911: Innovative tools and strategies to serve DIFFERENT and unique skillsets for BETTER BUSINESS w/ Rebecca Prejean

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and I am so excited about today's guest because she is super passionate and talented about all the things that she does, and I really think that viewing the world through her lens and hearing her brilliance here in today's episode is gonna challenge the way that all of us view, the way that we show up in service to others, in the way that we present ourselves online in person, the way that we present the products and services that we have and how we can help others, because service is so at the root of today's guest's business.

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So let me tell you all about today's guest.

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Her name is Rebecca Prejean.

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Rebecca is the CEO and founder of EB Graphics and Consulting, specializing in instructional design, multimedia production and accessibility-focused learning experiences.

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With a decade of expertise, rebecca has become a leading advocate for inclusivity and accessibility in corporate environments, particularly focusing on creating supportive spaces for neurodivergent employees with autism, adhd and dyslexia.

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Her passion for driving positive change in the learning and development industry has led to her working with Fortune 500 companies.

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I think it's so incredible the scale of her impact where she applies her skills to craft immersive and inclusive learning experiences for diverse audiences.

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As a thought leader in accessibility-focused learning, rebecca is dedicated to empowering individuals through innovative and inclusive educational practices.

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We're all gonna learn a lot.

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Like I said, I think seeing the world through Rebecca's lens is gonna challenge us to re-examine the way that we show up in the world, so I'm not gonna say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Rebecca Prejean.

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All right, rebecca, I am so excited that you're here with us.

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First things first.

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Welcome to the show.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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I'm excited to be here, heck, yeah.

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So we are honestly so excited to have you.

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In almost 900 episodes or I think we're past 900 by the time this airs You're the first guest to talk about this type of stuff, and it's incredibly important work, rebecca.

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So take us beyond the bio.

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How'd you start doing all these amazing things?

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In all honesty, I became a mom and my son he is now eight he will be eight next month but when he was initially born we knew that he was different and as he continued to grow, some of the milestones weren't being met and we eventually found out he had autism.

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He was around three or four at the time and through his challenges, through us trying to find support for him, trying to go through support through the school system, me trying to find support through my employers to allow me a little bit more flexibility just all of these obstacles and all of these barriers really started to get me thinking about the job I was doing At the time.

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I was in learning and development.

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I was a trainer, so I was training hundreds of people on a yearly basis at my job and some people were having difficulty and for us at that company we didn't really think anything of it.

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We just thought maybe this wasn't a good fit, maybe they didn't have the capacity to do the things we were asking them to do.

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We were truly thinking it was just something wrong with the employee.

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But after seeing everything that my son was going through and seeing our journey and our experience, it really started to put the pieces together that no, these are more than likely people who might think differently.

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They might have cognitive differences, they may need support that we are not providing them, and through a series of events, including a layoff, I eventually just decided well, I'm going to put what I know needs to be out there out there.

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And so it led me into what I'm doing today.

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I absolutely love it.

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It has its challenges, I'm sure, as everybody can imagine, but in reality, our main goal is to make sure that everybody is supported at work.

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That benefits the employees, it benefits businesses.

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It's just been a great time.

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I love it illustration about entrepreneurs are the change agents you saw through your own child and then also through your own professional career and experiences.

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You saw a real need in the marketplace and you didn't just observe it and say I wish that wasn't there.

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You are part of the solution.

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Talk to us about actually starting your business and being that change agent.

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For me, starting my business was a huge choice, but it was almost a forced choice.

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There was a layoff and it was right around Christmas, and so I had taken some smaller freelance jobs.

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I had done that for a while and I truly just decided this isn't enough for me.

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I'm not able to do the things I want to do.

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I'm not able to spend the time I want to spend on projects and give them, you know, the treatment that they deserve and make sure that everybody needs them, and I made a very, very conscious decision to focus on the things that I was passionate about.

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It was not easy I mean, we don't have a ton of money sitting around for folks to just, you know, start their own business.

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But I have a different mindset in terms of if it's really worth doing.

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It's worth me taking the time, it's worth me taking the knocks and taking the hits and building what should be out there, and that is a continuous process.

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Starting a business is not something that is easy is what I will tell a lot of people, and I feel like some folks come in and they think it's going to be easy and it's just not.

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So you really have to be prepared.

