"There are always opportunities to learn from past and present years that we need to be ready for."
Joubert Joseph is an entrepreneur, with a customer-focused approach to build excellent relationships and customer satisfaction as evidenced by working with Four Seasons Resort clients and the Founder of FOCO Digital Corp and SocialPay Inc. He has strong sales and marketing skills to build new businesses and foster and improve existing ones. He brings creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit to his all business endeavors.
He seeks mutual win-win outcomes while achieving personal objectives and can think beyond traditional methods to generate new ideas. He is confident in making difficult decisions and taking action, passionate about growth, and he is goal-oriented and open-minded. He loves connecting and meeting new people.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to Valiant CEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Joubert Joseph: My name is Joubert Joseph. I am a creative entrepreneur and business owner who is passionate about growth and relationships. I own and manage a commercial real estate portfolio index: Children’s Funds Management, LLC and Co-founded two startup ventures: FOCO Digital Corp which is a cross-promotion adtech platform for local merchants and SocialPay Inc. is a community-based crowdfunding platform, built for professionals. Early on in my teenage years, my mom as a merchant would take me to the flea market to sell goods and she would say that I was good doing and she said that I brought good luck.
After having multiple sales positions before/after college, I wanted to create my own businesses and sell my own goods. Having a business major, I believe would help me do that.
After years of trials and errors and lack of luck in having a career, I did what most entrepreneurs do, I started my first business and have never looked back and now manage various entities.
2020 and 2021 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2022? What lessons have you learned?
Joubert Joseph: As an entrepreneur, I must evolve and adapt. There are always opportunities to learn from past and present years that we need to be ready. 2020 & 2021 were really tough knowing we had to work remotely with our team, started my second startup venture, and had minimal startup capital to fund both ventures. I was able to continue my operations, kept the team motivated, did seek out capital from friends and family, and also got some funding from PPE loans. My god sent a gift to build it with the right tools and strategies as we hire our partners, our content team.
But in 2022, We expect to expand our operations and grow our team. Even though, the challenges are still here, we are confident that we will get through and do what we always believe, that growth is hard, but it is necessary. It requires resources, mental toughness, and a learning attitude. We have the latter two, but we demand human and capital resources. Either through key talented individuals, capital, data, strategies, and technical skills. After being admitted by the Newchip Accelerator Program for FOCO Digital, we are now more confident that will happen sooner.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what businesses should focus on in 2022? What advice would you share?
Joubert Joseph: The pandemic has disrupted the normalcy of the economy in any form. There are supply chain disruptions, lack of funding, fewer investors meetings and networks, and employee office hours. We are transitioning to a digital era, that many businesses need to get adjusted to. For us, we are already ahead of this transition, since we are promoting it through our venture, FOCO Digital to help local merchants to sell their product offerings and have an online presence.
This is for the long haul and businesses need to be realistic about that new normal.
I believe that the startup ecosystem will expand more remotely and into other major cities like Miami and Atlanta and more broadly with more black startup unicorns with having more Gen Z VC talent deepens in the sector to create a larger pool of capital to be deployed.
I also believe major businesses will enter Web 3 with digital goods and tokenization to increase their revenue streams with added value and at the same time diversify their holdings and improve their brand value.
How has the pandemic has changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Joubert Joseph: The Digital space is only getting started as Web 3 is underway with large companies are entering it. The pandemic has accelerated the speed of adoption and disrupted many industries as it does often happen with a black swan into the mix. As a marketer and entrepreneur, I need to continue making adjustments to my ventures and the business models that respond to the current changes that are happening and execute on the right marketing strategies and skills to give our vendors and clients an edge so they can continue being in business and serving their customers. This is why we embrace the digital OOH industry and continue doing what we love.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in the coming year 2022?
Joubert Joseph: I was not a senior entrepreneur, but I was a creative one. I knew that if I were to run with my venture, I was to do whatever it took to move it forward. But I wish that I knew that it would be a lonely journey, that your friends or family would not invest at the early stage or would understand and support me more of taking a big jump through that journey. I also wish that I could participate in startup networks to find like-minded entrepreneurs to help me run the venture.
However, it is because of my tenacity and resilience, my faith, and my belief that I am called an entrepreneur. I had to pivot, figured out many unsolved challenges, disentangle some hard problems, and found out better ways to execute with low capital. I had to use my resources more effectively and efficiently and had to work part-time to take care of my family. I had to manage the small team, fired my first hire quickly because he couldn’t help me with my vision, and encouraged my partners while we were building our MVP.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2022?
