The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Amy Mosher Berry, Founder & CEO of Visions Internships and Why Internships Matter

Episode Date: November 5, 2022

Amy Mosher Berry, Founder & CEO of Visions Internships and Why Internships Matter Visionsinternships.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Are you ready to podcast? I shouldn't do that. It's part of the movie suit. Copyright. Welcome to the Chris Voss Show, folks. I'm your host, Chris Voss. You may have heard of me. We've only been here for 13 bloody years.

Jesus, what more do you want from me, people? It's me every time. Like, if it's ever not me, that's a bad sign. But I'm sure, I don't know, whoever replaced Chris Voss in the Chris Voss Show would be like, I don't know, a good stand-in. Like, I don't know, I good stand-in. Like, I don't know. I'd have to get somebody who's funny. Who did Carson usually have stand-in? I think everyone else is gone that used to stand-in for Carson. Anyway, guys, welcome to the show.

We certainly appreciate you guys coming by. I hope you're having an awesome day. And always, the Chris Voss Show is the family that loves you, wishes you to have an awesome day, which is unlike most of your families. You know, we all have that one family member who's out to get us. We all know what that's about, right? Anyway, guys, be sure to refer your family to the, go to iTunes.com. You can do a five-star review over there. We are the most beautifulest reviews on the Chris Voss Show. I sit on some days and just read them and cry and weep at the love that pours out from them. So if you get a chance, we'll get some five-star review and some love over there.

iTunes, let's see, YouTube.com, Goodreads.com. Lots of stuff we're doing on LinkedIn. Go see the crap over there. And also on TikTok, go see what we're doing on there. We have an amazing, brilliant mind on the show today, and it's not me. We won't do that, movie. But that's why we invite these brilliant guests

to come on the show. Amy Mosher-Berry is on the show with us today. She is the founder and CEO of Vision Internships. It's a dynamic social entrepreneur and community development professional that she is, with over 20 years of diverse project experience in for-profit, non-profit, and public sectors, including 10 years running our consulting firm and five years teaching college. Vision Internships helps purpose-driven young people

get meaningful, real-world experience serving social impact organizations in need of project support. Now in her fifth year, or I'm sorry, fifth program cycle, that might be fifth years, we'll find out from her in a second. Get some clarification on that. Visions is a revolutionizing internships for young professionals,

host organizations, and the world. Amy holds a bold vision for the company, leading programs and growing her team and business development efforts. She's a certified project manager professional with a master's degree in community development and a BA in environmental studies and Spanish as well. I was going to try and pull a Spanish word, but I can't think of it. Oh, Chris, do it. Uno.

Anyway, she lives in Massachusetts and enjoys traveling and giving back. Welcome to the show, Amy. How are you? I'm awesome. Wow. I think we're done here grits yes i just did the whole show welcome thank you good night people no seriously don't leave but no i i used to be able to count to 40 in spanish i flunked spanish but i used to be able to count from 0 to 40

in spanish and i won't suffer that to anyone in just the tens yes but i do love authentic mexican food i think I'm going to actually move to Mexico and marry a wonderful, round Mexican woman who can cook like nothing else. And so that's, I'm wearing half of the Mexican food

I've eaten in my lifetime anyway. But welcome to the show, Amy. No one wanted that vision in their head. So we'll move on. Buenas vueltas, Coreto. Good luck with that. Hello, Craig. Thank you.

Swear at me. No, I, me? I translated it immediately so that there was no injustice in this. Oh, okay. Well, that's usually what happens when I go to the Mexican restaurant. They're like, oh, gringo, what a stupido. Anyway, elote, which is usually what I order.

I love elote. I live on that. But welcome to the show. Give us your dot com so people can find you on the internet. Oh, thank you too much. Fantastic. Well, hello, everyone. Thank us your.com so people can find you on the internet. Thank you too much. Fantastic. Well, hello, everyone. Thank you for being here, tuning in, hanging out with us. So the website, Visions with an S, visionsinternships.com. And we're also pretty active on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

There you go. And just to clarify, because I kind of made up some stuff in your bio now in their fifth year, I said, it's a fifth program cycle. Am I off there on the year? Yes, we're leaving our listeners on the edge of their seat because I'm sure they care, right, how long my program cycle is. Sometimes I live a little bit in people's bios and end up adding stuff to them and then mischaracterizing. It's all good. We don't want to do that on the show. We do and then mischaracterizing. It's all good. We don't want to do that on the show. We do our even mischaracterization that I'm a nice guy. No worries.

So just quickly on, in case people are wondering, the program cycle, it is a 12-week structured career and leadership training for the 20-somethings that are looking for that meaningful real world experience. And we get them connected with social impact organizations that need project support. So it's about a three-month stretch, and we run our program, which is called VIP, Visions and Startups Program, where everybody feels like a VIP, Chris. And we run that three times a year, spring, summer, and fall, and that does overlap with the typical college semester, although you do not need to be in college or even hold a college degree to be in my program. Oh, really? Maybe I should refer my nephew. He's not going to college. He

needs as much help as he can get. So you don't have to be in college to do it. So what motivates you to create this company and how long ago did you create it? So we started running programs December of 2020. So right at the front height of COVID, all things still very uncertain at that point. So that's when we launched and we've been running these 12-week programs since. You know, I've been doing a lot of similar work many years leading up to this. And I'll say more recently, you know, when I was serving as a college professor, I was working at a larger public university here in Massachusetts for five years. and during that same time, a smaller private college in Massachusetts. And this was before COVID, Chris.