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Yeah, I really love the way that you say that and that you articulate it for people, because I think it's a reminder that we all need.

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And, rebecca, spoiler alert from both you and I for all of our listeners today is that it doesn't get easier.

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It's just that we get stronger, we get more experience.

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So I think it's really important to call that out and I appreciate you giving us that reality here on the air today.

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But I'm going to call this out because what I really love and appreciate about your work and your business is how much you are solely driven by the people that you serve and you say it so succinctly neurodivergent employees, and that encompasses a lot of different things.

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Maybe people have heard that term before, rebecca, but they're not familiar with neurodivergence.

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Talk to us about that and how that really guides the people that you serve with your business.

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Yeah, and that is actually a great topic and a great question.

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A lot of people hear these things and, through no fault of their own, they don't really understand what that encompasses.

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So, to kind of put it in simplistic terms, we're talking about people who think differently, their brains function differently, and that could be a range of things.

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You're talking about things like autism, things like ADHD.

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There's lesser known neurodivergency, such as dyscalculia, dysgraphia, things that make numbers a little bit harder for people, things that may make handwriting more complicated, may make color a little bit more intense for them, for example, autism.

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We hear a lot about social interactions and how a lot of them are uncomfortable with social interactions.

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Sometimes it's hard for them to pick up on social cues.

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Sometimes they have like a savant quality where they are super, super smart, super, super quick, really innovative, really driven.

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It's really all of these different things and, in a nutshell, it's just they think differently, they see the world differently, and the beauty of that, for businesses in particular, is that these are the innovators.

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We don't always think of it that way because we're like, well, that's a disability.

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Autism is considered a disability, adhd is considered a disability, all of these things, but in reality it is helps drive a lot of innovation, a lot of creative thinking, and in the world that we're in today, it's really really useful.

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Yeah, rebecca, I'm so glad you articulated it the way that you did.

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I think hearing you talk about this stuff it really puts it into perspective.

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You said it so simply there.

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These are the innovators, and that's why I look towards what I mean huge enterprises like Google.

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I'm going to call Google out for a quick example, and an analogy is that I read an article it was probably two years ago now where they said we don't like hiring the same college graduates because they all think the same.

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They think inside of a box, and as someone who went through four years of business school, I often question what were we taught?

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When it comes to thinking differently, we all think the same way that inside the classroom, and so here we are talking about a subset of people which a lot of us entrepreneurs fall into.

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So many of these different categories, a lot of our guests when I interact with them, they say yeah, I have severe ADHD.

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And, rebecca, hearing you talk about this, you reframe it very importantly to talk about it becoming a superpower.

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Talk to us about how to bring that out, because I feel like, societally, you're right.

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The narrative uses different types of verbiage and phrasing, but I think we need to get away from that.

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We really do.

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We sometimes think of it as those folks being lesser than, and it's really not that.

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For businesses in particular, it's about creating a safe space.

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Businesses in particular, it's about creating a safe space.

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At the end of the day, it is about investing in not just change, so to speak, not just random changes, but really pointed, correct changes to get folks what they need.

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So that could be training for your entire company about neurodivergency and kind of reducing some stigmatization and bias around that.

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You know that kind of group of people.

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It could also mean investing a little bit in terms of revamping or retrofitting your trainings.

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So for e-learnings in particular, which is something that I specialize in a lot, sometimes our old school versions of trainings don't really work.

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Sometimes a lot of businesses will have just videos of people talking at the screen.

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Those videos won't have closed captions, those videos won't have transcripts.

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Just very basic, simple things can help folks that are neurodivergent.

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Just having the ability to read a transcript so that they can go back and revisit information and reprocess it and reframe it in a way that works for them is one simple action that businesses can take.

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Again, closed captioning, something that nowadays, with AI, you can generate in a matter of moments is another quick fix.

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Alt text on images that just describe what is on a website, for example, is another easy kind of thing that businesses can do, and these are things that generally don't cost a lot or they cost nothing.

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A lot of the accommodations that are out there right now a lot of them are free and the majority of them don't cost like thousands of dollars, and the majority of them don't cost like thousands of dollars.

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It's about making those right choices and making those right decisions for businesses to bring these gifts out of people and reframing our mindset from disability to different abilities, because they're amazing, amazing resources for companies today.

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Yeah, really well said, Rebecca, what I'm hearing as well.

