Inspiring Positivity Among Women and Underserved Communities with Kai Fuentes

 Your personality is in your business.

Kai Fuentes is the President and Founder of Ebony Marketing Systems, Inc., a multicultural market research firm. With her experience in researching a broad perspective on African American consumer issues, from music, and health, to automobiles, she has specific cultural insights into the research arena, which facilitates ethnic-bound perceptions and attitudes of multicultural communities. She also conducts multicultural market research in various languages, giving a voice to underserved communities and helping them get better living conditions. 

Kai’s sparkling personality empowers those around her, but she was not always kind to herself until she discovered the transformative power of self-awareness and positive self-talk. Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones is crucial, especially for women. Inner work and healing significantly can help in the growth of one’s business. Women must discover their own leadership styles, support their teams, give and receive compliments, and most importantly, value servant leadership by listening to their teams and intuition. Business leaders are like conductors creating a symphony, and that requires the efforts of many people.

So let's connect by building each other up, not by self-deprecation.

Show Notes:

👧🏽 Kai is a second-generation market researcher: Kai’s mom is a black Latina who opened her own market research company back in the 80s. 04:43
👀 When Kai’s trajectory changed: a car accident and subsequent biofeedback therapy positively changed her life. 09:07 
🌸 The more we know about ourselves, the more we can help our business: your business will thrive when you beat the challenges in front of you. 13:26
⚠️ Women are queens of beating themselves up: Kai’s 3:1 cure for this is very powerful. 17:39
😍 Power of complimenting others and accepting compliments from others. 23:50
😇 Kai’s conversations with people in Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Haitian, Creole, and Korean: some people are not heard and no one is advocating for them. 28:30
👩‍💼 Adrienne’s dream of showcasing amazing leaders through a book or a documentary: we are only as good as our team is. 31:41
🎶 As leaders, we are conductors - we are creating a symphony: be confident in your intuition’s calm voice.  34:29
💎 Tips for all entrepreneurs for growing: the power of listening to 3–5 clients and putting your ego aside. 40:43

Links:

www.linkedin.com/in/kai-k-fuentes-b80b2929 

www.ebonysystems.com

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Adrienne Garland (00:04.622)
Hi everybody and welcome back to the She Leads Podcast. This episode is brought to you by the She Leads Podcast Network. It's the podcast network for women by women. I am thrilled to welcome my next guest to the She Leads Podcast. Her name is Kai Fuentes and she's a second generation market researcher. She's been working in insights and research from the ripe old age of four.

conducting her first Intercept interview when she was just 11. Kai fell in love with the art of understanding people's stories and brings cultural insights to the qualitative research arena to facilitate the identification of ethnic -bound perceptions and attitudes of the multicultural market. Kai provides moderation. I looked at that and said modern, because Kai is modern.

CHI provides moderation and consulting services on a number of projects involving advertisement communication, healthcare, inner city youth, automobiles, and multicultural community issues. CHI can provide creative solutions and data collection for difficult to reach and indigenous populations. Blending old school research techniques with modern techniques, CHI is a wealth of knowledge.

and unique in her field. She's a sought after presenter for multicultural market research. With a background in social work, Ms. Fuentes runs her firm with compassion and integrity. And I would probably say fun as well. So welcome to the She Leads podcast, Kai. Yay.

Kai Fuentes (01:40.221)
Yay, I'm here. I'm so excited to be here. I'm honored to be here. As you know, Adrienne, I'm a huge fan of you and all you do for women in business and women in our industry. So thank you and thank you for having me. Humbled.

Adrienne Garland (01:56.878)
I am so happy to be able to talk to you on this platform, because it's so important for us to get our voices, thoughts, opinions out to the world. You are such an accomplished person. And I just want to share everything that it is that you do with the She Leads audience and hopefully beyond. We want to get this out there, right? So market research, it's one of my loves.

It is the thing that I think can help entrepreneurs to truly make their businesses great. And I sometimes think that we believe that market research is just for the big companies. So I definitely want to start with the little CHI market researcher of age four. my gosh.

She was driven.

Kai Fuentes (02:54.045)
With the pigtails. Yeah, with the pigtails, with all the things. Yeah, my parents threw me right in. My mom is an immigrant from Costa Rica, moved to the States when she was 16, taught herself English. Like she's the...

epitome of the immigrant story, right, which makes our country so amazing. So kudos to all those who come and contribute and to just make our society so much better. My mother is one of those folks. And she opened her own market research company back in the 80s when not many companies were doing that. And she's a Black Latina. So that's a whole nother, that's a unicorn in itself.

Adrienne Garland (03:33.454)
Yep.

