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#33 – Jaime Chapman: Adapting business to change. Had a blast speaking with Jaime! I really appreciated her sharing some of the difficulties and hardships she’s had to overcome, and really appreciated her insight on adapting and changing business model with new information.

That’s one big takeaway: don’t fall in love with your idea and be unwilling to change or modify based on new information.

Absolutely terrific interview and was a lot of fun!

AUTO-TRANSCRIBED

Aaron Spatz  00:05

I’m Aaron Spatz, and this is the Veterans Business Podcast. A podcast centered around the stories of US military veterans, and their adventures in the business world following their time in service. Its stories of challenges and obstacles, and an inside look at how veterans find their life’s work, their purpose, and their post military lives. Welcome to another episode of the Veterans Business Podcast, I want to sincerely thank you for your listener for your viewership. I want as many goals this podcast is really to provide you the listener or the viewer, a with insightful information to help you in your business, whether you’re an entrepreneur or whether you’re wanting to develop and hone your corporate leadership skills, whatever the case may be, I’m excited that you found the show. And if you’re enjoying the show, of course, I’m gonna I’m gonna throw the shameless, please subscribe plug in right now. That’d be great. And if you want to tell your friends about it, share, share when your favorite episodes. Oftentimes, they’re there, there’ll be a helpful little nugget of information that can help somebody so help somebody by giving them an episode of the show, whatever has been your favorite. So I’m super excited, and I’m really pleased to welcome our guest this week, Jamie Chatman, she’s both a military veteran and a military spouse. She served in the army for six years before punching out and working on a variety of ventures, all of which we’ll learn more about together today. She leads the company begin with careers. Jamie, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jaime Chapman  01:33

It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me

Aaron Spatz  01:35

out. Yeah, no, this is this is super fun. So yeah, just just for everybody’s benefit, and I guess mine too, but would love to love to hear a little bit about your story of why why did you join the military? Like, what did that what did that whole journey that process look like for you?

Jaime Chapman  01:52

Well, I joke that I joined the military got out to get away from it and I married right back into it. So the army has been a huge thru line in my life and in my career, grew up in Oklahoma. In the middle of nowhere, I joke but I’m serious that it was between Duck Dynasty and Blake Shelton out in the middle of nowhere. For college. I relocated to Lawton, Fort Sill and then was inundated with the Army Community there, impulsively walked into the lotton Mall and joined the Army Reserves, like on a couple months later, I was shipping off to basic training and there begin my love affair with the Army literally joined out of impulse. So joined the Army Reserves served for six years in the reserves got out in I believe it was 2015 my transition was very quiet. I was a civilian by day army service member by weekend, once a month and all of that so it wasn’t much of a career transition. I ended up you know, moving on a couple years later married my husband and now I’m right back into it as a military spouse.

Aaron Spatz  03:02

That’s crazy. That’s funny. So one that it was it was it was an impulse decision. So I’ve been stationed lot and I was a Marine artillery officer we go through we have to share we have to share some space with the army at some point right but spent spent some time there and lovely Lawton. And now it’s just it’s just funny, funny to hear that that was that was an impulse impulse move. Moving in, and then and then as a reservist, you’re doing your time there and then punching out and then just carry back into it. So talk us through that talk us through talk, talk us through the marrying back back into it, part of the story.

Jaime Chapman  03:39

So I actually met my husband to be in Lawton Fort Sill. He was a field artillery officer. He was there in command. And he was busy. And then he ended up deploying and I ended up moving to New Hampshire for four years. I couldn’t get our enough away, I guess for what and for so and so then, you know, my time in the army actually ended there in New Hampshire. And then I moved and my husband to be was back in Fort Carson, Colorado. We can got back together there, if you will, not very romantic. And then we ended up getting married at Fort Carson. Thus Jamie Chatman became a military spouse and I had no idea what I was getting into. I served in the army but I was single as a service member. And I wasn’t married and I didn’t know anything about military spouse career problems, which is my thing now. Married at Fort Carson deployed husband had a baby by myself. No idea what I was doing. And I didn’t know about the resources available to me that were out there to help. Then we ended up PCSing from Fort Carson. We moved to Germany for three years. got pregnant with my new son. We PCs from Germany to Texas Fort Hood where we are now have the new son. We just relocated international Really quickly, we didn’t have our household goods for two months, we had a newborn on an air bed. It was a crazy time. So we’re still kind of in the middle of unpacking and settling. But life has a military spouse, I would say, in my experience has been much more difficult than as a soldier because I was a reserve soldier. And it’s quite a bit different than active duty. So military spouse life is not a piece of cake. Yeah.

