Melissa Overton on Innovative Medical Training and Leadership Development in Johnston County

[00:00:00] Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Best of Johnson County podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden. And today, we have Melissa Overton from MedicalTraining.me. That is the website and that is the name of the business. And she’s going to talk to us a little bit about some of the customized training that her business provides, she provides continuing education for nurses and paramedics.

[00:00:21] Jonathan Breeden: And they also do on-site AED training and CPR training. So we’re talking a little bit about that. We’re going to talk about some of her community involvement with the Clayton Chamber of Commerce and different things that she has done over the years with that, including being one of the main people behind the LaunchJOCO program.

[00:00:39] Jonathan Breeden: But before we do that, I would like to ask you to like, follow, and subscribe to this podcast, wherever you’re seeing it, whether it be on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, or anywhere else that The Best of Johnson County podcast comes out, so that you’ll be aware of future episodes of The Best of Johnson County podcast.

[00:00:59] Jonathan Breeden: The best Johnson [00:01:00] County podcast comes out every Monday. So we’ve had a lot of great guests. We’re up over 40 episodes by now. And so go back and listen to some of the previous guests that we’ve had, including Dana Wooten, president of the Clayton Chamber of Commerce, Butch Lawter, Johnson County Commissioner Chairman, Patrick Harris, Johnson County Commissioner, Chris Johnson, County Economic Development Director, and Craig Olive, Johnson County Register of Deeds.

[00:01:20] Jonathan Breeden: I think you will find all of these episodes fascinating and educational as I did. And we’ve enjoyed bringing them to you here, from my office, at the Breeden Law office. Welcome, Melissa.

[00:01:31] Melissa Godwin Overton: Hey, thank you for having me.

[00:01:32] Jonathan Breeden: All right. So anyway, we’ll always start with what’s your name? What do you do? Where are you from?

[00:01:37] Melissa Godwin Overton: I am Melissa Overton. And I actually am from Johnston County. Not everybody knows that, but I actually grew up in Selma as a young girl. And mom remarried when we were in high school. So then I became a Wake County girl, which is how a lot of people remember. And I grew up and did things. And I went to East Carolina University for nursing school. And when I graduated from nursing school, I said I was going to be a [00:02:00] big city nurse, and I made it to Wilson, North Carolina.

[00:02:02] Jonathan Breeden: Oh man, Wilson. I love Wilson.

[00:02:05] Melissa Godwin Overton: Wide awake Wilson. As a community nurse, I was an er nurse working night shift. Learned a tremendous amount there was at the hospital for 14 years. Went from ER to ER leadership, to education leadership, and then transitioned into the Intensive Care Unit. A roundabout experience with health care and got injured early on in my career. And I always tell people, tell God what you’re going to do and so he’ll laugh at you.

[00:02:31] Melissa Godwin Overton: So I said, Oh, I’m going to start a medical training company one day. And I’m going to do this when I’m in my 50s. And I was 37. As any ER nurse would do, I blew up my whole world and decided just to start all over from scratch and move back to Johnston County. So I came back to my roots when my kids were four and six, instead of graduating from high school.

[00:02:51] Melissa Godwin Overton: Like I said, they would be when I do this.

[00:02:52] Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that’s wild. So where did you go to high school?

[00:02:54] Melissa Godwin Overton: I went to SSS for two years, 90-92. And then I went to Athens Drive for the [00:03:00] remaining two years. So when we do like it, we’re coming up on our 30th anniversary. I want to go to both.

[00:03:05] Melissa Godwin Overton: I want to go to both because I’ve got my SSS connections. And I tell people, something about Johnston County is SSS is better than AAA, right? You can sit on the side of the road for an hour and a half, waiting for AAA to help you out. But if you call an SSS hookup, they’re going to be there in a minute.

[00:03:20] Melissa Godwin Overton: So I literally had somebody come and change a tire for me on the side of the road one time. And I was like, that’s the SSS hookup.

[00:03:25] Jonathan Breeden: That’s it. That’s cool. So, what made you think you wanted to get into medical training?

[00:03:29] Melissa Godwin Overton: I was an ER nurse, right? When I was in college, I did EMS, and I worked at ECU in the ER as a nursing assistant secretary.

[00:03:36] Melissa Godwin Overton: And so I saw firsthand, what we do to save lives. And I wasn’t always thrilled with the experience of how we were trained. Especially CPR training, those people that have to take it every two years and it’s their job requirement, they get really burnt out and frustrated because like I’m just taking the same class over and over again.

[00:03:54] Melissa Godwin Overton: So when I was working in the ER, I would show up in my manager’s office. And just about every [00:04:00] week, I came to her office and said, you know what? I got this really good idea. So one day after about five years, she called me in and she said, you know how you show up in my office every week? And I said, yes ma’am. She said, we’ve decided to create a nurse educator position near the mouthiest most opinionated nurse for the bachelor’s degree.

