Build Momentum - Thought Leadership for Education, Global Workforce Edition

S02E09 - A Word with Strong Fathers | J Michael Hall M.Ed.

January 25, 2022 Season 2 Episode 9
Build Momentum - Thought Leadership for Education, Global Workforce Edition
S02E09 - A Word with Strong Fathers | J Michael Hall M.Ed.
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode of Build Momentum, we are joined by J. Michael Hall, M.Ed. Mike is the founder of Strong Fathers-Strong Families LLC, an organization that focuses on family engagement programs. Mike has worked with over 200,000 fathers and professionals in 45 states and a couple of languages. Using his vast experience as an educator, speaker, and thought leader, he provides targeted trainings for schools and organizations.

Mike is a husband and a proud father of two sons. He was honored as a 2012 White House Fatherhood Champion of Change. He's also a former middle school teacher whose circuitous path led him to partnering with school districts to better support fathers and, ultimately, their students.

Some Questions I Ask:

  • Would you share your story with our listeners, so they understand more about you? (2:17)
  • It seems rare to find a program that's really focused on the father's that's available in school districts. Is that perception accurate? (6:50)
  • What happens to kids when their dad reads to them? (10:10)
  • What's your key to success when you're reaching out building relationships with district leaders to implement your program? (6:18)
  • You were honored by the White House in 2012 as a Fatherhood Champion of Change. That is an incredible achievement. Tell our listeners how that came about? (22:46)

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

  • About Mike’s life story and the beginnings of Strong Fathers. (2:28)
  • What Strong Fathers and other programs that focus on fathers do. (6:57)
  • The effects of Dad’s engagement vs. Mom’s engagement. (10:11)
  • Strategies for reaching out to build relationships with district leaders implementing the program. (16:25)
  • About the White House Fatherhood Champion of Change award and why the Strong Fathers programs were recognized. (22:57)

Quotes:

“I'm trying to get where dads are. That's my mission. So we're going to get paid for that. But that's also where all the kids are, because this work really is about impacting kids.”

“90% of the guys are jumping in and when we tell them it's important to read to your kids. We tell them, ‘When you read to your kids, something different happens than when mom reads to the kids.’ That's what they need to hear."


Connect with J Michael Hall:

Strong Fathers-Strong Families Website
J. Michael Hall's LinkedIn
Strong Fathers White House Video
Strong Fathers Ted Talk Video
Strong Fathers Virtual Program Examples
Warm-up Exercise for Reading Night
"Why Would We Want to Engage Fathers?” Video  


Stay in touch with Sarah Williamson:
Free Case Study Guide
SWPR GROUP Website
LinkedIn

Stay in touch with Chad Bolser:
LinkedIn

About "The Secret to Transformational Leadership," which Sarah co-authored with Dr. Quintin Shepherd:
Transformational Leadership Secret website
Purchase the print or ebook

Sarah Williamson:

Hello and welcome to build momentum where we help education organizations, blow past their competitors with strategies that make an impact. We think beyond traditional press releases and generic communication tactics, and seek out big, bold ideas create meaningful results for our clients. I'm your host, Sarah Williamson. And I've spent more than 15 years in public relations for the education sector, where our team has learned what works, and what doesn't when it comes to PR from launching groundbreaking new industry awards to landing sought after panels at most prestigious shows. We absolutely love this stuff. But the best part is, we have an opportunity to interview some of the smartest people we know who share their knowledge and strategies for success right here on the show. If you enjoy what you hear, we would so appreciate if you please take a moment just drop us a review on whatever platform you listen. And if you want to learn more about us, visit swpr-group.com. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Let's dive into the show. And on today's episode, we have Michael Hall, the founder of strong fathers, a nonprofit that focuses on family engagement programs. He's a husband and father of two sons. Michael has worked with more than 130,000 fathers and parents nationwide, that could be even higher. Now you have to let me know Michael, and he was honored as a 2012. White House fatherhood Champion of Change. He's also a former middle school teacher and has a circuitous path that led him to partnering with school districts to better support fathers and ultimately, their students. Welcome Michael to the show.