Aaron Spatz  05:25

Wow. And well, so first, congrats on birth of your of your newborn son, I think. Yeah, that’s fantastic. And welcome back to, to the United States. But no, I mean, so you’ve got a really unique, you really unique insight and perspective. And so I actually just want to park here for just a few minutes and dive more into and I know it’s a passion of yours, this is what you do. So I like I would love to just to just to hear and I think I think everybody else would love to hear this too is like that, that change, right? So now like you’re going in, especially you right? Because you were single before you got married, and then you got married, and then you’re mirroring back into the lifestyle. So like, what has that experience been? Like? I mean, you like you shared a lot of it already, like and so I can only imagine some of the things that you’ve been through. But like talk us through what that does in terms of disrupting careers? Like how does that how does that affect job portability and advancement and just career goals?

Jaime Chapman  06:25

I, I am a workaholic. So my Army Reserves six years of time was spent going to college, I was pursuing a master’s degree and working mostly full time. And I’ve been I’m 30 years old. And my entire one decade of career experience has been in the career industry. So I started out there working in special needs adults. I worked for nonprofit and my job was to place special needs adults in jobs. And so we kind of worked in, we would do career training and prep them and teach them skills, get them volunteer positions in the community and sort of liaise with the state to try to get them paying positions. So that was where I started my career out. I worked in sort of an HR recruitment capacity, and then did a lot of hands on mentorship with the special needs clients themselves. Then whenever I had relocated from New Hampshire, where I worked at that nonprofit, and I went to the Fort Carson, Colorado area, I worked with soldiers and I had been a soldier so I thought I knew everything. Transitioning out of the SFL TAP program, the Army’s cap, where I was a career counselor, and I had a caseload of probably 400 Plus service members at all time coming through my office. It was a huge job, I loved it, I transitioned well from what I was doing before. So I had a rude awakening, I got laid off on my due date with my first son. So as a career counselor, I’ve been thriving, doing really well. I even got a little recognition and promotion and it was doing good and thriving in my career. But you can’t help it when you get 60% of your people laid off, you’re probably going to lose your job. So that was my first negative career experience as a military spouse. Shortly thereafter, I obviously had my son, and I get ants in my pants, I just I can’t sit still. So I had within a month probably of him being born, started dog sitting on rover.com I had 10 dogs in my house all the time, I was losing my mind, I was complaining about my child being too boring. And he would sleep all the time. So I started pet sitting. Now with my second kid being a little screaming Red Devil that he is I really miss those quiet days. But in that time when I was quote unquote bored and dog sitting in a new mom and my husband deployed or my husband had just got back from a deployment and I was at home all the time I started begin within at that time. It was a it was a hobby blog, and it was more of like a life advice because everybody wants life advice from a 26 year old person

09:04

right i mean yeah

Jaime Chapman  09:09

that was the beginning of begin within Sure. It was about kind of blending your personal and your work life together. Thus the name begin within the three circles that are the logo mean the union of your life and your work right and you’re the tie that binds so that’s kind of the namesake but that was it so I got bored real quickly had ants in my pants and then we ended up shortly thereafter PCs thing and go into Germany where I made the choice to work for the SFL TAP program again. I took over the SFL tech program in my city at USA GB spot and I was the manager there and in charge of the location very quickly got promoted and was in charge of three different sites in the Renlund falls region of Germany that includes Ramstein Air Base area, the army and then the launch school and bomb holder areas as well. So I was in charge of like 1500 transitioning service members per year and all the supporting staff at those programs. And then guess what happens, I got laid off again. So I make the joke that I got promoted thrice, but laid off twice during my tenure at SFL. Tap. And at this point in time, I took begin within and turned it into an actual business providing career coaching and resume writing services. Wow.

