Sep 6 Show

Announcer: Welcome to the Vegas Business Report, powered by Reliable Environmental Services. Coming up, an inside look at the business of Las Vegas. Stay tuned for interviews with the movers and shakers at the top and on the way up. Plus, Las Vegas sports, entertainment, restaurants, weather, and more. This is the Vegas Business Report, because there's no business like Vegas business. Now, here's Geoff Nathanson and JJ Snyder.

JJ Snyder: And welcome to this edition of the Vegas Business Report. Good Sunday morning to you! I'm JJ Snyder and I'm joined by Geoff Nathanson. Good morning, Geoff.

Geoff Nathanson: Good morning, JJ.

JJ Snyder: Hey, so glad you tuned in to today's FM broadcast. Yes, it's true. We are here to talk Vegas business. Every Sunday, 9:00 to 10:00 AM, please set the dial. Join us starting today. So whether you've been invited to join us every Sunday or you've just decided that Sunday morning is now your new time with us, welcome! We're glad you're here. Grab your toast, your coffee...

Geoff Nathanson: It's a great time, great time to talk business, too.

JJ Snyder: Have you had your coffee?

Geoff Nathanson: Kind of chill. I'm having my coffee right now, as a matter of fact. And you'll see a difference in the next like seven minutes.

JJ Snyder: Yes, as it hits!

Geoff Nathanson: Here I go! I'll be all caffeinated. So, um, really excited to have everybody here, and it's a great time to talk business. Of course, pets are welcome on the show. So, uh, and the show is over-the-air radio, 100% free here on 101.5. This episode coming up, I was really looking forward to this, JJ, and in kind of looking ahead a little bit when we were planning this. Um, I'm kind of thinking we should call this the... You know, like, uh, Friends used to always say, "The episode where they like get into a pickle" or something?

JJ Snyder: Yes.

Geoff Nathanson: This is the one that we're calling "The Marketing Episode." We have two powerhouse marketing leaders joining us in studio today to kind of talk it through. First up, we're going to talk with Shaundell Newsome of SumNu Marketing. That is a local firm here in Vegas that works with Las Vegas companies to support their marketing goals, and they're really champions of small business, and they elevate the business community overall. Shaundell is here, we'll talk with him. And then later, Michael Coleman.

JJ Snyder: Yes, Michael! He's the Chief Marketing Officer at Credit One Bank based right here in Las Vegas. Um, but they are a national leader in the credit card space, and a company with over 1,000 employees locally. That is pretty cool. And you can see their building actually right off the 215. It's a—it's a big employer locally.

Geoff Nathanson: Yeah, it is. They have a lot of people here, and like you said, it's a national company, but, uh, but it's based right here. I love to see companies based in Las Vegas. So, looking forward to talking with Michael Coleman about how the major leaguers, uh, do—do marketing. And a full hour of the, uh, Vegas Business Report to kick off your Sunday morning is underway. You can, of course, connect with us via the website, vegasbusinessreport.com. This portion of the show is being brought to you by DBV Solutions. DBV helps businesses adapt, innovate, and thrive. Visit dbvsolutions.com for more.

JJ Snyder: And we'll jump right into it. We want to welcome our first guest on the show today, Shaundell Newsome. He's the founder of SumNu Marketing, a family-owned marketing firm based right here in Las Vegas. Welcome to this—welcome to the show.

Shaundell Newsome: Thank you for having me. I appreciate both of you.

Geoff Nathanson: Let me give you guys a little backstory on Shaundell from—from my research. So, first of all, great guy, very personable, came in the studio, drove over here. We appreciate all that. But his backstory is interesting. An Air Force veteran, like—like his father was, an award-winning entrepreneur. Um, Shaundell Newsome is also on the Board of Trustees of the Vegas Chamber, and he is recognized as a prominent national small business advocate and mentor. So, one of the things SumNu does is empower small businesses with strategic marketing and community outreach. So, fascinating levels of marketing. Shaundell, thanks for being here and joining us on Vegas Business Report this morning.

Shaundell Newsome: Definitely my pleasure. I really enjoy, um, sharing information when it comes to our business community. Small businesses, uh, are my—my ministry, um, because, you know, at the end of the day, we employ 42% of the state's workforce, and in the country, we re- we employ almost half of the—of the workforce in the United States of America. So, we—we need to have a voice.

JJ Snyder: Mm.

