1846 – A New Approach to Business Success with Juan Taveras

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0:58with us right now, Juan Tavares. Juan, you are the CEO of DEI Profinder. And what you do is you connect HR business leaders with RightFit DEI consultants. And then you also help DEI consultants increase their visibility. Your website is deiprofinder.com. Juan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me, Josh. I'm super excited to be here. What a great space to be in and what a great opportunity to help a lot of great companies. And again, those amazing solutions providers that are out there wanting to do the good work. I'll let you kind of maybe describe how DEI Profinder works, but I love it.

1:43Thank you, Josh. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. We really serve as a bridge and a connector between the two sides of this marketplace. So we've got the DEI consultants or professionals on one side, and we have over 120 of them now on our directory, on our website. And then on the other side, we've got HR, DEI, and other business, senior business leaders that are doing this work internally and that are looking for support. And that can be anything from they're just getting started and have a lot of questions and, you know, don't know how to get started or what to do. or they're well on their journey and have either come across a challenge or are ready to level up their strategy and they need sort of a very specific kind of expert or someone with a specific kind of expertise to come in.

2:29And that's where DEI Profinder comes into play. So we make those connections and help create win-win situations is what I like to call it on either side. Yeah, we'll talk about the platform itself again, just to our DEI solutions providers. It's free to join. You know, it's free to get listed in the directory. I mean, obviously, there are some opportunities for increased connections and increased visibility. We'll get into that. But one, I'm wondering, you know, here we are in 2024. I'm wondering if you could give us just a bit of a state of the union when it comes to DEI, because I know this is a subject that you care quite a bit about.

3:07And certainly, I think we're seeing, you know, if we think about the totality of the past five to 10 years, we've seen a lot of movement in this space. But could you maybe bring us up to date with where we are in 2024? Yeah, great question, Josh. I'm glad you asked that because I get this question a lot. So like folks are because of the headlines and what's out in the news and social media right now, a lot of negative attention around DEI. And the assumption is that there's some kind of trend here around DEI going away or not being as important anymore. And that is just simply not the case, right?

3:44It's unfortunate that it's getting so much attention and that DEI has been negative attention, I should say, and that DEI has been politicized. But the reality is, I mean, like you just said, DEI has been around for decades. And I would argue that it's more important today than ever before because of the amount of generations that we have in the workplace. We're now navigating, leaders have to navigate and business owners have to navigate a post-pandemic workplace with hybrid workforce or fully remote or back-to-office situations. We have a mental health crisis in our society, like any number of things that make the workplace today even more diverse, more nuanced.

4:22And the need for DEI strategies and initiatives is more important than ever. So that's why we are doubling down on our efforts to grow our platform. And I also want to, we might get a chance to talk about this later, but we're also launching a podcast so that we can just bring more visibility to the positive aspects and outcomes of DEI work when it's done well. Okay. Because I also want to just take a second to acknowledge that some of the headlines out there, I'm not suggesting that they're not true. They're just not a hundred percent the case, right? So there are times, unfortunately, where DEI has caused division or harm in some cases, but it's not, that doesn't mean that all DI is bad, right?

5:06It just means that in some situations, it wasn't done well. And that is why I think our platform can really serve those HR and business leaders looking to do this work well, because there's a lot of, like I said earlier, nuance in how this happens. And we are there to make those connections, intentional connections. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, again, if we think about the terms diversity, equity, inclusion, like these shouldn't be political, right? So give us, let's leave the politics behind and just give us, you know, maybe an appeal to why leaders need to, I guess, maybe best practices on, you know, what they should be focused on, you know, when it comes to all things on that side.

5:51So if we want to just be a great leader that helps facilitate a great culture where people do feel like they're welcomed and they belong, you know, regardless of their background or how they identify, right? Why is this more critical than ever? Yeah, great question. So if my suggestion to business owners and leaders out there right now is, if they're interested in creating a culture where, like you said, everyone feels welcome, valued, and where they can be authentically themselves, right, and contribute to the business mission and goals in a way that is aligned with their whole being, right? then it starts with engaging your community, your workforce, right?

6:33I always, any clients that I engage with, the first question I ask is, what data have you collected? What questions have you asked your team? Because again, this DEI, there's no one size fits all here. Like it's really dependent on the makeup of your current organization or your current team. And what is the information that you're trying to gather, right? And how is that going to inform your business strategy, because it has to be connected to everything that we do, because that's how business is people. People make the business run. So the more you know about your people, the better you are able to provide the right kinds of supports and create the right kind of environment where they will thrive as individuals, but also as a collective, right?