Aaron Spatz  10:25

That’s a that’s a world that’s a whirlwind of a story and shoot. I mean, yeah, I mean, start and start at 26 years old, man. I mean, you got to, you got to start somewhere. Right? You got to start somewhere. And, and no doubt, I mean, you’ve you’ve, you’ve been through, you’ve been through a lot. I mean, I mean, even at 30, you’ve been through more life experiences, and a lot of people go through in their entire lifetime, just just related to moving and kids and all the other crazy stuff that life can throw our way. But so like, walk us through then. So you got that you got that started, like what were like What have been some of the challenges and obstacles as you’ve so you’re, you’re not no longer going back to those TAP programs, you’re going completely on your own. What like what have been the challenges then doing doing it that way versus the other way.

Jaime Chapman  11:12

Um, let’s just talk about the military community. And this may be some incendiary stuff that I say, but it’s the experiences that I’ve had in my life. So in 2013 2018, begin within it already existed for two years, and I hadn’t made a dime, start charging for USA Jobs, resume writing services, and that was my first little business in effort. Military people, they don’t pay for things, right? You get a lot of stuff for free, like resume writing services, right? You go to Hire Heroes, USA love the program. I love the SFL TAP program don’t, I’m not knocking any of these things. But servicemembers and military spouses kind of get accustomed to having all of these three things available to them. And so the first part of business lesson I learned was that you can’t, you can’t make a living, charging 200 bucks for a resume to military people. So I tried everything to try to make that make money, I was fighting and having to reduce my prices, and just trying to pull my eyeballs out and making military servicemembers pay for the services. And no matter what I did, who I tried to market to, I am military in my DNA, I can’t not serve the military community. And so no matter how hard I tried to market to other people outside of military world, who are my word of mouth referrals, and my number one source of business, military people. So I realized quickly, I had to change my business model, or I wasn’t going to be in business for very long. And then that kind of got me on the track to where I am now, where I do staffing and recruiting instead of the military service members and spouses paying companies pay me for placement. And that works so much better. And it’s a lot more lucrative.

Aaron Spatz  13:06

Wow. Yeah. And, you know, and I think you do hit on a pretty good, hot button item. I mean, I guess it could be depends on the person you asked, but no, I, I think you hit on something there with people just getting accustomed to not paying for stuff, or it’s just, it’s just a part of the lifestyle, you just get used to everything being provided to you. I mean, we I mean, we grew, we, we grow, and we live, you know, if you’re living on base, I mean, you’ve got, you’ve got a house, or you got some type of quarters that you’re living in, then you’ve got food, you’ve got shopping, and then you got medical, and then and then all the other little all the other old nicknack type benefits that come along with that. And so I can certainly see how that would. That would be a challenge.

Jaime Chapman  13:53

Let me be straightforward. I am a recipient of those freebies and handouts. And I love it. But whenever you are a business owner, and you’re thinking of how the heck you’re going to pay your bills, the service model I had wasn’t working. And it was just purely because the military community, they get taken care of as they so deserve to be taken care of. Right. But in this capacity, it just wasn’t gonna work. I was, you know, I was needing to charge more than I was charging. I was kind of coming out backwards financially. And it wasn’t working. So I had to innovate my own business so that I could serve the people I love so much who deserve free services, but yet I needed to also make money. That’s just kind of that was the inspiration to explore other alternatives. And I only had one expertise. That was the career services industry. Yeah, I couldn’t just switch jobs.

Aaron Spatz  14:47

So then talk us through how did that how that transition worked and when you went to recruiting and staffing and placement, what was what was that learning curve like? And you know, how did you get that off the ground given that you Your your lane had been one thing and now you’re kind of somewhat shifting gears ever so slightly?