Geoff Nathanson: Let's talk about that and kind of unpack small business. So, later on we'll talk with Michael Coleman from Credit One Bank. That's a big business. But SumNu helps small businesses act like major leaguers by giving them resources, tools, some knowledge, right? And—and kind of serving as a bit of a mentor. Tell us a little bit about your firm, how—'cause I know you have a deep background in Vegas as well, I know that, so we can talk about that. But—but tell us your—your story, how your career developed into SumNu where it is right now, and what you do for small business.

Shaundell Newsome: Well, thank you, Geoff. You know, my—my career started at 14 years old. I when I was 13, I—I uh actually shadowed a deacon in my church, and he hired me as an intern. And it gave me the opportunity to make a decision to go to a high school in New York City in Manhattan called the, uh, High School of Graphic Communication Arts. It's like a block away from Rockefeller Center. So a lot of my, uh, my colleagues either went into college or went right into the trade and worked behind the scenes on a lot of, uh, where they work at Disney, they work at, uh, what we call 30 Rock—everybody knows that as a TV show, but that's Rockefeller Center.

Geoff Nathanson: Yeah.

Shaundell Newsome: That's where, uh, that's where a lot of them, uh, ended up or, or, you know, are all around the country, um, starting businesses and things like that. So I started my first business at 14 years old, doing flyers, tape covers, and posters...

JJ Snyder: Amazing. Oh!

Shaundell Newsome: ...um, for, uh, for a lot of the early rappers. It wasn't—nobody really like emerged as like these great, you know, but there are a few that were local legends as as hip-hop started in New York City.

JJ Snyder: Can you give me a year on that? Because I love like hip-hop in the early '90s, so can I just want to connect with the style.

Shaundell Newsome: 1982. 1982 is when I started my first business. Yes. Yes, I was a teenager just doing—doing my thing. I didn't know how to breakdance or rap or play music or DJ, I—so I I knew how to do the flyers. I was I was my friend Craig Knight, um, tells me all the time I was social media before it existed.

Geoff Nathanson: Did you have a mentor? We were talking a minute ago about what—what you do now as a mentor. Did you personally have a mentor back then or shortly thereafter?

Shaundell Newsome: Yes, well, there was a guy named Michael Collins who gave me my first internship at 13 years old. He was a deacon in my church. If you remember The Jeffersons, right? He He was George Jefferson. I mean, he wore a three-piece suit, he drove a Lincoln Town Car, nobody was trying to kill him.

Geoff Nathanson: Wow. Yeah.

Shaundell Newsome: So in my neighborhood growing up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, everybody knows Jay-Z grew up there, Biggie Biggie Smalls grew up there. But they I'm older than both of them, so they grew up in my neighborhood.

Geoff Nathanson: Right.

Shaundell Newsome: Um, I I just say that, um, what it is is that my my, uh, my mentor taught me a lot of things. He taught me a business, he taught me how to do business, he taught me how to get my first mutual fund. But he and more importantly, he just taught me that a business is a service...

JJ Snyder: Hmm.

Shaundell Newsome: ...to the community.

JJ Snyder: Well, and let's talk about that service that you're providing here in Las Vegas Valley right now. Uh, this is a family marketing firm. Tell us about a SumNu and how how it all got started.

Shaundell Newsome: Well, it got—it started in 2006 when my daughter was a intern at Bonanza High School, Tiera. She was a, uh, she was an she was an intern then, and then I hired my niece and, uh, a graduate from, uh, UNR, a graduate from UNLV, and a graduate from Howard University. I hired all those folks back then and really taught them the concept that I believe in in when it comes to marketing. Um, what I believe in for small businesses is small businesses have to not focus on transactional, uh, uh, sales, but really focus on long-term what I call "real-ationships." I I've actually got that word copyrighted in my book. Um, "real-ationships," r-e-a-l, because, um, they have to think of long-term, not think about every other transaction. The hustle is really a, to me, is is something that you don't do forever. You want to have those solid customers and clients that stay with you for for a long term.

Geoff Nathanson: I want to I want to unpack that and I want to get more of your marketing philosophy, and I want to talk about the book, too, because I can tell you writing a book, which I've heard from other people, is really a major undertaking and it's a lot. But I think you what you produced is a is a guide, uh, for marketing. So I want to unpack that. We want to take a break. Um, we're talking with Shaundell Newsome from SumNu Marketing right here on Vegas Business Report. It is break time. We'll take a timeout, JJ, and we'll be back right after this.

Announcer: Welcome back to the Vegas Business Report, powered by Reliable Environmental Services. Now, back to the business at hand.

