 Essential Principles for a Black Businesses Business to Scale. And it, it will outline the 10 principles. It'll give, it will give examples and it's, it's not what most people think. Right? Like one of the principles is the George Costanza effect.

David Heiber: If you don't know that, you gotta go back and watch Seinfeld. Another principle is there are no experts. So many people get on these platforms and they think they're experts. They don't, we don't know what the hell we doing.

Michael Conner: Right, right. You right.

David Heiber: We just trying to figure the joy out.

Michael Conner: Dr. Heiber, and, and as you alluded to that, right, and stated to that, uh, to my audience, please make sure, you know, February 20th is when Dr.

Michael Conner: Heiber's book dropped, and then in [00:07:00] August for all of the black entrepreneurs, CEO founders, startups, right, focused on black businesses. Police picked that up in August. But Dr. Heiber, you know, so many people come up to me. And they state like, wow, you know, Mike, you know, wow, I can't believe it, what you're doing and how you're building this and how you're doing that.

Michael Conner: But on the back end, Dr. Heiber, you're right, no vacations. 13, 14 hour days, you're up to two, three in the morning. You're juggling like five or six things. So the per the, the, the output, the perception is immense success. They see, they see the end value of our work, but as they state, you know, the, the, the, the, the candle was burning at, at midnight past four or five in the morning, sometimes two, three hours of sleep that night.

Michael Conner: Weekends what, what, what, what's considered a weekend all the days, Mondays and Saturdays, they still the same thing. So it, it, [00:08:00] it, it's just Dr. Heiber just. The, the, the vitality, the, the, the, the work, the intentionality, the, the time spent, the adaptation, the various iterations that we go through within our business model, right?

Michael Conner: Measuring specific metrics, whether it be our arr, you know, annual reoccurring revenue, whether it be, how can we now innovate, you know, with the 10, you know, total, total annual market, I mean. These are things that educators, right. Superintendents we're, we're not educated in that because it's a whole business sector that we have to be able to underpin.

Michael Conner: And you said it, you know, it's kind of like you're learning by doing, you know, you're flying this plane and you're building it at the same time.

David Heiber: Yeah. And I knew, and you know, I gotta be transparent with everybody like so. I've always been, I've always been a grinder. If, if, you know my backstory, I've always grinded in whatever the case may be, whether it was back in the day with newspaper routes, and then newspaper routes kind of blended into [00:09:00] me cutting grass and my cutting grass clients turned into shoveling snow and I was able to then what I, you know, one of the things I did and I didn't know it, I was scaling a business then when I was 12 years old.

David Heiber: I just didn't know that I was scaling a business. All I did was I took my, my VC money. Back then when I was 12, which was my paper route.

Michael Conner: Yeah.

David Heiber: Because that was the steady, that was the study. I was then able to u

Michael Conner: if I could interject one one minute.

David Heiber: Yeah.

Michael Conner: Yeah. Vc, can you just explain, unpack what VC means and what that, the whole totality mindset of VC money.

David Heiber: Yeah, so VC is venture capitalist money, and it's really these, uh, it is about organizations that seek. Now some of them will call themselves social impact. Some of them may not, whatever the case may be. But it's really like they're looking for organizations, businesses that they can come in, see profitability, whether it be through the, the revenue, whether it be through ebit, depends upon like what the, what metric they're really looking at total contract value and [00:10:00] what you're trying to do.

David Heiber: And this is what I tell everybody now. 'cause people are asking me, how did you get VC money? And you're a black business, 1% of VC money goes to black businesses, or 1.5%, or whatever the case may be. Right? It's a, it's a very small percentage. And one of the things I said is that, well, I was very honest with them on the front end.

David Heiber: I said, I don't know what EBITDA is. I don't know what Op X is. I don't know what cogs are. I, I had, I didn't know any of that. I was able to build a profitable business only because I was focused on the students and the results. The profit comes later on. It's similar to in athletics, that if you're worrying about MVPs and private accolades is one thing, but if you're focused on the team goal and winning the championship, everything else comes from, everything else comes from it.

David Heiber: And so I, I, I tell people as they're interested in VC money or the profit, because they, they quickly want to get that, and I understand that. What I caution them is, is that you're gonna give up something. Regardless of [00:11:00] how socially and conscious minded VCs are, or some of the VCs are, they're in it for one reason, and that's to make money first and foremost.

David Heiber: And then pro, uh, impact, like, let's not get it confused. And I had a great VC partner and the, the g, the lead general partner there. Amazing guy. Very conscious guy. But he will even tell you that 20 years ago when he started it, he was profit driven. Now, now he's had a decent amount of success and so he's able to see past just the profit momentarily.

David Heiber: But at the end of the day, he has people that he's responsible for. He's investing people's money, right? So I was literally speaking to a another CEOA couple weeks ago and they said, they asked me, well, you know, can you help me? And I was like. Do you want to keep control of your company? Because the minute you take a dollar, you're not in control of your company anymore.

Michael Conner: Absolutely.

David Heiber: You, you, you got, you gotta know that you're not the sole decision maker, right? There's different fiduciary responsibilities that you have [00:12:00] to be comfortable with, and you're gonna have to learn how to do things differently. So that's kind of the world of vc.

Michael Conner: You know what, Dr. Heiber, a lot of people, you know, don't really understand a granular context.

