I'm John Burns and welcome to New Heights 360. I'm very excited today to have my special guest Chris Laye to find out what his Y is and what the hell is this I, Keg stuff that we keep hearing about in St. Louis. It's been a great year this year.
Chris and I have become very good friends. And we have many, many things in common. One of which is where you both have a giver's heart. Yes.
And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Chris and find out what his Y is. Thanks, John. Well, first I want to thank you for giving me the chance to get this audition tape set up. And maybe I can turn this into my dream come true.
Floor is yours, man. Thanks, man. Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming today to the Cardinals.
Can I? Yeah. Yeah. My Cardinals announcer?
Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. We're all my personal brother. We're just goofing off.
John, thank you, man. I'm really excited to be here in the New Heights studio. Sweet. Turned out nice.
Thanks, man. So what's my Y? What's your Y? Well, that's, you know, that's, I want to know what has gotten you to this point.
Because a lot of times we go to school, and we're told what route we're going to take. Like I was told you, you go to college, right? You get a degree. You go work for a corporation.
You retire, and then you die. Sounds about right. That's the game plan that people are told. And anybody in my time frame of growing up that thought outside of that was kind of looked down upon.
Sure. I mean, the adventurous type of entrepreneur was never somebody that was celebrated. No. So I mean, I guess to kind of give you a little bit of where we're at and why we are doing what we do.
I have always had a real soft spot for the small business owner. And I want to try and help them in any way that I can to grow and to improve not only their business, but the relationships that they have, the way that they interact with the public. I want to give them an opportunity to really build great referral partners and those types of things. So my why is to wake up every day, try to be a very outstanding giver to the people around me.
Because when I live that mentality of giving and helping people to grow, I feel like I'm fulfilling not only myself, because I think that's important. You do need to be fulfilled in what you do. But I'm also fulfilling my goal of just helping people to grow. Now, it wasn't always like this for you.
No. So what did you do in your previous life? So I was a financial advisor for quite some time. And it was never really quite what I wanted to be.
I always wanted to be somebody who was helping people in a different way. It wasn't the greatest career for me, because it was very much a culture of taking. When you talk about the other financial advisors, the way people grow, they were very money oriented as the only thing that mattered. And it never really quite sat right with me.
I loved helping people achieve their goals. I loved helping people grow their wealth. But it was never soul satisfying. Kind of like an empty vessel.
Yeah, I mean, the income was good. It was fun to a certain extent, but it was never satisfying. And fast forward, my wife, Deanna, and I had always wanted to work together. So we actually had a dream of having an after-school tutoring company.
And we moved out to Colorado to make that happen in 2010. When I got out to Colorado, it's kind of a long story. But I was going back and forth because my son was a senior in high school when he came out of school. Right.
But the opportunity was there. So my wife and my daughter, Elissa, moved out to Colorado. And I was back at St. Louis for almost a year, just going back and forth.
By the time I got out to Colorado, Deanna didn't really need me in the business. It was up and running. So it took a job in radio sales. In Colorado?
In Colorado? In Colorado? Back in Colorado. And this is when I moved to Colorado full time.
I took a job in radio sales. And it was interesting, to say the least. Again, a lot of wonderful people I met, neat career. But it wasn't a career.
Me job. But I was not satisfied there either. I just, you know, selling air. Wasn't really exciting to me.
We did have an opportunity to finally work together. Deanna and I did when we joined a company that produced newsletters for private neighborhoods. And we started producing a newsletter for a private neighborhood out in Colorado. We felt a need to move back to St.
Louis. And we were able to do that in 2014. And we started another one of those types of publications here in a neighborhood in St. Louis.
And we were selling advertising, but also providing personal stories for all the residents of the neighborhood. It was really neat. We had a lot of fun doing it. It was a great time.
But again, it wasn't exactly completely satisfying. We fast forward to 2018. And we had quite a few different clients with the publication. And Deanna had the idea that she wanted to create something online on Facebook, a group where she could introduce our business partners to our residents, but also introduce some of the people that we knew through networking to our residents and the business partners and build a community around that.
And that's how Icag, I know a guy, St. Louis, came to be. Now who came up with the name? Because the name is like, it's so unique.
That was Deanna. That was Deanna. Because the first time I heard it, it was one of those things that you can't quite wrap your brain around. Because it's like Icag.
Well, we, K. Sonderreger, a friend of ours, came up with the acronym Icag because she got tired of typing out I know a guy, St. L. L.
L. L. So Icag came about. So Icag started as a community to bring all those people together.
And Deanna has an education background. And one of the things that she knows in education is that people do crave structure. They don't want a massive amount of rules, but they need structure and how they go about their daily lives. So she designed Icag with some things in mind, some different structures, different themed days where people could post.