Michael Hall:

Thank you. Yeah, so we're at 225,000 Dads face to face. And like I told you this morning, we had 154 dads in one of our rural schools here local. And so you know, our numbers were not as quite as high last year because we were virtual. Yeah, but yeah, I've got all this gray hair because of that. A lot of miles and a lot of programs, we were pre COVID. We were doing about seven programs a week. And so if you're getting hundreds 200 Dads a program, you can start racking those guys up pretty quick. But we've been doing is we're in our 19 school year. So wow, doing this a while.

Sarah Williamson:

Well, let's back up for a minute. So I just totally love your mission, your passion for supporting fathers and students? Would you share your story with our listeners, so they understand more about you?

Michael Hall:

Yeah, so I was a special ed teacher, I taught special ed in middle school, and then tell people, I'm a recovering middle school principal. And so I was a middle school principal for four years. And in that time, you know, parent engagement is important. Schools kind of know that kind of talk about it, but they don't know what to do about it. And I'm really in middle school is really tough. So I kept seeing stuff about parent engagement. I'm like, we got to find a way we've got to find a way. So I did some training with different groups. And I'm like, that's okay. But that doesn't appeal to me as a dad. I was a dad of young kids at the time, I was actually a pretty young prince was a principal at 28. So my kids were very young. We asked you to known better, but it worked out and we were successful. I grew up in the school business. My dad was a coach, my mom was on the school board. And so I had a lot of training just about how schools work prior to even becoming a teacher. That's what our family did, and still does. And so trying to get dads involved at work with a group or trying to get parents involved. I work with a group out of Austin called the Center for successful fathering. And it led me both professionally, but it also led me personally because I was trying to do my job and try to raise kids. And that wasn't always working out too well. And it was in a pretty tough situation. I became the principal, I replaced the guy they named the building after. So if you want some golf advice, don't come in behind the guy. He was he had been the principal there like 32 years. I was 29 when I came in, I wasn't even breathing. When you started this gig teacher. You know, my teachers were like, older and they're like, What do we call you? I'm like, Mr. Hall. I mean, that's my job. It's you know, but so I did my first Dad's Day and January 31 1999, in my school, telling these guys, hey, if you're not around, here's the bad stuff that happens to your kids. If you're around and doing the job. Here's what good things happen to your kid. And in that moment, and in the next couple of weeks, I realized I was spending my time raising their kids, not my home. And so had a little pressure and some issues going on at schools and politics and all that. And so a lot of pressure put on me my wife was like, Man, this is I just hate this. And she said she was a preacher's kid, and I was a coach's kid, you know. So when they don't like us, or we don't like them, we have to move and go. Yeah, that's how I grew up. That's how you grew up, because I don't want to do that. And I'd like yeah, I can kind of agree. So I resigned. I finished out the year strong. You know, I did my job. But I went back to teaching my life went back to teaching and while I was teaching next year, I was doing more and more dad stuff because I'd gotten laid up on this. The center got a grant and so they hired me the next school year. I worked for them for three years developing programs trying to develop business in the Dallas Fort Worth area where I live and like a lot of non small profit small nonprofits. He goes got In a way found or what they call founder syndrome, so that whole thing imploded. And so strong fathers is actually a for profit business, I just say we have a nonprofit checkbook. And I did that because I didn't know if I was gonna make a go of it right. I didn't know, we could pull it off. And I didn't want a board moving us away from mission. I think nonprofits are great. I run another nonprofit for an orphanage in Ghana. I'm not against nonprofits for for my business, two things came about, I didn't want to board moving us to something just for the money, I wanted to stick to mission. I also wanted schools to pay for something of value. When I was at a nonprofit, they kind of expected us to either have the money, or if we got the money or in nonprofits that I worked around, they got the money, but it was just trying to get to the money to the next money. And not that they weren't doing good work. But I'm like a lot of fatherhood programs that I started with, you know, that were doing fatherhood stuff when I started strong fathers move to mentoring or they move. And then what they did is they moved to where the money was not to where the work was. So we've been doing fatherhood work we've written you know, I've got five curricula that I use in different areas. 03, 3 to 5, our bread and butter is elementary, and middle school work. I've got some high school programs that I do. I've got a 10 week, court ordered class. So we do that. And we work in schools, and we work in Headstart and so I'm trying to get where dads are that's my mission, schools and Headstart. So we're going to get paid for that. But that's also where all the kids are, because this work really is about impacting kids. And so schools have all the kids that's why I go to schools and Headstart and that's my, you know, as definitely my comfort zone. That's my people. That's my place. My wife is a teacher, my son's a teacher, my sister's a teacher, my brother's a teacher and a coach. My mom is back on the school board at 78. So yeah, this is what we do, you know, and so this is kind of a way. I mean, our year is August to May not, you know, January to December by any means.