Joubert Joseph: I believe these trends will still be here in 2022. The more businesses can find better ways to expand their products online, their benefits will outweigh the costs of doing business because it is capital efficient, more accessible, and easier to manage. Because of the global access, more eCommerce businesses are able to generate revenues across markets, regions, and countries which gives them wide opportunities to monetize on a larger population. They can customize their web and app based on users’ location and languages to sell their products and integrate marketing tools and API that help them manage teams and other payment structures to lean their ventures.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Joubert Joseph: My computer or my phone is my business. Everything happens on that screen. Hours may vary depending on if my wife is off or I have some due diligence and meet family for retreat or gatherings. When I wake up, I have to read emails and newsletters, respond to feedback or comments, and connect with my teams to brief me on any developments. I also need to send queries on product updates and new requirements. Every day my time goes on from start to learn, to execute, to teach, and to create anything as it relates to marketing tools, strategies, and techniques that I must get my hands on and get informed and at the end to reflect, and think and write some notes on my phone…
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Joubert Joseph: Our work setting is online. Because of the pandemic, it has been very difficult for us to hire or meet physically, that is why we started building our team through distribution remotely. It was unlikely to do otherwise knowing that we started our venture right during the pandemic. I am a big believer in effective communications and people need to know that it is through it we can build and sustain the business. With my business partners, we talk through Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, and WhatsApp on a continuous basis to delegate or execute on some developments.
We are sure that we will continue using these channels as they make it easier for us while we’re operating digitally. As we start meeting in physical places and growing our team of investors, clients, and customers, we will set priority on persuading all team members to communicate effectively to increase our productivity
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Joubert Joseph: When we started this venture, we had no idea that we would have a pandemic four months later and that is still with us today. It was one of my toughest decisions to believe that I had the grit and courage to build it regardless of the obstacles. Sometimes, when opportunities knock, they never ask if we are ready and oftentimes, we don’t have all the resources needed to go after an idea or concept. We need to have faith and believe in our intellectual abilities to start doing it regardless. Along the way, more skills will be given and new ideas will emerge to help you do it more effectively. I also made a video series on this and it is available through this channel called TruthCast. Go and check it out.
This year like many other years is to have faith to navigate all obstacles, but more importantly to raise capital and expand opportunities to others to help us grow the business.
In 2022, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Joubert Joseph: In 2022, it is a very interesting year for us as we work to grow our business. As I manage various entities, we need to actively learn about new trends and developments that are happening to keep us informed.
I also manage two other platforms called: World Of Development Initiative and Civic Engagement Collective where we educate and inform our audience on sustainable developments, new structures and infrastructures, and civic and human capital developments to help them make better decisions professionally and personally. I think that I will definitely learn about NFTs because it is the talk of major business development because of the web 3 and more major corporations will enter the space to monetize it.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Joubert Joseph: That is very unfortunate, that is happening here. The numbers should be scaring employers. More people start figuring out that they need to be recognized for their contribution in the workplace. The human resources department or HR is not orientating their talent based on their productivity and life purpose.
I like to think that HR should be called Human Capital resource to improve retention and avoid so many burnouts. As people get hired, companies must build incentives to work in high-growth departments and fill the necessary skills gap by paying for learning new skills and getting trained on upskilling trends of their low salaried employees. More employees will strive to perform and have a student mentality to learn new skills because the companies will empower them instead of using them to their end results…
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Joubert Joseph: Wow. This is a tricky one. I think that any business has a superpower to improve their communities and the people they serve. For me, I believe in doing business to improve all stakeholders. I think sustainable business is good business. When I create my ventures, I think that I will do it to earn a profit, and that profit will help pay the investors who invested their capital, satisfy my clients with the service or product delivered, and their customers can be happy to come back and be loyal to their brands and create happy employees with decent salary and productivity that they can feel proud of their contribution.
What does “success” in 2022 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Joubert Joseph: 2022 Is a defining year for me and my ventures. I have come from far to be where I am today as an immigrant from Haiti. As the year begins, one of my ventures get accepted into an accelerator program and I thank God for this. I gave it all that I had to start the business the right way from conception to building and to growth.
After working hard and going through the toughest years of my life as an entrepreneur, I think that investors, clients, and customers will get on board by storms to help us scale and expand our operations so we can reward our partners and hire new teams and keep the momentum on my other ventures.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Joubert Joseph for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Joubert Joseph or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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