But one of the big things that she didn't want, and we talked about this, and I totally agreed, was we didn't want it to be just like every other typical Facebook group out there where anybody could come along and self-promote. And it was a bunch of free for all people with, hey, I'm the greatest of this. I'm the greatest of that. And there's no engagement in those.
If you ever go to a group like that where there's a ton of people, and there's a lot of groups that have even more than we have, but it's all just self-promotion. And nobody really pays attention to it. White noise. White noise, exactly.
So as we developed, I know a guy slash gal, the Facebook group, which is, it grew about 1,000 members a month because our referral partners, or the people that we knew through networking, started adding their people to it. And more and more people came into it. So in the first five months, it grew over 5,000 people just like that, which is phenomenal for a page. But not only was the growth pretty on a definite upward spike, the engagement was high as well.
So it wasn't just people coming and joining a group and not engaging with the group, which happens far too often. I mean, I'm probably a member of 25 groups that I haven't looked at. I've quit accepting invites because I'm literally getting 5 to 10, like my page, join my group. Right.
Every day. For most people, if it's not adding value to your life. Yeah, it's just another thing. I mean, I don't mind going and liking, like for instance, I'd go in like new heights.
I'd go in like that. Because I want to support you and I want to learn what's going on in every time you would post, I would be able, hopefully, if the algorithm is right for Facebook, I'd be able to see it. But all these different groups, I'm like, man, why would I join yet another group that's just self-promotion? Right.
So we designed certain themed days where people can comment underneath those posts, like promo Monday. It's a big one for us, where we allow people to come out and do a promotional comment under that post. And the only deal is they have to give some sort of a discount to the members of the group or some sort of a special to the members of the group. So you can go in on Mondays and you can promote your business underneath that post, not onto the wall, but underneath that post.
And you can say, yeah, 10% off or get this free or free consultation. As long as you're giving something to the group, you can promote yourself on promo Monday. Let me tell you, Deanna is on it. Oh, well, yeah.
She must have like special alarm on Facebook page because her husband people try to sneak stuff in there. Oh, sure. And she gets rid of it like, well, we both do. Well, yeah, yeah, you as well.
But I've probably had more dealings with Deanna on Facebook than. So what we do is odd number days, even number days, we both take that assignment because otherwise it would be a full time job monitoring the group. Sure. When you have that many people that are all business owners, you want to make sure that everybody is getting it right and following the structure of the group.
Well, a lot of that structure allowed us to continue to build relationships, help people to grow. And again, fast forward, we started that in February of 2018. In October of 2018, we started the in-person weekly networking groups called ICAG Connect. And which was the first meeting for that?
The very first meeting happened on October 2nd, the day my granddaughter was born. We had an informational meeting. We had about 100 people in the room where we just shared what the vision was for ICAG Connect. And the first weekly meeting started the week following that.
Awesome. And we'd been in networking groups before. And what we saw was there were some wonderful things. And a lot of networking groups.
There were also some things that were lacking in some. And we looked at it as, how can we start a networking group where people would want to attend, would feel value in attending, and grow from there. And we started that with the idea of a hashtag that you've seen a million times. Together is amazing.
And the concept of together is amazing, is if we're all pulling in the same direction, we can accomplish amazing things when we're together. So more of a collaborative than a competitive, which 100% You and I have both been a networking for 30 plus years. Yes. And usually when I've been to networking, it is a competitive, throat cutting.
Right. Whatever you can do to Trump, the guy that may be in a similar industry as you, if you can get one on him via whatever means necessary, that makes all the difference. Right. And we were taught that.
I mean, we're taught that in the networking world that it's either about exclusivity, which there's nothing wrong with being in a group that has exclusivity. Oh, no. And they're something that are very successful at it. Yeah.
And they do it really well. That's definitely their method of how they grow their groups. And that's fine. They're in their lane, and they do a great job in their lane.
We wanted to make sure that it was an open category type of situation. But explaining to the members, hey, the culture of collaboration over competition is what we are all about at Connect. So don't come into the room, and I'll just use myself as an example. Sure.
Don't come in the room and go, I'm the greatest networking organization, and that guy's organization is not nearly as good as ours. Because, quite frankly, that doesn't work, number one. It really makes you look like an ass, because you're calling out your competition and belittling them. But the fact of the matter is, when you collaborate, you can see people of the exact same industry in the exact same room.
And there are different levels in their business. They're at different experience. They may have a different niche in the exact same industry. And I've seen it time and time again at Connect, where these individuals in the same industry are referring to each other, because they celebrate collaboration over competition.