Sarah Williamson:

Uh huh. Yeah. I love that. So it seems like it's rare to find a program that's really focused on the father's that's available in school districts. Is that true?

Michael Hall:

Should you see programs watchdogs is a program started by Jim Morris. Right after the shooting, we talked about school shootings, the school shooting in Arkansas. And so watchdogs gets dads to come to campus and walk around with their kid and help out, you know, open catch up packages at lunch. And that's one guy day. And those programs typically average anywhere from 30-40 Dads a year, because they ask a guy to take a full day off and hang out a spray program. I have a lot of schools that I helped them bring more dads in for that program. All Pro dad's is a group out of Florida, and they tend to have breakfast where the dads and kids get to talk a little bit, meet other dads, sometimes those are on campus, sometimes they're off. The pros and cons of that is they are nonprofit, they provide those things for free to the school. They're typically volunteer driven. But we do at strong fathers as we're academically focused, we help dads help their kids in school. So we comply with a lot of the federal mandates on family engagement. We're really good at it. We average pre COVID The school year 1819, we did a at 85 programs, we averaged 140 families per program. And we do a reading night we do a math night we do a science night, we do a bring your dad to school where dads go into the classroom. So I like these other programs, we typically work alongside them. But we're the only ones that I know of doing anything academic with dads and really at a shotgun level. You know, we really are like my 10 week class is very deep, we get into some really serious stuff. This is a foot deep and a mile wide. And that's what we want. We want to get guys in the water. Get them to do that. We'll have guys that go on and volunteer. We have guys that you know, all of a sudden are now the spelling test dad or the math homework dad, the project Dad, if you do that in first grade, then you've got this guy in 10th grade, right? And so that's where I don't mind being a foot deep, because I'm bringing everybody into the water, right? That's what we're wanting to do. And if guys want to speed, we got guys that swim in the deep end all the time. We got guys hoses in there, like, I didn't go and pass my ankles, but they're there. They're doing what they're doing, you know, and like today, yeah, so we did a reading day. And I started out with a book by Eric Carle called"Head to Toe". So we act like a penguin, we turn our head, we act like a giraffe, we bend our neck, and he got some dads into it automatically. They're ready to go. And then some other guys are like, I ain't doing that. I ain't doing that. And then we act like a monkey. I mean, we're off the charts a little bit. And dads that go at it. The kids love it. And what's happening is a dad that it's like, I'm not going to like a monkey in front, all these other dudes. They see the reaction that gets from their kids. So that next group acts like a monk. So through that whole book, we bring in about 80-90% of the dads and finally get number one is cool. Number two, your kids love it. Number three, none of us guys are judging you as another guy because we're all here for our kids. And then you get that 10% That I don't think it's a hard hard I don't think it's anything like that. It's like I'm just not comfortable doing that. I'm not sure how to do this. I don't know you know, whatever it is, but 90% of the guys are jumping in and so when we tell them it's important to read to your kids when we tell them when you read to your kids something different happens. And when mom reads to the kids, that's what they need to hear. So the other part about us being the only ones in the country doing it our jobs pretty easy, because nobody else is out there telling dads their value in their kids education. So what we do is really easy because when we tell them, they're like, Oh, I'm all about it. And they just didn't know they haven't heard

Sarah Williamson:

what happens to kids when their dad reads to them. Tell me more about that.