And I had the pleasure of teaching over 650 young people in five years before COVID. And even still, they were just really stressed out, pretty anxious about what they were doing with their lives. They weren't really sure what they were doing with their degree. They were kind of freaking out seeing a graduation on the horizon and realizing they hadn't yet gotten the real world experience. They didn't really know many people in the field. They hadn't done even like a job shadow or informational interviewing. And so a lot of these elements I brought into the classroom. But there came a point where I was like, you know what, I got to, as a social entrepreneur, I got to solve this bigger

problem. So I did peace out of both of my jobs at the time. And I went, you know, full steam ahead with my internship services company. It was spring of 2019. So you realize this is still before COVID. But in terms of what had me make that bold move, I would say is that the young people were, you know, so talented and motivated, really wanted to make a difference, do something great with their lives. But they just kept thinking they would get the experience, but especially if it wasn't required, which many programs do not require it because, of course, they would need to staff that and be, you know, really, you know, accountable to that. And, you know, not everybody can go to Northeastern where they have that co-op model. And I'm like, gosh, does anybody have to go to

Northeastern? This happens to be here in Massachusetts if viewers are like, where the heck is that? But they have a really great co-op model. And, you know, I'm like, you know, why not extrapolate what works and make that accessible to more young people? And of course, you know, when COVID hit, so many young people were even in a worse position because they really, you know, hadn't yet gotten the real world experience and their career trajectories were, it was really like upended as you well know, you don't need me to go into how COVID has impacted young people, but it really is important to reflect on, which is a big reason. No, I don't require young people to hold a college degree or actually be in college.

I would say that about 80% of the people that have come through either do hold a college degree or are in college, but we do have a that we're actually serving young people up to the age of 29. And they are in all different ages and stages. And we just want them to know that they're not alone and they're not as off track or behind as they may feel. There you go. Do you ever take anybody in their 50s who's interning? Like, you ever do that? Asking for a friend? Asking for a friend. Tell the friend, you know, feel free to DM me. Always good, you know, LinkedIn or other means. So I like to say anything is possible in communication, Chris. It's when we

go out of communication that we suffer. However you do, as you know, if anybody is out there listening, if you're in business, you do. it becomes very, I'll say healthier for the entrepreneur to focus on a target audience. So yes, we can have conversations, but in terms of those who would participate in VIP specifically, those would be young people in their twenties. And they're not just any young people. They are purpose driven and a little self-motivation. So I've done a lot of programs in my day where I'm out there, you know, recruiting the people and really trying to get them inspired and engaged. And this is really a program that is for young people that are already coming with some ambition,

which is like many young people today. So they're motivated to make a difference, but they're really seeking that meaningful work and mentorship as well. So what is, for those who are, you know, maybe young people who don't know what an internship was, it took me a long time to kind of figure it out because I didn't really pay much attention. What is an internship and why is it a better thing to go after internships as opposed to just trying to, you know, get a degree and see who hires you out of college? Yeah, that's great. So, you know, and just in terms of like formal definitions in the United

States, our labor department, so our department of labor is probably a good place. There's something called the Fair Labor Standards Act, which defines, I think most recently was defined in 2018. But one of the big things to define an internship is that it is a real world training. So it's an experience that's seen more so typically as an extension of formal education. So there does need to be a 51% benefit to the young person or the intern, we'll say, participating in the experience. And that's something that a lot of times employers don't necessarily know that, you know, they're looking to try it before they buy it. You know, it's a performance-based world. They want to sort of see if this is a good fit. You know, internships are similar but different to an apprenticeship. An apprenticeship is typically when somebody has already done more of that career exploration and they've sort of gotten themselves into a place where they know they want to pursue a certain trade. And so they're working more full-time and those apprenticeships are typically paid. Most internships are unpaid, although that brings up a pretty contentious issue. A lot of young people are understandably

because they're trying to get the experience, but also need to feed themselves. And in many cases, you know, they're living independently. But as we know, many young people are not living independently and they may have moved back with the family or the parents. So, you know, an internship is really the opportunity as part of an educational experience to get real world experience and to also theoretically at least get mentorship. just say that one of the big reasons that I launched my company, it's not just because I saw the young people that were struggling to get real world experience. They didn't know where to start, right? They also were in this moment where so many organizations are, you know, I hate to be dramatic, but desperate in many cases for the right talent and project support, but they simply don't have time to find, train, or manage young people. So that's really where we sort of came into existence because organizations, even that have

