If you can stomp once and clap twice, STEP Movement can teach you how to step for the rest of your life! This week we hear about the steps CEO and Founder Jacquinta Nelson took to create STEP Movement and bring a step community to life in Kansas City. In today’s marketing tip, we consider where on the floor we want that trade show booth at our next conference.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles podcast.
I’m Jeff Randolph.
This small business podcast is brought to you
by EAG Advertising and Marketing. We’re going
to talk about marketing. We’re also here to celebrate
entrepreneurs. We have marketing news and advice
that business owners can use to keep moving forward.
Today, we are back in the studio talking to JaQuinta
Nelson, the CEO and founder of StepMovement.
But first, we’ve got another small business marketing
tip to talk about. Well, get another trade show
tip to talk about today. Now, how do you choose
a good booth location? Well, first, let’s just
assume that you’ve chosen the right show to begin
with. You know, with your buyers as attendees,
it may be a lot to assume. And you know what
Alan Richson’s character, Jack Reacher, would
say. He’d say assumptions kill. But I’m going
to assume you picked the right show. So to maximize
your impact, you want to choose a trade show
booth location. In a high traffic area, like
intersections and corners, and you want to figure
out what you’re close to and what’s popular,
where you want to anchor yourself. So let’s break
down a few of these different things to consider.
First. a high traffic area. We’re looking for
something along a main aisle in a place where
lots of different paths lead in. You want to
make sure it’s a high traffic area, corners and
cross junctions, things like that. Places where
there’s going to be a good mix of all of the
attendees. You don’t want to be way off in the
corner somewhere. Entrances are a pretty good
place to look. Where are people coming in from,
say, education sessions or from registration
or from a lounge or something like that? Where
are they coming in? Corner location may be a
pretty good thing to look at as well. That gives
you some visibility that is from two sides, not
just the one side on the front. That can be a
pretty memorable place to be as well. Near amenities.
So think about cafes. There’s usually some kind
of a food area, several vendor booths of food
on the show floor where people will definitely
congregate at least one time during the day,
usually coffee, usually lunchtime. Maybe a happy
hour is there. But just think about where people
are going to go. That could also be an education
session on the show floor. Or you may find a
new product showcase in your particular show.
And you want to make sure that you’re positioned
somewhere near there. Because people will continue
to go to those high traffic areas that are near
an amenity. Even the restroom may be an okay
place to be. You can also position yourself off
of a different brand or competitor, somebody
that is either the big player in the industry
and everyone is going to go to that booth. You
can be somewhere near that booth, knowing that
they’re going to draw in a lot of traffic. You
may even decide to position yourself in some
way near a competitor of yours so that they can
hear from the competitor and then get your take.
not too far away. Think about the flow of traffic.
And for this, you have to visualize a little
bit. Pay attention to the way that people are
expected to move through the show. Is there an
island somewhere in the middle, a booth island?
Is there a… an expected traffic flow for this
show. And some of that you may need to use your
imagination on. Obviously, the sooner you start
choosing that location, the more likely you are
to get your first choice of space. And don’t
be afraid to ask the sales rep if you’re unfamiliar
with the show. That sales rep is there to help
you understand where the hot spots are, where
the best traffic locations are. And generally,
they will steer you in the right direction because
they don’t want you to just buy this year. They
want you to have success at that show and keep
coming back to that show and be a much easier
sale the next time because you’ve had so much
success. Don’t be afraid to ask them because
they will tell you, hey, people usually come
in from here. This is a very popular area. This
is a great booth to be in. Take their word for
it. And then as you get experience at that show
specifically, you’ll know for the next time,
hey, next time, let’s try to be over there. Again,
more to come on trade shows, but that wraps up
this week’s marketing tip. All right, we are
here in the featured interview section of the
show, and I am with JaQuinta Nelson. She is CEO
and founder of StepMovement. Hey, welcome to
the program. Hi, I’m glad to be here. First.
Congratulations on being a superstar. That’s
a big deal. So superstar this year from the Greater
Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. Tell me about
Step Movement and how it came to be. What is
that origin story? Sure. So I have years of
experience building community and collegiate
teams. It started in Nope. when I
was asked by my godfather slash youth pastor
slash band director to put together a team for
a competition he was hosting at the church. And
so we got together with some girls at our school
and some girls at our church. And the first time
they were all able to meet was the night of the
show. We ended up winning the show. And that
sparked. My initial love for step, I knew of
it growing up. I did a little dibble and dabble
in, but that’s when I sort of took it seriously.