7:16That's my take on it. It's like, we start with where you're at. A mistake that I see often leaders make is they think DI strategy is this big project that they have to take on. And it's right there, right? Start with where you're at. Well, on that note too, let's talk about application for SMBs, right? So you could be a solopreneur. And again, I think what we want to think about, right, is obviously as a solopreneur, we're coming into it with our own lens, right? Like our background, our experiences, but our experiences and background don't necessarily reflect those of all of the clients or customers or audience that we want to serve.

7:58And certainly, as we expand the types of talent and diversity of opinions and viewpoints and backgrounds that are valuable to match that diverse population in the world. So, you know, maybe just talk about, you know, I didn't mean to steal any of your thunder there. You're doing great. Yeah. Again, application for SMBs. Like, where does it begin and how do we start when we're starting small? Great question. Yeah, because, again, this is another sort of misunderstanding out there that DEI is for big companies or requires a lot of resources. It does require time and energy because it has to be intentional.

8:32But you can start, and actually, the earlier you start in your business journey, the better because then it'll just be embedded in everything that you do as you grow and scale. So I say to your point, how are you connecting with your audience, right? If you're targeting a diverse audience that looks different than you and that has had a different lived experience, then how are you making those genuine connections? Like you can, again, going back to gathering data, right? So serving folks and understanding what in relation to your product or service, like what is it about what would get them to engage more deeply?

9:05What might be missing that you don't know about? This is another aspect of my work that I spend a lot of time on is our own lack of awareness, right? So because we all have bias and are blind, right, to what we just don't know and haven't experienced. So entering any situation with the assumption that there's something here that I don't know, there's something here that I can learn, and engaging with your audience, whether it's internal or external in that way, entering it from a place of curiosity and wanting to gain value. value so that you can serve your people better. Because at the end of the day, that's the goal, right?

9:40We're trying to, this is where I don't separate business from DEI. It's all connected, right? Because we're not just doing, implementing these strategies for the sake of implementing them. We're implementing them so that we can make our, grow our businesses, engage with our customers more deeply and more authentically, and just be better, you know, all around. your website is deiprofinder.com let's talk about again one what you do what you how your platform works who you serve and who should be jumping on this immediately from from either side of the coin yeah yeah so we operate a two-sided marketplace which is both sort of a blessing but also a double-edged sword because we have two audiences that we cater to so on one side we've got dei professionals and consultants and small firms that are looking to grow their visibility, reach more potential clients, showcase their talents and skills.

10:35And that's what our directory does. So like you mentioned earlier, anyone can join our directory if they are a practicing DEI professional or consultant for free, and they get listed on our directory, they get a full company profile and are searchable, etc. And there's also a lot of our platform allows you to leverage any content you are already putting out, like on social media or blog posts and videos, et cetera. You can repurpose them onto our directory just to make your profile more robust and more findable in the directory. And then we do offer, we just launched this a couple months ago, a paid membership if you want even more support from us and my team.

11:16So we do a matching service with potential clients. Like I said earlier, we're gonna have a podcast so that'll be highlighting our consultants on the podcast. We have a newsletter feature and LinkedIn spotlights, those kinds of things. So just continuing to help elevate the work and the services and the offers of awesome consultants doing this DEI work. And then on the other side, we've got HR, DEI, and other senior business leaders that are already doing this work or have an interest in getting started and that need some support, whether that is a quick coaching session with me, just to help them understand how to develop a DI strategy, which I have had the pleasure of doing many times in organizations, both for profit and nonprofit in my HR career.

11:59But I also offer a, like I said earlier, a matching service. So if they know exactly what they're looking for or what they need, but they don't know where to find it, then I can help them find a DI professional to support their goals and their work. Well, this is exciting because you've recently launched your podcast and it's called inclusive leader spotlight demystifying dei one conversation at a time uh tell me a bit about the podcast obviously to our friend that's listening to us right now go search for the term inclusive leader spotlight hit subscribe but why don't tell us about the podcast who you bring together yeah so i'm really excited about this because the podcast is and you know this being on on your podcast is such a pleasure because we have the ability to go deeper right with these conversations and to have an actual, an exchange of ideas and answer questions and things like that, where as the directory, while it's been wonderful, it is very one-sided, it's pretty transactional up until now, right?

12:57So I've got in my team and I sort of manage the transactions on either side. We do make, once we make those matches, we do make those warm introductions between a potential client and a DI professional, but then, you know, it's up to them to manage that relationship moving forward. What I like about the podcast is that it's an opportunity for us to just highlight the positive work that is being done in the DI space. So we interview inclusive leaders that are currently doing this work in their organizations. We talk about what's working, what's not working, because I want to hear about the challenges too and how they overcame those challenges, right?