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As you know, I'm 16 years into my entrepreneurial journey and hearing you talk about these things, I'm like this isn't just good business practice for neurodivergent team members or for people inside of our audience or client bases.

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This is just good business overall Because for me, for example I'm someone who learns visually If you task me and I love that, you've already called out traditional corporate trainings If you task me to sit there all day long and watch a video of someone talking at me, I'm not going to consume much of it, Whereas if I can skim through and I can process on my own accord, I'm going to take home a lot more of that information, because we all learn differently.

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And so, Rebecca, I really want to.

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There's two places I want to make sure we go on in today's conversation, First of which is really embracing this different skill set.

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I love how you said that this different skill set into the way that we grow our businesses and build out our teams.

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And then, secondly, how do we actually serve those people so that they are valued?

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So let's talk about having a diverse and different skillset team.

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What is it about bringing those people onto our teams and into our businesses that we can all do better to not only welcome them but really to foster success and growth for everybody in these innovative ways.

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Well, brian, there's a lot of different answers for that, but if I had to center on maybe one core thing that businesses really have to start doing, it is committing to an onboarding strategy that is uniformed, that is thought out and that is planned.

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So many times when you go into companies even bigger companies that I've worked with the onboarding is not really solid.

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It can vary by department, it can vary sometimes by manager, it can vary by role, and what ends up happening is you have, of course, problems with continuity of information, you have problems with disseminating information, policies, procedures and really identifying what roles and responsibilities somebody may have.

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So I would say one of the first things is to actually create an onboarding structure that is planned, that has very specific touch points.

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That's a very specific process and even before the person starts reaching out to them proactively and this isn't just for neurodivergent people, this is for people in general reach out to them proactively, welcome them to the business, which is great, but then also ask do you have any accommodations that you need?

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You know kind of how can we help, support you at the very beginning, and that actually creates a whole different thought process for that employee, where they are thinking it's not just about, oh, me starting this job, it's me starting this job, but then wanting to really support me and wanting me to be successful, and that actually creates a bond, a mental bond with that employer, because it's like, oh, you do care if I'm successful, and that actually creates a bond, a mental bond with that employer, because it's like, oh, you do care if I'm successful.

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And in some ways, when you think about it, businesses have to start thinking this way.

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We are in an economy where things aren't always as clear cut as they used to be, things aren't as simple as they used to be, and so you need to make sure that everybody has what they need at the beginning.

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So I would absolutely say that revisiting, onboarding, new hire, training and even leadership development are areas where folks need to really start considering bringing more of that diverse feel and that diverse thought process to the table managers, on not just what neurodivergency is, but how to actually interact with their employees in a more universal way, so that people don't have to disclose you know that personal information, because, in truth, about 65%, I believe, of neurodivergent employees are scared of actually disclosing that information.

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So you need to make it comfortable and easy for them not to disclose it.

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But to do that it does require process, it does require procedure and it does require training for management, leadership development.

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Everybody talks about it, but there's a way to build into that a nice pillar of neurodivergent friendly support.

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Yeah, rebecca, I can really see here in our episode together today how carefully and thoughtfully you navigate these waters and you consider the needs of really individuals and I'm going to call out big business here and I love the fact that your vantage point you work with big businesses, but you're also one of us, you're also a small business owner and so, with that in mind, a lot of people might be saying well, rebecca, it's easier for big businesses to have these resources and to dedicate human resources to actually making this stuff happen, but this is hard for us small business owners, which is true, and we're going to go there listeners.

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But, rebecca, I'm going to call out that even big businesses maybe especially big businesses get this wrong.

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I was an economics finance major.

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I grew up in Boston, and so when you're in that setting, everybody wants you to work for these big financial firms.

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Boston is littered with these types of companies and insurance companies, but as a college kid, as a teenager, I saw so much of their corporate culture was kind of I'm going to call it like bro cultures that they always had these happy hour events and I was someone who never fit in in those social settings and I didn't want to partake in those, so it pushed me on a different path.

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I never even viewed it as a viable option for myself.

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Talk to us about that balance between big business executing on this and also how accessible and really we have some superpowers from a small business perspective to set ourselves and our teams up for success.

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And I love what you just called out, brian.

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I mean, the reality of the situation is, big businesses do get it wrong.

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Some big businesses I've worked with that are real major names.