or had an internship program, they may mean well. They want to mentor these young people and bring them into the fold, but there's so many elements to a successful internship that those organizational leaders just legit don't have time to deal with because they're putting out those more urgent operational fires, as I know you understand. And so oftentimes the young people are feeling like they're lost in the shuffle and they're not getting the guidance and they're just sort of tolerating the scenario to cash in on that promised credit, or maybe there's a small stipend, but internships are typically, you know, they're typically not paid, although there is a movement behind paid internships for obvious reasons, because you want

to make sure it's, it's, you know, I, I agree with that premise, but the problem with the conventional internships is that they're really not working for either the young person or the host organization which is really why visions internships exist in the first place there you go you know one thing you know i do advisement to young people and that i come in contact with or you know friends and in our circles and we have a huge gaming community and because we review a lot of gaming products in the chris fosh show plug but you know i tell them try on different things try it works for you you know the same part about america is we don't have a system like the europeans do where you get to you you try and

you try on different trades and you find what fits you and what works for you and i think that's one way people can use internships to maybe, whether it's targeting something, like I know a lot of young people, especially people that go into news or journalism, they're like, you know, I want to go intern at CNN or a big newspaper like Washington Post or something like that. They want to target where the arc of what, where they think they want to go. But also I would say it's probably a good thing for like, do I really want to be in communications? Do I really want to be in journalism?

Do I want to really maybe go over here and do something else? You know, I think of some of the great people that came in through internships. There was a, I've got Stephen Colbert here on the side, and I'm thinking of Letterman. And I can't remember the guy who came up with, he had the talk show. He came up from NBC page. There's a couple of different people that came up for being NBC pages, internships and went on to have great careers. And, you know, you, you never know where it's going to go, but also to try on stuff that you like, you know, as an entrepreneur, I've started 20, 27 different corporations. Wow. You know, I mean, trying on different things and doing different things, finding what I like, you know, going, I don't want to do this anymore.

You know, trying out what you like, you can better find what you love. Definitely. You like it. Well, and that gets to your question about what is an internship. An ideal internship is that it provides that career exploration, right? And you're getting mentorship and ideally feedback from people that are in the field and you're able to be exposed to what they do. What's a day in the life? It's sort of like an ongoing informational interview. And especially if the young people are watching the show, that's a really great thing to put in your schedule are, you know, let's do three to five informational interviews this month. That's a cool way to

network. And it doesn't put anybody on the spot. Like, you know, some people, especially young people are like, oh gosh, networking, it can feel daunting. Right. And I always say the secret to success is truly F you. Well, we'll follow up. Right. So you see where I was going with that. But you know, the idea that to put these types of sort of work readiness practices into their schedule. And I sort of joke that an internship, if done right and designed and supported well, it's almost like an ongoing informational interview where you can just continue to build your professional network, build your confidence, your clarity in what you're doing. And yet people actually, and this is why I coach my young people, like, do you guys know that it's actually, even though people may have busy schedules, it's actually a compliment,

not a burden to reach out and ask a little bit about what they enjoy about their work, you know, and it kind of spices up the workday for the average person that's been doing what they've been doing for a while to give back. And if they can't get back to or do a Zoom or a coffee meetup, if people still do that today, you know, they'll plug it in when they can, especially if you're going through a warm contact, right? And so we do a lot of this sort of, you know, real world, not just supporting the young people and getting projects done for clients,

which is ultimately, that's a quantifiable metric that's important, right? That's really why we're in business, but we're also very much in business to be able to provide that often missing career and leadership training and that support. So our young people are learning money matters and financial literacy and personal branding and how to represent themselves and how to engage in career exploration and networking

as they're getting projects done for clients. There you go. There you go. And I was just pulling up here, Bob Iger. I remember reading his memoir recently, and I believe he started out as a intern. And if I recall rightly, I don't know if he was still at the intern stage or lower level employment stage, but he was thinking about leaving and just abandoning his interest in the thing. I think he was turned off by a bad boss or something. And, you know, someone pulled him aside, a mentor, and said, hey, we want you to stick around and, you know, see where this goes. And that created a career path to being the CEO of Disney and probably one of the best CEOs they ever had and a great leader. And so you just never know. And like you say, the networking thing is really important because you will meet people,

especially if you work hard, you'll meet people that will help you in your career. And if they see, I was helped by leaders in my time. There was one I worked for with a company with Cincinnati Bell eventually bought out as a kid. I was elevated over four or five levels of management that had been there for years and put in the top three position of the facility because the manager saw something in me. And he goes, you have leadership talent and the skill. Pissed off a lot of people, but you just never know where that's going to come out of. That's right. And clearly you were able to develop that rapport, that trust and human connection where people wanted to be around you. At least the key decision makers wanted more of you, not less of you. I always coach my young people, you know, you might want to pause and just sort of gauge the scenario.