Kai Fuentes (03:35.197)
And I was born into the industry. And when I was four, I was working in the mall with my mom, side by side, bringing staples to other interviewers. I don't even know why I was holding a stapler, but I was. Or erasers, or pages of pages and pages upon surveys. And then I worked my way up into the ranks and I started faxing at eight.

Adrienne Garland (04:02.766)
my God.

Kai Fuentes (04:03.933)
It was a big deal. It was a big deal. And you remember when the fax papers were curled and I would have to find two rocks from the yard and then to flatten it out.

Adrienne Garland (04:08.366)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (04:13.102)
I love it. my God.

Kai Fuentes (04:13.629)
Those were the paperweights. It's crazy. And then, you know, we had to start when I was nine, 10, my handwriting got good. So they were like, hey, listen, like you have to work on these call record sheets because all the surveys that come in, it had to be recorded on a sheet so it can be validated. And that was the old school way of validating surveys. And we wrote and I was I was writing call record, you know, sheets, 500 names, 600 names. I mean, it's just.

Adrienne Garland (04:30.574)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (04:43.535)
And it's so wild because my kids don't get to do any of that now because research has changed so drastically and how we do things have changed. But my 11 year old this year, we are doing a transit survey at core authority and I am bringing him with me. You know, I want to break them in.

Adrienne Garland (05:03.662)
Amazing. Pay it forward. Yeah, break them in. Earn his keep.

Kai Fuentes (05:07.517)
pay it forward and now you see what now we see what mama mama did and yeah absolutely and the beautiful thing about that is that it teaches you to speak with anybody and to be put in any situation and be comfortable and that's what i realized that my parents were doing it was really a training ground for me.

Adrienne Garland (05:21.646)
Ooh.

Kai Fuentes (05:28.125)
to be comfortable in my own skin and for me to be able to have conversations with almost anybody, any kind of person and all the things. So it was actually really a blessing. I didn't realize that at the time, because I was, I want to be on a playground. I want to be at play dates. And I was literally working a lot as a young kid. But that really gave me the work ethic that I have now. I tease my sister all the time. I'm like, I will not be outworked.

Adrienne Garland (05:37.518)
Hmm.

Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (05:48.558)
Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (05:56.509)
And that goes back to my roots of growing up in the industry and working side by side with my parents.

Adrienne Garland (06:05.114)
my gosh, well, your mom sounds amazing and good for her for starting this. What was the, what was just kind of, you know, talking about your mom for a second, why did she want to get into market research? Like what did, what was her ultimate goal? Why did she love it?

Kai Fuentes (06:24.669)
She wanted something flexible so she could still be a mom and be with my sister and I and, you know, make better money. You know, she was a teacher. My mom is probably not a good employee. She's a better employer. She's one of those folks that she's making her own rules. She's, yeah, she's a renegade, honey. Yes, ma 'am. So, you know, I think for her, you know.

Adrienne Garland (06:28.078)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (06:33.198)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (06:40.046)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (06:44.718)
I love it. She's an entrepreneur. I love it. you learn from the best.

Kai Fuentes (06:51.965)
I think so, yeah. And she wanted to kind of do her own thing and she started out as an interviewer. She spoke Spanish fluently, that's her first language. So, you know, she was in the inner city communities interviewing folks. And I think she really fell in love with people and the desire to grow a business. And I think that's why a lot of us start our own businesses is the desire to see something grow and to really cultivate something the way we want to have it or see it.

Adrienne Garland (06:55.758)
Mm.

Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (07:16.11)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (07:20.462)
So was your sort of path the whole entire time as you were going through schooling and everything, were you like, this is what I want to do? You sort of were one of the lucky ones that knew what you wanted to do from a young age.

Kai Fuentes (07:36.925)
Yeah, it's interesting. When I was eight, I realized, I was like, I'm gonna do this. But I went through round robin to finally get to where I am. So I went to nursing school, I did all of my science classes, realized that I can't give anybody a needle or I don't like the sight of blood or fluids. And I was like, oops, this isn't for me. And I realized that the day I got to the clinicals, which is crazy, and I left.

Adrienne Garland (08:04.11)
Yes. god. Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (08:07.165)
the same day. That same day I was in a car accident and had a spiritual awakening. So my whole trajectory kind of changed.

Adrienne Garland (08:16.846)
Hmm.

Kai Fuentes (08:18.205)
And, but I was still working in research the whole time, the whole time. Research has always been such a part of me and my profession. So I've done other things, but very briefly research has really, you know, been my, been my passion. I've tried to walk away, but I just can't. It's in my blood, like literally in my blood. Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (08:29.582)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (08:36.402)
Yeah. my gosh. So could only because you mentioned it and I, you know, I love this podcast, I guess in a lot of ways this podcast is like market research if I truly listen for the insights. But I would just love to hear because you're clearly healthy and well. Can you talk a little bit about that?

accident if you don't mind only because I think that that's something that a lot of people can probably relate to.