Jaime Chapman  15:05

Well, it’s been really clunky. So I mean, I’m still fighting a battle, I want so desperately to just get rid of resume writing services altogether. But I still have, you know, my business is only four years old technically. And I still have word of mouth referrals from three years ago, when I first started writing resumes that say, Hey, Jamie wrote my USA Jobs resume, she’ll write yours too. And I do not want to do that anymore. Let me be very clear, you’re listening. I don’t want to write resumes, I want to do the recruitment and placement stuff and make the money from the companies. It’s better money. It’s better work for me. But more importantly, what I learned really quickly is that your advocates and your fans are the people that come to you first that, you know, when you start providing a service, and they come to you, they’re your number one fans, they’re your like, core group, and my core group, some they have the wrong messaging. And it’s still sticking with me today. So the transition has been really clunky. I still try to take care of people and do me a favor. I refer a lot of people to hire heroes, USA, I love the organization. They provide resume writing services for free. But still, some people just insist for me to write the resumes and get paid for it, but not paid enough, by the way. So it’s been clunky. And then there was a whole nother learning curve, not only with that whole piece in my messaging being wrong, it was the b2b side of it, like how does Jamie Chapman get a company to want to pay her money for the services that she can provide? Because I can screen I did that before and kind of perform HR functions and going through resumes and hiring and interviewing. I’ve done all that stuff before. But I was an independent lone wolf, owning my own business now trying to sell that to companies that pay lots of money for that I had no idea what I’m doing still learning, actually, we’re still working on business development, because it could be so much better. But that was really clunky as well. So it was just kind of a dead period. And then of course, now this year and 2020 Not only am I dealing with my own learning curve, and that whole thing, but there’s also COVID and what the economy’s crazy jobs are crazy. And so it’s been such a roller coaster ride this year.

Aaron Spatz  17:24

Yeah, it’s been it’s definitely been a roller coaster ride. And it’s been, it’s been a much longer roller coaster ride than I think everybody was expecting it to be. Which is unfortunate. Talk us through then a little bit about then. I mean, we talked about challenges. But you know, like, what, what, like, what have been some of the highlights, like what have been what have been some of the high points of, of your business journey. And

Jaime Chapman  17:49

thank you for asking that I don’t get asked about good stuff a lot. And let me tell you, I love my gold stars, right. So one of the things and if I’m so proud, I can’t stop talking about it is in September 2019. My business, despite all of the learning curves we’ve had, we were voted the number one military spouse owned business overall. Like that’s an amazing accomplishment. And I think of all the other military spouses that I know that kicked butt that should have won that award. And somehow I did, which speaks to the service we provide. And I think that we’re doing a really good thing for the military community. So that’s something I’m so proud of. That’s definitely probably my favorite highlight. But some of the other things I’ve gotten to sort of learn along the way is, who my people are and who my people are not in once you sort of whittled down your tribe makes life a bit easier. And it’s like you hone into each other. The military community is so incestuous. And I mean it in the most loving way possible. But we take care of our own. And sometimes being in this little bubble is prevented me from meeting good mentors and people that could have helped me out along the way. And so I’ve really figured out who my people are in terms of the job seekers I’m trying to buy to the business I want to work with, and then also mentors and peers that have helped me out along the way. So those are just the communities. So the long answer to make the short of it is the community. Well,

Aaron Spatz  19:25

and when you’re talking about the community when you’re talking about mentors specifically, are you referencing also just not like non military veterans or Yeah, non military veterans, non military mentors? Is that in peers? Is that is that part of what you’re talking about?

Jaime Chapman  19:41

I have a large military community, which is, you know, we can segment it out and think about me I was a soldier and I’m a military spouse. There are some military spouses that are not in my tribe. And there are some service members that are not in my tribe, but kind of waddling down who Who in the zoo for me? And who I have value to bring to and who brings value to me has really tremendously helped me figure out who my people are. But I don’t have a whole heck of a lot of people that are non military in my life outside of family and loved ones.

Aaron Spatz  20:17

No, I totally understand we all, we all kind of tend to find each other. I mean, it’s, it’s the funniest thing, because I mean, you can be in a room full of just random people you’ve ever met. And military people will somehow someway, we just just kind of find each other is one of the things.