Michael Hall:

So when moms read the kids, which is a great thing moms read to kids kids learn to read, they learn to love to read, they learn to love books, they did a study in this is insane as an educator to think about, but we did a study in 1968 Norma Raiden did this study that is like, does it matter if parents read to their kids? Like, did you hear that statement? Does it matter, apparently, because we have so much faith in the science of education in schools, that maybe schools are all we need, right? And so they had a group of kids that had parents read to him, a group of kids had no parents read to him. And what do you think the kids that had their parents read to them, their reading scores at the end of the year were much higher. And then in that group of kids that had higher scores, because their parents read to him, there was this other group, and they're like, Okay, why are these kids significantly higher than the rest of the group, and they went back and look at the data. And it wasn't that they just had parents reading to them. They had moms and dads reading to them, some had only dads. So what they found was when moms read all these great things happen, when dads read to kids, they learned to read, they learn to love to read, they learn to love books, but when dads read the kids, the kids verbal skills can go up by up to 15%, which doesn't happen when moms read to them. Wow, let me tell you how popular I am when I'm training female teachers. I had moms in the room today, right? Moms can always come we don't exclude anybody. And then I'm like, I can read like, I know, you can read and great things happen. It's just different. It's not better or worse. It's different than when dads read. And so I always tell I do this on my TED talk. I do it every day that I do a reading program. I'm like, you know, moms read in the Big Bad Wolf said Little pig, little pig. And the kids love it. I mean, it's the way moms ought to read. We love that. Right? And when dads read, we're like, in a big bad wolf (wolf noise). You know, the kids are squealing and mom's like, what's going on? And so I tell that story. I mean, I deal all the time. I was at a school system principal, she heard me, you know, she saw the whole program. She couldn't hardly get to me fast enough at the end of program after we got everybody out, started packing up. She knows what you're talking about. That happened in my house just the other night. So what happened? She goes, I'm walking past my daughter's room. And my husband is rapping the book to my daughter. And I'm like, That's awesome. did the girl cry?. She goes, No, not at all. And I go, that's even awesomer. And I said, But your daughter hated it. Because no, she loved it. And now I can't read that book. Because I don't read like that. I'm like, and but here's the deal. That's dad's book. That's the memory. I do this all the time. And I felt like I didn't read to my kids enough, right? Like, I've got all this guilt now that my kids are 25 and 30.

Sarah Williamson:

Tell me about it?

Michael Hall:

And they said no. And so we started talking about books we read, right? Like, oh, yeah, you know, we like I read books to him. And there were more than that. But it was just, you know, you're trying to get this magic moment. And it's like, it's bedtime for two boys. I mean, it's just WWE all the time, right. But I read The Hobbit to him over time. You know, we'd read a chapter every other night or whatever. But it took us a while to read The Hobbit. And so when the movie The Hobbit came out, they were older, probably in high school and middle school. And one of my crowning achievements is, they're like, you know, Gollum's voice didn't sound right, dad, because my Gollum voice was nothing like that on the movie, but I'm the one that introduced him to that crazy voice. I mean, I had a different vision of who that guy was a different voice. A good friend of mine. We have books, The Texas based books, but they're all over the country called Hank, the Cowdog. I don't know if you've heard of No, John Erickson is written I think 25-28 books with Hank, the Cowdog is ranch security. And it's from the voice of this dog. And this dad that heard me. So this is how this happened. I told that same story at a school in the dad heard that in second grade, right? It's two sentences out of a 45 minute program. This dad comes in. I'm a band dad in the high school. And he comes in with his freshman daughter wants to join the band as in because you're the like the dad dude. Right? Yeah, I guess it's my, you know, my hometown. I go Yeah, I guess I'm the dad, dude. Because you said when she was in second grade, you said when dad's read your kids, the kids verbal skills go up to 15% that doesn't have a (inaudible) to him. I said, that's exactly what I say. And he goes ever since you told me that. I've been reading to my daughter and my son's. Every night, he read almost 25 or 28 of those books from Hank, the Cowdog. Read them all. Amazing. The author comes to our school for an author visit. They're so excited. Kids take a book to get signed. It's all this kind of cool stuff. Dad's not there. Of course, they come home. They're like, Man, how was he was cool. And he goes, Daddy was great. I can't he's on my book. Because his Hank, the Cowdog is not that very good. It's not very good. Because they'd had 25 versions of dad doing it, you know.

Sarah Williamson:

That is so incredible.

Michael Hall:

So I had to do that when my kids were at home because I'd work out of my office.