Kai Fuentes (09:13.693)
Yeah, so I leave the clinicals. I'm headed to the office, my parents' office, because I was like, I guess I'm just going to go and do some surveys now. I didn't know what else to do. Got into a pretty intense car accident. I was driving my parents' car. It was totaled at the time. But what made me well from that was biofeedback.

Adrienne Garland (09:39.214)
Hmm.

Kai Fuentes (09:39.645)
So biofeedback is a type of therapy that looks at you and how you react to certain...

ideals or things that people can say. So we hold a lot of tension in our bodies. And what biofeedback does, it shows us where we're holding tension so we can release tension so we can be well. So I went through about two, three years of very intense biofeedback therapy, shout out to my biofeedback therapy coach. And then I went, shortly thereafter, I went for my own license in biofeedback. So, and,

Adrienne Garland (10:01.518)
Mmm.

Kai Fuentes (10:18.927)
That was something that I wanted to do. Anyway, I ended up in research. But what really kept me well was biofeedback therapy and understanding that wherever I am in that moment, if I ground myself, I will be OK. And I will power through. And that was kind of just like the mantra in my head, like ground yourself, power through, ground yourself, power through, ground yourself, power.

And yeah, that's kind of how I just like got through that time. It was super, it was a super crazy time. I was in my early twenties. I didn't know what I was doing, you know, all the things.

Adrienne Garland (10:58.67)
Nobody in their early 20s knows what they're doing. Hey, people in their 50s, I'm speaking for myself, don't know what I'm doing. Just kidding. You know what's funny? It's so funny just listening to you talk about biofeedback because you're researching yourself. It's in the same realm.

Kai Fuentes (11:01.757)
You got that right.

Kai Fuentes (11:09.469)
I know, I hear ya. No, I'm with ya. I'm with ya.

Adrienne Garland (11:27.438)
So interesting, right? So spending all of your time listening to other people, you know, this, I'm so happy that you're okay, but that was almost a little bit of a gift to also listen to yourself, which is so interesting. Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (11:28.605)
Yes.

Kai Fuentes (11:46.077)
You know what? It's all a gift, right? And I didn't think of biofeedback in that way. So thank you for that. My mind didn't go there like, yeah, it's almost like an interview with yourself, a conversation with yourself. You're 1 ,000 % right. And I mean, it's all a gift, right? Life's a gift. We're here as a gift. And things that happen to us, really, even if they're not what we expect or anticipate.

Adrienne Garland (11:56.206)
It is. Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (12:11.421)
If we look at it in a certain way, that's a gift too. So you're right, my accident was a gift because I was able to really ground myself and learn who I am or at least start on that journey of who I am.

Adrienne Garland (12:22.25)
my gosh, yeah, I love that so, so much. So let's shift gears a little bit because I could definitely go down a path, that path for a long time. I'm always so drawn to that. And I think the reason that I'm so drawn to that is because so much of who we are as entrepreneurs show up in our business. And the more that we can understand who we are, what our strengths are, where we

you know, sabotage ourselves or procrastinate or all the, you know, negative things that they will impact our business. So it's like the more that we know about ourselves, I think the better entrepreneurs we can be. I'm so fascinated by it.

Kai Fuentes (13:06.909)
Yeah, no, you're preaching to the choir because I was telling a colleague that the other day. Same thing. And I said, I noticed when I started therapy, not biofeedback therapy, but like just regular therapy, that's why business really took off. Because I was self -aware. I realized what my pitfalls were. I was able to put my ego aside. And when you understand all of those things, if you thrive, your business is going to thrive.

Adrienne Garland (13:21.742)
Wow.

Kai Fuentes (13:34.653)
And that's a huge piece of your business is your personality is in your business. So if you're all, if you don't really know where you're going or what you want or how you want to get any of those things, then your business does suffer a little bit, you know, or if you're not self aware, your business can't thrive as much. And that's why I'm constantly trying to level up and challenge myself.

Adrienne Garland (13:40.75)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (13:50.862)
Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (14:01.597)
And I pour into myself in many different ways, whether it be physical exercise, even though I got to get back to the gym, quite honestly. But whether it be that, or meditation, or spirituality, or brunching with a friend that fills my well.

Adrienne Garland (14:09.87)
Hahaha.

Kai Fuentes (14:20.605)
I'm constantly finding little joys in life. So it helps me level up and I am the business owner that I want to be and that I can be proud of.

Adrienne Garland (14:30.382)
gosh.

Kai Fuentes (14:32.221)
And so for business owners out there, we really have to challenge ourselves all the time. And it's OK when you get to a challenge and you've come to that challenge, you're like, yes, I've climbed that rock. I've climbed that mountain. And you stay there and enjoy that for a little bit because you also have to enjoy the success and the fruits of your labor. But don't stay there too long because when you stay still, you get run over. So then what's the next thing? How are you going to level up more?