Jaime Chapman  20:34

I know, I’m the worst. I’m like the kind of gal I remember all the words to the song, but I can’t remember the name of the band. It was this Will Smith movie about robots, and then you open the garage door up where they store the robots and the girl, the robots are all standing together in a clump. If you could, anyway.

Aaron Spatz  20:52

I mean, that’s a that’s a perfect, that’s a perfect visual. Perfect visual. That’s exactly right. And then probably standing at the position of attention. What would you like to say then to those that are, that are in the early stages of maybe their own startup, or those that are still like, you know, maybe they’re still thinking of an idea, but maybe more specifically, those that are can probably more closely relate to where you are as your as you’ve been growing? You know, what? I guess like, what words of advice would you have for those?

Jaime Chapman  21:25

Well, the first thing would be to offset your weaknesses. I am kind of a big picture person, a big idea person, I’m a shiny object syndrome person. And I am not a detail calendar scheduling person, you know, that person, the one that like, enjoys thoroughly organizing a calendar, that is not me. I literally on my Calendly when I have people schedule appointments with me, I have it an all bold call me because I’m so scatterbrained about details. I won’t even remember to make a phone call. So I want people just to call me that way, I just answered the phone and it makes my life easier. So offset your weakness. You can be a lone wolf and fail alone. Or you can succeed together by finding people that offset your own weaknesses, whether it be a business partner, or if you hire on team members that are good at what you are not good at. The first thing is, you know, I as a human being big picture, shiny object syndrome had to change my business model entirely. Because I just didn’t pay attention in the beginning and did what I knew, without seeking consults or advice or wisdom from people that were good at what I wasn’t. So offset your weaknesses. Second thing, don’t be afraid to poke belly buttons. I’m a nice gal. But I can be pretty blunt force trauma and direct. And in some communities, that doesn’t work out very well. But in the military community, I’m so lucky, it works out pretty well. Don’t be afraid to shake trees because safe, like Jamie knows how to write a resume safe doesn’t always pay the bills. And so you’ll have to step outside your comfort zone, do something crazy. And you’ll have to tick some people off. I’m not saying you have to go out there and make them mad. But not everybody is your audience. Not you’re not going to be able to sell your product to everybody. And so you have to leave some folks in the dust in order to succeed. You got to poke belly buttons to find the right people. And then the last thing is to own your stupidity. Yeah, on your stupidity, because if you are in denial that you’re stupid, and you don’t know everything, you’re never going to learn what you need to learn to be successful. And So had I only own my stupidity in the beginning, I would have avoided all of this business chaos that I had gone through, would have found my mentors early on surrounded myself with talent, smarter people in the room than myself. And I would have just saved myself a lot of heartache. So Oh, and your stupidity. And don’t be afraid to hire people that know more things than you know. For sure. For sure. Yep. That’s awesome.

Aaron Spatz  24:14

Since you do have a really unique perspective, I really like to just take a couple minutes and let’s let’s kind of talk about the some of the more unique challenges that face military spouses. So those that are maybe they’ve been moving around a whole bunch, like is there in this as a role? I don’t know a whole lot. I’ve seen it second hands. I mean, I grew up in a career military family. But myself I only served for just a handful of years. And so there’s folks out there that are in the middle of a career. How does that process work then for people as they’re as they’re trying to find continuity in their own careers despite the fact that PCs sing every every three years? So