Michael Conner: When VC money comes into a company, right? You know, when now you have to be able to adopt a board and you know you have to meet specific metrics, right? Your idea, your ideology around the solution, around the platform, yes, it takes into consideration, but again. VC ca VC capitalists, they want to ensure that their voice is a part of the decision making because, you know, they're bringing in their, their own money.

Michael Conner: But I wanna focus on concentric because the work, Dr. Heiber, that you have done. You know, across the country with concentric has just been absolutely phenomenal. The totality of the impact and influence that you've had in the education sector with the work of Concentric now, how [00:13:00] has your journey, because you have a, a, a unique journey of resilience to now this multimillion company that you have built and now you're moving out of the CEO role.

Michael Conner: Okay. Stop flexing bro. For real. Stop flexing to a board position, but one, right. What is the critical work of concentric with regards to chronic absenteeism? You knocked over thousands, thousands of doors to get kids reengaged back in the educational process, and two, you know, the work of concentric. How were you able to establish those meaningful relationships to get families and students back into school?

David Heiber: No, no, I appreciate that. I think there's a couple things. One, because Concentric was a company name for my theory of change, it was always rooted in centricity. So centricity is putting students at the center of school phenomenon. That's what it means. It's taken from Molefi Asante Afrocentricity, who was my professor at Temple, which was, is placing African [00:14:00] Americans and Africans of the diaspora at the Center of Social phenomena.

David Heiber: So it sounds, it sounds. Logical that students should be placed at the center of the educational experience or this ecosystem, but it's not. Adults are politics, are finances are everything that that literally impedes students getting what they need. And it's not a one size fit all. And therefore, it goes back to what I was saying initially is that the approach.

David Heiber: One door at a time is not just like a slogan. It's literally what we think and what we believe and what we've experienced for students to have success. Even when you're talking about one, one door at a time and one stu and multiple students in that one door about resiliency, right? You and how do you tailor make that support and that approach that's undergirded by, we have cornerstones.

David Heiber: So one of the, one of the things that is really Im important to me and has been since undergrad is my fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi. And [00:15:00] it, it, whether it's kappa, whether it's, I mean, I make jokes about iota and, and Sigmas and alphas and Qs and stuff like that, but, and then even the sororities, but it's a, it's literally about the brotherhood.

David Heiber: And so I took that brotherhood that I learned when I became a new, and I always say this, and people will get it if they know it. All nus are Kappas. All Kappas aren't nus and that's applicable to any fraternity, any, uh, any sorority. And it doesn't mean about pledging and hazing and all that stuff. What it means is about is your singular commitment to give your wills and wishes to the wills of the wishes of your line, brother.

David Heiber: Right, or in whatever endeavor that you choose to do. So we have these cornerstones that we adopted. They're not perfect because human beings are, are imperfect. But it was really around authenticity, transparency, tenacity, professionalism, right? Like these are the things that kind of guided what we, what we did, and that that [00:16:00] became those cornerstones that we led with.

David Heiber: And. Even when we talk about it now is that concentric is not a program. So it's not something that's, someone would say, okay, if you do A then B, then c. Because humans are not like that. So what we say is we don't know. We have an approach and the approach is adaptable to the, the, the school or the district that we go into.

David Heiber: So that's what really bred it. And as you know, and this is coming out in the book, I think there's three Rs that, uh, that guide businesses, reputation, relationships, and results. The three Rs. And they, and they're interchangeable in the sense that there's not a hierarchy. There's not a chronology of it.

David Heiber: It's literally relationships, reputation, and results. And those three are fluid at all times. And you really have to make sure, because when they come for you, because let's be, let's be really even more transparent, black businesses are not given the same [00:17:00] leadway for successful failures. Right. And that's not, that's not just with non-blacks.

David Heiber: That's even within our own ecosystem, our own community. Right? And you're gonna fall down 'cause you're gonna make mistakes. Particularly if you're not a trained business person, you're an educator. Like, you're just trying, you, you're, you came up with a good idea to help students, but you're not, you don't know about EBITDA and cogs and profit margins or whatever the case may be, so you just don't know.

David Heiber: Right. So even when I was a school leader, I had one class in school finance, well, one class, and you're managing millions of dollars. As a, you know what I mean? As just as a principle. So that that is kind of what I learned early on and just let the results speak for themselves.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. And definitely

David Heiber: part of the secret sauce.

Michael Conner: Dr. Heiber, and, and I was just about to say that, and to my audience and Dr. Heiber, we use this as a professional learning tool, asynchronous, where they can go back and forth. [00:18:00] You, um, and, and to and, and to my audience who are specifically in this vertical that are CEOs of companies that are part of startups.

Michael Conner: That are looking to found companies, if you think about it, right, Dr. Heiber, the one thing I've learned is the association of the company's business model has to be rooted in educational research, right? And whatever, whether it be a service, whether it be a technological solution, ai, there has to be some research that's embedded in it.

Michael Conner: And I really loved how you explained how concentric is rooted in the social phenomena, right? And you write. That because I see a lot of companies and even companies have been, CEOs have been coming up to me. I said that you have to make sure that either your services or your solution is rooted in some type of research or evidence-based practice that can be able to have the output or the servicer or the solution with the output to have that [00:19:00] impact on the students.

Michael Conner: The cornerstones to my audience, those are core principles, right, where we talk about the alignment of education research. Within a company, it has to be rooted in these core principles. And the core principles that Dr. Heiber was talking about were his cornerstones. I really love that. Reputation, relationships and R the three Rs, but doc completely, a hundred percent true.