JJ Snyder: And welcome back! We continue with our in-studio guest, Shaundell Newsome. The website is sumnumarketing.com, based right here in Las Vegas. We're having a great time catching up with you and, uh, get getting some wisdom, um, from from the marketing world, really. Uh, so you told us a little bit about the origin of of the marketing firm. Can you continue on and tell us about, um, some of the clients that you're helping serve right now, uh, and and kind of what the, uh, array of small businesses that you do your best work with are here in Las Vegas?

Shaundell Newsome: So there's a, uh, restaurant called Grits Cafe when, um, and they're right off of, uh, Stella Lake Street on the historic Westside. Um, they started, uh, with trying to figure out how to have a restaurant that can be, um, fulfilled and and and grow within within the neighborhood. Um, and what we did basically was, in short, is position them with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and had them become a destination. Um, so so really it's about the strategy more than it is about the aesthetics and things like that. So that's one that's one client that you could think about. We also have, um, we do a lot of training. So there's a there's a lady here who does most of our headshots, right? Um, her name is Kim, Kim Tim's Photography. She she was one of those that sat in one of our workshops. We just did a workshop this morning. So we do workshops, seminars, but we also, um, provide client services to, uh, small businesses through our five suites of services, which is branding, in-house marketing, um, grassroots outreach, training, and business development. So we have we have some, you know, some extensive things. And shout out to my daughter, she's now the CEO. I forgot to say that in the first segment. She's now the CEO of SumNu Marketing over the last past seven years, five to seven years. She's been CEO in training, but she is the CEO and runs the day-to-day operations.

JJ Snyder: You're passing it along.

Shaundell Newsome: Passing it along.

Geoff Nathanson: That's awesome. What a great opportunity to learn from someone who's really been in marketing, you know, really from pre-teen almost, right? By the time you're a teenager, you were already starting to work, um, in in that area and learn. And obviously, it's changed a lot over the years. You've also worked with bigger businesses, too. You mentioned the LVCVA and and the RTC and so forth. So your marketing philosophy might be a little different than the marketing person next door or maybe our next guest or maybe someone we're going to talk to next week. You also put it down on paper in a book. Tell us a little bit about the book that you authored and and what are the basic principles that you think are important for people to take away from that, Shaundell?

Shaundell Newsome: So it really started with, um, you know, I shout out to Station Casinos. I I was the marketing director of Station Casinos, and one thing I noticed is that, um, we we actually as marketing directors, whether on a when especially when on property, we actually are marketing for like 30 small businesses. It's hard to really explain, but we got the food and beverage where they have like seven and eight restaurants, we got the gaming side, we got the catering side, we got So I realized that I'm actually a marketing person for like 30 plus small businesses within the casino. So I I thought about it, what was what how could I help each one of those departments to market better? And then I and in my head one day I was like, okay, what what what's steps did I take to do this? So I created the 12 Steps of Marketing: A Perfect Guide to Branding, and I put it in a book because what it does is actually helps small businesses understand that marketing is more than just communicating. It's more than just messaging and social media. Those are the tools that marketing, but when you go back in the days and I was a nerd sitting on the A train reading a book called On Brand by David Ogilvy. And so I I I'm really like a marketing nerd. Like I I don't know how to play basketball, I said I don't know how to rap, everybody from New York might have that perception, but I was really seriously like a branding nerd, riding the subway and reading about it.

JJ Snyder: Well, Shaundell, what is it that gets you so jazzed? Like, in in some way you're able to reach people.

Shaundell Newsome: Yeah, well the biggest thing I think is really what I call the WIIFM. Um, and it's "what's in it for me," right? I always look at people and say, what what do they get out of this? Because what what really happens is sometimes as small business owners or or as entrepreneurs, we get selfish. I want to make money, I want to make payroll, I want to do this, I want to do that. But really, if you hit what I call the pain point or the WIIFM for your customers and and and the and the clients that pay you, then, um, they then you will be very successful. The money will come as you provide the WIIFM.

Geoff Nathanson: Interesting. Talking to Shaundell Newsome right now from SumNu Marketing right here in Las Vegas. And I want to, uh, dive in a little bit to what it's like to work with SumNu Marketing. So, you mentioned small businesses, we know you've worked with small, medium, large businesses, all of those things. I've been told about things that you've done in the community to connect with people like real people, like person to person, like what are you looking for from this business and and so forth. But tell us a little bit, Shaundell, if you would, what is it like for a company to work with you guys, and how do you start that strategic conversation?

