5G Talent Talk with Carrie Charles (00:00)
Welcome to 5G Talent Talk. I'm Carrie Charles, your host. And today I have with me someone very special, Kimberly McKinley. I met Kimberly at a conference. In fact, I heard her speak and I was so impressed. I said, you have got to come on the show. So Kimberly is the chief marketing officer of Utopia Fiber. Welcome to the show, Kim. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to chat. Let's do this.

Yes, let's do it. Let's do it. Well, let's first talk about you and you know your your career journey how you got to where you are today. You know, I talk about my career journey of how did I end up as CMO of Utopia fiber? Well, it goes in the direction you wouldn't think it would go into. I actually started my career working in health care accounting and then I pivoted from there. I come from a dad who was an entrepreneur.

So I ended up in the marketing space doing a little bit of marketing more for the hospitality field. And I moved to Utah in 2010 and I saw the opportunity of Utopia Fiber and I jumped on it. And I have been here at this company since 2010, which I think is unheard of to be at a company for almost 14 years these days. Wow. It really is. I mean, that's a, that's a major accomplishment and lucky for Utopia Fiber because you are doing a great job. I see you everywhere.

Too much, too much, but we'll work on that later. So who is Utopia Fiber? Utopia Fiber is a open access network based out of Utah. Utopia was founded in 2004 by 11 cities who came together to say that they needed to build a fiber network because they went to the incumbents at that time and said to those 11 cities and said, will you be building my city? And at that time, the incumbent said no.

I mean, but you have to look back at when that was, 2004, that these cities were looking at broadband infrastructure. So from there, there was the legal challenges and like any good pioneering effort there that happens out there, we made some mistakes. But since 2009, we have become the largest and most successful open access network in the country. Probably since 2009, we've got over half a billion dollars worth of bonds.

Approximately, always just quote approximately on that, that are being paid back solely by subscriber revenue. There's some early debt that the cities are still paying for, but since then, it's been a wild success and they have been a leader of doing this in the country. And it's been really inspiring and be here during all that time. To think that these cities started in 2004 when there wasn't YouTube, Facebook, any of the things that we think are near and dear to our heart today.

They had no idea that this was coming. So it's, I always go back and look at those city leaders and go, wow, if they had only known what we know now, what they would be leading the charge on. Well, let's, let's go backwards just a little bit and talk about what is an open access network for those of us who may not know. And I simplify it like this. I say it this way. The city always builds the airport, right? And you let Delta Southwest United fly out of them.

That's exactly what we do. We build with just the infrastructure and we have private sector service providers that run on our lines. One of the biggest on our network is Xmission, which is the oldest ISP in the state of Utah, which was formed in 1994. They have come out and said publicly that they might not be in business if they didn't, couldn't run on an open access network. Cause a lot of these smaller ISPs on our network don't have the capital to really, to lay their own fiber networks.

And so what this does is get the consumer low prices and very high quality because that you're having right now, we just launched three more providers on our network this morning, actually. And so we're at 18 providers, residentially that any consumer can choose from to offer their services. So why is this a preferred model for cities? Because if cities do anything, right, they do infrastructure, right? Right. So the city does your sewer, the city does your, your

your water, the garbage, that's what we're saying. The cities in some regards, they do infrastructure well. I'm not saying every city does infrastructure well, but cities do infrastructure well, and then you're allowing the private sector to compete. And I think that is just a huge advantage to the open access model, but it is not an easy model, and it's not for the faint of heart to run and operate an open access model. What are the challenges of running an open access model?

Well, you're trying to, you have a couple, you have to, you have to educate the consumer of what it is because they don't know what it is. They've been really used to duopolies or monopolies in this space. You also have to manage 18 different providers and making sure that they are offering the quality and monitoring their, making sure they're treating your customers well. And I mean, that's basically, I always say it's like having 18 bosses that you're always reporting to and they all want something different and how to kind of rally everybody.

together to say that we're in this together and not play the blame game. We, Utopia could blame the ISP and the ISP could blame Utopia and then the customers in the middle. So we really take this as a, we're partners with our ISPs and we want the, at the end of the day, the consumer to have the best experience. And if you go on to Google and look at the Utopia Fiber reviews, we have almost 3000 reviews with a 4 .6 Google rating.

which is unheard of in the telecom space. So you have mastered open access. We've mastered, I think, the customer experience. I think that I always say everybody who signs up with Utopia when we do an install, they get a welcome box and it has a blanket. It has red vines. It has popcorn and it has two referral cards And what it says in there is we understand you have choice and we are glad that you picked us. And we're just changing, I think, the paradigm of say,

Like this industry has always been known for that the, the, the, you need the ISP, right? We're challenging that. We're saying we need you and we appreciate you. And when you see people in this space, it's a game changer day in and day out. And I think that is where I laugh where my hospitality background really came into play because I'm like, I don't, if you're in the hospitality world, you know, you have to treat people well because there's a lot of options.