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When I come to them they say, yeah, we've never had any training with closed captioning, any video with closed captioning, we've never had any kind of accessible training.

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And these are people that have been in business for 70 years, 50 years, like really major household names, and so it's important for people to understand that, honestly, it's okay to get it wrong when you first start off.

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We don't expect babies to get walking right on the first try.

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We don't expect them to get talking right on the first try or even the second or the third.

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It's about starting somewhere.

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And so, speaking especially to small businesses, I am a small business owner.

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I don't have a ton of resources.

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I don't have a ton of, you know, the capital to do a lot of the things at the first.

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You know crack at it.

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But it's about starting somewhere, and that is really what I want to emphasize.

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It's not about having this huge plan that has to span like a year or two years or three years or anything like that.

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It really is starting somewhere small and then working, in some cases having to work kind of from where you are and then working forward.

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Some people are like, well, we kind of want to retrofit, and that's fine.

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Sometimes that is easier for larger businesses because it does take time.

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People who come to me in particular, if they want to retrofit, that is a large planning activity, depending on the amount of training, the amount of videos and things of that sort, and that does cost, you know, a significant amount of money.

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But to get started anywhere is the purpose.

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So maybe it's like well, we haven't been doing it and we want to get started.

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Great, add in some closed captioning, which usually does not require a ton of extra effort for your learning and development teams.

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And, to be honest with you, your learning and development teams or HR teams, they want to do these things.

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They know that your employees need these things, so they are going to be interested in helping, interested in innovating and interested in creating.

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You know these pillars.

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As business people.

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What we have to kind of stop thinking is everything has to take a ton of time, or everything has to take a ton of time or everything has to take a ton of money, because that's not really the case.

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As I mentioned earlier, a lot of accommodations that people need are free, and a lot of them maybe cost about $500, things like that.

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There are ways, free ways, low cost ways to check training, to check videos for accessibility, to check your website for accessibility.

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There are websites that will let you do a free accessibility audit just kind of a good overview to get started.

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There are free ways to do this.

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And in terms of manpower if that is ever a concern which I can understand why it would be, you know, as a business owner, we have to start thinking of this as succinctly as we do training, learning and development, performance management.

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It has to become a staple and a pillar and once it becomes that, then it becomes much easier to find the people and the resources in the time.

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So it's about building it in yeah, rebecca, hearing you talk about this stuff I've said it before and I'm going to say it again it just sounds like good business.

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The more you talk about these things, the more I think of wow, this would make any businesses marketing better sales process, better client onboarding We've talked about team onboarding, but also client onboarding.

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How many of our clients have these types of things?

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And I think about this because, again, I'm a New Englander and I talk fast, and if you're on a Zoom call with me, I'm going to go over 500 different things in one 10 minute span.

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But the truth is, not everybody learns that way.

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It's why you keep calling out how accessible these tools are to us.

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I've started using readai, for example, as my virtual note taker.

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So, after meetings with people, because I cover and I get alerts from readai that say you talk too fast, and so I share the transcript with everyone who I'm on meetings with and I say, hey, here's the notes as well as a full transcript from our meeting today Let me know if there's things that you want to go over or things that we can clarify, and I think that that's so important.

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And again, it comes back to having good business, which, rebecca, for people who may not take the challenge from today's episode, I want to go deeper into the way we show up publicly, cause you've talked about a website as an example and I love it's right there EB graphics and consulting.

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It's in the name of your business.

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The graphics part of it I love because, having gone through your work, you're a big believer in even the way that we present.

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You call it purposeful design, even the way we present ourselves publicly.

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We have opportunities there to be more accessible to more people.

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Talk to us about some of those public facing opportunities public-facing opportunities.

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Public-facing opportunities as a business, a website is always key, and one statistic I want to mention is over 90% of websites are not actually accessible and really what that does to your business is it cripples you at the gate.

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To be honest with you, most of your people believe it or not, the people who are coming to your website, whether they Most of your people believe it or not, the people who are coming to your website, whether they probably proclaim it or not, a lot of people have disabilities.

00:22:38.175 --> 00:22:42.663
You usually have about 15 to 20 percent of the global population is actually considered neurodivergent in the US.

00:22:42.663 --> 00:22:44.651
So I want you to think about it from that perspective.

00:22:44.651 --> 00:22:49.566
That's almost a quarter of the market that has just neurodivergent differences.