So that’s the first step team was swag, sisters
worshiping a great God. And then I graduated
from the school and we kept it at our church
and they became women of warfare. And then when
I graduated from Crystal Ray. In I went
to William Jewell College, where I majored in
nonprofit leadership, minored in communication
and entrepreneurship. And I started the step
team there, called the Cardinal Steppers. It
lasted the whole four years that I was there,
and then I didn’t have a successor. And so upon
graduation, I joined City Year Kansas City. It’s
core year at the Uwe Marion Kauffman School.
And outside of being with my partner teachers
in sixth grade ELA, We had to put on clubs at
the school. And so, of course, I put on a step
club. Of course. And I started with eight sixth
graders, sixth grade girls. And by the end of
that year, I had kids on the team in general.
And so the upcoming year, I was asked to develop
a curriculum to teach the art of stepping in
the history of stepping in that birth. The next.
kind of concept of our organization. I taught
seventh, eighth, and tenth graders. And I wanted
to make a bigger impact, not just with those
students at that particular school. And so June
nd of I launched Step Movement. So Step
stands for supporting them, express their passions,
where we believe in cultivating youth’s passions
for creativity, collaboration, and community
through the art of stepping. Our vision is to
bring the world of step to Kansas City through
education and entertainment. So we do this in
our three components currently. Our community
-based step team, we are the only community -based
step team in Missouri. All of the teams are school
-affiliated. Those girls have an opportunity
for academic support, mentorship, and community
service. We provide scholarships to our girls.
Until there are step scholarships, we give those
to our students. We have our curriculum that
I started back in that integrates ELA, fine
arts, physical education, and history. So they’re
not just stepping, they’re learning the totality
of stepping that originated in the s before
they even get to hit the floor. They also learn
how to develop their own routines using ELA storytelling
methods. I’m currently doing my thesis. I’m a
master’s student as well. Because why wouldn’t
you? You’ve got plenty of time. Why wouldn’t
you also do that? I’m currently doing my master’s
thesis on integrating stepping into ELA classrooms
to increase comprehension for storytelling. And
so then we have our coaching and consulting services.
In the last six years, we have worked with over
schools. We have had over students in
our program. We surveyed of them. of them
are currently college students. The rest are
still in K -schools. All they’re employed.
And so a part of our consulting services tied
to our academic support services, we started
an alumni ambassadors program where we have,
Actually, some of the original six coming back
and helping us reach the other schools that we
want to target because I cannot do it alone.
We have one ambassador that teaches virtually.
She’s a freshman at Howard University. She was
our captain on the community team from seventh
grade until her graduating senior year from Raytown
High. And she automatically joined their step
team at the school. And when we do our next venture
this summer, she will be helping us with that.
And so not only do I teach Step, but I reverence
the leaders before me. And so there’s an organization
called Step Africa that started in through
Brian C. Williams based out of Washington, D
.C. And they are, I would say, equivalent to
Alvin Ailey. So they are the first and only professional
dance company that spends their entire life doing
productions and shows all around the world. April,
the girls were able to do a closed masterclass
with them when they came for the Folly Theater’s
Tarim and Jewel series. And after that, they
were able to go to their concert. That same night,
they actually performed for Step Africa and was
asked to come to their camp this summer. And
so now we’re raising $,for our girls and
our staff to go to Washington for a week. April,
not April, August. rd through the th, where
not only they will be able to go to the camp,
but we will immerse them into the culture. They
will be getting a tour of Howard from our alum.
They will be going to the African American Museum.
And anytime we take our girls out of the city,
we always take them on college visits. Last year,
we won a $,grant and we were able to take
students to St. Louis. They went to my…
um current school um so they went to harris though
and they performed in a competition down there
as well can can i just say like just the thing
it makes me ask is do you sleep like is is there
downtime i don’t even how do you accomplish all
of this it like the amazing story my goal is
i’m sleep when the work is done sleep when you’re
done um i again i’m um I am a master’s student
through Teach for America, where I graduate in
May, maintained a four -part note this entire
time. So there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We’re
getting close. I currently teach ninth and twelfth
grade on English. and entrepreneurship classes
at DeLaSalle, where they are getting trained
in the same kind of experience I just experienced
with Porterhouse KC. So with Porterhouse KC,
it was a -week program where we learned how
to better our businesses. And it was of us
in the cohort, cohort six. And last Wednesday,
we had our pitch competition, and we won the
first prize. Oh, outstanding. Well, let me say
this first. I love that you love a good acronym
for all of the teams that you’ve ever had and
you’ve ever been on. You’ve talked about some
of the success you’ve had in terms of the competition,
but you’ve also had a lot of success in just
kind of the awareness and publicity realm, like
magazine articles, news stories. You’ve been
featured and funded by some great local organizations.