Which is what I've noticed is being the most unique thing about ICAG. It's one of the things that I'm, again, I'm so happy to see. It's so unique, in my opinion, there's nothing like it out there. I haven't seen it in any other groups myself personally.
And that's one of the reasons why we knew it had to be part of the culture that Connect has as well. And we really base our, together as amazing as the philosophy, the culture is based upon the three pillars. You've heard them before, and you said the first one, collaboration over competition. The second pillar is referrals through relationships.
We don't have strict attendance policies at Connect meetings, but we typically have a very high attendance amongst members and guests. And the idea is that we want people to want to want to be in the room. And in doing so, they're able to build relationships because they see each other time and time and time again. And there's a connectivity, because they are like minded individuals if they're celebrating the culture, right?
Correct. So referrals through relationships means number one, show up. You've got to be in the room to start to build those relationships. But two, Deanna says it, I embrace it, your referral is your reputation.
And you don't want to give those to just anybody. You want to have a relationship with somebody so you can trust that when I give John a referral, I know that John is going to take very good care of the person I've referred to them. And I'm not going to have to worry about them coming back to me going, hey, that John guy, I don't want to ever talk to him again. And please don't ever introduce me to people like him again.
Because I have a relationship with you. I have that confidence and that trust that I can give referrals to you and feel very good about it. But we took a lot of time to build that. Exactly.
It takes relationship, takes time to be together and getting to know each other. And do you want to be a referral partner with somebody? In our world in Connect, you have the choice of being able to say, OK, I get along with that person really well. I value that person in my life.
I have a relationship with them. Referrals are easy for me to give to them. There may be people of the same industry that you don't connect with. And that's OK.
Well, and I think we talked about this at the last eye-cagnating, too. A lot of it has to do with consistency of actions. Yes. And one thing is you and I are very much on par with we go by what people do.
Yeah. And the thing is you and I may not be heavily in conversation with everyone, but we're always watching people. Yeah. Being observant of people's behavior tells you a lot about how they act with others and how they interact in the group itself.
Are they showing up? I mean, do they show up once a month? Or are they there pretty consistently? Are they giving to the group?
Because our third pillar, give first give often. Are they giving to the group? Are they contributing to the times when we have different themes, like our collaboration? Are they working with others?
Are they building people up? How do they act? Not when they're talking just to me. That's important to see.
It's important to observe. What's been the biggest mistake you've noticed when people come into networking? I thought you were going to talk about my biggest mistake. Well, we could do a second show on that.
No, I just like to get your insights because you've really watched ICAG-devolved and it's actually growing in a steady good growth pattern. I mean, it's unbelievable how it just continues to grow as more groups are forming. Right. We do things a little bit differently when it comes to even the growth of the group.
And again, it's part of the culture that we have in place. So let me address that and then answer your question. Sure. Sure.
We never run any kind of contests at Connect for people bringing in visitors. We don't try to compensate members for creating new members. Because when I've seen that, and this is my personal feeling, I'm not casting this upon anybody, when I see it, it feels self-serving to me as a person who runs the organization to run a contest and have you, my members go out and try to find people and plug them in. Kind of cheapens the product.
I think so. Yeah. Because with us, it is never about the total number of people in the room. It's about the quality of the people in the room.
Because I'm sure you've had several people come up and tell you how you could do this so much better. Oh, yeah, absolutely. How do we solve that? Hey, if you've got a check for half a million dollars, you can tell me exactly how to run this order.
That's right. Because often a lot of times people will come to you and say, well, Chris, if you did this and that, think of what we could do. And they don't have any money to buy. You want to buy it for half a million from me right now?
You can tell me how to run it tomorrow. Yeah. I mean, that sounds like maybe a little crass as a response. But that's the fact of the matter.
I mean, I'm always open to input. I'm very rarely open to people telling me that they can do something better when they've not done it themselves. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I think a lot of it too is you and Deanna are very planted in the core foundation of ICAG, which goes beyond just how big you can make ICAG.
It's a culture that really has come out of an organic form. I would agree to that. And that's kind of what's driving it, even currently, because you guys have kept such a basis of an organic growth. Not just promoting and just, like you said, contest and radio ads and...
Right. We don't do any of that. Right. The reason we don't do it is because I would much rather you, you know, a scenario would be John would go to your friend and say, Hey, I'm a member of a group.
I'd love for you to come check it out and just see how it feels for you. You know, and your friend is going to come to a connect meeting and they're going to see what the culture is all about. They're going to see what goes on. And they're either going to like it and say, I want to be a part of this or they're going to say I don't like it and I don't want to be a part of it.