Does this person want more of me or less of me? Right. And so we, we practice that self-awareness. We talked a lot about emotional intelligence and we practice empathetic communication, listening. We have right two ears and one mouth. So there's just so many things that I think go under the radar for young people. Like they were, they didn't take necessarily a course, if you around, which, you know, people tend to hire you because they like you or they are like you. Right. And to your point earlier, oftentimes, especially people that are in their 20s, that they've got a lot going on. I often refer to the 20s as like our turbulent 20s. I mean, I wouldn't exchange mine for the world, but it was turbulent. It wasn't easy. And, you know, we tend to be kind of easily influenced, of course, by the people around us. And statistically, people of all ages do leave bosses or supervisors that they're incompatible with, we'll just say to say it kindly, before they leave a so-called bad job. They're going to leave that

bad boss before a bad job, no matter what age, especially our 20 somethings that don't necessarily have the longevity of experience to draw from and keep perspective. Yeah. And you know, that was the other thing I found when I worked for other people. I found, you know, who I worked with well, and I started to identify very early on different leadership style. Great. One I hated was the high school popularity leadership style. And it was, it was, you know, no one cared about how much work you did. It was about kissing the boss's butt and constantly was adoring them or whatever, you know, heaping praise on them. And I found that I did not like that. And I did not want to work for anybody who's like that.

What are some top challenges that young people are facing today in their 20s? We talked in the green room a little bit about this phenomenon. I'm not sure it's – I think it's always been there, but it kind of trended on TikTok. And so a lot of, I'm sure, people in their 20s saw it, the quiet quitting sort of trend. Let's talk a little bit about that and some challenges that young people have. Yeah, I know that's come up a lot of all age brackets, really, you know, and I'm going to, I'll comment on it in reference to something that we tackle called the purpose gap, especially with young people, which I think has been talked about a little bit less, but it's not my term.

So I do need to give credit where credit was due. Google, there's a 2019 study that was done pre-COVID and it was Bates College and Gallup Research. And they determined that more than four out of every five, so more than 80% of today's U.S. college graduates are seeking so-called purposeful work where they're looking to give back to the greater good. They're looking to make a difference beyond just their own survival, their own paycheck. So they certainly want that livable paycheck, but they also are looking for purpose alongside of that paycheck. And so I mentioned this, especially in reference to the quiet quitting phenomenon for this age bracket, because I do believe that a lot of young people are honestly misunderstood, Chris. And I do believe that I pretty effectively, me and my growing team, we go to bat for the young people because I do think they are often misunderstood and sometimes undervalued in some ways, understandably, because they're sort of like this gap in the generations in the workplace. But young people, from what I can see, and especially these are the kind that I tend

to draw to my program, they happen to be pretty self-motivated. They look at the world. They're not blind to the social and environmental ills of the day. And they want to make a difference, but they're struggling just to even make sense of their own lives. COVID certainly knocked them off track. If they were in their, if they were, think about it, 19, 20, 21, when COVID hit, they're now 21, 22, 23. Many of them actually hold a college degree. They were able to, in many cases, miraculously, you know, still achieve that. It's a great milestone. So kudos to you if you're out there and you fit this bill. But, you know, they're not alone. If those that do hold a newer college

degree feel in some ways like they're a little bit experiencing that imposter syndrome, like they feel like they don't have the confidence that they thought the college degree would represent. And so they're not as confident or clear or certain. And a lot of times they're also at the same time where they're struggling, whether they're already working, maybe they're dissatisfied with their current work, which touches on that. The quiet quitting is that they may be showing up, but they're not as actively engaged as the employer would understandably like to see. But often there's another dynamic going on for a lot of young people. And it's not to stereotype all, of course, but that the housing crisis is absolutely at the root of so many young concerned, like they're not moving forward as they had hoped, right? Whether or not they have

that college degree, now they find themselves 23, 24, 25. Oh my gosh, I got to stick with this, you know, job because I'm going to get booted off of my parents' insurance. Plus housing is $2,500 a month, depending on where you live. And so they're feeling like stunted in many areas of their own growth and development. And oftentimes, especially, Chris, if they're in transition and they haven't yet gotten that viable income that they had planned or the parents had planned, now you've got this friction under the same roof where you have young people financially dependent on their parents, right? Not because the young person isn't in any way motivated or don't want

to move out or move on. They're just facing, especially the housing crisis, you know, fallout, right? And so they don't have the ability right now, at least, to move on and be as independent as they would like. And the parents are like both upset, but wanting to make sure they're okay. And it's causing a lot of turbulence in the family as well, which causes a whole other series of, you know, issues around mental health and depression and isolation. Even though we're a little bit less isolated, there's still a feeling of social isolation and even a shame associated. A lot of young people are feeling ashamed that they're in

the current situation that they're in. That's true. I mean, when you're young, you want to get a house, you want to go do your life. Inflation isn't going to make it any better. I mean, we're seeing some inflationary pressures from the war in Russia and the Ukraine. But, you know, you bring up a good point. I remember one of my biggest problems when I was starting out when I was young was you couldn't get a job because you didn't have experience. And it was kind of like credit. It's like, hey, can I get some credit? And they're like, do you have credit?