00:22:49.566 --> 00:22:55.807
That doesn't include any kind of visual impairment, hearing impairment, things of that sort.

00:22:55.846 --> 00:22:58.997
So accessibility, and websites especially, is important.

00:22:58.997 --> 00:23:08.786
So making sure that your fonts aren't too small and, as somebody who does multimedia, design, videos and graphics, I love everything fancy.

00:23:08.786 --> 00:23:12.313
If there's a gradient, if there's anything, I love to make it.

00:23:12.313 --> 00:23:15.403
Everything fancy If there's a gradient, if there's anything, I love to make it.

00:23:15.403 --> 00:23:20.866
But we have to also be very measured in that and that honestly requires a lot more creativity because you can't rely on the flash so much.

00:23:20.866 --> 00:23:35.207
You have to really actually have some substance, but making sure that you don't have text over an image without some kind of overlay in the back, and that overlay in the back has to actually be fairly dark so that there's color contrast.

00:23:35.207 --> 00:23:43.832
You also need to make sure that you have alt text in your images, which will help you from an SEO perspective.

00:23:43.832 --> 00:23:51.897
Google crawlers actually look at alt text so that can put you higher on the rankings, higher on the list, help more people find you Other things.

00:23:51.835 --> 00:23:52.933
Of course people have videos that are on the website.

00:23:52.933 --> 00:23:53.318
More people find you other things.

00:23:53.318 --> 00:23:54.545
Of course people have videos that are on the website.

00:23:54.545 --> 00:24:00.242
I can't preach it enough closed captioning, transcripts, making sure that the reading order is logical.

00:24:00.242 --> 00:24:10.299
You can also use a bunch of different free screen reader tests so folks who may be using a screen reader for one reason or another, you can actually go through your website.

00:24:10.299 --> 00:24:32.393
There's a lot of different ways to do this, but I want people to understand that, as Brian mentioned, the public-facing challenge is a real challenge, not just from people going to your website, buying your product, interacting and engaging with your website, but also protecting us as businesses from legal ramifications.

00:24:32.393 --> 00:24:42.434
I mean, that is a real part of this world as well, with ADA regulations, wcag regulations, guidelines, all of these things.

00:24:42.434 --> 00:24:49.763
We have to be more mindful of what we're doing on a public-facing basis as businesses, especially in the world of social media.

00:24:50.605 --> 00:24:52.750
Yeah, really well said, rebecca.

00:24:52.750 --> 00:25:11.887
I love hearing the way that you think about business, because it really does come with so much care and thought and intention that's really the word the more that I hear you talk about your thoughts and we're going to talk about your LinkedIn at the end of today's episode because I love how much value you continue to put out there in so many different channels and avenues, public facing, for all of us to consume.

00:25:11.887 --> 00:25:24.726
But before we get there, I do want to talk about that second part of what I raised, which is cultivating that inclusive team culture, because welcoming someone onto our team, onboarding them in the ways that you shared with us already, those are important.

00:25:24.726 --> 00:25:25.488
But what I find?

00:25:25.488 --> 00:25:29.344
That a lot of companies drop the ball, ourselves included as small business owners.

00:25:29.344 --> 00:25:29.903
Let's face it.

00:25:29.923 --> 00:25:47.828
You've already revealed and highlighted the important truth that we have more limited resources than a big business, but still we have that ability maybe actually even more of an opportunity to be more hands-on in cultivating that inclusive environment because we have smaller, more tight-knit teams.

00:25:47.828 --> 00:25:59.564
With that in mind, what are some of those ways that companies both big and small, small can get better at fostering that inclusivity and bringing out the best in all of our different skill sets Because I think about.

00:25:59.564 --> 00:26:02.511
I hope long gone are the days Rebecca, you're closer to this than I am.

00:26:02.511 --> 00:26:09.594
I hope long gone are the days of happy hour being a corporate culture creating activity.

00:26:09.594 --> 00:26:14.603
I hope that there are better ways that big companies are doing it today, so shed some light onto that for us.

00:26:16.145 --> 00:26:30.961
Well, happy hours are definitely still alive and well and I mean a lot of things are still alive and well and I don't know if they're ever necessarily going away, especially when we start talking about startup cultures and things of that sort.

00:26:30.961 --> 00:26:34.644
I will be honest, for me those things never really worked.