And both are okay with us. It's never been about trying to just jam people in there and make them fit to what we're doing. I would much rather people come experience it and decide for themselves. Is this a good fit for me?
Am I a good fit for the group? I think when you advertise or you run contests or you do those kinds of things, what you're basically saying is I just want people in the room. And I'm not really concerned about the experience for them in the long run. Does that make sense?
Yeah. And to that point, do you think because I've kind of seen this with other networking organizations, they've kind of come and went like a flash in a pan almost because that was their sole focus was numbers. Yeah. And they're trying to do the exact same thing that somebody's already doing and they're already doing it really well.
I'll give an example. So B&I is an amazing organization. Absolutely. I have a tremendous amount of respect for everything that they do.
What they do, they do incredibly well. Correct. And it baffles me that every time I see a company that wants to start up and they have everything, they try to be exactly like B&I and then they go away. Why?
Because B&I is already doing it very well. They're a great organization. I mean, they're run by quality people. The leadership is always good.
The training is phenomenal. They have a lane that they have built. And in my mind, I see B&I and this lane on the highway and every B&I car is bumper to bumper traveling at 100 miles per hour. There's no way you can squeeze your car in there.
Right. Why try? But yet other organizations try to emulate B&I and they can't. They can't do it as well as they do it.
So that's one of the reasons why I think some of those groups go away is that they try to be exactly what's already serving the market instead of being themselves, finding their own lane. And, you know, we noticed a gap when we were looking at connect. We noticed a gap between the people who could get into the B&I lane and the people who were maybe over in the other lane. We noticed a gap right in the middle and we've decided that's the lane that we want to be in.
That's the lane we want to play in. Are we right for everybody? No. And we don't try to be.
I think that's another reason why you see a lot of networking groups come and go is they try to be right for everybody, but they don't stand for anything. Does that make sense? Right. And I think that's the one thing that really stood out for me when I first started attending ICAG meetings myself was the foundation and the core principles were unlike anything I had encountered in business.
I mean, first off, collaboration between competitors is unheard of. Oftentimes, yeah, you're right. It's unheard of. Yeah.
And the fact of the matter that you don't have any set amount of one field or another that can come to your group. Right. That was another thing that was really weird to me. I'm like, there's like four insurance people here and it's obvious they're all friends because they're over there talking.
Right. They get along and that was really hard to wrap my brain around it first. But as I got to know you and got to know the culture, you and Deanna's vision goes beyond business. Absolutely.
I mean, you know, for us, we want to be able to provide a great platform for everybody who feels like that culture resonates with them. We're not right for everybody and that's fine. We do know that this, you know, John Cougar, Melon, you know how I feel about John. Yeah.
He's got a great song. It's a and the lyric is you got to stand for something or you're going to fall for anything. Right. Correct.
So we knew we had to have structure. We had to have rules that were in place, but we also had to have a culture that just speaks about who we are and what we are. And if people don't embrace that culture, if they don't adhere to that culture, if they don't embody that culture, they don't belong in a connect group. Well, it's very much like a family because I can tell you that and I always remind new people when I encounter them.
Yeah. Be careful what you say and be careful what you do because a lot of these people are interconnected. Sure. So even though you might not see the member of another group does not mean that they're not connected to this person.
Right. So you must conduct yourself in a certain way. Sure. Because it is all fairly interwoven.
Yeah. I mean, no matter where you go, I mean, St. Louis itself is a big, small town. Sure.
You know, if this were the Kevin Bacon game, we're all six degrees from somebody here in this town. I guarantee it. Yes. With that being said, I mean, when I meet with people who have been in networking and I'm or I'm sitting down with somebody on a one to one and they ask me all the time, hey, what do you think of this networking group?
I say, guys, they do their own thing. I mean, I don't talk poorly about other networking groups. I encourage people not to talk poorly about other networking groups. If it wasn't a fit for you, that's okay.
But you don't need to say say it's bad because it didn't fit you. That's right. You know, it's the same thing when you're talking with other people. Hey, you know, that John Burns guy, you never know who John Burns knows and you don't want to talk poorly about them.
If you have a bad experience with someone, go to that person, which you're I know firsthand. Yes. You're very adamant about handling those situations directly and not passing it to your leadership. Right.
My leaders, especially my team leaders, I trust explicitly to handle the majority of what goes on a meeting because I can't be every one of them. Oh, absolutely. Or do I want to? But I had a situation where a team leader came to me, is actually a welcome team leader came to me and said, hey, I've got a problem.
