How to Work with Vendors: Secrets to Getting What You Need

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All right, hey everybody, I am Susan Riley back again. And today I have a special guest. I have Kevin Riley with me today who is the Institute’s Chief Growth Officer. And fun fact, also my husband. Some people actually don’t. Some people ask, I know, they ask the question. So I think some people are whenever they meet you as a, in your role.

Kevin 

Would have never guessed it.

Kevin 

I know, some don’t.

Susan 

they are either afraid to ask the question or they never even thought of it. So.

Kevin 

Nah. I’ve gotten brother and sister too before, which I don’t, I don’t see. That’s weird. I don’t see that at all, but

Susan 

Yeah, that’s a little weird. But regardless, so in today’s episode, Kevin and I wanted to hop on today to talk about how you as an educator, or as a school leader in your role can get what you need for your school without shelling out of pocket for it. And so because Kevin’s whole job as chief growth officer is to do both partnerships with larger organizations and also to work for providing support for schools in getting what they need as a vendor. So he’s got tons of ideas and tips and tricks and strategies to get what you need, but we know that so many of you are paying for things out of your pocket or you’re afraid to ask your school or your curriculum director or coordinator, or whoever it is, because you’re afraid that they don’t have the money.

And so you immediately dismiss a possibility, but we’re here to tell you that there are hidden possibilities that you are not even aware of yet. So I’m excited for Kevin to share his unique knowledge with all of you today. So Kevin, tell everybody a little bit about what you do here at the Institute.

Kevin 

Well, I think you kind of wrapped it up. There’s pretty much nothing I don’t do or nothing I won’t do. That’s a function of how we’re set up. But I do a lot of sales calls, do demos for schools, for teachers and for principals and superintendents. It runs the gamut depending on who’s submitted the inquiry.

I look for grant opportunities. So whether that’s public grants, private grants, ways that we can support schools or institutions across the country, around the world, who when help them with the funding side of it through those grants or partnership opportunities. I like to view all the schools that we work with as our partners. I always go into it with that way. I don’t want anybody to think that we’re just there to, for the salefor the dollars and the cents. I truly do believe we try to partner the best that we can with those schools. So partnership opportunities, but also partnership opportunities from private industry, you know, whether it’s, you know, Apple Music or any kind of the other big industries that are out there or companies that are out there that we can work with.

Susan

See everybody, he’s got a ton of things under his belt right now that he’s working on and what I love about his position is that first of all, it suits him really well. You will find in this episode, I think that he is a smooth talker, but also he genuinely looks for ways that a partnership makes the most sense. I think, Kevin, that you have had opportunities where

You’ve actually told schools, this is not a good fit for you right now, where his heart truly is in the right place. And I think you said something really interesting that about grants, that I don’t think many educators think about that many times with grants, when you’re applying for them at the school or the district level, those grants require or are heavily weighted for schools that look for business partners help support what it is that they’re trying to implement. So, and that’s where you can kind of come in. Talk to us a little bit about that because I don’t think that’s something that comes to mind when teachers think about vendors and getting what they need for their schools.

Kevin 

Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing with that is when you’re looking at grants, I mean, there are grant opportunities all over the place. I mean, there’s a school that I’m currently working on a deal with, we’re currently working on a deal with it. They came in and asked for a quote and they’re like, hey, we’ve got a business that helps us out and they provide grant money to support the school’s initiatives or civic organizations that are out there. You know, the Lions, the Rotarians, the Rotary Club, the Kiwanis Club, they’re all sorts of civic organizations out there that can, will support as part of their mission to put those grand opportunities out there. The only thing that I ask is when you’re going after those grand opportunities or anybody who is, just shoot me an email, call me up, ask me what, how much it’s going to be.

Uh, cause there’s been several times that people have come back to us and be like, Hey, I got this grant money and I’ve got this much. What can you do for me? And we, we do the best that we can to help them out and get the best deal that we can for them, um, and to support them at the best we can. But at the same time, if you just, it’s one phone call, it’s one email, um, to be like, Hey, right, right. Or gone in and be like, Hey, I want to do a multi-year initiative. So like, and then that can kick you into other grant funding and get you all sorts of different places that you might not have thought about originally..

Susan 

Yeah, if you know how much it costs at the top, you could have included that in your grant and got probably a little bit more money.

So in your role, you’ve seen or you’ve been able to work with schools of and districts of many different sizes, right? Like Teeny Tiny has like 12 people in a building to districts that have thousands and thousands of teachers and, you know, city school systems that are a little tough to navigate. There’s all the wide gamut. So like, what’s one thing that you really enjoy about working with schools and one thing that’s not so fun.