13:32Because this is hard work. And it's, like I said earlier, it's very nuanced. So we want to hear about that. And then sort of what makes them tick? Why are they so passionate about inclusivity and creating workspaces where everyone can feel like they belong? Because we want to just continue to highlight as much as possible the positive and highlight the benefits of implementing DEI so that other people out there, potential or not potential, but listeners that are also passionate about this, but maybe struggling or have been thinking about implementing a DEI strategy and just haven't done it yet.

14:05that they get that inspiration, that hope, and also can walk away with some tangible strategies that they can implement in their own workplace. So it's also an opportunity to learn more about DEI. And then we'll also be highlighting consultants, right? So because the other part of demystifying the DEI space is about highlighting the difference even within how the work is done. There are no two consultants, especially on our directory, that are alike, right? They all are DEI professionals, but they bring their own sort of flavor to the work based on their own lived experience, based on their strengths and talents.

14:41So it's, again, nuanced. And I love making those, highlighting that and making those intentional connections whenever I can. Yeah. So very cool. I mean, obviously, one, your background, you've done a lot of consulting yourself. And now you've put together kind of this SaaS platform. Share with me just a bit about like your organization or your company or like what you do and kind of aside from the conversations, bringing everyone together, which is amazing. Do you still provide consulting? Yeah. As of the time of this recording, I do have a couple of consulting clients. Quickly. Yeah. But I'm moving more towards, I'm focusing more on this matching process, which is, It is a consultative approach, but it's more focused, right?

15:30So it's not some of the consulting that I've done traditionally are longer term projects, three, six, nine months. There's a lot of work involved and I kind of become embedded into the team. With the services that we're providing now through DI Profinder, it's more about really getting very specific about you need a DI professional to support your work moving forward and let us help you find that person. Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah. So it's brilliant because, well, that was the other question. I was going to ask you is like, how do we even decide? And, you know, and already, you know, where I'm looking at your population already, I mean, there's, there's a lot of really great talent here.

16:06So it can maybe feel a little overwhelming in terms of like, what do we need? And maybe one there's uncovered needs, like maybe, you know, you're working with a potential client and they don't even know what they need. And so I would imagine then, you know, how valuable that would be to just have a conversation with you, kind of get clarity around that so that they make the right hire, right? Because you also don't want to kind of match up, you know, the wrong solution provider and, you know, their strengths just don't match, you know, the real opportunity to impact positive change. Absolutely.

16:38And that's part of my guarantee, which is why the part of that process is an in-depth intake with me. So I'm going to ask a lot of questions. I'm going to get into the weeds, right? And this is where, again, I have, I bring an HR lens to this work. So I I understand the people side of this as well, which is incredibly beneficial. So whenever I talk to an HR leader, they're like, oh, you get it, right? You understand what these challenges are, because oftentimes there's, I've seen this in organizations where there's a disconnect between a DI strategy and a people strategy. And really those two things need to be intertwined.

17:09So during that intake process, I learned a lot about what the goals are, what the current challenges are. Tell me more about the workforce, the demographics, what are you trying to achieve? And oftentimes, to your point, I'll get a client that says, oh, we need a consultant to do XYZ. And they're very specific. And I said, OK, how did you get there? How did you get to that conclusion that that is what you need? So let's unpack that a little, because I want to make sure, to your point, that they're asking for the right thing and that they're getting what they actually need as opposed to what might be trending in the moment.

17:40Like, here's an example. So I'll get a client, reaches out to me saying, I want somebody that can do unconscious bias training. I was like, great. I have a lot of folks that can do that, but help me understand why you think you need unconscious bias training and what have you done? Yeah. Leading up to this, right? Because there's, you can't just start a DI strategy doesn't start with training. It has to start with an audit and an assessment and really getting to understand your, your current population, because we need that buy-in in order for this to be successful. We need everyone to be involved and brought along in the process.

18:12So that's what I do. Yeah. Excellent. All right. Again, DEIProFinder.com. Also your podcast, Inclusive Leader Spotlight Demystifying DEI One Conversation at a Time. To a friend that's listening, just go ahead and search in your podcast app right now and hit subscribe on that. And then, Juan, naturally, you are having conversations with voices in the DEI space, both, again, kind of leaders in HR and then, of course, those amazing solutions providers. And, again, you're accepting guests. So I just happen to see on your website here, deiprofinder.com, click on podcast, and then you'll see a button that says apply to be a guest.

18:55And that will, yeah, should you know someone that deserves to be celebrated, send them your way, Juan. Please do. Yes, I love having these conversations and engaging with people because, again, it's so important for us to demystify DEI and help to provide that clarity and highlight the positive whenever we can. Juan Tavares, DEIProFinder.com. Juan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Josh.

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