[00:04:13] Melissa Godwin Overton: And I was like, wow. I worked the night shift because I was mischievous. I’m the good now, I’m the good man in most days, we all have our moments. But It was an opportunity to go in and to create education and innovate education. And that’s where I was voluntold to be an American heart instructor for CPR and advanced life support classes.

[00:04:31] Melissa Godwin Overton: And it literally as wide open as I am, it almost sent me turntail running. And I was married at the time. And my husband was in the medical field, and he said, why are you afraid of this? You go after everything with no fear. Why is it this? And I said, in healthcare, we have to take tests.

[00:04:47] Melissa Godwin Overton: And I’m always afraid of someone looking at my test score. I don’t always take the written test the best. What if they say I’m not qualified? And he says, if you hate it, you can always go back to staffing. And I was like, great because I was a good ER nurse. And he was like, [00:05:00] and humble. So we laughed about that, but it gave me an opportunity to go in and go. Okay, how do we teach these classes to meet the requirements for the certification? But how do we make them different so that people really relax, they lean back, they have a good time in class and they walk out? I tell them, I don’t care what your test score is. My challenge to you is, are you a better provider and more willing to get involved as a result of coming to this training? Because that to me is the definition of true success.

[00:05:27] Melissa Godwin Overton: Test scores, test score. I’ve seen people make 100 and they’re not going to save a life. I’ve seen people fail the test and they’re the first person I want working on me. So that’s what got me into the whole training side of things. I’m starting out with medical.

[00:05:39] Jonathan Breeden: Okay. So your whole focus is the practical side of medicine, making sure that people can actually do it, whether they can pass a written test or not because a written test isn’t going to save somebody’s life.

[00:05:49] Melissa Godwin Overton: It’s not. And what happens is number one, when you walk into a classroom in any environment and you’re worried about passing a test, you’re listening for the keywords from the instructor. You’re not [00:06:00] learning, you’re not absorbing. It’s a different level. Okay, I got to pass this class. Versus when you tell people, okay, I need everybody to take a breath. If you completely bombed the test, if you’re not a complete jerk, I’ll leave that. I’m like, if you’re a jerk, you get no assistance.

[00:06:12] Melissa Godwin Overton: But if you’re not a jerk and you really truly come in here and you show me that the challenge is taking the test itself, we’re going to have ways to remediate you and work with you, so that we want you to relax and absorb as much of the content as possible because my family lives in this community, so I very much need you to be empowered to respond.

[00:06:32] Melissa Godwin Overton: I don’t need you to lock up and freeze up because you couldn’t remember the answer on the test. I need you to go, Melissa said, I feel like I’m going to throw up. I’m going to pass out. I don’t want to get involved in this, but she said, do it anyway. And so when they leave the classroom, we tell them, in those moments, when it’s life and death, what saves a life and death isn’t always the most experienced person, it’s the person willing to get started.

[00:06:53] Melissa Godwin Overton: And so we spend a good amount of time at the beginning of class framing that out. What does that look like? And why is this so important? [00:07:00] Because our responders are amazing, right? I would not trade them for anything in the world, but they are at the mercy to what the person does, to begin with before they get there. And that’s huge.

[00:07:09] Melissa Godwin Overton: Learning that in EMS was so huge. Average EMS response time nationwide is 10 minutes. Johnston County? Eight and a half. So that is very impressive that they already blow the bar out of the water. You know, a minute and a half of time is a 15% chance improved beyond everyone else.

[00:07:28] Melissa Godwin Overton: They say that for every minute that life-saving efforts are delayed, the chance of survival drops by 10%. So when we think about how long it takes for EMS to get their average from when they’re sitting in their station and your person falls out and you call for help, eight and a half minutes, 85% chance of death.

[00:07:46] Melissa Godwin Overton: What makes the difference is when you get on the phone with 911, or just because you know what to do and you didn’t think to call 911 yet, I always say call 911 first, start CPR. Even if it’s the worst CPR in the world, we’re seeing [00:08:00] lives saved because even if you’re doing bad CPR, you leave me with something to work with when I become the first responder on the scene to handle that crisis.

[00:08:08] Melissa Godwin Overton: Whether we’re talking about out of the hospital, we do Pediatric First Aid and CPR with daycare providers, whether we’re doing first aid and CPR for manufacturing companies, offices, organizations, it just about everybody needs first aid and CPR, but it’s always on the bucket list, isn’t it? It’s always, you know what? I really need to take that class. I’ll get to it later. It’s going to see the Ava Gardner Museum. Ava Gardner Museum is a treasure, but how many locals go? I’m going to go see that eventually, but because it’s in your backyard, you forget to take advantage.