Kevin 

I’m going to flip that. We’ll end on the positive. The not so fun is some of the red tape. I mean, because I think, you know, I talked to a school, especially in those larger city school districts, whatever. There’s so many layers of red tape that have to get through. And despite our best intentions or our best efforts, I should say, um, to get through that upfront, I always try to ask, what do we need? Do we need that? Is there vendor paperwork? Is there, you know, this, that, the third things that we have experience with. And I, a lot of times I’ll get it. No, no, it’s fine. You just need this and, and then come, you know, it’s time to put the rubber on the road and they’re like, Oh no, we need, um, there’s a laundry list of things that need to be completed before we can get our resources in the hands of teachers, which is the goal at the end of the day. And it’s everybody’s goal at the end of the day, I’d like to think, but there’s so much there that you just got to get through. And if we’d have just known upfront. So that’s the, that’s the downside. I think that. Yeah.

Susan 

Well, can I just pause for a second and just say, that’s tip number one, my friends, when you’re looking for like behind the scenes tips today. Tip number one is that if you are unaware of what paperwork needs to be completed in order to get a vendor approved quickly and get the vendor paid so that they can get you the stuff, if you are not aware of it, go find somebody who is. Go talk to the school secretary, go call purchasing office, we’ll often be able to guide you in terms of the paperwork that’s needed. Some of your schools actually have it listed, but do that work right up front so that you can give it all to the vendor as soon as possible. That vendor will then love you from here to Sunday because I know for our organization, the sooner you get that to us, the faster we can turn it around and the faster we can get you the product, right?

Kevin 

Absolutely, absolutely. Because like I said, that only, you know, we’re waiting. We’re waiting for the next meeting they’re the clients waiting for the product, whether it’s access or accelerator or whatever, and we’re waiting to give it but we can’t do it until all the all the boxes are checked. And sometimes it’s just the way somebody in your district might be in this might be tip number two, it’s kind of we’ll call it one a but like, whoever in your district is going to end up cutting the PIA the physical purchase order or doing the physical actual purchase, they might have the most efficient way to get from A to B.

Whereas whoever I might be working with in whatever office of teaching and learning, this is whatever, might be like, they might try to think the best way that they understand it, but it’s not the most efficient way to get from point A to point B. So just asking those questions and knowing that stuff is paramount.

Susan 

Yeah. Okay, and so what do you love about working with schools?

Kevin 

Um, I guess just seeing how much teachers and principals and administrators really light up when you start talking to really do start talking about affecting, uh, student achievement and growth. Um, you know, once, once you get into, you know, I think most of my sales calls, there’s a little bit of similarities in all of them. There’s that, um, you know, organizational like forming, norming, storming, performing, you know, all those, all those steps of a group, you know, and we have to do it in 30 minutes. And I talk most of the time. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a compressed timeframe. But, you know, they start and everyone’s a little, maybe a little standoffish, but then we start talking about it. And then there’s, there’s that moment where everyone’s like, Oh, yeah, I can, like, you can almost see or feel the light bulbs go on more often than not.

Oh yeah, then I can see there, anybody can see their wheels start turning and going, oh, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. And then it’s off to the races.

Susan 

Yeah. And I think it’s important for people to know that your background is not in education. It’s actually now it’s in construction, right? So this was how you came on board about 18 months ago at the time of this episode. In order to help grow our company and you have some background in sales, not any formal training, but you’ve had some background in sales. But in beyond that, you were in the industry of construction. So for you, I think what was powerful about your statement was to walk into this new industry. And by the way, those of you who are considering a career change, this is like, you wanna talk about a huge jump. And I know many of you are like, what’s out there outside of education, right? Well, he did the flip, right? So he came from construction into education, which is totally new beast. And if he can do it, I promise you.

Y’all can do it if that’s where you’re headed. But regardless, I think what’s great about what you just shared is that people who are outside of education who come in and see the passion, see why we do what we do, I love that. I think it’s so meaningful and it also goes back to why we got into the job in the first place, right? Which was great. So, this episode is all about how to get teachers and schools what they need, right, in terms of working with vendors. So what are some of your very best tips? I think we’ve shared one and one a now, right? But what are your best tips or things to keep in mind when working with vendors?