Michael Conner: I It is. It is a new language for me. Right. It was a new language that I had to learn. It was new acronyms, you know, as I was in some of these, you know, high level business meetings and, you know, they're throwing out, you know, what's the TCV of, you know, these five districts? And I'm saying to myself, okay, I, I think I

Michael Conner: then they're like, Mike, total contract value. Oh, okay. That's what that means. Profit margins. Looking at that now, doc, you're gonna laugh at me when I say this, but when I first started, when I first [00:20:00] started. People had a breakdown. This is like foundational for you, but it was new learning for me. The quarter cycles Q1, we have the, we have to meet these specific targets by the end of Q1.

Michael Conner: What do you think?

David Heiber: No. Wait, I didn't, I didn't know what that, I didn't know what that, I didn't know. Listen, I, I go back and forth with my team now, right? They'll be like, we're in, we're in the sales cycle. I'm like, what the hell is the sales cycle? Is it? Aren't you selling 365 anyway? Well, the sales cycle has to be aligned to the budget cycle.

David Heiber: But let, let me, you know, you touched on something that, that's really powerful. So, because it's a, uh, this could be a professional learning series, right? So one of my 10 core principles is, uh, the George Costanza effect, right? And so iconic character in Seinfeld for some of the audience, and I'm mentioning Seinfeld during Black History Month.

David Heiber: But follow me here, George says, you have got to do the opposite. [00:21:00] That is what concentric in how I did it. That is what made us different. I did the opposite of what everybody else was doing and told me to do. Right? It's the opposite effect. And so like literally, I leaned, I leaned into that. So my, my, my fiscal year was not aligned to anybody else's fiscal year.

David Heiber: I, I did it differently. Right. What I made sure is that we would lean, because the, the higher the, the, the heavier you are, the, the larger the profit margin has to be, which means the lower the, the service delivery. I mean, it just makes sense. So, you know, the easiest way that I can, I can explain it to people when we're talking about opex, which is operating expenses, right?

David Heiber: And Cogs, right. Cost over goods sold. Right? Like, I didn't know what the hell that was. Right? But it, it's this simple. Do the people providing the service that generates the money, is there enough to cover the people that don't do that? [00:22:00] That's good. The people and the things, whether it's overhead, technology, whatever the case may be.

David Heiber: Then what happens is when you get this, when you get this unbalanced equation and you get too top heavy and lesser cogs in service delivery, then the customer gets less of the product, well, the service, right? But you have to charge just the same amount to take care of everybody that's not out there hunting.

Michael Conner: Right, right, right. And, and, and, and please to my audience, this is a 1 0 1 I, this is great, Dr. Heiber, because I learned this through trial and error, right? And when you talk about that, that key word, right, having a lean business, making sure. You know, you, you have to be able to have some type of forecasting with your profit margins.

Michael Conner: You have to keep it lean, keeping the services, the solutions, the products in this MVP state into my audience, minimal viable product, meaning this continuous adaptation and this, this, this, this ideation and iteration that you're going to [00:23:00] change by the day. Dr. Heiber. I tell you it was, it was a crash course.

Michael Conner: And when people were like, oh yeah, Mike, you know this and that, I'm like, man, listen, I had to go back to school on these basic one-on-ones, when we talk about operating expenses and cogs and everything. But Doc, I wanna talk about your current book that's out right now, one Door at a Time, right? And it resonate.

Michael Conner: It resonates with many educators worldwide, domestically. But first, can you unpack the core themes? Of book with, uh, for my educational stakeholders so that they can be able to take away and implement right away. And second, what are the best practices that my VFE listeners need to underscore universally to address the broad problems of practice that you outlined within your book, and also how to develop those authentic relationships that you have with your families and students.

David Heiber: So I'm gonna start, I'm gonna start back to front, right? So let's go with [00:24:00] authenticity. The reason I think authenticity is so important, and we have to lead with this, is to establish relationships with students and the families. You first have to have a understanding and a relationship and understanding of yourself, and be authentic with yourself.

David Heiber: You can't go into somewhere else's home if you, if you haven't at least recognized, you may be doing the work, or you may not have started the work yet on yourself. Right. If, if you have abandonment issues, if you have self-esteem issues, if, if you've been traumatized. What, what are the, what are those things?

David Heiber: There's a lot of work, a, and this is still part of the training now, when we onboard schools and people say, well, we do home visits. Well, anyone can jump in and jump out there and do home visits, but there's a whole lot of work that you have to do on yourself, be, be, uh, before you are vulnerable enough to go into somebody else's homes.

David Heiber: Like you, you gotta do that. You gotta do your own hard work. You gotta do your own investigation into what makes you tick and, and what and what, and what. Really propels you out there. You know, one of the things I used to [00:25:00] say is that when I first started concentric, you know, concentric was, I literally birthed it from, from nothing, from an idea.

David Heiber: And in theory of change, one of the questions I ask new entrepreneurs or current entrepreneurs who want to go bigger, I say, how much are you willing to give up and sacrifice? Like stop, stop. BSing yourself that you think you're gonna have a work life balance. It doesn't exist.

Michael Conner: Right, you're right, you're right.