[00:08:36] Jonathan Breeden: I’ve been to the Ava Gardner Museum, but I went when I was doing Leadership Johnston.

[00:08:41] Melissa Godwin Overton: Yes.

[00:08:42] Jonathan Breeden: Probably in 2011, I think I was in that class. Kelly Wallace was leading it. And we went all over the county and really learned a lot. It went to a lot of places. Even though I work, I go to the courthouse all the time at Downtown Smithfield. I had not been to the Ava Gardner Museum. And it really was fascinating to look back at [00:09:00] history and stuff like that, that one of arguably the biggest movie stars of all time was born and raised right here in Johnston County. And I know she ended up living her life, in her life she was in London, but it is still a fascinating thought.

[00:09:14] Melissa Godwin Overton: But when she was buried, she came back home.

[00:09:15] Jonathan Breeden: That’s right.

[00:09:16] Melissa Godwin Overton: And the reason she went to Europe, if you talk to the family and you talk to the people, I used to be on the board of directors for the museum for several years. And one of the things I learned is the reason she went to Europe was because she was so hounded by the press. She could not get peace. So that’s the reason that she left, right? She lived in Spain. She lived in England. A lot of it was because she needed the peace, not because she didn’t love the country. And I found that appreciated because if you think about it, in her time, the paparazzi wasn’t like it is now, but I imagine, she was probably one of the first, especially she and Frank Sinatra, right? That whole hounded thing.

[00:09:48] Melissa Godwin Overton: And Leadership Johnston, fun fact, I am the education person for Leadership Johnston right now. So I’m doing all the leadership training now. So it looks a little different than it did in 2011.

[00:09:58] Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that’s awesome. A lot of leadership [00:10:00] training.

[00:10:00] Jonathan Breeden: Remember, Rosa Andrews and Keith Dimsdale who had the Chick-fil-A in Smithfield. He’s recently retired in the last 12 months. So he doesn’t have that Chick-fil-A anymore, but he did a lot of it as well. And everything about Chick-fil-A and the leadership training he went through to become a Chick-Fil-A operator, is absolutely fascinating.

[00:10:16] Jonathan Breeden: I would highly recommend Leadership Johnston to anybody that is interested in learning more about Johnston County and how Johnston County works. You study government, you study tourism, which is out of the Garden Museum. You study agritourism, you study healthcare, the industry,

[00:10:33] Melissa Godwin Overton: Education, nonprofits, all the things, all of it.

[00:10:36] Jonathan Breeden: It is well worth your time. If you have any employees who might be interested in Leadership Johnston, usually the applications are in the summer.

[00:10:43] Melissa Godwin Overton: Yes. So they’re actually starting up now. So they’re starting up now,

[00:10:46] Jonathan Breeden: They’re starting up on August of 2024. And the program starts in October?

[00:10:50] Melissa Godwin Overton: They changed it. It now starts in January. So we do an orientation in October. Or we’ll say between October and November, and then the actual classes start [00:11:00] in January now. And so now, half of the time is spent on leadership development and coaching, which is the part I do. And then the other half is the exploration of the county and its resources through panel discussions, through tours.

[00:11:12] Melissa Godwin Overton: We really try to make sure we look always fun pretty early on. We get Chris Johnson to come in with Economic Development to kick it off and paint the picture of the county, usually the first when we start with this education. So we have everyone from Johnston County public schools to Johnston Community College, to new charter schools, partnership for children, all coming in and talking to these leaders about what is it that they’re doing to impact education in our community, and how do we get involved. How do we learn more?

[00:11:39] Jonathan Breeden: That’s cool. It used to be one day a month.

[00:11:43] Melissa Godwin Overton: It is.

[00:11:43] Jonathan Breeden: Is it still one day a month?

[00:11:44] Melissa Godwin Overton: Yeah, it is.

[00:11:44] Jonathan Breeden: One day a month.

[00:11:45] Melissa Godwin Overton: That you got.

[00:11:45] Jonathan Breeden: I got that part. One day a month. And then we did a weekend retreat somewhere, where we did a ropes course.

[00:11:52] Melissa Godwin Overton: Powell-Woods.

[00:11:53] Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, we did a ropes course. And the one we went to, there was a swing thing that you swing on and you ended up in a lake [00:12:00] somewhere.

[00:12:00] Melissa Godwin Overton: I haven’t done that part. I feel cheated. I’m going back and talking to Kelly Wallace. I need to know about it.

[00:12:06] Jonathan Breeden: It was so much fun. And I learned a ton. I really enjoyed it. I thought I knew a lot. But when I got done with that class, I did get more. And the stuff I learned keeps coming back to me now, even though I think it’s been 13 years since I took that class. And the friends I made, I still have.