One of the members is upset with this other member. And I said, hey, we're going to pause real quick. Did you ask this question of that person? Hey, I know you have a problem with Joe below.
Did you go to Joe and tell them you have a problem? And my welcome team leaders like, well, no, I didn't ask them that. I'm like, OK, well, that's probably what you need to go back to them and say, if you've got a problem with Joe, you need to talk to Joe. It's not really for you to come to me and try to have me fix your problem.
Triangulate. Right. The relationship or the situation. Exactly.
Now, if it's a situation where Joe is breaking some of the rules of the group or is going against the culture of the group, my leaders, myself, we will get involved. I was one of those people. I raffled off a book. I raffled off a book, but it wasn't because I was trying to collect business cards.
It was truly because I just wanted to give the book out. In fact, I think that stack of cards are still sitting in a car door in my car. But when you came to me, I got it. And it wasn't a thing where I was like, oh, you know, I'm my feelings are all hurt.
And these people understand it was like, I get it. This is part of the culture. Right. And then when I started thinking about it, I was like, what would it look like if we had 20 buckets going around a room?
Right. Because half the meeting was a raffle giveaway, which completely defeats why I tag was formed to begin with. Well, and you know, I've been in other groups and other organizations. I've been at big meetings and a lot of those things are just allowed.
And it's not that they're bad. And what you did, there was never any I never felt like, Oh, John is intending to do something wrong. And we talked about that. Oh, absolutely.
I know your intention, John. I get what you're doing. We don't do that here. And this is why.
But I came to you directly because I don't want you or anybody else to feel like I'm going to go talk about them to somebody else. Right. Which which I respect it. I mean, I respect when a leadership just comes and handles the bull by the horns.
It's a conversation. Yeah, it's not a chastising. So John, you're a bad boy. You know, I would never do that to somebody.
I'd never try to make them feel like that. But along those same lines, when you just allow anything to happen in a meeting and trust me, I was at another group where, I mean, people were setting up shops and putting out displays of their stuff. And it's like, is this a networking meeting or is this a pop store? It's like a wild, wild West flea market.
What do we got going on? A flea market slash networking. And it's not that the people, I mean, the person that was doing that are the persons that were quite a few of them, they were doing that. They're not bad people, but there were no rules.
Sure. And the funny thing is somebody was offended that this person had put up their pop up store, right? Oh my gosh. But I was like, well, there's no rules.
Why would you be offended? You know, yeah. And if there's a problem, go talk to them. Of course they wouldn't talk to them.
So can you talk about what are the future visions and goals for ICAG? I know we're growing at an exponential rate here in St. Louis. Yeah.
But in all truthfulness, this has a very national nature to it. I believe there's merit in looking at it as something that can go beyond the borders of St. Louis and can continue to grow. Sure.
With that being said, I want the culture of Connect to be the reason why other people say, Hey, I want to be a part of this organization. So we do have plans, not from what I would consider an advertising standpoint, just to try to get meetings everywhere. We want to work through referrals again with people that we know of people in other cities. So you're you're you're taking that organic principle.
Yes, which is a slow growth, which anybody understands organic, understands that it's not going to happen overnight. Right. And that's that's the principle that you're carrying forward with future growth of ICAG. So I've gone to some people that I that I know entrust and I say, Hey, who do you know that's in this market?
Who would be attracted to what we're doing at ICAG? I'd like to talk to them because I'd like to talk to them and see if they're interested in starting an ICAG Connect group in their city and then helping to grow there. The reason I want to do this, John, is because I do believe that this culture is very special. The feedback I get from people is, Hey, this is is like you just said, it's something I've never seen before.
It's something I've never really experienced before. I really enjoy this and it goes back to people that are just embodying the culture, you know, collaboration over competition referrals through relationships, give first give often helping other people to grow. Right. Well, the thing is to, you know, being an entrepreneur is a very lonely path.
It can be. And a lot of times entrepreneurs are looking for a little bit of guidance, support and really kind of I feel ICAG encompasses that. And I also think that it's it's elevating business owners to bring their best. I love that.
I love what you said. That's a great way to put it elevating people to bring their best. We would love to see ICAG grow outside of St. Louis because we believe that the culture should be something that permeates outside of St.
Louis. Does that make sense? Absolutely. So I don't want somebody saying, Hey, I want to and I've had people who this is kind of funny.
I've got to this. I've had people that have never even been to a connect meeting come up to me at a different networking event and I go to a lot of them. I don't just go to our try to help people everywhere. I've had people come up to me at other events who've never even been to one of the ICAG Connect meetings and they say, I want to start an ICAG Connect meeting.