David Heiber: But like at the, at the best you can hope to have work life harmony, but you're not gonna have work-life balance. Right. There's gonna be, there's gonna be a given, there's gonna be a give and take. And I, I say this very transparently, is that I was a great provider, but I was a horrible father. And a terrible husband.

David Heiber: And a terrible spouse. I was horrible. I was horrible. I wasn't emotionally available. I wasn't psychologically or emotionally present for my children. Now they got the things that they needed, the, the, the education, whatever the case may be. But what they needed was a [00:26:00] father and I was emotionally unavailable to give it to 'em.

David Heiber: 'cause I didn't know how to turn it off. Right. And I, I had to be honest with myself with that. And now I'm, you know, I'm still dealing with the rece there. Like I made a conscious decision to build a company and it comes with a cost. So the, just the question I ask young entrepreneurs is what cost are you willing to pay?

David Heiber: And you, and no one can answer that for you. And you gotta be gut honest with yourself because that's gonna dictate so many of your developmental steps. Right. Number two. So the authenticity is, the authenticity is not, is to be authentic with yourself and transparent and vulnerable with yourself. Like we have three things that we say now.

David Heiber: Authenticity, vulnerability, and empathy. Those three things should be guiding you before you knock on one door before you do any work. Number like, number two, some of the quote unquote best practices with the lessons learned and the, and the failures of fallen forward is don't, don't chase the, don't chase the the opportunity.[00:27:00]

David Heiber: Be, be very choosy with the organizations and the districts that you partner with because, uh, you, we gotta understand this, is that when your service or product fails, you'll be blamed even if the systems and the structures for implementation have nothing to do with you. They're gonna blame the partner.

David Heiber: I mean, that, that's what happens, right? Like I've got, I've gotten more, well, your, your home visits don't work. And I was literally on a call, I was literally on a call two weeks ago about this, and a district said, well, we, uh, it didn't work. And I wouldn't do this, what, 15 years ago? Like Mike, like when you started, right?

David Heiber: Or when we started because you need contracts. And you, and yes, the customer's always right, but you can push back on the customer and now, you know what I mean? Almost about to be 50. I'm just old and cranky. Like I'm just, I'm, I'm cantankerous. I I know I'm cantankerous, right? Like when, when I was just at Nsea in [00:28:00] Chicago and I showed up in a camo, Nike dry fit.

David Heiber: Right. And people are like, are you gonna change? No, I'm old. I'm old. Like, I've done this. Like, I, like, I've like, I've earned this. Right? Like, I'm just, you know, I had a Scully. I never would've been like that before. But I, but what I, what I was saying is that I told them I was speaking to this district and they said, Dr.

Michael Conner: Dr. Dr. Heiber hint. That's why we trying to get to where you're at.

David Heiber: No, I'm, I'm just talking mad trash

Michael Conner: to my audience. I saw doc there. In Chicago at NABSE, and I went up to, to Dr. Heiber and I said, man, bro, I want to be like you when I grow up. That means that it is just oozing with success.

David Heiber: Oh, I, I'm just out here, just talking reckless man.

David Heiber: So I'm so, things I would've let pass before I, I don't. Right. And so, but I do, I try to do it as respectfully as possible, but the suit.

Michael Conner: There we [00:29:00] go. Black cat right there.

David Heiber: That's my cat. Even my cat's black man. I said, I said to the dis, I said to the district, they said, well, you know, it concentric, it doesn't work.

David Heiber: I was like, oh, w what do you mean? They were like, well, it didn't bump, and uh, our crying absenteeism didn't go down. I was like, okay, let, let, let's talk about this. What did you ask me to do? And they were like, knock on doors. I said, I knocked on every door that you asked me to knock on every door. I said, I gave you the information, why they weren't coming, or why they were disengaged or what they were feeling.

David Heiber: I said. It was on you to do something with that information. If you did not have the capacity to do something with the information, then that's a different conversation and that's a different service. And this goes to the three core services. So Concentric has always done home visits, mentoring and tutoring.

David Heiber: Tutoring was a relatively new service that we start, that we got into because of. Post pandemic and we were [00:30:00] doing in person. So what we kind of, what we focused in on from home visits, mentoring and tutoring, is we're gonna knock on every door. You ask us to uh, uh, knock on. We're gonna bring the information back.

David Heiber: But you gotta be honest with yourself as a school or a district, do you have the capacity to do something with the information? If not, that's when we put professional student advocates in the building and they are responsible for checking up on those students and following up. About any of those barriers that were identified?

David Heiber: The tutoring just came because, I mean, you know, this post pandemic, everybody was doing online tutoring. Well, that still didn't reach a whole large, uh, portion of the population. So all we did was do academic tutoring for those students that didn't. The online tutoring didn't work for. So those became three things.

David Heiber: But I would encourage every entrepreneur business or whatever, whatever entity it may be, if for us, and I didn't like, I did not create this, I stole this, right? [00:31:00] Is that I always ask them, what is your one key thing? What makes you so much different and better than everybody else, your core service or product?

David Heiber: And I'll, I'll start off because I don't have, well, I do now. Uh, I have an iPhone now, but I didn't, I said, what is Apple's main product? And people are like the watch or the MacBook? No, they, number one product is the phone. Because if you have a phone, you're gonna get the watch. You get to watch, you probably get the, the MacBook or whatever vacation may be for us for concentric everything stems from home visits.