Adrienne Garland (15:00.814)
Yeah, this is so good. And it's so funny because I definitely didn't think that we would be talking about this in this conversation. I'm so happy to go there because I do think that so many women that are listening into this need to understand that a lot of the businesses and especially the audience of SheLeads, they're not, you know, multi -billion dollar companies yet. But,

So we're creating these businesses from our expertise or our passion, and it is intertwined with who we are. So if we don't acknowledge that and work on that, then, like you're saying, our business is not going to be able to thrive. So level up yourself, level up your business, because it doesn't work the other way. You cannot level up your business until you level yourself up.

Kai Fuentes (16:00.477)
Exactly. And, you know, in my head, it's like your business is your baby, you know, so, you know, you give birth, you have to, you know, take care of the baby you but as a parent, you have to do things, you know, to look at yourself to see, how can I be a better parent? Or how can I level up? It's the same concept. I'm a mom of two. And I and I use that analogy often for myself where it's like, Okay, yes, I am filling my well for my boys and also for, you know, my business and I

Adrienne Garland (16:15.278)
Yes.

Kai Fuentes (16:30.383)
I know that we will all level up in that way. And yeah, the business takes so much of your personality that we have to stay well and talk kindly to ourselves too, because we don't do that often enough.

Adrienne Garland (16:47.342)
No. gosh. So yesterday, I think it was yesterday or the day before, I received an email from some newsletter. And I receive a lot of them. First of all, because I just love information so much. Like, I think it's a problem. I just love reading. I just love learning about all these different things. So I am subscribed to a bunch of different newsletters. So I got this random newsletter. And I do not even know who it was from. But.

Kai Fuentes (17:05.469)
Heheheheh

Adrienne Garland (17:17.134)
and it was sort of like a side topic. And what the person said was that she was a woman and she went to some event or conference and she said that the people, the women were like beating up on themselves and saying bad things about themselves, like, I'm fat or I'm ugly or my outfit is from the Salvation Army, whatever. And then,

All the other women are like, ha ha ha, like laughing. And she said, I'm done with that. You know, and, and I wrote her back and I said, my gosh, you are so right. We do this to ourselves. We're beating ourselves up and mocking ourselves. And then other people are jumping in on it. We're, we have a hard enough time as it is. What are we?

doing. And you know, I don't blame the people for saying, you know, because we're socialized to diminish ourselves. But you know, she said, I'm not going to be in those rooms anymore. And you know, she said that yesterday. And I was like, you know what, I'm not gonna either. I am not beating myself up anymore.

Kai Fuentes (18:16.509)
Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (18:35.293)
hear her? Absolutely no and it's like so a trick that I do because I was the queen of beating myself up for many years and it was like this is not getting me anywhere and it was like this round robin thing right so I was beating myself up and I wasn't as successful and then because I wasn't as successful I was beating myself up and because I was beating myself up I wasn't as successful and it was like

Adrienne Garland (18:46.894)
Nope.

Kai Fuentes (19:00.509)
So what I started to do was for every time that I say something bad about myself or unkind to myself, I have to replace it with three other good things. So for instance, you know, I would say often, Kai, you're, my gosh, you're just so insecure, right? So I was like, okay, so we got the insecure out there. That's not that kind to say about yourself.

Adrienne Garland (19:13.262)
love this.

Kai Fuentes (19:29.149)
Or I would say let me scratch that let me use this example or you know, Kai You're not a size eight anymore. You're so fat like you got to put down the cheesecake granted Yeah, maybe I don't need a slice every night but It sure does but You know and I would have to replace that with but what else am I who am I I'm bold?

Adrienne Garland (19:42.99)
Tastes good.

Adrienne Garland (19:55.79)
Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (19:57.661)
I'm confident and I am loving. So for every one thing, because for every one thought, that replays in our head more than positive thoughts. So that's why the ratio is three to one, where we're putting three positive thoughts in our mind versus one negative thought. And, you know, we become what we think about.

Adrienne Garland (20:09.17)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (20:21.326)
We do. Yep.

Kai Fuentes (20:22.237)
Right? So, you know, keep your thoughts positive and pure. If your thoughts are negative, then you know, you attract that. If your thoughts are positive, you can attract positivity too. So I choose to attract positivity as best as I can and I wrestle with this every day, you know, but I can, I can, I can, I can try.

Adrienne Garland (20:31.182)
It's so true.

Adrienne Garland (20:35.918)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (20:41.934)
course.