Shaundell Newsome: Well, it really starts with listening. It starts with me listening. So for the RTC, for example, once upon a time, the valley was really going to be, um, not not have enough infrastructure. We didn't have enough money for infrastructure. So we had to basically work with them on a grassroots campaign, um, to pass a ballot measure. So we had to go in the grass, in the roots, in the neighborhoods and get people to understand why would I pay extra money on my gas tax in order to build a crosswalk or build a new street light or build a bus shelter or or anything that would You had to bring it to them because they don't people don't understand a word like infrastructure. So we like to say we're we're the we're when when we look at some of our government entities, the Housing Authority, CSN, or any of those type of organizations, we're the translators from this extremely bright people to the people right in the neighborhood. Like, and and people don't realize this, not that they're not smart, they just don't talk in acronyms or different things that traffic engineers and folks talk about right-of-way. They don't want to hear about that. Okay, tell me really what that means. So that's what we do. We spend a lot of time. We just We actually just finished, um, 57 meetings over the last two years with the Clark County School District talking about the facilities master plan because what is happening right now, schools are downsizing because enrollment is going down across the country. So my team actually goes into the neighborhoods, talk to parents, go to different events, go to concerts or soccer games or whatever it is. They they they spend time talking to people.

Geoff Nathanson: And that's where the data points are, right?

Shaundell Newsome: Yes. The anecdotal data comes right from the people. And everybody's going towards digital. And what happened in '06, everybody went to digital, I went to the grassroots, back back to my childhood doing the street team and the street gang with the hip-hop.

Geoff Nathanson: Amazing.

JJ Snyder: On the A train.

Shaundell Newsome: On the A train, that's right. J train to the A train.

JJ Snyder: Yeah, I like that. Thank you so much.

Geoff Nathanson: That works. What advice do you have, Shaundell, for small businesses? There's so many of them in Las Vegas, we run into them on this show all the time, and we try to help empower them and lift them up by giving them a little attention, you know, on the radio show sometimes. But small business is a is a calling for a lot of people, but it also takes a lot of energy because basically most people, it's a very small business means it's a few people, might be one person somewhere in the middle there. What do you say to those people to kind of help give them a boost?

Shaundell Newsome: Well, I I would always tell them to find the resources. Like we recently at the Vegas Chamber created a Small Business Resource Center. So you go to places like that because there are a lot of folks and there's a lot of free resources that exist today. And we're trying to maintain as we go to DC, uh, for the DC fly-in, we're we're advocating for the SBA and all these different resources to stay intact so that they can help small businesses. Because again, small businesses, that's the best investment you can make in this country or in the state of Nevada or in our local communities, because we live in the communities, we shop at the grocery stores, we do the churches, we we we support the local, uh, sports teams like we got our Henderson team right now in the championship.

Geoff Nathanson: Yeah. Yeah, for Little League, yeah.

Shaundell Newsome: Hey, guess who wrote checks to get those guys some uniforms, right? So the local small businesses are the ones that do that. No shade on those guys for Wall Street, let let them do their thing, but we are right here spending money in our local communities and and affecting the local, uh, the local economy. So my advice to small businesses is stay focused on service, focus stay focused on helping and impacting your community. And the Bible always tells us, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Value others above yourself." So that's we're we're we're we're a business of family and faith, so that's that's how I look at it.

JJ Snyder: And speaking of family, it doesn't surprise me that I see here that you have a SumNu internship program.

Shaundell Newsome: Yes! Oh, my wife, shout out, oh man, my my wife would kill me if I didn't talk about that. So Arlene, my wife, um, is born and raised, North Las Vegas. And, um, you know, she runs our internship program. So the my daughter started out as our first intern. Um, we work with the Clark County, we work with the different, um, Nevada System of Higher Education in- uh institutions, we work with high school students. We just had, um, high school students who hung out with us for the whole summer. But it goes back to that guy, Michael Collins, aka George Jefferson, who gave me the opportunity to intern. So we look at it from that standpoint, and they're not in—they're not normal interns. They're not making copies and stuff. They're creating strategies, they're going out into the neighborhoods, but they're also understanding what the marketing process is.

Geoff Nathanson: Two two questions. One one real quick: Can we buy the book? Where can we buy the book? Do you have some in your briefcase? Where do we get it?

Shaundell Newsome: Uh, you know, I don't—I I used to carry a briefcase in high school. That's a funny joke about that...