David Heiber: It is, it is what we do the best. Right? Not the best out there, but it's what we are part that what we do. The minute you start, I believe, and, and concentric was guilty of this, right? The minute that you start chasing other things, and it doesn't mean don't diversify 'cause you need diversification, you need multiple streams and stuff like that.

David Heiber: But you, you can never lose sight of your one. And I learned that was re that was reaffirmed. [00:32:00] When we going in before the pandemic, we were doing visits and then we partnered with the district. Um, one of your frat brothers, uh, he was like, look, I need y'all not just to do visits, but can you do something?

David Heiber: This is where we had professional student advocates doing case management. Then the pandemic hits. We, we shrink, but we never lost the one. So I remember this very clearly. Baltimore City School shut down in-person learning March 13th, 2020. Roger Shaw, who was the director of the Reengagement Center there, knew that there was gonna be a growing population of students that became disengaged.

David Heiber: They didn't log on for, for classes, whatever the case would be. So within 49, 59 days. We start doing in-person home visits. During the pandemic, the district couldn't do 'em because of liability issues. It was a virus. No one knew what was going on, and no one wanted to take the risk, so we never stopped our core service.

David Heiber: That's why we did [00:33:00] almost like 75,000 in-person home visits during the pandemic.

Michael Conner: Dr. Heiber, repeat that number one more time to my audience. I, I, I, I, I told my audience that, oh, you heard it at the outset that it was an inordinate amount of home visit that you did from just the pandemic alone. You have reached over a million students.

Michael Conner: I know that for a fact with the data, but how many, just during that timeframe,

David Heiber: 75,000.

Michael Conner: Unbelievable

David Heiber: in person.

Michael Conner: Unbelievable.

David Heiber: 75,000.

Michael Conner: Unbelievable.

David Heiber: Yeah. And I mean, and so like those are the things that that came from, that came from that. And so it reaffirmed, and I'll, I'll even say this, and this is, this is for me, right?

David Heiber: And this is the example I gave when, when we hit the pandemic and we had to scale down the people, I had to go back to the, I had to go back to what I knew, which was home visits. So to me, it's going back to the block. I was averaging a thousand home visits a month. Right. But it, it reaffirmed and it taught me the [00:34:00] humility that was needed to do this work again, because you, you grow and you lose sight of it.

David Heiber: You're not knocking on doors every single day, whatever the case may be. The pandemic forced me to go back and literally start over again and knock on the doors and, and learn. So it was like me coming out of like MJ coming out retirement and going to the wizard. Like he, he, like, he had to learn it. And that's, that's what I took coming out of the pandemic, that no matter how big that you should get, like I'm a firm believer that the CEO now of concentric or the CEO 10 years from now, wherever the case may be, should be doing 50 to a hundred home visits a month.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. Absolutely. And guess what?

David Heiber: How, how can you not, how can you not embrace that grind and the grittiness? And have credibility to move an organization if you haven't done the damn work.

Michael Conner: Yeah. Yeah. And you know what, Dr. Heiber, that goes back to you and your time when you were a principal. How you, with every single student used to, you know, go to the go to family's house.

Michael Conner: When you know [00:35:00] that you haven't seen a student for three or four days, you would actually knock on their door, give them a call, Dr. Heiber. That's that, that's that mindset that, you know, us being instructional leaders, us being leaders of our buildings, we gotta reach each and all, every single one of our students.

Michael Conner: And that was replicated, is still replicated within concentric now that you wanna be just a board member. I know you're gonna be asking that question. How many visits have you did from Q1 to Q4? It better be up to a hundred.

David Heiber: So, but this is what's interesting. This is what's interesting. So going back to the point that you were talking about, like VCs, so this is what I need to tell my, my audience or your audience

Michael Conner: Yeah.

David Heiber: Is that, yeah, realize when you take VC money, they have your replacement. Like you're, they don't want you as ceo. So you, I need you to know that they, they're gonna, they're gonna gas you up. That you are the best thing since sliced bread, knowing that they have your replacement.

Michael Conner: They do.

Michael Conner: They, they

Michael Conner: do

Michael Conner: preach, preach, [00:36:00] preach.

David Heiber: They don't think that you can do with their money what you created without their money.

Michael Conner: Preach.

David Heiber: They're gonna bring in the classically trained people, whether it's from UPenn, Northwestern, Drexel, whatever, the Georgetown Business School, whatever the case may be. And those people aren't, those people aren't hungry.

Michael Conner: Right, right, right. And here's the thing, Dr. Heiber too, you know, there's a couple companies that I know that has, that are education focused. But they're bringing in these CEOs, these really trained business operators that all they care about is, and I'm, and we're, we're being real on this, uh, we're being real on, on this episode.

Michael Conner: All they care about, what are the profit margins, what the actual net growth, what are are our metrics for Q1, Q2? What is the percent percentage of lead [00:37:00] gen? To the pipeline and what's that conversion rate over time? They're not knocking on doors. Dr. Heiber

David Heiber: brother, I didn't know what pipeline was, so I'm gonna get, I, I didn't know.

David Heiber: Listen, I'm gonna get. This now, now this, this, this is a true story, so I can't mention names, right? But this is the person that we that, that you and I know same space and stuff like that, right? So I didn't even know what the chief revenue officer was. I'm like, what the hell is this? Right? So the VC was like, you gotta take a, you have to hire Chief Revenue Officer.