And in the telecom world, I brought that experience to Utopia of saying, we listen to the customer. We don't put scripts on the phones. My customer service team down there listens. I've had them tell me that they've talked to a customer for 10 minutes because they, they seemed lonely. And I said, that is what we do. We take care of our customers. That, and that's so unique.

in all areas of our world today, right? I mean, just talking about sending him a box with redbines. I used to love redbines. I can't have that anymore. But just everything that you're saying right now, just from a human standpoint, right? Because we're moving more and more to where technology, technology and getting more distant from the customer and you're bringing it back and giving them that high touch experience, right?

Absolutely. I always say that people ask me around the country, they say, how do you do what you do? And people appreciate you. And I said, it's what my parents taught me at a very young age. Three others how you want to be treated. And it's not that hard. It's the golden rule and you, you see them. I mean, we've all been frustrated when you get on a line and you keep going in circles and just start yelling agent, on the top of your lungs trying to get to a person. Exactly. And I want people to pick up.

I tell my customer service theme all the time, if I gave you a script, you stop listening. And that is what I don't want. And I want you, I want the personality of Utopia to be in their responses. We don't have to, we can make a spelling error. Yeah, we're going to try to correct it, but I'd rather have that human experience where people feel like that it's not a script.

It's really made a difference and I appreciate it. And it's not just the team at Utopia, it's our contractors who believe that day in and day out and that experience because getting a take rate is not about building a network. It's about seeing the customer and really valuing the customer and that they have money to spend and they could spend it at numerous different places in most parts of the country. Not in all, but in most parts of the country.

You know, I'm hearing a lot more about open access networks. So why are we seeing a rise in this model in the U .S.? I think we're seeing a rise in this model because I think cities don't want to become an ISP, right? They don't want to have that burden put on them. So they say, well, we want to own the infrastructure. Then we can allow some of these guys to come in and operate on it without having to staff up. And I think that's why you're really seeing

As you're seeing municipal models really grow in this country, you're seeing open access models because everybody is boiling it down that we need more competition and that is what open access brings. But I say it day in and day out that open access is not the solution for every community, nor should it be. I think as we get the states connected, it's going to be a variety of different models. But my personal point of view is

Let the communities decide what is best for their residents. Don't, let's not force models. Let's not say open access is good for everybody or single access. Let the communities decide in what's best for them. Cause it's a local choice issue. Right. Right. So I know we spoke a little bit about your company culture at Utopia and your retention rate. So describe what's great about your company culture and why people stay. I mean, what you said you have a very high retention rate, right?

We do. And I don't know what the percentage is, but I know that personally I have, four managers underneath me and the person who's been here the shortest amount of time has been six years. And I, I, I equate it to this. I left for about an eight month period. back in 2014, my boss, Roger Timmerman, the CEO left for a couple of years. so our CTO, I left for a couple of years and we've all come back and I say to say a company.

that has had that many people leave. And I think in total, it was like eight that we've had leave and come back is a testament to what we do here at Utopia. And it's, we believe it's a cause. It's not a job. When I look at the Slack or whatever the communication is, and I see the firing up of the people and they're angry or they're frustrated, they wouldn't be frustrated if they didn't care about the company deeply.

Because people just let it go by if they didn't care. And that's what I see day in, day out. And we laugh here. I've been up front and I've seen somebody in one of those blow up dinosaur costumes. We make jokes. We don't take ourselves too seriously. I always say that we're a big dysfunctional family here at Team Utopia. Some days we want to kill each other and some days we all want to sing kumbaya in a circle together.

It's a unique culture that I don't think that many companies have anymore because it's become so corporate and we still have fun. We have a job to do and we get it done every day of the week. But what I tell my staff all the time, first of all, your family comes first, always, never think otherwise. And make sure you laugh and enjoy this place and don't get caught up in numbers. I think that that's where the corporate world is really

losing some of the, some people is because you feel like you're a number or this, this, you need this metric instead of seeing the humanity behind it. So I say, it's not even just with the customers that we see. I want to see everybody internally. So I travel a lot. If you've seen me everywhere, I do travel a lot, but every, when I'm in town on every Friday, I meet with my entire team. That's not just the managers, that's customer service who gets to get off the phone and for an hour and they get to ask any questions.

cause I want them to always know that they matter because I can't do what they do. And I want them to understand that they get access to everybody on the executive team and that they're not just sitting there and that we don't care because I understand that they're the, they're the faces of this brand to the consumer and they're just as important as anybody else. You are so, so right. Is your whole team on site on premise or do you have remote employees as well?