Jaime Chapman  24:52

this is my jam. And the reason begin within is what it is now is to help those military spouses Find long term careers that they can take with them, or transfer and get paid what they’re worth, and have some career continuity. That’s why I do what I do. So let me just start by saying military spouses, there’s sort of two buckets, let me there’s two different types of military spouse, and I am super generalizing it. But this is how I serve them best. There is the young, hot off the presses, military spouse. And when I say young, I mean new military spouse, I don’t mean it as an age, they may be married in late in their career, and they’re just getting that dose of Holy crap. Being a military spouse is hard. military spouses that are physically young, 19 years old, maybe have a child. And life is chaotic, but they just want to have a profession and a vocation and they want to work. And you might find these spouses floating around working in the commissary or working on the economy at you know, a retail shop or something like that. They just want to work and get qualified. So there’s that audience and military spouses, right, who just need a profession and want to get into do something purposeful, they can contribute to their family. And then there is the score and military spouse, who’s been in this for a minute, they’ve moved a bunch, they’ve dealt with deployments, they’ve probably got children. And they aren’t getting paid what they’re worth. They are qualified with maybe an advanced degree, but they’re working in something like an admin position, just scraping to get by and have a job at all. And they’ve been burned. They’ve been told by employers, they don’t want to be hired because they’re a military spouse. They have a hard time finding childcare when they move, just the whole shebang of problems. So there’s these two different people. There’s like the bright eyed and bushy tailed military spouses who just want to be purposeful, and then there’s those scorned. I’ve been in this for a minute military spouses. And so whenever I am serving up advice for them and stuff like that, that’s who I really have to think about. If you don’t fall into one of those two buckets, I over generalized, there’s so many other options out there, you know, staying at home being a stay at home parent, being an entrepreneur, among other things, but the two types of folks I typically serve, you know, the bright eyed and bushy tail in the score military spouse. And so it’s a challenge. There’s, there’s different challenges that those two buckets of military spouses face, one of them is barrier to entry, I maybe don’t have the education or credentials and work experience that I need. And then the other one is, I have all of that stuff, but I’m still struggling to be where I should be. In my career, I’m not getting paid enough. The work I’m doing isn’t challenging enough, etc. And so it’s a totally different. Totally different barriers and obstacles that they face outside of the standard, hey, we move a lot. Like, you know, those types of things.

Aaron Spatz  28:07

Yeah. Because it’s not just moving. It’s it’s, it’s all the other all the other crap that comes with that, you know, from deployments and issues with kids, or, I mean, whatever. I mean, that’s like moving is I mean, there’s a lot, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of

Jaime Chapman  28:24

children. Childcare is probably the top career concern that I hear. Ironically, now, some there’s military families that do not have children in this. They still struggle with their career because of the relocating right. It’s almost unanimously every parent that is a military spouse, childcare is an issue. I’m hoping that COVID-19 is opening up doors for military spouses, because we’ve already been doing this. We’ve already had to be flexible and figure out what the heck to do in these chaotic times that are our normal life, let alone COVID When everything is crazy, yeah. I’m hoping it’s an opportunity that will allow military spouses some grace and flexibility in the future with their current employers. I’m hoping that you never know. Right? Yeah.

Aaron Spatz  29:18

Yeah, I mean, well, because I mean, the workplace right now is being challenged by the fact that it has to adopt a remote model, remote first model specifically. And so you’ll find companies that are hiring, select assembly, I’ve seen it, it’s like the semi remote position where you have to be based out of a certain area, say live within 50 miles of X office, and they’re going to be remote till further notice maybe through the end of the year, and then they’ll go back to the brick and mortar location, that big at the beginning of the year. Or you got the other the other flavor of company that has adopted a completely remote model. So your business may be out of Florida and you’re hiring somebody out of you know why oming and that’s totally okay. As long as you’re able to, you know, do what you need to do. And maybe there’s a periodic meeting over zoom that you need to do. Right. So, I mean, I would hope, kind of like what you’re saying. I mean, I would, I certainly would hope that this whole framework now is actually creating more opportunities for military spouses. And specifically, now, they can theoretically work in the same position with the same company for a number of years. In the move, the moving process is completely transparent to the employer, because it doesn’t matter. Now. They’re their remote, right?

Jaime Chapman  30:36

I always recommend to military spouses who are in a job they like, if you have to relocate and you’re in a brick and mortar position. Ask early, you know, may I work Tuesdays and Thursdays from home, and you design it a proof of concept for your employer. And the reason you’re doing that is to prove productivity, that you can work from home, be productive, and not physically be present in the office, that gives you a chance later down the road, when you do move, to advocate for yourself and say, I worked from home two days a week for the past year, and I did just fine. May I take my job with me? Right? And you’ve given yourself proof in the pudding that if you were able to do it while you work there, you know, Parsh part time, then you can do it again, if you move, you can do it full time. So that’s something I always recommend?