David Heiber: I was like, okay, what do they do? They help you. They help you get contract. Okay, perfect, perfect. Right? So they come up with all these strategies, right? And I'm like, well. How do you sell something that you've never done? Meaning the service of the products, right? I said how the, I said, you talking about home visits, you never knock on one damn door.

David Heiber: Right? So already there was tension there, [00:38:00] right? I could have handled it differently. So this is a lesson in professional learning what not to do. CEOs, right? So at one point, like I built the company, it wasn't just one door at a time. It was one school at a time. 'cause as a black business, you don't get five, $10 million contracts.

David Heiber: You gotta take 5,000, 10,000, 15, prove yourself 20 times over, and then if you're in the barber shop long enough, you get a haircut. And then that's how I grew it.

Michael Conner: Right. I love it. I love it.

David Heiber: Right. That's like, that's how I grew it. Right? I, I didn't grow, like, I, I didn't come in there when RFPs and stuff like that.

David Heiber: They were like, I had to prove myself every single day school by school. So I went my chief revenue officer at the time and I'm like, man, look, you're, you're not hungry. And my, my chief of staff, who Michael, who was writing the book with me, he's in there with us and I start going off of my diatribe cursing and stuff like that.

David Heiber: So Michael was eating a slice of pizza and I threw it on the ground and I start eating it off the ground. I said, that's how [00:39:00] hungry you gotta be. Mm

Michael Conner: mm-hmm.

David Heiber: Now, you know what I mean?

Michael Conner: We run, we, we run through a wall for that doc.

David Heiber: Right now, now, you know what I mean? In retrospect, you know, you might have some HR problems and stuff like that, but you just wasn't thinking about it.

David Heiber: Right. But I was like, you not hungry somebody even off the ground, I'm gonna show you because that, that, that's how hungry you gotta be.

Michael Conner: That's the grind and that's the grind doc that, you know, people don't, don't realize. Right. And one thing I'll never, and I think you told me this, not last year. But the year before, I don't know if we were at NABSE or TABSE, I, you told me, Mike, don't lose your hunger because you can easily lose it.

Michael Conner: Once you start going up, that kind of, that trajectory going up, you can start to lose the vision, start to lose to being hungry. We, you said to me, exactly. Stay hungry as if it was your first contract. Never forget. Never forget you said that to me.

David Heiber: And you gotta be, you gotta be [00:40:00] like that, bro. In the sense, and I was guilty of it, right?

David Heiber: Because if it takes a level of dysfunction. Insanity, dysfunctionality and trauma to do this work that you, that we're doing and entrepreneurs doing, right? You gotta be so either disillusioned or so self-confident, and sometimes those, those things blend together because you're told no 99% of the time. And not just that, you're not just told no.

David Heiber: By people that you would expect to tell you no. You're played by the brothers and sisters who smile in your face, who want you to take them out to dinner and who, who want you to order 'em drinks that they wouldn't buy them damn selves like you, like you, you, you out to dinner with them. You be like, you, you know, you don't, you don't, you don't drink that type of scotch.

David Heiber: You drink Kel in 12. You're not at 1821 unless I take you out the drink. Come on. Like, you know what I mean? Or they, they, they, they're, they're ordering a la carte sides, sides to go. Taking something home for, for their [00:41:00] significant and stuff like that. Like, you know, you wouldn't do that on your own bill, but, and like that is, that is one of the things that I learned.

David Heiber: Now I get it. There's different constraints, right? But there are brothers and sisters, and this is why, you know, I mean, I've had to kind of really readjust my expectations is that I've been more disappointed by our brothers and sisters who were in leadership and decision making capacities than I have.

David Heiber: By white people. I've expected to know from white people, but from brothers and sisters who are comfortable as long as they've made it and not willing to sacrifice it. And then that's why I created, that's why I created, uh, Biba.

Michael Conner: Yeah. And, and, and, and Doc, I wanted to get into that, right? Because. When you launched and what BB is, is the Black Educational Business Alliance.

Michael Conner: There was a big, at the 53rd Annual NABSE Conference, Dr. Heiber made a huge announcement, I believe there was roughly over what, five, 600 at that announcement and then at the, you know, it [00:42:00] was just, it was remarkable. And I had learned about it before Doc and I had talked about it and I said, this is needed because Doc, at the outset of today's show.

Michael Conner: Doc had alluded to that, right? The actual percentiles or the percentage of black business owners, right? We're look talking about maybe 3% within that. But Doc, here's the thing. The underpinning metric within that, you know, within that 3%, most of them are represented by black women, which is great, you know, in the ecosystem.

Michael Conner: But what are the goals of the black educational business Align Alliance one and two? We got many listeners listening, Dr. Heiber, how can they get involved? Because there's a lot of black business owners, I should say. African American men and women that want to make that transition, but they're scared because they hear about black businesses.

Michael Conner: They hear about how we have to go the extra mile to get that 10, 15, 20,000 contract 20 times over before we start getting the a hundred, [00:43:00] $200,000 contracts. But how is this gonna be able to be a level set and an affinity group for black entrepreneurs and black business owners?

David Heiber: So I created Viba because exactly what you talked about is that there's this space out there and a lot of times we're just navigating on ourselves and by ourselves, you know, isolation, and you, and you, you can't build movement like that.

David Heiber: I was specifically developed viba and launched it at at napsi in Chicago because it was the same idea that drove NABSE like a lot of times we're a part of NABSE and NABSE's this amazing institution that we all needed support. But when they, when you talk to. The people. And right now there's four founding members still alive, and I spent a significant amount of time with Dr.