We'll give you credit if you have credit. You're like, well, how do I get credit if I don't have credit? Like, I can't get a good job unless I have job experience. It's a vicious circle. We call it the dog chasing the tail. You need the job to get the experience. You need the experience to get the job, right? And then if that circle goes on too long, you start to doubt yourself, right? And then you sometimes, right, depending on people's personalities and their social networks, right, they start to, you know, pull back. And in the very moment, especially in their, say, mid-20s, where that's like the moment to really

make some moves and take some risks when you don't have as many, perhaps, family or financial obligations during those years. For many people, that's not the case for some, but they're at the same moment that, you know, it's a great opportunity to take those educated risks and expand and not just go outside of your comfort zone, but actually expand your comfort zone. They're also pulling back because they don't have the basic elements of their life yet intact, and so they're doubting themselves, not to mention trying to pay off college debt. In many cases, they left college, still have to pay off the college debt,

and feel even farther off track. I would think that, you know, there's a bit of shame, and there's a bit of probably, I mean, whether you realize it or not, if you're doing quiet quitting, it's a really bad choice to make. And you're probably doing it because you haven't found something you like or something you love doing. Something that you, like you mentioned, that purpose gap that fills that thing that makes you go, hey, I enjoy doing this. Maybe I'm not paid what I think I should be paid or maybe I need to work my way up, but I care about this. This is something that I enjoy, you know, and finding something you love makes all the difference

in the morning. You know, I, I, when you get up and you know, you don't feel like something today or you don't, you know, you know, you're, you're like, ah, man, I got to go to work again. It makes all the difference when you love something you do. I love going to the podcast every day. And I talk about this. I kind of fried out on our podcast after 10 years of just interviewing CEOs of tech companies and talking about tech and Google and all the Silicon Valley stuff. I mean, there's a place for that.

But I just cared so much about the world and different things that were in it and all facets of education and authors. And I'm like, I'd really rather talk about some of this, you know, sometimes politics and just things that were really making a difference in the world that I cared about. And we opened the aperture of the show in the start of 2020 when covet hit and i fell in love with my show for the first time in 10 years and i've never done many companies if you read my book i never i've always been an investor and so i never really done companies that i loved

i liked them i like the money i made from them. I liked the return on their ROI. I liked being the CEO. I liked being the guy. But I never really loved any of them. People would come to me and go, it's great that you love what you do. And I'm like, I don't really love any of these companies, and I hate them actually secretly. And so there's a loathing or self-loathing, I imagine you get if you're quiet quitting. And I think internships are a great way to find something you like. Test drive some things in life.

See what you like. You know, there's so many people that they go into college and they're like, hey, when I come out, I'm going to be a social worker. And there's something wrong with that. But find something you're passionate about. Because when you wake up in the show, when I look at my show every day and I go, hey, what am am i gonna have on i got a front row seat to the most brilliant minds i get to ask questions i watch a lot of

these people they're on tv they're on you know they're doing their book tours and you know i'm like i'll watch the interview and usually they can only do like three minute blurb on cnn or msnbc or you know washington post and i get to go those are stupid questions. I don't like those questions. I want to ask some better questions. And so I love it. I love it. And I get to, it's like a front row education where I get to interview the most brilliant minds and the best ideas.

And of course, I'm an idiot. So I get to sit here and soak it all up. And then I end up smarter for it. And there's sometimes i get off the show there's only times when i get off the show and i don't care if anybody likes that show or or watches it i don't even care i learned so much and i'm smarter for it and i'm just going to lord about for the rest of the day because i know that i i raised my iq a few points so loving something that you care about it makes all the difference in the world.

It does. It really does. There's nothing worse than waking up and having to go to a job or something you don't like. And I've made lots of money in stuff and hated going to work every day. And I mean, we're talking a lot of money in stuff and still hating going to work every day. There's nothing worse than when you can go, when you're, when you're making a lot of money and you still can't get motivated.

And it's a sense of like fulfillment, you know, like the full, the full sense of that is like being filled up by a sense of trip is something greater than yourself and your own immediate survival that you're up to something. You're not only, you know, able, but you're willing and wanting to do something to support the greater good socially, environmentally. Absolutely.

I can't agree with you more that, you know, when you get to go to work versus have to, and that is certainly a mindset, right? There's always aspects of our work, even in the most purposeful work, that there are elements and aspects that we don't love, but we can stay motivated because we remember the greater good. And this is really the design of my program and why I've sort of put all my chips in. I am a full-time now entrepreneur. I'm also a single mom. I'm just going to shout that out. I have a five-year-old and that's not the way I thought things would go in my life. But I have

this little one who absolutely sees herself as the VP, either one day, it depends, VP of operations, or she's also my chief motivational officer. But she's looking at at me seeing, you know, how much I work, how much I put in. In fact, I chose our, of course, my daughter and her world first and my business over our home because I believe so strongly in what I'm doing. And it's not just about me getting more projects done. What moves me to pieces right now at this point in my life is that I get to train and mentor and support young people that are already wanting to make a difference. And I get to give them that extra push and support that they're not really even used to getting, especially if they're outside of that typical college structure. And we exclusively