They, I mean, it's a hybrid approach, but everybody lives in Utah. But yeah, we, I always give that my managers the freedom if they want to make their reps come in or not. Cause I have order fulfillment, customer service sales and marketing underneath me. So I give the, I give the choice to the managers. I want to empower them to make the right choices. And you know, it's worked really beautifully for us that we don't have any stringent requirements.

but yesterday I had an employee who called me and said, Hey, I'm on the way into the office and we've got an emergency. So it wasn't, Hey, I'm staying home. I'll address this tomorrow. It's Hey, I'm coming in right now at 4pm because we need to address this. And I think if you build it correctly, you build that culture of people are willing to do what they have to do to, make the, make sure the job gets done. Yes. Yes. So Kim, as, as a woman, as a female leader in telecom, you know, we know that

you know, we still need more female leaders in telecom. What are your thoughts on how companies can better attract, retain, you know, engage and retain women in telecom? I think it's, you know, telecom is a relatively, we say it's a relatively new industry and I think it is. And I think you will see women rise up. I think some of the flaws that I've seen with women is that they forget that they have a perspective and they try to fit in.

to the status quo of what telecom has been. Right. And I think it's attracting just people with open minds and different ideas is what's going to bring women into telecom. I worked for Roger Timmerman and he, he's always been the one who's promoted and said, he said this to me and I will never forget this. I was doing a women in telecom panel once and he got really mad. And I was like, why are you mad about this?

And he said, because Kim, you shouldn't be on that stage because you're a woman. You should be on that stage because you understand telecom. Right. And I was like, that resonated with me because I had a, a boss who really promoted like, you know, this stuff, you were good enough to go on that stage. Even if you don't know the backend engineering, you know, a lot. So I think having those men in role and in power positions who can, who can raise other women up and.

help them see that it's not just a tech industry. There's so much more to this industry than that. So I think you're gonna see them. I'm seeing more and more every day. And I just always want them to believe, women out there, is that you can, you don't have to wear a specific thing. You don't have to say a specific thing. You can be yourself and have your unique points of view. And you're just as important as anyone else.

And Carrie, I'll tell you this story, and this is one of the most powerful stories I think I've ever... I repeat this story all the time to my staff. Is that the first time years ago, six years ago, was the first time I ever stepped on a stage. And it was because my boss had Hamilton tickets. So he was supposed to speak and then he sent me and I was like, you've got to be kidding me. And I went to my therapist's office and I said, therapist, I am not good on stage. I don't wear suits. I wear jeans. I say the wrong thing all the time.

How am I going to do this? And he said, the most important thing anybody said to me probably in the last 10 years, and that's what will make you powerful because people want to see themselves on that stage. They don't want to see the perfect person with the perfect presentation and the perfect everything because they don't, it doesn't, they don't resonate with that person. They resonate with the person who's real, who's saying what they think. And I was like, wow. And I think that's where I like to say to women is

Say what you think. Be bold. Be whoever you are and be authentic and that will take you in power positions that nobody even considers. Wow. We need to rewind that and play it over and over again. And that was powerful for all of us to hear. And that's something when I saw you speak, I noticed all of that, right? I thought, wow, look at, you know, she's confident. She knows what she's talking about.

And she's just, I love authenticity and you were just so authentically you. And what are your thoughts? Because I have strong thoughts on, you know, people, not just women, but people getting on stages and panels. And, you know, I think there's so many opportunities in our industry to do that. And, you know, what do you do when you're, you know, it's just not you. I have so many people tell me, you know, it's just not me. I just don't speak. I don't get up there.

You know, how do you overcome that? I think you just go up and this is how you go up and address your fears. And I do this every day. If something scares me that I know I need to do it. If I'm scared of doing it, like if I'm trying to avoid it or I'm trying to do something, I always look internally and say, why do I have this fear? Why do I not think I'm good enough to be on that stage? And then you kind of address it in that way. And if you address the fears of why do I not think this?

that I think you can address the real anxiety that comes behind being on stage. But my biggest thing is I think that people get up there and they're afraid they're gonna get judged. And they're gonna get judged and I'm like, no you're not. We're all people. And if they judge you, who cares? I get judged all the time. I've been told all the time, you should be this or you should be that. I can tell you that at a certain point, if you keep putting yourself in that situation, you don't care.