And there was a pitch competition you did well
in. Brag a little bit about the non. dance side
of the business for a second. Any of the news
stories you’ve gotten or any of the coverage
or the organizations that have supported you
guys? Sure. So I would say from inception, Kauffman
in general has supported us when I taught at
the school. Last year when I won the $,
grant, it was through the Amplify Conference,
which is a conference for educators of color.
And that’s when I was working at a previous school
teaching ELA in the curriculum. And so that was
our first major, major success. We’ve been featured
in Bold Magazine, Connected Network. We’ve been
featured as… Coach of the Year for World of
Step, which is the international platform of
stepping. And I was on the coaches council with
coaches from around the world. We just won
the Porter House last Wednesday. We have done
a lot of major events in the city. So the step
team does theme tailored performances. So whatever
your event is, we tailor our performances. to
it. So we were able to perform at the SCLC’s
mass celebration for Martin Luther King earlier
this year. We performed for the monarch’s historic
anniversary parade. We have been featured in,
oh, on Great Day KC earlier this year. Our friends
at Great Day KC. Yes. We were also featured for
Fox ‘s Black History segment of the month. I
was nominated for Best Educator of the Year last
year for Kansas City People’s Choice Awards.
That may be it. That may be it. And also, the
entire interview, you’ve been throwing out names
and dates and acronyms and everything. Zero notes.
You have all of this just locked in your brain.
I stand here in awe doing this. Tell me, as you
look forward, as you start to stare down the
road, because I know you don’t sleep until the
work ends. What is next for Step Movement? Where
do you go from here? Do you ultimately expand
everywhere in the country? Do you franchise?
Where are you going? Sure. So the first thing
this year would be after we come back from Washington,
because we will make it to Washington, the girls
will be putting on a city -wide clinic where
we are building other steppers in the city, bringing
back what we have learned. One event that we
do annually is… is our HBCU experience, our
college experience, where that’s the place where
we give our scholarships out. We have panels
to discuss college readiness and career readiness,
and we have live performances from the organizations
in our network. So my overarching goal is to
franchise the after -school program and the curriculum.
Only keeping the community -based team at
I used to compare myself to the other dance teams
in the city. We are unique in being one of the
only step teams that go outside of regular school
performances. And so I have been blessed to know
that. I can make a bigger impact with a smaller
amount. I rather have the quality than quantity
when it comes to the community team. But my goal
is to allow as many as my alums to come back
and do this full time as they want, because I
know and hear of the impact we have made in their
lives. And I want to pursue that until. It’s
time to end. That’s right. And it’s not just
STEP. It’s incorporating the ELA. Absolutely.
It’s all of the history side of it. All of the
history. Amazing stuff. Amazing program. So our
programs, the STEP team is officially STEP Movement.
Our curriculum is STEP as a movement. And then
our consulting services is STEP with the movement.
Gotcha. Well, I think. We’ve learned a lot about
the business. Jaquinta Nelson, are you ready
for the lightning round? Let’s take you to the
lightning round. You have no way to know what
kind of questions we’re going to ask here. We
knew before we were going to talk about the business
itself. So let’s get into it. Let’s find out
more. Who should we look at as an example of
the best step team of all time? Obviously us,
but no. The best step team, I would literally
say, is Step Africa. They have been doing this
since and they have developed so many leaders.
I also look to my mentor, Ramo, from New York,
who’s been in the field for over years, who
was the only other person who developed a curriculum,
but hers is more of algorithms and mathematics.
We are the only one that has a holistic approach.
I would say locally -ish. and St. Louis Gentlemen
of Vision. They are an all -male step team. They
have over boards from elementary to collegiate,
and they have over national championships.
So locally, I would say… Them outside of us,
we are the best because being a community -based
team, my girls come from all over where they
are not at one school. And so we don’t get the
opportunity or are afforded the opportunity of
having multiple practices a week. My girls literally
come together on Saturday for three hours. So
if they have a performance in a month, that’s
four practices to master. That’s crazy. Yeah.
Try to do that with a sports team, right? Get
soccer practice one day a week and see how you
do. When you start to develop a routine, I know
that all of those other teams we just talked
about are inspiration, but do you ever find inspiration
from somewhere else? Since you do approach this
holistically, are there other areas where you
find inspiration for a routine? Just kind of
thinking through what is that first step in your
creative process when you’re coming up with something
new? So first, if they are at an event or going
to an event for a performance, we first find
out what that event is. And then we come up with
the structure. Each routine, this is the secret
sauce, each routine has an intro where there
are a narrator initially telling the story. You
have a step. You have basically the plot outline.