Kevin 

Um, communication is key. Uh, that’s, you know, the, I’m out here trying to, yeah, obviously I’m, we’re selling a product at that’s, you know, let’s, let’s not lose sight of that. But it, I’m doing a job, but if you let me know where you’re coming from, what’s like, if you’re, Hey, I’m looking at these other things. Okay, cool. I’m not, I’m the, and again, this is me personally, I’m not going to get offended. I have fairly broad shoulders and

As you said, I come from a much rougher industry than education, and I’m not going to get my feelings hurt. That’s me. And I think that goes for a majority of vendors though. Like we’re just doing a job. We’re trying to get you the best deal that we possibly can. So in order for help facilitating me in doing that, if you let me know as much as you can, so I can do the best job that I can in communicate that effectively and get you the best deal that I can. Um, that’s, that’s one of the major things. Um.

Susan 

Can I just pause because you just said that so nicely, but this is a behind the scenes episode as well. So I’m just gonna say that there are moments, that there are days, and Kevin and I work in different places. We don’t work in the same office space that would drive us both crazy. I think, so there are days when I’m in my office and he will walk in, he will be like.

I just wish they would say no. And what he means by that is that there are moments where he’s put out a quote or said something and has been in communication with people and then they’re non-communicative anymore. It’s like ghosting, right? It’s like dating, right? It’s like dating and suddenly somebody ghosts you, right?

Kevin

Yep, that’s exactly what it is. That’s the definition of the term.

Susan 

And all you want is for them to say thanks but no thanks, right? And you never get the satisfaction. I feel like that’s what happens with him sometimes. He’s like, if they don’t, if they’re no longer able to move forward for whatever reason, if it just wasn’t the right fit or not the right time or we ran out of money or whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. I think you just so want people to just to just say that and not be afraid of hurting your feelings or disappointing you in some way. I think like, because then that’s something that you and I talk about a lot. You’re like, I don’t understand why I don’t just say no because they’re kind educators and they don’t wanna hurt your feelings.

Kevin 

Well, and I also know that the sales, you know, put it in their quote, the sales guy, it evokes so much like insurance salesy, used car sales guy that’s never going to… No, no, no. But the stereotypical, you know, the, you know…

Susan 

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with insurance sales people or car sales people. Yes.

Kevin

the stereotypical that, you know, you’re like, they’re just going to keep hounding you. And in, in full honesty, there are vendors out there that that’s, that’s their sales tactic. And I mean,

Susan 

Oh my gosh, I remember I ran into one last week that I, like, he kept, he had me on email and then he followed me on LinkedIn and then he sent me a LinkedIn message and then he sent me two emails that said, you need to schedule an appointment. I’m like, I need to do nothing. I’m so scrawled.

Kevin

Right. And, and, and no, and this is a common phrase that we use all the time, it just between like, no is a complete sentence. Yeah. Or you can, no, thank you. If you would, you know, like not right now, whatever, but it’s the ghosting that like you equated it to dating. It’s just like, you know, like, Hey, we’ve, we’ve got, you know, if I’ve done a demo, you know, if you’ve emailed me, you’ve made contact, you reach out to me and I’ve got you a quote. So we’ve gone to, you know, let it go into dinner, maybe a movie and then, you know, and then like, Oh, hey, have a nice night. And then like I call for, you know, the second date and it’s like, Nothing. I didn’t even get the satisfaction. Like a door slammed in my face. Nothing. You know, it’s, but just that just, just be like, hey, because that’ll save you time. That’ll unclutter your inbox, because a lot of our communication in that follow-up sequence does come via email. And then there are a couple of calls in there, but it also, it’ll save your administrative assistance time and your building, whatever, like from them having to talk to me. And then they’re like, Oh, I don’t know. Or, or, or in the worst case scenario, and I hope nobody’s done this to me, but you know, I’ll save whoever some time in coming up with an excuse of where you are that you can tell your secretary to tell me on the phone that oh she can’t come to the phone because she’s in a whatever meeting right now and then I call back in an hour when that meeting is over and oh she’s in another meeting.

Susan

Right. There’s no right. And so I think it does go to your point about being communicative and sharing as much as you can in those talks with others. But also, if it’s a no, let them know it’s a no so that everybody can move on and nobody takes it personally. It’s just it allows you to then not be hounded by anybody else and allows you to move forward and allows them to move forward. It’s kind, clear as kind, right?