Aaron Spatz  31:28

No, I mean, that that’s a great strategy. It’s a great strategy, because then you’ve you’ve, you’ve written your own case study, you know, like, yeah, like you’ve already shown it, like, so. I mean, I think that’s the best. I mean, that’s, that’s brilliant. That’s a brilliant little nugget of advice there. So let’s so then let’s kind of let’s roll back then to the, to the staffing world, and like what in the lessons that you’re learning there, so. So in talking a little bit more business business ish, topics here. So, you know, like, have you seen an immense amount of competition, I guess, in the work in, in the corporate corporate world in terms of trying to acquire companies that want to retain you? And like, do you see that? Do you see competition increasing? Or? Or like, do you think you have a competitive advantage? I guess there’s really this question trying to ask because you, you’re offering a very specific type of person?

Jaime Chapman  32:24

That’s a good question. So there is more than enough military talent to go around. And that’s who I sell to these employers, okay. And there’s a lot of me’s out there. There’s all these other organizations, local and national, that provide military talent to companies, there’s a ton of us. But what I know about this space is yeah, there’s some competition, we’re talking about Blue Ocean Strategy, there’s some blood in the water, right. But there’s more than enough military talent to go around, and I can’t place them all I wish I could, I would be bankrolling if I could do that. But I cannot, I only have a certain amount of bandwidth. And so we need competition, in order to place these military veterans and spouses. What I am finding is that the battle is less with my business competitors, other staffing agencies, and more with stereotypes. For example, in this again, it could be incendiary, and all is with good intention. Accompany, for example, a fortune 500 company may have a veteran hiring initiative in place that is already mature. And they’ve been hiring veterans, and they’ve been doing a heck of a good job at it. But they do not know what to do with the military spouse in their current efforts are to roll up the military spouse hiring program into the veteran hiring program. And there is just two totally separate sets of needs in those two demographics. And I work with them both, and I have been them both right. But a veteran isn’t moving as much. A military spouse is still moving. A veteran comes armed with their military experience and those hard tangible skills that they earned from there in the defense contracting world. A lot of the time they already come with the clearance. They already come with the job that they needed to have that experience from their MLS in the military, but the military spouse doesn’t. And so they get stuck in these all you’re so cute be an admin jobs. And that’s how the company deals with them because they aren’t, they aren’t meeting the need of military spouses. Which a military spouse by the way, can have all of those same hard skills, they have a high level of education, and they’ll come in and kick butt for you if you just give them a chance. Right. But I just I deal more with stereotypes. And that’s my biggest competition is military spouse placement is not the same as a veteran placement.

Aaron Spatz  35:00

You know, like after you set it, I’m like, yeah, that I mean, that makes sense. I just, I wouldn’t have thought that though, like, on when when we open the conversation up, but now that you say that yeah, I mean, I, I can see that. And it’s really unfortunate. Like, it’s unfortunate that that the stereotype exists. And I think you I think you summed it up really, really well. And I also think it’s great that there is like, there is such a pool of people that I mean, there’s enough work for everybody, there’s plenty of room for everybody to, to, to kind of do a similar similar type of business. But I think what, what what makes you unique, obviously, is I mean, you have very unique, like brands that you’re coming from, and I mean, this is the this the world I live in, I’m in the marketing and branding world. So, like coming at it with a very specific niched focus is is a tremendous strength, and you specifically have the strength because you’ve come from both sides of the both sides of this deal. Which, which makes it really, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s a huge weapon for you. So, no, I was just, I was just genuinely just genuinely curious. And so you know, I mean, I feel like can, as we’re winding down our time together, I just, you know, I’d love to give this last bit back to you. Like, if there’s any, if there’s anything else that you want to get off your chest, if there’s any other hot button, hot button topics or words of advice, that you’d love to share. I mean, I would love to hand this back to you.