And my response to them is great. Come to a meeting first and be a member for a certain period of time and then we can have that conversation and they're like, Oh, no, I just want to start a start a group. I want to start my own networking group. I'm like, that's not how we do what we do.
I shared with you and I'll share with others. We don't allow people to become team leaders unless they've been a member for a minimum of two months as a regular member. Right. You and I had that conversation just because trying to understand your structure as far as your leadership and you and Deanna are very particular.
About a who starts a group, right? And B, who's going to be over that group because that's an extension of you and Deanna. It's an extension of the culture. Right.
We're trying to make it not about us as much as it is about the culture, but that's a good observation as an extension of that culture. Well, I mean, what I mean by that is more or less like your principles of what you guys stand for. That's what we've designed. You know, and your desire to really elevate entrepreneurs.
And I think a lot of that just comes from you guys paid your dues as entrepreneurs. And still do every day. Right. Right.
But the fact that you are trying to establish a platform where entrepreneurs can connect and flourish. Yes. Is what truly sets ICAG apart. I appreciate that.
I'm glad that you see that because I think that's what we strive for every single day. Now with that being said, about, you know, moving outside of St. Louis, somebody could say, well, hold on a second, how can that person start a group in Columbia, Missouri? If your rule is they have to be a member for two months.
Well, we have virtual connect where that talk about that. Because that was something that I've never the first time I saw that. Yeah, I was like, now, what the hell is this virtual connect? And you, I think it was extended networking at day.
Yeah. Something. And you're like, well, you and I are going to go off in a virtual room. I'm in rooms and yeah, zoom is a great platform for this.
And we use it very well. It's a great platform period. Excuse me. Virtual Connect happens every Monday from four to five p.m.
Anybody can plug into it. And we're going to utilize virtual connect to have those people who are outside of St. Louis come to a connect meeting, which is official connect meeting. It's official connect meeting.
Come to a connect meeting and learn the flow of the meeting, learn the structure of the meeting, but more than anything, see the culture of the meeting. So that they understand why connect is different than other networking groups. So we're going to use virtual connect as a way to find those people who are outside of St. Louis, give them time to develop in what we do, and then they can start their own in person physical connect meeting in their city.
So that's the way I want to introduce it to people nationwide. Just come visit connect virtually and you'll see you'll learn, which I think is brilliant. I mean, I think it's a I love it too. It's actually a lot of fun.
But I remember when you took me off into the private virtual room and you know, you just delved in just trying to get to know me, get trying to figure out what what are your needs as a business owner? What can I do to help you? But then when you get off to other in person meetings, right? That's what the whole culture is morphing into this thing of people helping each other.
Right. And I mean, I'll ask you, why do you want to help other people that are members of connect? I know my answer. What's yours?
I love elevating people. And I know what my own struggles have been in the past. And I have a lot of experience and knowledge as you do that I'm more than willing to share with people that are getting started, new in a business. If I can give them some nuggets to help elevate their business or their life, I freely do that.
I don't do it out of expecting something back. Right. No expectation. And that's again, why I love you.
I mean, you and I very much share the same mentality, the same philosophy, give with no expectation. Because when you put expectation on things, you're kind of sitting there with a scorecard, right? Oh, I gave John a referral. When's he going to give me my referral?
What you've encountered that? Oh, yeah, I've had that happen with an eye kick. You've had people come to you and I've had people say it. Yeah.
And I was like, hey, you know, let's just talk about why that doesn't work within our culture. Because you guys often say, sell through the room, not at the room. Yeah, I never to the room, right? Because when you have people that come in and they look at a room of 25, 30, 40 people, some people will walk in and they'll see dollar signs.
You still I mean, you have to have an ROI in your business. I get that. I'm never telling anybody, don't make money and don't don't grow your business. But when that's your only goal, it's the only thing that you want is to come in and make your pockets bigger.
You kind of stick out like a sore thumb and connect because it's not how the members act. And in giving first and giving often, it doesn't just mean referrals. It means, you know, give of your time, give of that nugget that you have, give some of your knowledge. Maybe you just want to be any ear where they can vent to you.
Sometimes people need that. Again, remember, we're entrepreneurs, a lot of us are on islands most of the day. And it's sometimes just to have somebody good to connect with. Give of advice.
If you see something that somebody's doing and it's hurting them in some way, shape or form, maybe, you know, a friend is going to tell them, you know, again, in the friendly way. Constructive constructive, right? Giving can also mean going and liking somebody's Facebook group or page. Absolutely coming on their pocket.
Coming on their pocket. New. Hi. Where do I put my hands?