Another thing that you often mention in terms of a tip is keeping mind the calendar and keeping mind timing, right? Because timing for you on one side is different than maybe timing for the vendor. For example, vendors often will increase their pricing at least once a year, if not semi-annually, especially right now. And when that happens is typically at the start 

of the new year. So schools typically run on fiscal year July to June. Businesses or vendors will often run from January to December. So when they turn the calendar year over, lots of times their pricing also increases. I know this is true for us. I know it’s true for many other vendors who you’re working with. So when schools have budgets, lots of times schools will say their budgets turn over in July, and then they’ll issue a bunch of POs or they’ll do a lot of calls in July and August to get things in the hands of teachers, which is great. But if you’ve waited until that period of time, you’re probably paying more than if you were able to lock in pricing at the end of the year, you can often get a bunch of deals. Can you talk to that a little bit more?

Kevin 

Yeah, I mean, that can come in a myriad of different ways. I mean, as private businesses, everybody wants to make the end of the year look great. So the more that we can, you know, more sales that we can book, I was just listening to a podcast today, they’re talking about the fourth quarter cram. So the last quarter of the year, the last three months of the year, a lot of that’s what a lot of sales professionals look at what their what they’ve booked throughout the year and they’ve got a quota to meet or they’ve got a sales target that they want to hit. So they’re going to start pushing and offering some pretty good deals that can entice you to either extend your term, extend, you know, if you’re going with this for us specifically, if you were looking at one, maybe if you get, if you’ve got the budget money, look at three, you know, cause you might be able to lock in for a better rate.

And then knowing when everything turns over to, we’re having a lot of conversations now about people have some money now through different federal programs that we’ll, I’m sure we’ll get to in a moment, but like, that they want to buy it now before that money is gone. I mean, you have to allocate it now and pay for it now, but, you know, they won’t want turnover to X amount, to X state.

And again, but that comes, that comes right back to communication. Just let me like, let whoever you’re working with, whatever vendor you’re working with know that and we can make adjustments or work it into a deal that way. It’s not a, it’s not just a, you know, a B to C transaction, it can be a B to B transaction, which can be a lot more, um, complex than just a regular B to B trans or I’m sorry, a B to C transaction, like walking into.

Target or Walmart or wherever and just picking up something off the shelf and you’re done. We can…

Susan

And I’m going to translate that for people. B2B is business to business, and B2C is business to consumer. So if you are buying a ticket for yourself to Winterfest, that’s our business to you as a consumer. That’s B2C. And if your school is purchasing the accelerator from us, that’s B2B. So you got to be a we all know educationese terms. The alphabet soup for educationese, that’s the alphabet soup for sales people.

So I’m just gonna help y’all out. All right, so we gotta move on because we’re running a little bit late today. That’s okay. So what’s available to schools and teachers right now that they may not be aware of in terms of funding? I think this is a big one.

Kevi

Yeah. So, right now, so I’ll hit the three major ones, three, all there all the time that are always there and then I’ll hit the last one, which has got a end date on it. You got Title I school improvement funds. You have Title IIa supporting effective instruction.

funds. And then you’ve got Title IV A and F, which is academic enrichment. So everything that we do falls under those, can fall into those categories. And those are always.

Susan 

And those are always available, right? Those are federal funds that are always available, right? So if you think that you have a PD, like you want the accelerator for PD, or if you want the accelerator for curriculum, you could fit that either under 2A or 4A, it would work for either one. Title I can also be used for those items. And those are federal funds that…

Kevin 

Yep, yep, those are there.

Susan 

You may not be aware of, but I guarantee your district is. And they’ve set aside some of that money for incidentals. This is behind the scenes in central office. He’s got behind the scenes sales. I got behind the scenes in central office, my friends. So in central office, in their budgets, they have a little incidentals pot in every category. So for admins, for curricular people, everybody has a little incidentals pot for federal funding that’s available every year. And so if you think that they’re just gonna automatically say no, or if you go to your admin and say I wanna do this and they automatically say no, go to the curriculum coordinator at your central office because that person may have some funds for you instead, but their federal funds are always there. I promise you when you think that your school doesn’t have money to pay for it, yeah they do. Yeah they do.

Kevin

Especially when it comes to, you know, affecting the instruction of students and professional development. There’s always a little extra there. The other one, the big, I don’t know. Call it a buzzword but ESSER funds. ESSER 1, 2, and 3. So there were three rounds of ESSER funds, it’s post-COVID funds. ESSER 1 closed September of 22. ESSER 2 closed September of 23. So we just passed, when we’re taping this, we just passed that threshold. But ESSER 3 funds, ESSER 3 funds are still available and they do not have to be allocated until September 30th of 2024. So we’ve got almost an entire 365 days calendar to get those allocated. Now as of, I haven’t seen a recent number, but I know the last time I looked it was April, but as of April 23rd, 75% of the, I forget how many billions of dollars were in SR3, but 75% of those dollars were not allocated yet.