Adrienne Garland (20:46.158)
Yeah, it is so powerful. And I think as we move through life and we are raising children and things like that, sometimes we get a glimpse of what our thoughts and our actions and what we say, how that has an impact. And it gives us the ability to look in that mirror and say, stop it, because I certainly don't want...

you know, my children saying negative things about themselves because they think that that's how you behave. No, that's not right. And yeah, that is something that I have had to really contend with because, you know, I'm going to, you know, I've turned to blame in society. I'm not blaming myself anymore. I'm...

Kai Fuentes (21:25.501)
You're 1000 % right.

Kai Fuentes (21:40.509)
Hehehehehe

Adrienne Garland (21:42.734)
blaming society and socialization. Like it's something that I have like glommed onto because it's so insidious and we do not recognize what happens to us. We have to be conscious of all of these like crazy messages that are coming at us that almost like lead us to the I'm not a size eight. Who cares? Right? Like who the heck can, but because we're like,

Kai Fuentes (22:07.965)
Yeah, who cares?

Adrienne Garland (22:12.11)
programmed against our will, you know, to think that if we're not a size eight, then we're not valuable. That's where the beating up comes from. So, yeah, but you are right, because it's there. It's there. So replacing it with three things that truly negate what you have just said in a negative way to yourself is the best thing. And I would challenge everybody that's listening in.

Kai Fuentes (22:22.493)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (22:41.999)
with this. So we all do it. We have negative thoughts. It's I think part of human nature to maybe keep us safe or whatever it is. But I would say especially for women, when those negative thoughts come up that we do, we replace them with three things, five things, 10 things, whatever. And we must when we when we network with one another, and we talk to one another, we cannot self deprecate.

or say something negative about ourselves to try and connect with someone. That's not the way that I want to be connecting with anybody anymore.

Kai Fuentes (23:18.489)
Yep, I'm with you. And I second that. I co -sign that. Yeah, no. Let's build each other up. And let's connect by building, not by self -deprecation. It's not healthy for anybody. You know what I started doing, too? I started, like, if I'm at an event and somebody says, you look so pretty, I was programmed to say, this old thing or...

Adrienne Garland (23:25.806)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (23:30.862)
Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (23:47.685)
I just got this at Burlington Colt Factory or, you know, I've had this forever or something to tear it down. And now I'm just like, thank you. And.

Adrienne Garland (23:50.318)
Yeah, yes. Yes.

Adrienne Garland (23:58.798)
Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (24:00.957)
okay with not having to say, you look great too, right? I'm gonna, I'll take that compliment and I'm gonna sit in that. That was my moment and that's just a little joy and I'm gonna be okay with that. So I started doing that and I started just giving compliments to people.

Adrienne Garland (24:04.686)
Right.

Kai Fuentes (24:19.229)
Of course, you know one deserved right? So if I see somebody, you know, I was in Staples yesterday and it was like chaos all kinds of stuff was happening and the cashier was so cool and collected and professional and when it got to my turn I was like, you know, you handled that really well. Thanks for doing that and She was like, my gosh. Thank you. I haven't heard that in forever and you just made my whole day and what does that? You know?

Adrienne Garland (24:35.118)
gosh, that's so nice.

Kai Fuentes (24:46.749)
Just spreading a little joy around to folks. It doesn't take anything away from you. This is what I've been telling my boys is, it doesn't take anything away from you for you to compliment somebody else. It doesn't mean you are less than because you complimented somebody else. Right? Like, why don't we just sit in that?

Adrienne Garland (24:49.39)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (25:03.086)
Mm, this is so good. This is so good. And that cashier is now going to say to herself, I'm cool under pressure, right? Because whether she clearly behaves like that, which is great, but she might not really think that she is, because we have the tendency to not.

think that we're as great as we are. But now with that external validation that you just gave her, where she is saying, I'm going to be cool under pressure, and someone that I don't know that's not my mom said, I'm cool under pressure. Now it's solidified. I must really be cool under pressure because this amazing woman just gave me a compliment. And it goes.

Kai Fuentes (25:45.533)
Hehehehe

Adrienne Garland (26:00.397)
such a long way and you're so right, it does not take away from who you are to give that compliment. We need so much more of that in our world. We just do. We need to be seen, we need to be recognized.

Kai Fuentes (26:16.125)
Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (26:19.677)
Absolutely. And we need to be more compassionate. And that's part of my compliment piece is just showing compassion for people and to your point, having people feel seen and heard. That's really at the end of the day what a lot of us want. We just want to be seen, heard, and respected. So if you're giving somebody that, you're winning. And they're winning. And everybody's winning. And then it's like, they pay it forward. And then the other person pays it forward. And I don't know, maybe it's a little too idealistic.

Adrienne Garland (26:32.398)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (26:37.486)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (26:42.894)
Yes.

Kai Fuentes (26:49.631)
realistic, but that's kind of my thought.