David Heiber: Russell Jackson, one of the founding members, and he spoke to me, went to Chicago, visited him, spent the day with him, and he just poured in and poured into those knowledge gaps that I had about even when they got together in that hotel room over the weekend, that there were [00:44:00] three kind of factions that they didn't trust each other.

David Heiber: They felt like they were meeting in secrecy in, in many ways they were. It wasn't until they all went out that Friday night. To a restaurant and got some ribs and Dick Gregory was there, the late comedian, and, and, and bought them some rounds and stuff like that. It, that, it broke them out of their silos and so, and then they came back with the intentionality of what can, this can be, what can this become and what 53 years later we got this.

David Heiber: Now I don't, the thought with Biba is how can we collectively get this knowledge base of all these shared experiences? That's one thing. The second thing is how can we partner with each other? One of the things I have learned painfully over the years is that we have not been as intentional as we could be as black business owners, that if I know that a black business is doing good work, whether it's your organization, whether it's Marlins at 21st Century ad, whether, whether it's Kwame, whether it's [00:45:00] Angela, whatever the case may be, and I may be in a room.

David Heiber: Talking with superintendents or principals of our chronic absenteeism. But as I'm hearing other needs that come up, we need to be able to be very intentional that we could connect those principles and those leaders in real time with people who are doing that work. Other black leaders, we just don't do that.

David Heiber: We, we just say, no, that's not what I do, and we walk out. As opposed to intentionally creating, creating that space. So now how can we get this cadre of black business owners that have multiple types of services that actually interact with, that can interact with each other and partner with each other, right?

David Heiber: So that, that's, that's number two. So the space and the opportunity to build that camaraderie, camaraderie. That, that being intentional. Two, how do we align and identify all the different businesses and opportunities and products and services that we have? And then the larger down the line is as we grow, and this is, I'm taking [00:46:00] Bieber's business model so that people don't think that that is my idea.

David Heiber: I'm taking it from the Gordy Foundation. Right? So if people don't know how Motown was founded, Barry borrowed $800 from his family's foundation. To get a loan to start Motown, so they had a foundation. They had a foundation, right? Where anybody, a part of the family could pitch an idea to the family members, but the, the family members were on the board, right?

David Heiber: The, the family members then would, would make a vote. So say for example, you asked for $1,500. In fact, that's what he did ask for. He asked for $1,500. They came back and said, we don't think the business plan is strong enough, but we're gonna give you $800. They started with $800 and then what he did was the li the interest was lower, so he paid back, I think 900, I might be off 900 or a thousand dollars on the $800 loan.

David Heiber: But what he was doing is he was paying himself back 'cause he was a [00:47:00] part of the foundation so he could always go back and get the loan on speed to our generation. Wu-Tang Clan did the same thing with. So if, if you look at the Wu-Tang clan, I'm, I'm dating myself, right? But I was in high school when Wu-Tang came out.

David Heiber: Look at what they did. They all had different styles, whether it was risen from producing method, man, inspect deck, ODB, Rayquan, Ghostface, whatever the case may be, right? And what he did was they were very intentional. So Wu-Tang was signed to a record label, right? So then the easiest thing would've been is if the other, the individual groups, I mean individual members would've put out records on the same record label.

David Heiber: Rizza said No. What we're gonna do is we're gonna go to different record labels, and they're gonna put out on solo projects. So Def Jam put out Met Man. Right, but a portion of what Method man made went back to the collective. So that is why you look [00:48:00] now with the Wu-Tang. None of them were bankrupt because they all had successful solo, but they were paying themselves back because they were paying the co.

David Heiber: They were paying the collaborative. So what I want to do with Biba is that we, the founding members, because one, everybody wants to look from outside until something's successful. No, you gotta pay in to get in. Right, but what that's going to do is gi, it's gonna give you exclusivity, right, because you're a founding member.

David Heiber: But then what will happen is, say for example, redemption gets a $200,000 contract, 5% of my contract may go right back into Beba. Whatever that, or 7%, whatever the case may be. But then what happens is, if I come into a challenge, most of us have payroll, uh, challenges collecting on our a, you know what I mean?

David Heiber: Our, on our ar, right? We can go to beba and get a bridge loan as opposed to having to go to vc. So Beba becomes this entity that we fund ourselves and pay back ourselves.

Michael Conner: Genius.

David Heiber: [00:49:00] Genius. That's the, that's the long term vision. Therefore, we never have to go ask people for money.

Michael Conner: Genius. Dr. Heiber genius in about 10 years.

Michael Conner: I'm saying this right now in about 10 years from the concept, the thought, the, the, the, the best practice that's rooted in it, business model adaptation. While a lot of black businesses are gonna be leaning on you, you are gonna essentially. If I'm hearing this correctly, and I don't wanna, you know, putting misnomers out there, you're basically creating the black VC for black companies.

Michael Conner: Wow, doc, that's genius.

David Heiber: Yeah, man, I, because I, I've seen too many people, I've seen too many people struggle, like I've seen too many people struggle, man, about trying to get, trying to get a loan, trying to figure out how to make payroll, whatever the case may be. If we all collectively sacrificed.

David Heiber: Collectively sacrifice. We all will collectively [00:50:00] win.