Susan 

Yeah, I saw the most recent number. It’s sitting at about 49%. So 49% of it hasn’t even, and when he says allocated friends, he just means that they haven’t been like decided where that’s gonna go yet. Allocated is different than spent, right? So they have to allocate it by September of 2024. They have to spend it by January of 2025. So if you want something, now is the time to get it allocated!

Kevin 

Time to get it. And now is the time to be looking at multiple years because if you’ve got the money there now or a longer term, you can get a better deal because you’ve got the money now and it needs to get used up or it will get lost.

Susan 

And not just for, and you say that from our perspective, but also think about consumables. Like if you are placing an art supply order or a music instrument order, or if you are looking at software, don’t just buy one year. Buy multi-year if you absolutely can on your contract, or at least ask if it’s available to lock in this year’s pricing for multiple years.

It’ll save you so much money in the long run and you’re allocating funds that are sitting there not yet allocated for

Kevin 

Mm-hmm. Right. Yep. And that, other than that, I mentioned grant funding before, private, always kind of, I mean, the internet’s your best friend when it comes to that.

Susan 

Absolutely. And I do love one of the, you were working with a purchasing office just recently who own on something and for teachers, it felt like a huge amount of money. Even the coordinator, it felt like a huge amount of money. And when we’re talking about a huge amount of money, we’re thinking like anything in terms of over $10,000, that’s a lot of money, right? But the purchasing office was so funny because he was like, I can find this in like the couch cushions of our budget, people. Our budget is like $950 million. This little, you know, this little thing right here is change in the couch cushions. And I think that’s a huge mindset shift for so many of us as educators, because for us, you know, we’re constantly penny pinching. We are claiming that $250 educator, you know, tax benefit every February, you know, like keeping those receipts and writing it off. But, and so to us, you know, when we go to purchase something or if we’re looking or interested in something, we’re like, oh my gosh, that’s so expensive. To us, it’s expensive. But if you go to your district, when you consider the funding that’s available to them, what their budget is, where their funds are coming from, and particularly now with ESSER, and they have this extra funding available. For us, it’s monumental. For them, it’s changing the couch cushions. So don’t let that stop you from trying to get your school or your district to pay for whatever it is that you do need. Okay, so my little soapbox is over. Time for a little fun. So we’ve given you some tips and tricks for working with vendors. I hope that that’s helpful for you and I hope that if you are considering any kind of work with vendors, whether it’s with us, with the accelerator, or certification, or Winterfest, or with any other vendor, that these tips have been helpful for you in securing, or at least shifting your mindset a little bit in being able to secure what you need without having to pay for it out of your pocket. I’m pretty passionate about that one as well. So, all right, Kevin, what is it like working in this role Chief Growth Officer? Let’s start there. What’s it like working here versus working in construction where you came from?

Kevin 

Ooh, it’s, it’s very different. I mean, I’ve referenced it before. It’s like, you know, it’s the construction’s a rough and tumble industry, you know, there’s never, you know, check I’ve had a saying of I left my feeling at home. You have one feeling singular and you just, you just have to like protect yourself against what’s going on. Um, this role is, um, different. I.

I have to deal with different personalities all the time. They’re, they’re vastly different from what I’m used to and varying across the country, because I’m dealing with people all across the country rather than in one locale. Yes.

Susan 

And let’s not forget our organization, which outside of you is mostly female. I mean, everybody female. Well, some of our coaches are male, but our full-time employees are all female. So you’re the only male on our staff.

Kevin 

Mostly? Right. Female. Yes. And when we’re all together, I’ve, you know, I’ve been told I’m too loud. I do whatever, you know, I’m just, I’m just a loud person, you know, it’s just.

Susan 

So for all of you elementary principal men out there who have all the women on their staff, he feels you. Like, yeah. Yeah. Really. And okay, so now you’ve kind of described a little bit of the differences before. So what’s it like working with me as your wife? That’s, I know lots of people have that question when they ask, when they figure out that we work together. Ah, it is!