You keep going and just believe. I tell my friends this. I tell my staff this. Believe in yourself and you are good enough to do anything that you put your mind to. And I think if we all promote that, then people, first of all, we'd probably be a little bit happier and people would understand that the sky is limitless. When I got into this field, I never, I was thinking this years ago, I would have never thought.

that I would be, I'm the vice chair of the Fiber Broadband Association. I'm a board member of the American Association for Public Broadband. I'm on stage all the time. And I never thought in a million years that I would be able to do that even probably five years ago. But if you believe in yourself and you have people around you who support you, there is no glass ceiling. You can really make it happen. And there's a lot of powerful women who've come before me that

I am in awe of you have the Heather Golds, the Joanne Hovis you know, the Katie Espeseth - I always mess up her name from EPB in Chattanooga, Katie from Chattanooga. You have a lot of these women who forged a path for all of us. And I think that that's a really powerful thing to look at the people who come before you and make friends with them. There's so many friendly people in this industry. I always say, come up to me, come up to anybody in this industry and introduce yourself.

because you never know where that relationship will ever take you. So, so true. I have one more question, Kim. Yeah. And that's about leadership because we talked a lot today about, you know, a little bit about leadership and your style and your team. And so what, what principles guide you when it comes to leadership and, you know, what do you, what do you feel really makes a great leader? I think is listening. I say,

Lead with compassion to all my team members because and lead with understanding. Compassion and understanding, I think is a great leadership quality. Understand when somebody makes a mistake that everybody makes mistakes. Never punish somebody in front of people. If you want to have a conversation, I always say, if I'm having a situation with one of my team members, I'll sit them down and I go, what's happening? I'm not assuming.

that you're being bad for the sake of being bad, but I want to know what's happening in your life to cause this because I know better. So just not assume. I think a lot of people assume that everybody's out there and they're trying to cut their throats or slash their throats to get ahead. There's a lot of people who are not. And if you that's, it's, I think this Carrie, you're making me understand what I say all the time. It's just seeing your employees for who they are as humans and not as workhorses because we all have good days.

We all have bad days and we keep going. It's about not being perfect, but getting up every day and saying, what can I do better? One thing better today than I did yesterday. Like one of my team members wrote me yesterday and she goes, Kim, I just sent out an email with wrong information to all these people, all our providers. And I said, okay, just send out a follow -up email and say you made a mistake. Who cares? I'm not going to get up. We're not going to have a write -up because you made a simple mistake.

We all do it and we just have to be forgiving and see the people and say, okay, why did we make that? And there be anything that we put into place to correct it. Yeah. And, and give, and this is one thing my dad taught me as owning a business is give people the freedom to make mistakes. never micromanage them. First of all, I don't know how to do my job from order fulfillment, right. Or their job down in my order fulfillment team.

And I'm never going to make the policies of what they should do, the procedures of how they should do it. I always say, you're the ones who do this every day. You're the ones who have to see it. Why the heck am I the one who's going to make the procedures of how it's done? I'm going to give you the parameters, but how it gets done and how you're making that meal inside of it. I don't care. And that gives them ownership in that process of saying, I did this. And when you have ownership,

People best in more, they believe in the company more because they believe that they're making change in companies. What I see in big corporations and why no corporation would ever hire me or I probably would ever work for a really big corporation is that it's like micromanage that you don't have any freedom to make mistakes because so many lawyers or whatever are at stake. And here it's like, okay, well, I always say that there were decisions 10 years ago that yeah.

I hate to meet myself today for those decisions because I made them, but we, that was the information we had. That's what we did at the time, but it doesn't make like, why get mad about it? Let's just move on. We got too much crap. So I, it's like a little bit of a freedom. it's about being seen and it's holding them accountable at the end of the day of saying, did you reach this? Okay. You didn't. What can we do to get you there? And I, you know, Carrie, I'll say this. I mean, I have customer service reps.

They're under me and I think the one who's been here the shortest is two years. It's not about the pay people. I could work for a governmental agency. I can tell you that these people here do not stay for the pay because in the telecom field you can make double to triple what we're making as a governmental agency right now. And it's about if you see people and you give them the freedom, then retention will come in a different way. Because I've never moved for money and I don't think I ever will.

Because I think if you have the ability to make change it changes everything Hmm Wow mic drop if you have the ability to make change it changes everything Kim that this has just been fantastic What what's your website? How can we reach you utopia fiber? You know what my our website is www. utopia fiber .com you can always I will put this out there You can always reach me at my email which is k mckinley at utopia fiber .com

Follow me on LinkedIn, that's also a good way to get a hold of me. I try to be as accessible as I can because I know that this is a small industry and we have a lot of work to do in the next few years. So yeah, reach out. And if I don't know the person or if I can help you, I can definitely find the person who can. So I love this. Kim, thanks so much for coming on the show. This is just, I really, really love this conversation.

I'm, it's been great. It's been great to be here and, and, you know, invite me back anytime. And I hope to see you around Carrie. You will definitely. All right. Take care.