Michael Conner: Unbelievable. Doc. Doc, I tell you to my audience, this is, I mean, if you think about this and looking at this, right from a black business entrepreneur, from the lens of being a black-owned company where only 3%, there's 3% of us in this, in the, in this, right, this ecosystem, and only 1%, Dr.

Michael Conner: Heiber, 1%, as you stated, actually get. That type of angel money, uh, angel investors to my, to my, to my VFE audience, and then also venture capitalist, right? Because we go in, we talk about, you know, the impact, right? When we make these pitches to the vc, but the VC are asking about specific segments within your business plan.

Michael Conner: And trust me to my audience. The business plan and the strategic operating plan different,

Michael Conner: they're

Michael Conner: right, right. School improvement plan. We're not talking about, you know, the SIPS or the SOPs, A business plan. I was like, okay, hold [00:51:00] on. I gotta put some attention and design in this, but doc, this is going, this is act, this actually might save, might save a lot of black businesses, black owned startups and companies with that.

Michael Conner: And, and thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. That actually comes about. And then when I heard this at NABSE, I said to myself, yes, long overdue. And of course it'll come from you. But Doc, last question. I'm gonna try to limit you to three words. I know I won't be able to, but like I tell everybody, take it as it is.

Michael Conner: What three words do you want today's audience to leave our podcast with regarding hope? Trust and resiliency and what I'm calling this AC stage of education, which means after COVID-19,

David Heiber: sacrifice, commitment.

Michael Conner: Mm-hmm.

David Heiber: And grace,

Michael Conner: please elaborate on all three. [00:52:00]

David Heiber: The, so the sa, the sacrifice has got to be collective.

David Heiber: You gotta be able to do this work for a purpose bigger than yourself. And when, when those times get rough, when those times, and they, they are, well, they, they are rough. You've got to be able to be willing to sacrifice and for something bigger than yourself. And what that means is that, you know, it, it's not giving to me is easy, right?

David Heiber: I mean, if you, if you go in your closet and you look at all this stuff that you may have and you give something you haven't worn in a year, but are you willing to go without. For something or someone bigger than yourself, whether that be organizationally, whether it be for the people and the students that you're servicing or whatever the case may be.

David Heiber: You gotta be able to do that, you know, and, and having the, the, the people who willing to tolerate that, you don't need a 80% profit margin. Sometimes you can do the same exact thing for 60% and it's. Right. So I, I, I think, I think that's really important. I think as [00:53:00] it comes to grace is it's okay not to know.

David Heiber: You have to have grace with yourself. Yeah. It's, it's okay. You like, it's okay not to, not to know, not to have the all the answers and say that you need help lean on each other. There are good brothers and sisters out there that are willing to help you. That, that you can lean on. You can your, your shoulder could be a shoulder that you can cry on.

David Heiber: Oh, you, you gotta be 10 toes down. You got, you gotta be 10 to, you gotta be 10 toes down. A hundred percent. The, the commitment to this, and this is probably why it was time for me to transition, you know, for, for my older kids, I sacrificed being a father and for my ex-wife, I sacrificed being a husband for my fiance now, and for my younger kids now, Prince and Anaya, I'm not willing to sacrifice that.

David Heiber: It would, and you, the business needs the commitment. The, the business needs that commitment if you're gonna get the results.

Michael Conner: [00:54:00] Absolutely one of the best business minds I engage with. I just love speaking to Dr. Heiber all the time, because I tell you this to my audience, you know, there was a lot of bumps and bruises, right?

Michael Conner: Starting this thing up with agile evolutionary group and now AEG systems doc, as you know, the new ed tech division within Agile Evolutionary group, and I'll never forget that one thing. You were like, Mike, stay hungry. You got your first contract, Dr. Heiber, thank you for coming on VFE. Now, I know there's gonna be a married education stakeholders with throughout the ecosystem, whether it be principals, superintendents with the work of concentric, whether it be early startups or early founders, entrepreneurs, black entrepreneurs out there that just need that simple mentoring from you, right?

Michael Conner: That simple grace, right? Because sometimes we don't give grace on ourselves. How will they be able to reach you?

David Heiber: So all you can go to my web, you can go to concentrics website, which is just concentric [00:55:00] ed.org. The message, you'll get to me directly. You can go to Redemption social, redemption social solutions.com.

David Heiber: That's my new website. Or the best way, and this is kind of old fashioned, it's just been the same way for 18 years. Just call me 202 3 3 0 1 7 5 3. If I don't answer text me because everybody, I get all these spams now hidden with numbers. They're not 1-800-NUMBERS no more. So, yeah, I mean that's the, that's the best way I, you know, one of the things I never wanna lose is that, you know, we talk about Rudolph Kipling, you learned it when you pledge.

David Heiber: It's about if, just walk with kings, but don't lose the common touch.

Michael Conner: Absolutely. If one of my favorite poems, man and uh, Invictus man, I tell you outta the night that covers me black, these

David Heiber: black as a pit from pole to poem.

Michael Conner: Definitely gotta have an unconquerable soul and this world. So, but thank you so much for coming on VFV.

Michael Conner: I'm gonna see you soon. I know that coming [00:56:00] up where we're gonna be at taps you together. Uh, it's just always a pleasure to talk to you, brother.

David Heiber: God bless, brother. I appreciate you bro.

Michael Conner: Appreciate you and on that note, onward and upward. Everybody have a great evening.