Adrienne Garland (26:51.822)
I think it does. And it's so interesting because I will circle this back around because this is what market research is, right? You're listening to what people want, what people hope for, right? And hopefully that market research, that learning, that insight is then used in a...

Kai Fuentes (27:04.125)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (27:19.374)
in an appropriate way by companies, not to manipulate, but to create things of value for those who you are going out and speaking to. So let's shift gears a tiny bit and talk about the great work that you do because you're not just listening to anybody, right? You are listening to people for multicultural learning audiences. And...

Kai Fuentes (27:42.749)
No.

Adrienne Garland (27:49.166)
Multiculturalism is the world that we live in. To think otherwise is dumb. So it's almost like, it almost shouldn't even be like a category. It should just be like, well, that's everybody, right? But can you talk a little bit about your work specifically?

Kai Fuentes (27:59.133)
Straight up dumb.

Kai Fuentes (28:06.525)
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Absolutely. So, you know, I like to also say that the work we do, like if we're doing interviews, it's conversations. So we're having conversations with folks because the word interviewing has like more of a rapid fire kind of connotation. But the research that we do do are conversations amongst the multicultural populations. A lot of the work that we do is not, is in language.

Adrienne Garland (28:28.462)
Mm -hmm.

Kai Fuentes (28:37.917)
So is in Spanish, Mandarin Cantonese, Haitian Creole, Korean, just to name a few. And who are we talking to? We're talking to folks that are trying to onboard with a particular insurance company. We are talking to the unacculturated Asian mother in Brooklyn to see how her healthcare could be better.

We're talking to the Latino mother in or Latino father in California about his immigrating experience. You know, so all of these things, I've made a decision probably about six years ago now that I wanted to do more research and more conversations with populations that are unheard and that do not have advocacy.

So...

and where we can make real change as it results to that from the research and into that population. And we still do other work too, like, you know, hey, what lipstick is black women wearing? That's fun. I love those. I love those research too, you know, but a lot of the things that sink to my soul are things that are going to directly impact our communities. And I feel like that we have so much happening in the world. So much is happening in the world. And,

Adrienne Garland (29:45.774)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (30:02.591)
I'm like, I want to contribute. And my parents, they were business people for many years, but now they're people of the cloth. And they say to me all the time, it's a Bible verse that use what's in your hands. I don't know what verse it is. I don't know what Testament it is. But I haven't been to church in a minute. That's what we'll table out for another time. But.

Adrienne Garland (30:18.254)
you

Kai Fuentes (30:24.509)
I use what's in my hands. So what's in my hands is researching these unsung populations and talking to them in a respectful, honest way so we can give direct research and feedback to their communities to make real change.

Adrienne Garland (30:39.918)
Hmm. This is so good. It is so good. So is, is that work that you do work that you undertake on your own through your company or do do, you know, community organizations or companies hire you to do that? Or is it a sort of a mix of both?

Kai Fuentes (30:59.261)
Yeah, companies hire us to do this kind of work. So we work with a lot of nonprofits, a lot of state and local government agencies, federal government agencies, and a lot of folks in the private sector too. That lipstick stuff I was talking about, yeah, like that's, you know, private sector work. So yeah, it's really companies that are seeking us.

But you know, I do have a couple of research projects in my head that I would just love to do, you know, on my own. So maybe that will be coming down the pike. Yeah, exactly. Girl, you know it. Yeah, let's do it. I like it a lot.

Adrienne Garland (31:29.07)
Hmm. Yeah, we got to find a grant for that. Yeah. Yeah. I like this. I like this a lot. It's so I like it a lot. It's so funny. There's one of the I'll put it out there. I've said it before, but one of the projects that I like to work on, you know, whether

I don't know whether it's a book or like a documentary or something like that, is this concept of like, this is what leadership looks like and doing very much what you're saying and showcasing the unsung leaders. And I want to show that, no, no, no, that's what leadership looks like. Not when if you ask somebody, you know, who's a great leader?

And everybody says, you know, Elon Musk and Bill Gates. I mean, it's just what comes up. And it's like, no, I don't want that answer anymore. You know, there are so many other people out there. They're doing such great things and leading. And we don't see them. And I want to showcase them.

Kai Fuentes (32:46.237)
I love that. And we have to showcase to folks that are doing servant leadership. So for my team, I tell them, how can I help you do your job better? What can I do to help you do your job better? What tools do you need? Do you need space? Do you need time? What do you need? Because we are only, I am only as good as my team. That's the only reason why I can do all the things I do. It's because I have an amazing team.

Adrienne Garland (32:50.926)
Yeah. Yes.

Adrienne Garland (32:58.286)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (33:14.862)
it's so great to hear.