It's invisible. It can be, you know, showing up to their event. There's so many ways that we can give to other people that don't require us to go out of our way. And they don't require the mentality to be the only thing I can give as a referral, right?
Well, you can give help. You can give help. You can give chairs. You can give likes.
You can give knowledge. You can give experience. You can give tons of different words. Shout outs.
Shout outs. Exactly. Alright, Chris, I want to get into something else that is very important to ICAG, which I found to be extremely unique and something I've never seen before on a weekly basis. And that's a charity called Crisis Nursery.
Yeah, St. Louis Crisis Nursery. Thanks, John. So tell me how that got intertwined into ICAG.
So a good friend of ours, Zach Tucker, had an organization called Good Meets World. Zach introduced us to Crisis Nursery through Good Meets World. And what Crisis Nursery does is they work with local families to provide immediate shelter. If children need that, you know, drop in immediate emergency daycare if the parents need that.
They give them supplies and food, even some other additional help for exactly that families that are in crisis. And our granddaughter, who was born on the same day that we started Connect October 2nd, now nine months old, just really makes Crisis Nursery really near and dear to our heart. I get a little emotional when I talk about this and I think you know that. So our daughter obviously has Deanna and I close by and some other family close by to help her with our beautiful granddaughter, Aria.
But you know what breaks my heart, John, is the thought that there are young women and young families out there that don't have family and help close by and sometimes find themselves in a really rough spot. And that's where Crisis Nursery can come in and help them out, make sure that they have supplies for the baby and food and clothing. And you have a very interesting story that ties right into exactly the power of crisis. Crisis Nursery and what they do for young mothers and people that are struggling without any type of family support system.
So they received a call from a young woman who had an infant who had been crying for hours and hours and hours was nonstop crying. And she tried to get some help through other phone calls and really was getting nowhere. She had no family to turn to. She contacted Crisis Nursery and thank goodness they were close by and they heard the desperation in her voice because they got her and the baby.
As they were talking to her, she shared with the Crisis Nursery volunteer that she was so incredibly desperate, John, because the child just would not stop screaming, that she had filled up the bathtub. I'm sorry guys, give me a second. She'd filled up the bathtub, John, and she was going to drown her baby because it would not stop crying. That day, Crisis Nursery saved two lives, not just the baby but that young woman from something that would have been just devastating for her forever.
It turned out that the baby had a double ear infection and needed a lot of medical attention. But that's the kind of stuff that when you hear that, you say, I want to make sure that there's something I'm doing to help that organization to be there for that next family. And that's why I love Crisis Nursery. I love what they stand for.
I love what they do. It's very meaningful to us. So a portion of every one of our memberships helps us to give to Crisis Nursery every single month. Which is unbelievable because that, personally, that was one of the things that really attracted me to your organization was at the very end of our meeting.
At every one of our meetings. At every meeting when you bring up the Crisis Nursery Flyer and you talk about that and how a portion of membership goes to support that organization. And you guys do a lot of other things outside of that. We do.
We're pretty active in Operation Food Search. As a matter of fact, this coming up soon, we're going over there for a night where we're packing food boxes and whatnot to go out to different organizations, especially to help families with summertime meals because a lot of kids, the only food that they get, unfortunately, is during the school year. And then when summer comes, they often live in a food desert or they don't have other parents may not have all the means to be able to provide food throughout the day. So we work with Operation Food Search to be able to do that.
We're getting ready to do a back-to-school supply drive at all of our Connect Meetings and even in our big IK group. We're going to gather as many back-to-school supplies as we possibly can and get those distributed out amongst the St. Louis community for the kids that need those. We're getting ready to take part in a drive, a diaper drive in September for Crisis Nursery.
That's actually, they're doing that in conjunction with KMO-V-TV. And that's your Aldi? Yeah, Aldi. You can buy a pack of diapers, really inexpensive, two bucks, I think.
And you just toss them in the bin and then those are going to be distributed to families through Crisis Nursery. And you can donate like through Amazon, correct? Yeah, if you go to Amazon like during Prime Day or something along those lines or just a regular shopping through Amazon, you can go through Amazon and there's an ability to gift a portion of what you're buying to these organizations. And you get to pick the organization.
One of the big things for us is not so much about just tap, you know, just, hey, look at us, we give to Crisis Nursery. It's to say, this is part of the culture of everything that we're about. Connect, ICAG, the whole field. The giving basis.
The giving basis. And when we put that up and we have the slide deck in the Connect Meetings, it's to raise awareness. For the most part, a lot of these nonprofit organizations just need people to be even more aware that they exist. That it's even a resource or it is an organization you can give to or you can volunteer for.