[00:12:21] Melissa Godwin Overton: I was going to say the networking is hard to compare because you’re building these relationships. And I tell people, as students in the class, because of the way we’ve set it up now, they’ve got access to the C-Suite of all these organizations that maybe they couldn’t always get access to. They’re able to ask questions, about how are they invested in the community. But also the network with themselves and the others, how they can go in then when someone says, I need a resource.

[00:12:43] Melissa Godwin Overton: Oh, I know a guy, a gal that. And I’ll tell you right now, I’m biased a hundred percent, but it is absolutely amazing. And it is for anyone from the C-Suite level that wants to get more involved in the community and learn more, all the way down to your emerging leaders that you’re identifying and saying, Hey, how do we help them develop those skills?

[00:12:59] Jonathan Breeden: [00:13:00] It really was excellent. And as we have more leaders growing up within my office, I probably will be sending somebody to it here in the next couple of years. Because it really is a great program and I learned a ton.

[00:13:11] Jonathan Breeden: Let’s go to talk more about you. So y’all do CPR/AED training on site for business corporations. Do you also do continuing ED for nurses and paramedics?

[00:13:20] Melissa Godwin Overton: So I have a facility in Downtown Smithfield. So I’m right across from the courthouse at the River News Commons building. And so we offer classes there. Everything from first aid and CPR, all the way up to advanced life support. We do some medical continuing education when we are contracted by other companies.

[00:13:37] Melissa Godwin Overton: Fun fact, we train about 3,500 people a year in first aid and CPR. So we stay pretty busy for a little company in Smithfield, right? There’s a team of us that work together now. A lot more of the customized education is going more toward leadership development now.

[00:13:51] Melissa Godwin Overton: Just from the involvement at the chambers, you know, I’m a member of Clayton Chamber. I’m on the board there. I am a member of Triangle East Chamber, and was a past board [00:14:00] member there. A member of Garner Chamber, and just starting to get involved with them. The pandemic threw that off the game.

[00:14:06] Melissa Godwin Overton: But getting involved in these chambers and Benson is on my radar. And Clinton Sampson, I joined them.

[00:14:11] Jonathan Breeden: Loretta Byrd would love to have you in Benson.

[00:14:13] Melissa Godwin Overton: I love Loretta. She’s one of the,

[00:14:15] Jonathan Breeden: She would love to have you in the Benson Chamber of Commerce.

[00:14:17] Melissa Godwin Overton: She and Dana Wooten are the two classiest people I know in Johnston County. They’re mentors. I look up to them a lot. But with this, all this leadership development content came about, I went back and got my John Maxwell certification in 2018. And it was really to improve me. But what I found out is that we know, if you look at the Economic Development study that Chris Johnson put out that they had is that it’s 65% of employers recognize that their staff needs communication conflict resolution skills, right?

[00:14:45] Melissa Godwin Overton: People skills, they call them soft skills, durable skills, a million things, but it’s all about doing this. And so I like to start out with talking about personality differences and generational differences. What makes us where we really get along really well, or we [00:15:00] completely can’t stand each other and would rather not be in the room. And how do we take that information and pull it through? So that’s where the content is coming from. So it’s health care to banking to manufacturing to pharma.

[00:15:10] Melissa Godwin Overton: It’s a little bit of everywhere right now.

[00:15:12] Jonathan Breeden: It’s good. It sounds like it’s not one size fits all, cause I know you do customized training as well, depending on what a business may need. And you have over 20 teachers that work with you?

[00:15:22] Melissa Godwin Overton: We’ve got about 20 contracted instructors. Some work every now and then, and some work weekly with us. On the leadership training side, it’s just me right now. I’m guarded about my content. It’s taken me 15, or 20 years to really curate this stuff. And I’m looking at the future at expanding that. I’ve been talking to a couple of people because it can be confusing to be a medical training company that’s doing leadership.

[00:15:45] Melissa Godwin Overton: I will tell you, you’ve got the inside information and anybody on this podcast is going to find out. I literally just launched last week, MelissaOverton.com. So that is branding out the speaking, coaching, leadership, people development [00:16:00] skills that I haven’t even announced to social media. You heard it here first, right?

[00:16:03] Jonathan Breeden: That’s good. And I know, you’re a great speaker. I’ve heard you speak. And you can talk about a lot of different topics and you bring a lot of energy, and a lot of personal experiences, and you’re still from Selma.

[00:16:14] Melissa Godwin Overton: Yes. I’m a JoCo girl.

[00:16:16] Jonathan Breeden: You’re always going to be from Selma.

[00:16:17] Melissa Godwin Overton: Yes.

[00:16:18] Jonathan Breeden: No matter how big you get, you’re going to be from Selma.