Sarah Williamson:

Yeah,

Michael Hall:

Cause I had a home office and Pandemic hit, I was broke. And we were trying to make things happen. I did all my virtual programs at home. And we got things rolling. You know, we pivoted and got things rolling. And so this summer, my wife is you're getting an office, because I'm not coming home. You know, we thought we're going to be because I'm not listening to that. And now she's retired. I have to come to the office because he doesn't feel retired unless it can. Oh my gosh, yeah. So you didn't fly overs from the Air Force Base. I don't know if you can hear the Jets. I don't think so. But I can hear him outside. Now. Okay.

Sarah Williamson:

I love that story, Michael, so I'm definitely gonna include that and also a link to your TED Talk. That's fantastic. Happy New Year as we recover from 2021 and ease into 2022, we are finding that so many of our clients are still in the process of finalizing their 2022 communications plans. If you're looking for a jumpstart on how to elevate your profile and enhance your presence in the market this year, we can definitely help. We specialize in providing strategic annual planning for our clients to develop comprehensive communications programs for their entire year, we want to help you achieve even bigger goals than you dreamed possible. We do that with plans that leverage big bold ideas, but are laid out with executable achievable goals every quarter. Reach out today to schedule your strategic planning session with us and our team. You can reach us at Elise elise@swpr-group.com. We look forward to hearing from you today. I want to switch gears here for a minute. So many of our listeners are looking to build partnerships with school districts. And you've been so successful at doing that. So what's your key to success when you're reaching out building relationships with district leaders to implement your program? What's your strategy?

Michael Hall:

So what has worked for us, what's worked for me?,And it comes from? Well, the hardest thing we have is I told you schools believe that parent engagement is important except I don't think it's going to happen. school after school will tell me well that may work where you're at, but not our school. And I mainly work in low income communities, rural communities, inner city communities. I don't typically work in affluent schools, affluent schools don't think they need our program when they may need it more sometimes. Yeah. Also they will all our parents show up. I'm like, Yeah, but are they engaged, right? So I'm already trying to sell something that they don't even know. They need, right? But they want it but they don't think it's possible. That's the biggest issue. So I do some emails, but I mainly get my emails, I don't buy a whole lot of list. I'm starting to do that a little b it. But I used to speak at a ton of conferences. And what I found was kind of pre social media. That's how long I've been doing this pre social media and stuff. Schools are on an annual calendar and annual budget. And if you don't get in early on that budget, or that calendar, it's a year sales cycle, right. And so you got to stay out there. But what I found was a year from the conference, almost every time for like the first five or six years I was in business. A year after the conference where I met that person, we started doing business. So it was you know, they thought of me, they thought that was great, we got to do that. We'll put some in the budget, but now we're running and you know, and then it would come around, it's gotten to be a lot quicker. Because you know, number one, we kind of know how to manipulate some of that and get them down quicker. So I don't do a lot of cold calls in it. And I had some guys that worked for me go how many will talk to his principal said no, you're not. So I said. So this is where my principal experience salesman would come in cold call me and call me. And it's like, look, that may be something I need. And it had to be a really great thing for me to listen, that may be something I need. But right now, I got a kid in here that screaming their head off, or we had to wrestle a kid to the ground. Or I've got two girls fighting over a boy, or I've got a mad parent. So I had a sales guy come into my office one day, and I kind of liked