Jaime Chapman  36:30

Thank you, Aaron, for the chance to lay something else out there. Same problem I was just talking about in terms of the needs of veterans being different than the needs of military spouses in entrepreneurship and business ownership land. There’s a million programs out there to teach veterans how to run a business and to open a business. But military spouse, business owners, again, have different needs. And so for example, there’s like bunker labs, I’m a part of that group in a cohort, a virtual cohort. I’m a military spouse, and a veteran, but I have different needs than a, you know, veteran business owner who lives in the same city for the next portion of their retirement, you know, I need a portable business that can be viable from anywhere in the world. And not all veterans need that. And so the the training that you get in some of these programs, that just is, there’s different needs. And so I’m, I am so grateful for the abundance of entrepreneurship resources out there. And there’s a handful of military spouse specific entrepreneurship resources. But again, it’s just something to point out is that you cannot roll a military spouse training program of any type up into a veteran training program, and expect the same results and success rates if you’re not treating the spouse a little bit differently. No, I think that’s great

Aaron Spatz  37:51

at tremendous, it’s a tremendous perspective. And I and I just want to thank you for, for sharing, sharing some time with me. And I’ve really enjoyed getting to getting to know you better, but also getting to hear your story and just just want to thank you for sharing your story. And so how can people how can people get in touch with you?

Jaime Chapman  38:11

Okay, the easiest way to contact me is to go through my website. It’s literally Jay chapman.com. common spelling Ch a p mn. For everything else, I have this the easiest thing to spell.

Aaron Spatz  38:28

Right. Right. That is one benefit, right? Like I mean, of all the things you had to overcome, at least at least you got to last name that there’s not a whole lot of alternate spellings of that one.

Jaime Chapman  38:40

My maiden name was O’Bannon, like with an apostrophe in it. And that was just not happening.

Aaron Spatz  38:47

That’s great. Well, Jamie, thanks again. I really, I really do appreciate it.

Jaime Chapman  38:53

Yeah, thank you, Erin. This was wonderful. And I hope that hope whatever I had to say help someone out there. Certainly. Well,

Aaron Spatz  39:03

I really enjoy getting to interview Jamie I love her energy level, love the tenacity with which she has and how she presents herself and been through quite a bit. I mean, that the military spouse journey is certainly no easy road. For many of you out there, you can certainly relate to that, to that reality. And some of the challenges very unique challenges faced by by military spouses that are trying to keep a career going so I loved I love a lot of the wisdom and insights that she shared I love her openness about where she is in in the process and how she had to pivot from doing nothing but resume writing services to now doing staffing and we’re in in that whole recruiting space and she’s learning it but she’s she’s obviously she’s gonna crush it. So if you guys obviously are looking for some support that in that spot, I would encourage you to reach out to her pretty high level of confidence that she’ll she’ll take care of you and if she can’t figure it out, she she or she can’t she will certainly figure it out. Which I think is it That’s what I love about veterans. Right? Is it goes back, you didn’t hear this conversation that Jamie and I had off camera after the interview is over. But there’s there’s a thing with veterans Right. And, and, and I would even put military spouses in this bucket, but for a minute, let’s focus on veterans. Yeah, there are scumbag military veterans out there. There’s scumbag service members, there’s scumbag people everywhere. But I would love to think that 90% Or better of military veterans, when we say we’re going to do something for you, if it’s a b2b transaction, for example, you know, with with a pretty high level of competence and certainty that that service member is going to do what they said they’re going to do. And they’re going to do it to the very best of their, of their ability. Whether or not it’s going to take them five hours or 50 hours, they’re going to figure it out. And so that’s, that’s one thing I love about the veterans community. There’s a there’s a tenacity about us, right? There’s a tenacity behind our business ventures and the things that we do that can kind of get in our own way, sometimes in length in our learning curve. Because if you’re like me, you’re hard headed, and it takes longer to learn some lessons. But when you learn it, and when you get it, you’re like, you’re gone. Like, like you got it. So anyway, I just want to share that with you. Because that was like a realization I had as a Korean we’re talking during the interview, but then also off camera. But anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I just want to thank you again for just sincerely I just want to thank you for listening and watching. This is my passion project. You’ll notice I haven’t yet taken sponsors onto the show. I may eventually do that. But this is my way of just giving back and presenting to you that our community just the mighty power that we have as veterans, and I love showcasing people in their own journeys. So anyway, thank you for tuning in before to singing and next see you.