So we try as often as we can to not only give information about organizations that we're a part of, but we encourage everyone of our members to share about organizations that they're a part of as well because we can help. All of us can help in some way, shape or form, whether it's a financial donation or a time, volunteer donation or just an awareness. In fact, on your main page, ICAG, you have a day that is specific for that. So from the big group, every Thursday, we do thankful Thursday.
And the idea is that people can post underneath that post about organizations that they support. So again, we want to raise as much awareness as we can for all these nonprofit organizations who are truly the boots on the ground helping our community. But do you kind of see how this is helping develop better entrepreneurs? I think so.
When you think as an entrepreneur and you realize that you are pretty blessed, I mean, let's face some facts. We're in America. Is it a perfect country? No, but I'll tell you what, I'm so thankful every day that I am here because I feel like I have opportunities and I know the people around me have opportunities that they don't get to experience in other countries.
Sure. As an entrepreneur, I have that blessing right here. Number two is an entrepreneur. I have the ability to be influential with other people.
And I want other entrepreneurs to know that they're influential as well. And one of the greatest things you can do with any influence you have is try to help people who need help. So using our platform to share and raise awareness will hopefully also kind of motivate those other entrepreneurs to use their platform to share and raise awareness about good causes and ways to help people. Kind of a ripple effect.
Yep. You know, because again, you know, one of my favorite stories is that I think I shared this with you. It's about there's a guy walking on the beach and there's a bunch of starfish that have washed up on the beach, right? Okay.
And he's walking along and he's picking them up one at a time and he's throwing them back out into the ocean. He comes across another man and the man says, what are you doing? There's thousands of starfish here. You can't possibly make a difference.
With that he bends over and he picks up another starfish and he tosses it out into the ocean and he looks at the man and he says, I made a difference to that one. So every day if we can make a difference to just one person, to one cause, I think we're causing that ripple. We're creating, we're the pebble that's causing that ripple. Does that make sense?
Yeah. I attribute that to the continued growth and success of ICAG because the people that do get that want to be a part of that and that's what's helping us grow. And the people that don't, it's kind of interesting because it's got its own self-weed out process. So more times than not, the people that are not a good fit for that culture do not stick around.
You know, anybody can come and check us out. Oh yeah. No, I wasn't saying it with a close blueprint. Yeah, I know you're not.
Anybody can come and check us out. Not everybody's going to feel right. Right. Right.
And that's okay. You know, I think if people look at what we're doing and they see what we're doing, they're going to realize that it is truly about that whole giving mentality though. I want to give as much as I can. I even say it in my, you know, hey, I'm Chris Lay, I'm a serial giver.
I have no problem giving. And I know that the people that are in that room have no problem giving. I see it in the members. They're not only friends, but they have great big hearts, great big hearts.
And that is what makes ICAG pretty special, pretty unique. Yes. You know, even when somebody, you know, on the big group, if somebody goes on and they self-promote and I have to send them a little note, like, hey, you know, we don't allow self-promotion, even the responses from them, I think in the entire time we've done it, I think we've had maybe two people go, well, if I can't self-promote, I won't be a part of this group. And we're like, okay, well, then don't be a part of the group.
But everybody else has been like, okay, I get it. Thank you. Because I tell them, you know, when they can and how they can do it. And they get it.
It's more impactful when they're doing it that way. Oh, absolutely. And I think that, you know, it's that structure that really makes it what ICAG is. Yeah.
And the fact that you have a structure, it's not overly rigid, but there is a core structure that adheres to the three pillars. Yeah. And if it goes or DV8s beyond that, you guys make adjustments to whatever needs to be done. Absolutely.
And it's been a great getting to know your why and talking about the crisis nursery. And I'm really excited about the future for ICAG. Thanks for letting me do my baseball announcer voice. Oh, absolutely.
Hey everybody. That's right. But it's been a great show here on 360. And I want to thank all of you for tuning in and look forward to having Chris on in the future as well.
All right, John. Thanks a lot, buddy, for having me on. Thanks. I'm just going to leave now.
Hey, everybody, it's Chris Lay. I'm the president of ICAG. And I'm John Burns, number one fan. Here's the deal.
John's going to ask you to come on here and share your story about your business, your why, who you are, what makes you you. And I highly encourage you to take the time to come on here and meet with my friend, John. It's a great time. He's got an amazing studio all set up.
And I want you to come out and share your story because I know this about John Burns. He wants to tell your story. So come on out. Have some fun.
Hang out with my boy, John. And at the end of the recording, you get to pick up your microphone and just slide out of frame.