his product and the kind of like the dude, right? Like we'd had pretty good rapport became in my office one day. And while he was in my office, I had to leave because it kids set one of those big rolls of toilet paper on fire in the middle school bathroom. So we got to go put it out. There's smoke in the building, you know what a major danger but major hassle, I've got to go find the kid we got to get in prosecute, you know, we got to get the cops there. We got to call the parents. And so of course he left. And he started coming around, and I just hated this guy. Like I'm like, Oh, can't stand that guy. And finally, it took me a year to go, why do I hate that guy I thought, you know, you kind of got he hit me on the right day and came in for a visit. And I realized I hate this guy because I think he's wanting to set the fire in the middle. And that's what I tell like my guys that wanted to sell for me and I even had some guys lately that wanted to sell for me. But they don't understand the product either. But I said the principles, they don't have time to listen to it. So when I go to a conference, we write proposals that get us in the conference, we write titles that make people want to come. So we know this from marketing is what problem are you solving. And we are not just father engagement, which is kind of very nice, right? Your family engagement in schools are struggling how to do that. They don't have enough time. They don't have good ideas. There's a lot of fear around it. Because like what if we screw this up? You know, if we bring parents in, it's gonna be a train wreck, and it's not. And so I go to conference sessions, school board superintendent conferences, teacher conferences, principal conferences, or do a lot of early childhood conferences that we'll get to there. And so because we've been doing it so long, when they asked me like, Yeah, but I said, Well, here's how you handle that. You're like, oh, and I'm like, and it works. You're it's worked here, here, here and here, because we continually work the process. Right, right. And so when they go to a conference, they're looking at all these things that I need to know, what am I looking for? What our needs, and when they see my session, they're like, Wait, that sounds like something I need. And but I bet it doesn't work for us. And in 45 minutes to 90 minutes, I get it to say, here's what you think. And they're like, it's like, he knows I'm like, Yeah, cuz I've been doing this a while. And schools or schools or schools, right? So you're in Oregon, I'm in Texas. Now, all the regulations and all these other issues are different cultures a little different. But the schools, our schools, our schools, so when I was a little different culture can be but it's crazy. Because as much as we may have red and blue states and all these different things, schools are all dealing with the same issue because I love public schools. And I've had, it's always a granddad raising grandkids, they almost for some reason seem to be from Michigan, and they were in Vietnam or Korea, and they move to Texas and a Texas and they hate people. And they're like, because we put our fliers out in English and Spanish. Hello, we're in Texas, but really, we're in the US. And they hate that I hate the Spanish stuff. And I'm like, this is Marxist or whatever. I tell him that schools are the most democratic thing we do. Because if you live within these lines, you get to go to school here, you don't pay, it doesn't matter where you live, it doesn't matter how much money you make. You get to go to school here, and you have every opportunity, hopefully, you know, and I think that's what we try to strive for in schools knowing there's inequities and those issues. But that's the whole thing. And so, you know, when I start talking about when I start talking about dads, it's interesting, because because people think that you've got to deal with black dads differently than white dads differently than Asian dads differently than Hispanic dads. And I do know that cultural challenges are definitely different culture may be different. But dads are not different. Like dads don't love their kids differently. dads don't want a different future for their kids. They, you and I may not agree on what kind of future we want for our kids. But we all want a future.