contract with socially and environmentally impactful companies. And I'll just give a sense to your point, Chris, about the kinds of work, at least up to this point, we've been contracting with organizations such as those who are serving and advancing issues around food security, food distribution in our local communities. We've certainly worked with clients that are serving veterans, recently returning veterans, older veterans that need various social service wraparound services. We've done a lot around youth employment, youth jobs, entrepreneurial support, local economic development, girls empowerment, green and sustainability cleaning, and affordable housing is a massive issue. We've actually had a client renew with us several times over and

people are going to in the coming months hear of a movement called, oh, I should say this right here on here. No, it's not really out there yet, but it's called Breaking Housing Matters. And it is totally bipartisan. It's not about the whole political divide. It's really acknowledging people's basic needs. But these are the kinds of social and environmental organizations that we support. And why? Because young people, when they're learning new skills that can scare them sometimes. So people are like, well, what the hell kind of work do people do?

And how do they help clients? Which is probably, I guess, slightly useful. So let me mention a few sort of areas of types of project categories, if I could, Chris, so that people can get their head around what we might be doing for our clients. So qualitative, often community-based research and outreach work, process improvement. We engage in actually consulting and implementation of new solutions, stakeholder outreach based on what our clients need, social media support, web content enhancement event and program assistance, fundraising support,

and also corporate social responsibility. So you have a lot of organizations, and they may very be for profit, that actually have a social mission stated, and it's often called corporate social responsibility or CSR statement. Some people even get wild and have a CSR coordinator or director for the mid or larger organizations. So we help to breathe life into some of those statements. If you say that you care about, you know, feeding hungry children in your area, but you don't have anybody staffed or accountable for that, we could actually help to breathe life into that kind of social impact program. Does that make sense? That's definitely handy. So let's talk about that. Let's switch gears over to that side of it because we've talked a lot about interning and young people and stuff. So what are some of the challenges that a lot of leaders and companies are facing when it comes to attracting and retaining young talent? We should also probably

talk about how do companies that might be listening to this reach out to you that would be interested in your internship programs. Great. Awesome. So all this time, so we're coming up on two years, we've been running this one core program I mentioned a few times called VIP Visions Internships Program, and that's for the young professionals as well as the organizations. So for the organizations, basically what that looks like is it's essentially like you'd be partnering up with a micro project consulting firm, if you will. So I'm the key person

that's engaging with the prospective client and we're scoping out project needs. And they probably fall into some of those categories I mentioned. So business operations and improvement, right? We talked about, you know, some of the communications, marketing, event support, various things. And again, you could be for-profit, nonprofit government, but you do need to be doing something that is legit, decent for people or planet. And I'm not out to be anybody's moral

judge, but you know who you are and you don't have to be a nonprofit to be in sort of our client base. So that's really important to know. So you would basically contract with us if you're an organization that's interested in developing a young talent pipeline. Maybe you've been thinking about starting or restarting an internship program as a talent pipeline strategy for your organization, but you just don't necessarily have the time, the staff to find, train, manage, and mentor these young people. So that's where we would come in and you'd be

essentially outsourcing your internship service needs. And I should say project needs, which is more interesting and relevant with all due respect to the young people, but to the businesses, they're looking to get shite done. You know what I'm saying? Like they're looking to get it done. They're looking to take the burden off of their frontline staff so that they can be freed up. And certainly the executives need to be freed up to run and grow their businesses. And obviously we've got to be putting out fires at the local level, the program level. So they need somebody who's going to basically connect them to young talent that they don't have the time to organize. And they're going to get to see these young people in action, right? So the young people are building confidence through doing, and the organizations are getting to wait for it, Chris,

ready? Meet with us. Our current model is that we have what's called a status update meeting, typically Thursdays, once a week. It's usually in the, you know, 40 to 60 minute range. And they're promising our clients are agreeing to meet with us and they can vary out the staff based on, you know, what they need to do. But it's helpful to have one key point person meeting with us on a weekly basis. So we are providing updates. We're sharing our screen. This is all through Zoom. So we do virtual project management, basically. Imagine that. And we are getting together. We're showing them what we've done since the last meeting. We're getting their feedback. What could we do differently or better? What are the specific assignments? So we're getting those assignments into our project

management. We're just keeping all of that, those weeds off of the shoulders of the executive that just wants to get projects done. They'd like to have a young talent pipeline, but they just want somebody else to sort of show them how to do it, get it done.