So you have a beginning, a middle, and end. And
between those segments, that is stepping. But
we tell a story throughout the whole thing. So
we think about the event. We think about the
storyline, then the costumes. And then we have
our girls do our recordings and act it out as
well. So they have to be great and not just stepping.
But acting as well. So if I’m having a corporate
event or something like that, this is this is
something I go to. This is it. We are the one
stop shop. If you have any organization or any
event that represents empowering the community,
we are the entertainment for it. Well, I’m glad
you mentioned community development because I
know that’s that’s important to you. As as you
think about like. What is the goal for community
development? What does it look like when you’ve
won? What is that perfect future state of community
development to you? Sure. That we have developed
young ladies that are in pursuit of their career,
our collegiate endeavors, and they come back
and give back to the same place they gave to
them. Not necessarily my team, but the community.
I am a Kansas City native, and I will not leave
until my city is changed for the better. Man,
that’s strong stuff. So you’ve had a lot of victories,
whether that’s in program or funding or competition.
How do you celebrate a big win? Because we know
it’s not with sleep. You will sleep when the
work is done. How do you take a minute and say,
you know, let’s put a pin in this and let’s take
a moment? That’s hard because I’m always moving
forward. But what I will say is that other people
initiate the celebration. For instance, when
we won the competition on Wednesday, there was
a guest audience that gave us funding for us
to take a celebratory dinner. And so in those
moments, I’m like, yeah, I need to sit back and
like. And reverence the things that we’ve been
able to accomplish and not just always look forward,
but reverence in the moment. You know, we ask
entrepreneurs this kind of question all the time.
And it is kind of split between I sit down with
a cigar and a glass of bourbon, and that’s how
I celebrate. Or we go to dinner as a family.
But I don’t know, half the time probably. Oh,
yeah. No, somebody else points out that we need
to celebrate. And, you know, because I’m already
on to the next thing and my brain works that
way. And you’re right on par. You’re not, you
know, way out of bounds on that one. But it’s
good that you recognize that, you know, when
that opportunity arises, you say, okay, yeah,
it is time to say, all right, let’s take a beat
and go ahead. I definitely celebrate my girls
and oftentimes we get to celebrate myself. Yeah.
Yeah. Isn’t that just the way? Yeah. Isn’t that
just the way? Thinking about the business itself,
because you have done some amazing things with
either the consulting and the curriculum in addition
to the competition side. What’s the best business
advice that you’ve received from someone? Well,
this literally happened. This week. Wow. Very
time. Yeah, I again, my major is nonprofit. So
I’m more of a social server. And I cannot. The
advice I was given was not lowball myself for
it wasn’t until maybe was. did I start charging
for our services. I was just trying to fill the
need for the community. We have on the team
% of our girls that live in, we have % of
them that live in low -income housing. We have
% that have non -reliable transportation.
Are they leaving food deserts? And so I, since
the inception, have been picking up girls for
every practice and performance. We fed them meals
before every practice and performance. And so
I’ve never paid myself. All of my staff are rolling
toad, but we are all working for the cause. And
now that we can dial back, I can say now I am
looking forward to. Paying my staff and paying
myself because the work is not easy. It’s work.
And so my best advice was now I need to start
investing in myself too. And so I have a five
-year out -of -the -classroom plan. I’m trying
to make it five years, but the ringing notion
that has been happening this year is that it
will be shorter than that. But people just see
all the current success. But this is years
of building this organization. And now we are
seeing the fruits of our labor. Man, honestly,
that’s the end of the lightning round questions.
But I kind of sit back in awe. And I also don’t
want to go all the way away before I catch that
term voluntold. Yes. Yes. Very common to hit
the voluntold part of things. We’re out of the
lightning round. Quentin Nelson, you have survived.
Tell people where they can find you if they want
more information, if they want to either sign
up, if they want to get information about using
you guys in a corporate event, or if they just
want to come catch a competition sometime. Where
do they go? They go to our website, stepmovement
.com. If you want to donate to us for our trip
to Washington, that’s… That is www .stepmovement
.com forward slash donate. If you want to book
us, you can also see that on our website to see
the totality of what we do. If you want us to
come to your neighborhood and develop a team
there, we are also willing to do that as well.
An unstoppable force in STEP. JaQuinta Nelson,
CEO and founder of STEP Movement. Thanks for
being with us today. Thank you. And that is our
show. Thanks to our guest, JaQuinta Nelson of
Step Movement. And thank you for listening to
the Small Business Miracles podcast. Remember
to subscribe, leave us a five -star rating and
review. Drop us a line on the website at eagadv
.com if you have any thoughts. Until then, we’ll
be out here helping entrepreneurs with another
small business miracle.