Sarah Williamson:

Absolutely.

Michael Hall:

So that's where we tie that back. Every once in a while people are like, Why are we doing this? I'm like, if you don't help your kid get a better education. They won't move out.

Sarah Williamson:

That's fantastic. I love that. Michael, And you want to see what. Okay, go back. Tell me that again. What was that because I do some high school truancy program. And a lot of times the parents had a bad school experience. So we don't get a lot of support for schools. And you're like, they're just want to tax dollars. There's, I hated this. When I was in school, my kid hates school, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, here's the deal. If they don't graduate high school, here's how much money they won't make. They don't get into college. This is how much money they won't make. They don't take a trade. If they don't make this much money. They're not moving out. You know, and that's honestly how we've turned some dads on like, I know that school may or may not make a difference for your kid. But that paper makes a difference. And this is what they've got to do. So when I first started doing my own podcasts and recording I said a lot, right? I'm curious about you were honored by the 2012. White House fatherhood Champion of Change. That is an incredible achievement. tell our listeners how that came about.

Michael Hall:

So fatherhood at the federal level, really started with the Clinton administration and really came from Al Gore, who was really pushing the federal fatherhood initiatives, I had just started into fatherhood. A lot of the organizations that I was working with, you know, competitors or colleagues, however you want to look at it started around 9596. That's when Clinton was the Clinton ministration was pushing that. So I've been in talks it when when Obama became president, there was a lot around his story of not having his dad around and those things. And so they were doing meetings at the White House. I work in 45 states. I'm kind of a one man show, but I'm national. Now I'm International, whatever. And I kept trying to like do when am I going to get the invite? Well, you know, like, No, we're using federal dollars to do good work. We're not begging for federal dollars. And so they're gonna announce this is the backstory, right? This is this is the Behind the Music story. So the Obama administration in the White House off is a family of neighborhood and faith based partnerships was kind of around all these initiatives in Oregon announced their new fatherhood initiative. And I knew people that I'd been working with up there and all these things, so I know where it came from. But they're announcing this great new initiative from the White House. And they said, We're going to call it strong father strong families. That's the name of my company. That's the name of my LLC. Oh my gosh! I'm about to puke my guts up, right. And I've got my Texas blowing up, like what the heck, you know that? I'm like, Yeah, I get it. And my mother in law, who doesn't hardly pay I mean, she loves me. She thinks I'm great or whatever. But she didn't pay attention too much. But she heard this on the news today. So great. You're working with the present. I'm like, I'm not working with a president. They stole my name. They don't have Google in the old world. And so people are like, what are you gonna do? I'm like, I'm gonna sue the leader of the free world. Wait thing I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna suck it up. But I let the people that my friends and colleagues at that office go, let them know exactly how I felt about I'm like, do not have Google. That's the name of my company. And they're like, well, and I finally told them, and it was it came true. I said, Look, I'm out here hustling all day, every day, you'll have a federal initiative, people will know about me way before they knew about you, you will somehow whether it's at the end of the administration, or somewhere in in because I've been in this business a while and I said, it will go away, we'll still be here. And sure enough, that's what happened. People would see me go, Hey, I'm like, No, that's not my stuff. But they actually pivoted at the White House. There's this idea that black fathers on around and that's not true. All the data shows black dads are very involved. Black dads are maybe more involved than white fathers at an early age. So part of my job, I mean, I've been a white guy, like almost my whole life, right. But most of it anyways, I'm a really big advocate for black fathers, because I see these guys on the ground every day. And there are challenges in the community. That's not you know, there's challenges within the culture of that we're trying to change it. But there's so many great dads out there, and there's not money and talking about that's why I did my TED talk on father fullness. There's not talk about the great things going on, people are making money from the deficits, not the assets. And I believe we need to build the assets. And so anyways, I just let them know how I felt. I'm pretty sure even though nothing was said, I was honored because I do believe we're doing good work. And they knew the work we were doing. I also believe it was almost like hush money. Like, look, if you'll just shut up. I mean, I wasn't even going around, you know, but it was a nice honor. And people knew what my work was. So I will take that as an honor. And at the same time, I'm pretty sure they're like, Yeah, we probably haven't done that. But the but it's kind of what I talked about with nonprofits, the idea that dads weren't around, or that this was somehow negative towards families or single moms, which it's not. They pivoted to mentoring, which I believe in mentoring programs. But if we reach the dads, these kids don't need mentors as much. Oh, interesting. Dad is the built in mentor. So yeah, I get a dad like today I had dads with pre K and kindergarten kids. And I told him the importance of reading to their kids. If I catch that Dad, I'm going to have him in seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, if a guy comes from a fraternity, if a guy comes from Rotary, or if a guy comes from, you know, Kiwanis or whatever, to mentor a kid, that's fantastic. But the chance of that person being around throughout the grades, you know, is different. And there are kids that don't have anybody around. They don't have a dad anywhere. And we get that, but also when I bring the dads in they like what about these other kids, and I'm like, they sit next to your kid, they're, you're the ones that should be on your baseball tee, your kid fishing, maybe you should take that kid fishing, you know, and I ended up informally mentoring a lot of kids when my kids were in band, because they didn't have somebody. So they got structure for me, they got expectations from me, and they got praise for me. And it wasn't a mentoring program. It's just like, I know, they don't have anybody. And so, but I had a lot of dads around me that were doing the same thing. So that's how we now when I first got that honor that was in bold under my signature on my email. And now it's gotten to where it's not. But I mean, it was year after year, it just got smaller, because it was 2012. You know, so we're coming up on the 10 year anniversary, celebration, 10 year anniversary fatherhood. I'm very proud of it. I was great to be around colleagues, you know, they're doing the same kind of work around the country. The funny part was my wife had her phone on the front row. And she's very steady, and took a great video of me. So the video is usually the whole group. Well, if you go see my video on YouTube, I spliced in the regular sound from the White House video with a close up and even my buddy's, like, how did you get a close up? How can you and I'm like I spliced my own close up in on the video, but it's on YouTube as well. It was strong father's in the White House. So and that has helped give us some credibility when our credibility comes when people do get us in the door. And we feel the place with that.