And then you know what? If a particular intern is particularly impressive, brought on, that's easier for them to then have, they know them, like them, trust them. They are showcasing what they've done, the added value. I'm always talking to the young people about what matters to employers. So obviously if the young person is not delivering quantifiable value that

positively impacts the bottom line, including of nonprofits, right? We're not bringing you on board. I'm talking as a new hire now, transitioning from intern to employee as a charity case, even for you nonprofit workers, right? You've got to still be able to showcase your value. And so that's, we create that whole sort of scenario where it's easy for the young people to get the training and support from me and my team. And the organizations are like, yeah, just show me what you got. And at the end, we need the deliverables. And if you got people that'd be a good match,

rock on it plus people for our HR. So that's basically our model. Do you ever find that some young people, like maybe you place them with a certain employer in a certain category of industry, and maybe it's not a fit for them on either side, maybe. And you go, hey, you might be better served over here in this industry. This might be, we kind of understand you better more and what your fit is. Why don't we place you over here? So I do a lot of upfront legwork, Chris, to try to avoid that mid-program because it can be disruptive. It's not impossible. I do have elements of my program design where we actually have two young people matched up with one client

and that client can be represented by various people in that business, of course, whatever works for them. We also have a couple of people that are considered sort of assistant or sort of, you know, colleagues that could assist if those primary interns for their main client need a little help. So, you know, it's actually never happened because I do the kind of legwork I do. I have a pretty strong background in, you know, assessing and empowering people and making sure that we're doing good matches up front. There's obviously some qualifying criteria for both the young people in the organizations. But as we grow, it's bound to happen. And we do have that one way. Once we're off to the races and we're in the middle of a program, I still do have at least another option for somebody that

might be a better match to swap. We stay very focused on the transferable skill set as opposed to, you know, oh, you know what? I decided I want to get involved in sustainability education versus affordable housing policy, right? So once we're at that point in the program, I'm more interested in the young person

being able to organize themselves, to communicate professionally, verbally, in writing. Can they facilitate a client meeting? Can they set up Zooms and scheduling? Can they deliver on tasks? So once we're mid-program, I'm really focusing on the young people being able to check stuff off and deliver value in increments. So at the end, we're literally doing a presentation of deliverables to our client, just like an actual consulting organization would. And I'll just say, you know,

thank you in advance to any organizations that may be considering partnering with Visions Internships, because, you know, you're not getting all of, you know, me and my direct time as a strategic project management consultant. You are getting me supporting young people who are learning to deliver that value. So sometimes we scope something out that obviously,

if you were to pay a consultant directly, you'd be getting that right person and get it done probably faster, arguably slightly higher quality. You know what I'm saying? So our clients need to buy into the fact that we are also, we, not so much them, so we take this off of them, but we are investing in these young people and training them, preparing and supporting them so that the organization doesn't have to at the level that they are used to, which is why most organizations avoid running and managing internships in the first place. There you go.

So they have a ramp up, and they're not just starting from ground zero. So that works out really well for them. What are you looking forward to in 2023? I can't believe we're at that point. I cannot believe. Oh, my gosh. I cannot believe you're saying that either. Totally.

I'm still getting used to it. We have authors coming on that are, their books are in 2023. Some are still in the can. And I'm just like, Oh my gosh, 2023. Wow.

Okay. Yeah. It just feels like 2025 is so close to 2023. And I just felt like 2025, just a few years ago, it felt like, you know, some other time entirely that made kind of,

would I be here? I guess I'm still here. You know, what am I looking forward to? I mean, I'm really looking forward to scaling what's been working, leaving behind what's not been working. You know, I've definitely been up against a little bit of a bottleneck as an entrepreneur who's been very active in all elements of the operation. So we're really excited to be hiring. We're planning to hire two part-time to start and hopefully three or four by the end of 2023. So we're really looking to grow our team to be able to adequately support more young people and more client organizations. So me as a founder at this point that I'm still standing, I am probably your impact that I know we're capable of making.

And I've been focusing on solving small so we can scale big. But I can say too that in 2023, something that we're finally responding to, which has come up now over the last couple of years, more so from, I'll say, the client organization perspective. So they really would like to tap our growing talent pool of young professionals who have been trained by us. They've come through our program. They have completed our program in good standing. So we have this growing talent pool that is attractive to employers. And so we aren't only going to be providing, you know, kind of like a casual sort of customized membership model, most likely is what we're looking at, probably monthly and annual option where companies can partner up with us, especially if they have

hiring needs or they have project support needs. So whether or not they actually were considered a VIP client, and of course, you're all very important people. I'm referring to our program name, right? So even if you were a VIP client, you can still partner up with us through our new program we're rolling out in 2023 called Visions Associates. And that benefits both the young people in the organizations.

But it's basically that talent pool. And it's not just a connection. It's actually addressing this employer demand that we've had around new hire support. So whether they're bringing that person in now as a paid intern, because we don't just have perpetual unpaid interns, right? And I should say, this is kind of wacky. We actually, we're not in so many ways your average internship program, but I can tell you that what's really bonkers about our model is that we actually charge the young people 500 bucks to participate in our training and development program. We're training at a very high level. I've done the math. It's about $10,000

equivalent as to what I'm pouring into that for 12 weeks. And so we charge a little bit. For some people, that's a lot. Back in my day, 500 bucks was a lot of money. So we don't want that to be in the way. We do have a growing pool, a scholarship fund for anybody. You know, we don't want a few hundred bucks to be in the way. Our main source of income is obviously from the client organizations that are contracting with us for project support. But we're dealing with this sort of issue where people are like, oh, wow. Okay, we want to bring in new people, but young people often still have all these other transitionary needs