[00:16:21] Melissa Godwin Overton: Technically, it was Corbett Hatcher. Because true people from Selma are like, you were in the country. You don’t even get that recognition. So I grew up on 39 Highway. I tell people, you know, here’s the good thing, no matter where I go in life and what I’m doing, I can tell you one thing, I’m always going to be me. And it’s always going to be the girl that sometimes is classy with a K, and sometimes with an IE.

[00:16:40] Melissa Godwin Overton: And that’s part of what I love about it is, I can behave when I need to, but for God’s sake, life is short. Let’s have a good time. Let’s lean in and just love on each other as a group of people in a community so that they can get it done.

[00:16:55] Jonathan Breeden: One of the other community things that you’ve done that you’re helping head up is LaunchJOCO. And [00:17:00] so, tell the audience a little bit about what that is and how it works. I know about it. I think it’s a tremendous program for young entrepreneurs. I wish, there would have been one of those when I was trying to get this business off the ground in 2000, but there wasn’t, but I think it would have been helpful.

[00:17:15] Melissa Godwin Overton: That’s exactly why it started. So when I joined the board of directors at Clayton Chamber of Commerce in the second year, they asked me to be the workforce development chair, which is my jam, developing people workforce. And I went and sat down with Dana Wooten, and Melissa Oliver was the board chair at that time.

[00:17:31] Melissa Godwin Overton: And I said, look, if I’m going to be on this committee, I want us to have some meaningful work that comes out of this. So yes, we’re doing it. It’s the meat. And Dana said, have you ever heard of the LaunchMyCity program? And I said, no. And she said, out of Detroit, they developed this program because they recognize that most entrepreneurs go out of business within five years.

[00:17:48] Melissa Godwin Overton: Their failure rate is very high. And by then, I’m already in, but I’m listening. She said they fail within five years. And so this program was developed to give them the education, the networking, the mentoring that they needed, [00:18:00] and the access to funding or where it is in this to help them become more successful. And I said I’m all in.

[00:18:06] Melissa Godwin Overton: And I said, look, but I’m an entrepreneur. And number one, I’m doing this because I could have used this. When I started my business in 2012, 2013, my God, what kind of potholes could I have avoided if I just had some of this? Now, I was lucky. The first thing I was told to do was join my Chamber of Commerce.

[00:18:23] Melissa Godwin Overton: And in the first Chamber of Commerce meeting that I went to, I met Don Duggin, from Edward Jones.

[00:18:29] Jonathan Breeden: Oh, yes.

[00:18:29] Melissa Godwin Overton: And Don’s a great guy. And I started chit-chatting with him. I was talking to everybody, but we were talking about a 401k issue. It was a perfect timing for it. And I said, look, if you can help me with this, it was a 401k that I had at the hospital that I need to move over.

[00:18:42] Melissa Godwin Overton: I said, if you can help me, I’ll give you all the money I have, which is like a whole $5, but we’ll take it. And Don, being such a great guy, he’s used to dealing with millionaires. And he’s like, this girl looks like a hot mess. I’m gonna try to help her. He has been one of my biggest mentors, since then. And it’s become a very dear friend. And I give him a lot of credit. [00:19:00] It’s the mentorship. And it’s him calling me out sometimes on things that I really don’t want to be called out on. And my friends love me too much to say, and he’s my friend, but we’re different. And so he’ll be like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this?

[00:19:11] Melissa Godwin Overton: So that’s how LaunchJOCO was started. So we started talking about it as a Clayton initiative, and very quickly recognized that it would really be most successful and best embraced if we made it a countywide initiative.

[00:19:24] Melissa Godwin Overton: I started going out and literally having conversations with people. I met with Johnston Community College. I’m like, hey, by the way, we’ve got this great idea. And they’re like, what? And we’re like, trust us. Had a few meetings to make that happen, and went to the Clayton Rotary, because this was actually a Rotary-based program and Wake County had done it. So Katie Gailes and Matthew Kane from the Raleigh Rotary had done it. And Katie was with Wake Community College at the time.

[00:19:48] Melissa Godwin Overton: So we knew, and we had talked to them, and they were like, yes, you need to do this. So then, we found out about Delta Sigma Theta, who, if you haven’t had it on your podcast, incredible group of people in this community. So the Johnston County Alumnae [00:20:00] Chapter, Delta Sigma Theta had actually started a small version of this a year or two before.

[00:20:04] Melissa Godwin Overton: So very quick, I took a break. I’m really big about collaboration. And I was like, the last thing we need to do is come in and run over somebody’s effort. So we said, look, either we’ll stay out of your lane, or we can join forces together. So they met and said, you know what? I think they’re on to something. Let’s do this together. They’ve been one of our biggest contributors, since then.

[00:20:23] Melissa Godwin Overton: It’s Evelyn Sanders and Telia Virgin both, were huge and they’re in this Cleveland area, right? You’re talking about your neighbor, right?