Kai Fuentes (33:15.357)
And if we, right? But it's a beautiful thing and I'm so blessed. And I truly love them all, you know? And it's a beautiful thing when you have your team that uplifts you and allows you to go and to do all these, you know, other projects that I like to do. And that keeps me happy and well and busy and...

So we are only as good as our team. And I think leaders have to understand that. Like we are not up here on different platforms alone. It takes a village. It takes a tribe. It takes a crew. I don't know about you, but it takes a crew of people to get me to, you know, find my house keys. You know, like exactly. I'm a hot mess. So, and it's like, you know, these folks like clean me up and throw me in and I'm like, okay, great. You know, yes, my team. It's not.

Adrienne Garland (33:51.182)
Yes.

Yes, more and more. Yes, yes.

Adrienne Garland (34:08.366)
Yes.

Kai Fuentes (34:08.591)
me it's my team so I'm only as good as my team.

Adrienne Garland (34:12.334)
And I think that that's a critical success factor too for entrepreneurship and especially for women. It's like another one of those things that sometimes we don't think enough about because we are socialized to think that we need to do everything on our own. Team is so important. Delegation is the key to success.

Kai Fuentes (34:34.649)
I did a small business seminar like 10, 15 years ago, one of my first ones. My mom signed me up and I was like, why am I here? Anyway, I'm happy I went. And what I learned from that is as a leader, we are the conductor. So if you see an orchestra, you don't see the conductor playing the harp.

Adrienne Garland (34:54.894)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (35:01.038)
Hahaha.

Kai Fuentes (35:01.245)
and then running and playing the violin, and then they're running over and playing something else and just running over and playing all these instruments? No, they're conducting. Okay, strings, you go. Percussions, you go. Singers, you go.

Adrienne Garland (35:08.59)
No.

Adrienne Garland (35:12.622)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (35:15.293)
And that's how, that's really how it works. And that's what we are as leaders. We are creating a symphony. And if we're leading correctly, it's going to sound pretty damn good. And you can tell if you're not leading right, it don't sound too good. But if you're, if, if everybody has their space and you're giving folks their space and calling on people when needed and as needed, woof, it's a symphony. It takes a while to get there, but.

Adrienne Garland (35:28.142)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (35:44.733)
You know, you got a Grammy on your hands.

Adrienne Garland (35:44.75)
That analogy is, but you gotta grab it on your hand. That analogy is perfect and beautiful at the same time. And I think it's something that we often don't equate leadership to conducting. And we often equate it with like that command and control, you know, military type of leadership.

Kai Fuentes (36:11.133)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (36:11.918)
That's not the only way this conductor, this servant leadership leading from within, these are all different types of leadership that I think that women are really, really good at. We're not good at commands and control because you know what? It's mean. It's mean. No, no. And sometimes you do need to say, you need to put that aside. We need to get this done. Come on.

Kai Fuentes (36:31.357)
Right. That's not our style.

Adrienne Garland (36:42.094)
But that doesn't need to be 24 -7. So we also have to learn how to kind of like move through and act in accordance with what the situation is calling for.

Kai Fuentes (36:46.717)
Absolutely not.

Kai Fuentes (36:57.693)
Yeah, absolutely. And you know what I think women, what we could do too is be confident in our intuition. Our intuition as women is a gift. It is a huge gift. And when I started to really listen to my intuition and not worry about what outside forces were thinking or saying,

Adrienne Garland (37:05.134)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (37:10.446)
Yes.

Kai Fuentes (37:23.709)
that was a world of difference for me. So that little voice that tells you to do, that's how I got into She Leads. I was on, yeah, I was, yeah, a little plug here, right? So I was on Google or Eventbrite and I was like, okay, this looks interesting. And there was a little voice in the back of my head that said, do it, you won't be sorry.

Adrienne Garland (37:33.646)
Tell me more.

Adrienne Garland (37:38.13)
You

Kai Fuentes (37:49.821)
That was my intuition. Because intuition is a calm voice. Like that calming voice is intuition. Insecurity is a chaos voice that you hear in your head. But your intuition is that calm voice of just like, do it, it's okay. And in my head, it was like, sign up for that, you won't be sorry. Spend the day there. Just very, just chill. And I went and had an amazing time and I'm going back this year.

Adrienne Garland (37:49.87)
aww aww

Yes.

Adrienne Garland (38:00.686)
Huh.

Adrienne Garland (38:15.726)
Yeah! 10th anniversary! Yeah. thank God. this is so good. I'm so...

Kai Fuentes (38:18.845)
Yes, and I'm going to bring some friends with me too. So I'm spreading the good gospel. What you're doing is amazing, sis. It's really amazing.