when they're starting off in a new job that we may, as a company, I'm saying as a client company, may not have the ability to really handle this. So how do you talk to a supervisor? How do you come up with specific questions? And how do you approach different scenarios? Troubleshooting. So we'll do role playing. We'll support that. What are the goals that they're, what are they delivering of value this week for their employer? How are they managing their time and their tasks? Are they accountable if their supervisor is on vacation, right? Like there's all these different things that happen in the real world that we're offering this additional service where they're not only, and companies can tap our growing talent pool, but they're getting a little bit of that support. Usually

it's like in the first one to four weeks of that early stage employment. So I'm excited about that. And then the other offering, and again, this is really more for our business, you know, our client organizations, is that in a very limited capacity right now, we are offering a real like hyper customized B2B consulting and training service. either, you know, your current staff directors that may be working with young people, including maybe even as teenagers, right? I just recently worked with a new client who's testing out this service here in Massachusetts, and I was able to do like a train-the-trainer session on supporting the directors to work even more effectively with their young interns coming in for their next round. So these are a couple of different services that I just see us growing, and I cannot wait to continue growing my team to make sure we can handle all of the fabulousness

that needs to get done for us. Well, that sounds awesome. You got a lot of great stuff going on. I would highly recommend people get into internships. Find what you love, find what you're passionate about. You know, there's so many people I know that they do a job and they go, you know, they're like, I think this is what I want to do. They go do it for 20 years. They hate themselves. They go to it for 10 years. They wake up with that midlife crisis and they just go, I really don't like what I'm doing. I want to do something else. A lot of entrepreneurs start out that way. And, you know, I can't imagine sleeping away at a job for all those years and not having a passion about it, not liking what you do, not feeling like you're serving a higher purpose beyond just, you know, collecting a paycheck and, you know, connecting dots. So what's the best way for both sides of these people to get a hold of you, whether they're people who want to be interns or companies that want to hire you to help them put together their programs.

And so they can certainly find us online. So our main website is visionsinternships.com. And if you are a young person, you can click on the blue button, which is a similar blue, a little periwinkle-ish more so compared to Chris's blue. But you can click on the blue button if you are a young person in your 20s who's looking to perhaps engage, even just reach out to me, right? If I can be a resource, if I can be helpful, I would love that. The green button on our website is for our organizations that are looking at perhaps engaging as a VIP client or

also benefiting from the other services. And then I always love to invite people directly to please connect with me directly, Amy Moser-Berry on LinkedIn. I find that's a really great way to just from one professional human to another to connect. I would love to really learn about who you are, a little bit about your work in the world. And just if know, just if you have particular pain points, right, if you have particular project needs and we can maybe noodle that through, even if it's just through a direct message, sometimes that's late night for me. But LinkedIn, connect with me, throw me a note in the invitation. That's something I teach my young people is don't just, you know, send the cold advice, but give a little context, say that,

you know, you may have seen me on the Chris Botch show. We'll give Chris a shout out. And give me some context as to how I might be able to support you. And feel free to throw me your links and what you're doing. And if there's any way that I can naturally cross-promote that, I'm always happy to do that as well.

There you go. There you go. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on the show, Amy. We've learned a lot and given people a lot of great suggestions. Where can people find you on the interwebs, please? Yes, absolutely. So in addition to our website, again, visionsinternships.com, you can definitely check us out on the various platforms.

So on Instagram specifically, and I should say that Instagram tends to target more of our younger 20-somethings, but you're welcome to visit us there. There's a few, you know, there's value all around, but it does that particular Instagram targets our young people. But please check us out on Instagram. It's Instagram. So the handle is forward slash visions underscore internships. And then you can also find us on Facebook. Our business page is just forward slash visions internships, all one word. And likewise on LinkedIn, we're forward slash visions internships.

There you go. Gotta love the LinkedIn stuff. There's so much we have going on LinkedIn. forward slash visions internships. There you go. Got to love the LinkedIn stuff. There's so much we have going on LinkedIn. That is such a great thing. I got to tell you, we're, we're over Facebook at this point, although we have five or six groups over there,

pages, but you know, LinkedIn is just so great with what's going on. Twitter is kind of, who knows what's going on with that? Everyone's getting fired today. I know it's a big day in that area, but I would agree. You know, just on the LinkedIn, I think we have up to this point sort of underutilized LinkedIn, especially for that space that we're in with Visions Internships.

And we are going to be doing a lot more on LinkedIn come 2023. So please connect with me and our company. It's such a great place. Well, thank you very much, Amy, for coming on. We really appreciate it. Absolutely, Chris. Thank you so much for your time and your interest. It's such a great place. Well, thank you very much, Amy, for coming on. We really appreciate it. Absolutely, Chris. Thank you so much for your time and your interest. Thank you.

And thanks, Manis, for tuning in. Be sure to go to GoodReese.com, Fortuness Chris Voss, YouTube.com, Fortuness Chris Voss. See everything we're doing over on The Chris Voss Show on LinkedIn. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.