[00:20:30] Jonathan Breeden: Evelyn Sanders is great.

[00:20:31] Melissa Godwin Overton: Yeah, interview her. Oh my gosh. Right. And Telia Virgin, same way, she’s the Chief Social Worker for the Fayetteville VA. And so started working with them. Then after we got them on board, we said, let’s go talk to Central Rotary. Let’s talk to the Benson Chamber of Commerce. Let’s talk to the Triangle East Chamber of Commerce. The town of Clayton said, Hey, we want to help on this from an economic development side promotion.

[00:20:53] Melissa Godwin Overton: And so, all these entities came together, and we just started dreaming and brainstorming. And so today, what the [00:21:00] program is, it is a three-pronged approach. If you have a business idea, you’ve got the side hustle you want to get going, but you’re not quite there yet, then we call you the Launch Now group.

[00:21:10] Melissa Godwin Overton: Launch Now people are referred to the small business center of Johnston Community College. Suzanne Ross, another massive resource in the community to interview. Suzanne works with them to help them make sure have they got their structure, and the company structure set up, are you an LLC or UNESCO, or all the things, right? Make sure that they’ve got a good idea. They get that free business coaching that our tax dollars pay for. If they are beyond that, if they’ve been in business for at least a year, and they’ve generated at least $5,000 of revenue, we didn’t ask when, how 5,000, and you live in Johnston County, you’re not a nonprofit, you’re not a multilevel marketing, and you are not a franchise because those rules are so different, then we want you to apply for LaunchJOCO, and the LaunchNEXT program is 14 weeks of night classes.

[00:21:56] Melissa Godwin Overton: So, free to them. Sweat equity is [00:22:00] everything. But free to them a $30,000 program, where we feed them supper every night that they come into class, because it’s every Tuesday, pretty much for 14 weeks straight.

[00:22:08] Melissa Godwin Overton: Starting at the end of January, we give them Business Education classes. What is your business structure? By the time they finish the class, then they have a pitch deck, if they need a loan, and they have a small business plan. Where’s your mission? What is your vision? Who is your ideal customer? What’s your overhead?

[00:22:24] Melissa Godwin Overton: That was the Don thing we laugh about. He’s like, so what’s your overhead every day? And I’m like, what do you mean? He’s like, how much money do you need to make every day to keep in business? And I’m like, that’s the thing. And he was like, how have you done this? And I was like, God looks after children and idiots. I’m going to be honest. That’s the whole thing, right? I am well predicted. They’re like, so you are. And I got ready to answer that one time. And the lady said she’s a child of God. And I said, yeah, that too. He had to explain that to me. And those are the potholes, right?

[00:22:48] Melissa Godwin Overton: So looking at that, helping them design it all the way down to how do they advocate for their business. So when they finish those 14 weeks, this is where we’re going to be calling you soon. We have mentors. So a mentor [00:23:00] graciously volunteers their time, 2-4 hours a month for six months to help them. And I tell them, you’re not a genie and you’re not a fairy godmother, but you are here to be another voice of reason to help them, and we try to match their weaknesses to your strengths so that they can really jump in while they’re learning the value of networking.

[00:23:17] Melissa Godwin Overton: Part of the mentoring process is these mentors are part of these organizations that are sponsors, then we say, you need to go to at least one business meeting with them. See what Rotary’s about. See what the Chamber’s about. See what Delta Sigma Theta is doing in the community. See what the community college has going on at the foundation level, right? All these things, get them involved in this, so that when they graduate, did Dana talk about how much money we’re giving away in grants this year?

[00:23:43] Jonathan Breeden: I don’t think she did.

[00:23:44] Melissa Godwin Overton: So we just had a meeting yesterday. So the first year, there was no money. Cause everybody’s, we’re not even sure you’re going to pull this off. Okay, fine. If I say, trust me, the one thing I can tell you, John, trust me. I will not do anything unless I put my whole heart in it. So when we got into this, it could not fail because my ego is wrapped up. And I was like, [00:24:00] God looks at your children and idiots, were covered. We already made that clear.

[00:24:03] Melissa Godwin Overton: So first year, no grant money. In the second year, KS Bank stepped up and gave us five $1,000 grants, individual grants. And Clayton Women In Networking said, Hey, we want a part of that. They gave one $1,500 grant this year. The third cohort graduating this year, we have $11,500 worth of grants to give to these students.

[00:24:24] Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that’s awesome.

[00:24:25] Melissa Godwin Overton: We have 17 participants, representing 15 businesses that have access to this money. And not everybody gets a trophy. They’re going to have to show they work for it. They’re going to apply for this. And when they do that application process, the Clayton Chamber Foundation, which is where that money is housed, they are the ones that make the selection process. So they don’t have the relationships I have, which is great, because I wouldn’t want to give everybody a trophy. Let’s be honest.