Kevin 

This is such a loaded question. This can go so many ways. Now, I mean, all in all, it’s great. I think, you know, before I made the jump and behind the scenes, we had plenty of conversations about how this was gonna work, how we were gonna work, how, you know, and it’s not for everybody. It’s just not. I mean, there are people who have tried and failed miserably at trying to work together. And it just, you know, I think we set boundaries and that that’s when we try to maintain those boundaries. And we work in different spaces, so that we’re not, you know, constantly on top of one another and just being around. But it’s great because I get to see you more during the day than I ever used to. But also I get to experience things that I only heard about ever before. Like, you know, I’d come home, you’d be like, Oh, I did this. I did. I’m like, okay, you know, but I acknowledge it. Now I get to see it. Um, you know, I get to see the, the excitement and the passion and that you bring to what you do, that you, what you create and, and how you create it, which, um, is, you know, mind boggling to me cause I couldn’t do half, maybe, maybe even a quarter of all the things that you create and the tech side of our business that, you know, you, you’ve put countless hours of during the day, at night, weekends, holidays, into. It’s truly amazing.

Susan

Thank you. Well, and I do think what you mentioned was so key is the boundary piece. And to be really honest, I mean, and this is partially a behind the scenes episode, so we’ll go there. Like our employees were, we were upfront and honest with them way before you ever came on board. We were very open about this is what we’re considering and this is a move that we wanna make in terms of being able to grow as an organization and our employees had a lot of thoughts, a lot of feelings on that. Some of them have been, some of those feelings that were really great and it’s been really supportive. And some of them have been, it’s been a challenge as it always would be to bring a new person on board, but especially when you bring the boss’s husband on board, how do you navigate that? And so we’ve had to learn some things along the way in terms of role boundaries, as well as physical space boundaries and who does what, who answers what, where it kind of goes. That has been a little, that’s been a little, not tricky, but it’s been a learning experience for us as to how that works. I think it’s different when a company starts with their founders together as husband and wife versus having a spouse come on midway through. So… we’ve navigated that, we’re still navigating some of that, but also learning about each other and learning about how each other works and understanding, you know, some, we’re onions people, right? We continue to unfold and layers come up and we’re like, you know, I never knew that about you. I never knew that you liked to work this way versus the way that I like to work. And so that has been really interesting for me as a spouse to learn about my spouse, but also in my role as CEO to learn that about my employee. So that’s been just a little behind the scenes in terms of how that works. I will say one of the concerns that our team had was, what happens if at the end of the day you go home and then you have pillow talk about us and our roles at night? And I’m like, people. You give me way too much credit. I’m falling asleep on the couch at like 7 p.m. There’s no talk going on, come on. But we also are very, very mindful of respecting some of those things from our employees. And we also, we set times that we just don’t talk about work. Like we get to dinner and Emma’s home and she’s been away at school all day. And we just, it could be even a really rough day or something unexpected pops up. But at dinnertime, we’re done. We’re closed, we’re not talking about business. When we go on vacation, we really make it a point to not talk about business at all. So it totally can and we catch ourselves, right? And it’s funny because I often have to remind you more than you have to remind me.

Kevin

Yeah. And some of that, I mean, heck, we all got, we all got one of these, you know? So, yep. So it’s, it can, it can be tricky, but we’d, like you said, we do try to, um, or at least set aside time because obviously being, being the ownership team, it’s not a hundred percent, you know, oh, it’s not like being an employee. And even for me, it’s kind of a change in roles behind the scene.

Susan 

Yeah. Right. The phones. Yeah.

Kevin

Even when I was an employee, I always, when we went away, I would like, try to set some time to at least check to just maintenance and that’s, but we try to unplug and we encourage our employees to, you know, when they do take their time off to completely unplug.

Susan 

Fully unplugged as well. Yep, absolutely. All right, so I hope you all enjoyed this little behind the scenes episode as well as got some really helpful tips from it. If people have questions about the institute’s resources or questions about how to work with vendors, what’s the best way that they can reach out and get in touch with you, Kevin?

Kevin

The easiest way is email. My email is kevin, K-E-D-I-N, at artsintegration.com, or you can call. My phone number is on the website, so you can just go to the sales page on our website and everything’s there. I’m always happy to talk to anybody. If I don’t pick up when you call, that means I’m probably in a sales call with somebody else, so just leave a message or just drop me, like I said, drop me an email. It’s probably the quickest way to, I’ll see you and then I’ll.

I’ll respond with whatever you need.

Susan

Great. And for today, we are gonna have that tip sheet that with all of the helpful information that Kevin shared about working with letters, we’re gonna have that available as the free downloadable. So make sure that you head over to artsintegration.com forward slash artworks for today’s episode so that you can download that freebie as well. Thank you so much for joining me today, Kevin.

Kevin 

You’re quite welcome.

Kevin’s email: kevin@artsintegration.com