Sarah Williamson:

And that's the storytelling aspect, which we're always talking about in the PR, it's telling the story about the success that you've had with those dads, and I love your website and your video. But I want to go back to this for one minute. Because I think it's so important that NPR, oftentimes it's not what you go out and seek, it's advocating for yourself. And it's coming up with strategic ways to build relationships where you're standing up for yourself, and you're putting yourself out there, it's not always you're not going to be recognized authentically, that rarely happens. It's about asking for what you deserve, um, strategically going after it and advocating for yourself and having a partner. Like for us. It's so VPR we partner with our clients to do that for them. So it's all about that. And it's also about who you know, really.

Michael Hall:

Right, and so that goes back to the conferences is you may not get a client right off the bat.

Sarah Williamson:

Totally.

Michael Hall:

But you can show like, so I wear I'm Texas, I wore a tie from a living. I've worked with dads I work with mainly blue collar, working class, middle class dads. So today at school is exactly what I have on they'll have a long sleeve polo jeans, boots, and I'm in Texas, I got to have a big buckle. So you know, it's like the law. But because I'm working with men that work. They don't want to hear from a guy in a tie. They don't wanna hear from guy in a suit. So I would show up at these conferences, federal conferences to and everybody's in a nice suit. They got the nice shoes on. And I'm in jeans and boots, and they're like, Who is this guy? And I just kept showing up and kept talking about what we did and kept showing it and so even at these other conferences, and it is about who you know, so we've had advocates and I haven't you as well as I think I could have, but I'm like Who else around you would like to do this program? Or they can't help but talk about it. And so when they go talking about it, like I have schools in East Texas because of one superintendent that just kept talking about what was going on at his school, I love working with him. The good part about my job is that if they get me they get it right. In other words, I get to work with really good schools. Because before we're thinking enough to we need to get parents the fourth thing enough that we don't have time, who can we get? And I'm the guy. And we train people to like, I don't have to go out and do is I have manuals in a training, and it's built for other people to do we, I did not want it to be the mike Hall Show. Right? It's like, I mean, it's got all my crazy personality in it. But it's got to be anybody can pull this off. Because if not, we're not going to get everything done. But yeah, so you know, and it's telling that story. And that story is, you know how this will work for you guys. People think a lot of that White House deal. People are like you ought to be on Oprah you ought to be on and I'm like principals don't watch Oprah. Very few school board members watch Oprah right. They say we could be on the morning news shows. I'm like principals aren't watching Oprah, they're in school. Yeah, they're swamped right. All the PR stuff that people think works for other products. This is business to business. This is an annual sales cycle. So there's two things that work for us. Number one telling our story. How do we help schools comply? What we do is awesome. It's great. It's got a ton of Kumbaya, it's a very high value. But we've got to show people how we check the boxes. So we qualify for Title One, money Title Three, because we do everything in Spanish, which is ESL, Title Five, which is rural schools, the new art pastor money that's come out from the feds to try to help people recover from COVID, kids recover from COVID has, uh, anything for us, that has a family engagement component where the guys, right, we're the ones that could pull that off, or train you to do it. And then after school programs had a family engagement component, and that's where we really developed all these through a couple of After School grants that we had, when we first started. That's what probably kept us in business. And really, like the reading morning I did today was developed from that money that we first got. And we didn't just go do it. We developed something that's replicable, portable, and will work for, you know, like, it works in inner city schools. It works in rural schools, and it takes off all these boxes.

Sarah Williamson:

So it's paying attention. It's paying attention, and being aware of the challenges that your key audience are facing.

Michael Hall:

Right.

Sarah Williamson:

But all those challenges, Michael, this has been such a great fun chat. I mean, you are totally hilarious. And I just lovable personality, and I think our listeners will feel the same way. So thank you for joining us. And I'm gonna include a lot of these links. And I think your tips are so replicable to any any company in the sector. So thank you. So appreciate it.

Michael Hall:

You bet, Thank you.

Sarah Williamson:

Talk soon, bye. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you enjoyed the show, if you wouldn't mind leaving a review, we'd be so grateful. This helps other listeners find and learn about our show. And please reach out if you're interested in learning more about how we can elevate the leaders of your organization with our PR services. If you'd like you can even shoot me a direct email at Sarah sarah@swpr-group.com. I look forward to hearing from you and we will see you next time.