[00:24:48] Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. So how would people want to go out and apply for LaunchJOCO? I know there’s some info sessions. We’re recording this in August of 24, this may not run till October of 24.

[00:24:58] Melissa Godwin Overton: By then, you’ve missed the boat. But don’t [00:25:00] worry, there’s another opportunity.

[00:25:01] Jonathan Breeden: So approximately, what is the timeline for LaunchJOCO?

[00:25:03] Melissa Godwin Overton: Yeah, so applications are open now. And we usually close those at the end of September, so that we can make that selection process and move forward.

[00:25:11] Melissa Godwin Overton: Yes, if this is viewing in October, don’t get frustrated, though. We have other opportunities coming up that you can start to get engaged.

[00:25:19] Melissa Godwin Overton: Number one, you can always go to the Johnston Community College Small Business Center. Suzanne Ross, go ahead and get started with her. Your tax dollars pay for it. This launch program itself that we’re hosting right now, it’s costing us right at $30,000 a year. So we raise money and sponsorships and in-kind donations and whatnot.

[00:25:37] Melissa Godwin Overton: In-kind donation, Johnston Community College for the space for the classroom has been huge. So it would be even more than that if we didn’t have that. But when we look at this and how we’re pulling this program off, you can still get engaged because we have a third prong called Launch Beyond is a continuing education series.

[00:25:52] Melissa Godwin Overton: We recognize when we were sending them out into the world, go forth and prosper. There was still a lot missing. How? We never got a chance to curriculums, not set up to [00:26:00] talk about networking, and professionalism, and communication conflict resolution. So we created the Launch Beyond series that goes from January through June, one day a month, where anyone in this community or outside the community can attend these classes. There’s a small fee involved if you have not gone through the launch program. But the way that we’re paying it forward to our launch graduates was, we said, you know what, you get to come to Con Ed for free. So we’re pretty proud of that as well.

[00:26:25] Melissa Godwin Overton: We have had some amazing speakers. If you haven’t had Matt Gorman, from Gorman Insurance Group on here, he did networking. He’s phenomenal. As much as I know, I learned.

[00:26:34] Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And I think I’m a pretty good networker. I think you’re a pretty good networker. You and I run into each other all the time. But you can always learn more. And people like to meet new people that like new businesses with people they know.

[00:26:43] Melissa Godwin Overton: Yes.

[00:26:43] Jonathan Breeden: And I still think, there’s a role for that. The Chamber of Commerce is evolving. Now, we talked to them a little bit about that. The Chamber of Commerce wasn’t doing these launch things before, but they are now. But I do think it’s important for new businesses to go out and network.

[00:26:56] Jonathan Breeden: I still go out and network. We see each other all the time. We were [00:27:00] at the Johnston Now Awards banquet together the other night. Benson down in Bronx Land, coffee in Cleveland. I mean, there’s tons of stuff to get involved in the community. If you want to be involved in the community between the Triangle East Chamber of Commerce, the Smithfield, the Clayton Chamber of Commerce, Garner Chamber of Commerce. And remember all of those, I’ve been a mentor through the LaunchGarner program for three years. I’ve really enjoyed that. So if you are a business owner listening to this, reach out for LaunchJOCO. I’m going to try to be a mentor for them, as well. I found it to be extremely rewarding. And it reminded me why I got into business for myself.

[00:27:33] Jonathan Breeden: And the thing that if you take nothing else from any of this is, my business is no different from your business, Melissa. We have the same issues, even though I’m a lawyer, and you’re in medical coaching. We have the same issues from marketing to networking, to cash flow to overhead, training to hiring to retaining, it’s all the same, regardless. And any business experience can help any other business experience because the [00:28:00] businesses are the same. Most marriages are largely the same as well. The vast majority of them. I’m just saying,

[00:28:06] Melissa Godwin Overton: happily.

[00:28:06] Jonathan Breeden: But marriages are similar, but businesses are even more similar. And I think people don’t realize that. The other thing you need to do to be successful in business, and you’ve done that, and I’ve done that is, you have to make a decision. And you have to make a decision to move forward, and you have to make those decisions every day.

[00:28:22] Jonathan Breeden: And you can’t get in this paralysis by analysis thing, where you come up with a hundred million things that are going to go wrong, and your anxiety starts spinning, and I got plenty of anxiety, and don’t actually make a decision to move forward. Because the thing is, by making the decision not to move forward, that’s a decision as well. And the odds that what you are worried about, 95% of it will never come true because you would make a different decision if something started going wrong.