Adrienne Garland (38:26.99)
thank you so much. It's definitely been a labor of love for 10 years. And I just hope that, you know, the people that are sort of coming through and that we're all interacting and, you know, touching in one way or another that we all go out and do something that makes an impact and that helps other women just because

I mean, gosh, equality is, you know, who knows if it'll ever be achieved on so many different fronts, but at least we can hold that in our thought. That's what we're moving toward instead of just giving up and taking things the way that they are. And also not being, you know, we don't need to go to war for it to change. We can...

make these changes in a really positive and uplifting way. So I hope the people that choose to come to She Leads are like you and that they do bring friends so that we can all encourage and uplift one another and then go out there and do like great things, right? That benefit all of us, that benefit humanity.

Kai Fuentes (39:46.493)
Absolutely.

Kai Fuentes (39:50.685)
And it's those little things that will make humanity, the big thing, which is humanity better, right? So that's the using what's in your hand theory of, you know, I'm one person, but I'm going to impact several and in impacting several, they will impact several more. So that's kind of my thought through that.

Adrienne Garland (39:56.27)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (40:08.174)
my gosh, such good stuff. I love that. So Kai, I feel like I could talk to you all day. And one of the things that I definitely want to talk about, maybe we could just hit on it for the last minute or so. Market research is so important when it comes to entrepreneurship. And sometimes as women, we do think that we have.

everything that we need, all the insight that we need inside, but we have to talk to our customers because those are the people that are paying us the money. So can you give any tips for people that maybe they're like stuck in their business, they want to get to the next level? How can they leverage listening to customers in order to sort of level their business up or change or pivot or whatever?

Kai Fuentes (41:02.557)
Yeah, I would have conversations with your top three clients, whether that be three, whether that be revenue client or closeness in terms of your relationship with that client. I would talk to three, maybe even five clients if that's available and ask them, how can I be more of a resource to you? What would it take for you to use me and my services more?

What services am I missing? And I did that with several clients and found out that yes, we are the cats meow, but there's some things that we could do a little better too. And there's some offerings that we're missing that we could add. And in doing that, in having these conversations, we were able to increase business by five to 10%.

Adrienne Garland (41:57.678)
Amazing.

Kai Fuentes (41:58.909)
So just, so sometimes it's not about getting more customers or more clients. Cultivate the relationships that you have and really, really watch those blossom. You'll be surprised. So if your numbers are not where you want it to be for Q2 or Q3 or wherever, go back to your top three to five clients and find out what can you be doing differently? What services can you add and...

you know, what else they could do to use more of you and be honest and say, listen, I want to be more of a partner to you. I want this is a partnership. What else can I be doing? What else can my firm do? And you'd be surprised what comes out of that.

Adrienne Garland (42:41.102)
This is so good.

Kai Fuentes (42:41.565)
Lots and lots and lots of good things. Yeah. So that's what I would do. And actually, I just reminded myself, I got to redo that with a couple of other, I just remind myself, I got to do that with a couple of my clients over the summer. And it could be a simple Zoom call or a simple phone call. You don't have to get fancy, just something nice and low lying fruit kind of thing. So I would totally recommend that and putting your ego aside.

Adrienne Garland (42:44.11)
This is gold.

Adrienne Garland (42:49.582)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (43:06.862)
Yes, absolutely. You have to be able to actually hear. Yeah. And just only because I teach this about listening to customers, you want to have a conversation with them. You don't want to send a survey. In this case, this is not a survey situation. This is a conversation.

Kai Fuentes (43:11.229)
You gotta be able to hear it. Yeah. Yeah.

Kai Fuentes (43:28.445)
No. Agreed. No. This is a conversation. Absolutely. No. It's a conversation where you're listening and your ego is aside. There were some things that I didn't want to hear and that, you know, as I was hearing it, I was getting uncomfortable and I was like,

Adrienne Garland (43:35.63)
And it's not a sales conversation. No.

Adrienne Garland (43:54.062)
Thank you.

Kai Fuentes (43:54.621)
And then in my head, I was trying to blame, well, this person did that and that person did that. And that happened when I was 14. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. These things happen. And you know, the buck stops here. So what are you going to do going back to leveling up? How are you going to level up to make those changes needed to really grow your business?

Adrienne Garland (44:01.39)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Adrienne Garland (44:09.134)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (44:19.189)
Such good stuff. Thank you so much for this whole entire conversation that spanned so many different topics, which I totally love. And I just want to share you with the Sheleads audience. How can people get in touch with you?

Kai Fuentes (44:35.709)
Yeah, so name my company's ebony marketing systems. You could hit me up on linkedin kai fuentes or go to ebonysystems .com to our website and you'll find me i'm around

Adrienne Garland (44:48.302)
Amazing. Well, thank you so much. It's been a joy speaking with you today.

Kai Fuentes (44:53.149)
a real honor to be here. Thank you for having me, Adrienne.