[00:28:46] Jonathan Breeden: And so that’s what people need to do. I’m hoping that is what is being encouraged in LaunchJOCO. It is what I’ve worked with my mentees and LaunchGarner, is you got to just keep making decisions, try to make good decisions, but make decisions. [00:29:00] And try to move forward and try to be better tomorrow than you were today.

[00:29:03] Melissa Godwin Overton: Right. And that’s when I first started in leadership, there was a quote by somebody that was a former Intel CEO. That’s how all the quote is. And it’s faded, but it’s on my desk. And it says something about, everything in life has a ready moment. If you miss that moment, you start to decline. And so that’s exactly what you just said is that, you just got to do it anyway.

[00:29:21] Melissa Godwin Overton: And my other quote I always use at LaunchJOCO graduation is Steve Harvey. And Steve Harvey says, the dream is free, but the hustle sold separately. Cause some people show up, and they go, Oh, I have this great idea. Support me. You should. It goes back to the membership of your organizations, like Rotary and Clayton Chamber and everything, or all the chambers, right?

[00:29:40] Melissa Godwin Overton: And it’s Clayton, but all the chambers. And these different kinds of organizations is, it’s about relationship building. And I love that you said that because a lot of people that I do business with now are people that had built relationships. Matt is now my insurance person because I watched him for about three years. I had somebody that my parents had used for 50 years.

[00:29:58] Melissa Godwin Overton: So I’m taken care of. I [00:30:00] can pick up the phone. And as much as I hate being John and Kathy’s daughter, sometimes instead of Melissa, I know if I need something quick, it’s their networking. So I’m watching Matt, and I’m like, you know what? This guy really is who he says he is. And I want to do business with him. I would have never met him outside of these circles.

[00:30:15] Melissa Godwin Overton: Everybody’s in business. What happens when your roof is leaking? When all of a sudden this hurricane comes through, and we’ve got water damage in our building from the roof leaking, what if I need a plumber? What if I need an electrician? All of these relationships are built because you get out in the community and you put yourself out there, and it can be terrifying at first, but what do you have to do? Do it.

[00:30:35] Jonathan Breeden: You just have to do it. So how can people reach out to you? I know we have a new website, MelissaOverton.com.

[00:30:40] Melissa Godwin Overton: The MedicalTraining.Me.

[00:30:42] Jonathan Breeden: That website’s still out there.

[00:30:43] Melissa Godwin Overton: Social media, just come find me, Melissa Overton. I’m here. I’m all over the place because I love this community. I would not trade it for the world. I am so glad that I came back to my roots. If you had asked me whether or not, this was what I would have done, I would have said, no way. I’m going to be a big city [00:31:00] girl. I’m not going back to that small town.

[00:31:01] Melissa Godwin Overton: Number one, Johnston County is not a small town anymore right there. There are pockets. But at the end of the day, I just want to keep giving back, and I want to see our whole community continue to elevate, which is why I get involved with all these efforts.

[00:31:14] Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And so the last question I have is, what do you love most about Johnston County?

[00:31:19] Melissa Godwin Overton: Oh, it’s definitely the people. I’m sure, everybody says that. It’s definitely the people because we are evolving, we’re growing, we’re diversifying, which we need and I love. But you also still have that small-town feel. You still run into people.

[00:31:33] Melissa Godwin Overton: My mother had childcare centers for 37 years in Smithfield. And people will come up to her and go, are you my aunt Kathy? And she’ll look at their eyes, and she’ll remember and go, Oh yeah, little Johnny, that’s you. I’m like, how did you recognize it? She was like, there’s just something about your eyes that never changed.

[00:31:49] Melissa Godwin Overton: And she remembers them. And the fact that, because they were all called aunt this and aunt that, then are you my aunt Kathy? And you just know immediately. I would not trade it for the world, that’s the best part of Johnston County.

[00:31:59] Jonathan Breeden: I agree [00:32:00] 100% of that’s what almost everybody that says is that it’s the people.

[00:32:03] Jonathan Breeden: So we’d like to thank Melissa Overton for being our guest today on The Best of Johnston County podcast. As we mentioned earlier, if you’ve not liked, followed, or subscribed to this podcast, wherever you’re seeing it, please do us the favor of doing that, so that you’ll be aware of future episodes of The Best of Johnson County.

[00:32:17] Jonathan Breeden: If you’d also be willing to leave us a five-star review down at the bottom where you’re seeing this podcast, it will help for our visibility. And feel free to share this podcast on your Instagram or any of your social media. If you know any of Melissa’s friends, share it with them so that they’re aware of it.

[00:32:31] Jonathan Breeden: I’m sure she’ll be sharing it on her social media as well so that more people become aware of The Best of Johnson County podcast. Until next time, I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden.

[00:32:40] Melissa Godwin Overton: Keep it classy. Here are three SEO-friendly titles for this episode, each under 100 characters