00:26:34.644 --> 00:26:45.073
Those settings never worked for me In terms of making people feel really comfortable, kind of bringing them into the fold, bringing them into the culture.

00:26:45.073 --> 00:27:05.012
It's really about taking those moments to get to know people, not necessarily outside of the job, because a job is a job and I am a firm believer in that but making them understand that you care about them as people at the job rather than them just as kind of a place filler for a role.

00:27:05.012 --> 00:27:12.733
And one place that I will say I believe is poignant is performance management and one on ones and feedback discussions.

00:27:12.733 --> 00:27:19.223
Those are the real places to create those connections with your team members, and that can be done in big business and small business.

00:27:19.765 --> 00:27:25.325
When you are having a feedback session with an employee, it should never be all about discipline.

00:27:25.325 --> 00:27:29.854
Honestly, that makes a lot of neurodivergent people panic.

00:27:29.854 --> 00:27:43.314
I myself am not neurodivergent, but it even makes me panic If the only time I hear from you is disciplinary in nature and then I get an email from you and it may be one time where it's not disciplinary.

00:27:43.314 --> 00:28:11.125
It makes it very hard to function in those spaces and when you're in that performance management moment, giving very clear feedback, giving very clear touch points about where to go, what to do, giving people like an actual plan and I do firmly believe in transcripts I use Otter AI for my note taking for meetings because I need a transcript so I can go back over and look at things.

00:28:11.125 --> 00:28:38.395
So if you're actually talking about bringing people like finding the self and focusing on the self of the team members that we have, I would absolutely say that it's about taking those moments, those performance management moments, and not making it a well, you're doing all of these horrible things and you need to do all of these, these changes, to get to where you want to go in a kind of disciplinary way.

00:28:38.395 --> 00:28:41.829
It's about making sure that they know you are there for support.

00:28:41.829 --> 00:28:49.849
You are there to support them, asking them what they need to be supported and then working together collaboratively to find that solution.

00:28:50.059 --> 00:29:05.153
I think a lot of businesses, in particular the ones that I've interacted with, feel like, well, we are battling a culture that is out there right now where people just think if we give them an accommodation, it's a reason not to work.

00:29:05.153 --> 00:29:06.819
We want to hold people accountable.

00:29:06.819 --> 00:29:14.843
We want to do all these things and as a business owner, I get it, because part of business is having accountability, it's getting a job done.

00:29:14.843 --> 00:29:15.845
That is what business is.

00:29:15.845 --> 00:29:16.826
That is what work is.

00:29:16.826 --> 00:29:48.134
But to really make sure that you have that, that you get that result, as a business owner, you have to address this, because if people don't have a clear path and a clear idea and good feedback that is concise and supportive, there's no way that you're going to be able to hold somebody accountable, because their thinking is different, which is fine, but they don't maybe understand exactly how to get there, they don't understand all of the feedback or they haven't had a chance to process that.

00:29:48.194 --> 00:30:10.895
So it really is a collaborative moment for businesses, gosh, rebecca, I'm going to call collaborative moment for businesses as entrepreneurs, as people who serve others.

00:30:10.895 --> 00:30:13.597
We've touched on, rebecca, just in today's conversation.

00:30:13.597 --> 00:30:19.509
You've gone from talking about graphics to website, to communication styles, to employee onboarding.

00:30:19.509 --> 00:30:27.023
It really touches all different facets of our businesses and I really love the way that you illuminate how it's just.

00:30:27.023 --> 00:30:39.464
It's better for everybody, it brings everybody a better chance to succeed, and I'm gonna keep stressing when I say everybody, I don't just mean our teams, I also mean the people that we work with and that we serve as customers, as clients.

00:30:39.464 --> 00:30:42.231
It really creates that environment for everyone to succeed.

00:30:42.380 --> 00:30:56.894
So, rebecca, as we wrap up today's episode I don't want to jump to my last question just yet I want to squeeze one more thing out of you, because it's so clear that, just like me, you love tools that make everybody's lives better, and so you and I have called out quite a few here today.

00:30:56.894 --> 00:30:58.544
We've talked about our AI note takers.

00:30:58.544 --> 00:31:02.506
I'm so glad that you're also on board with all of those, and I'm going to call this out.

00:31:02.506 --> 00:31:08.002
Is that in the podcasting world, so many podcasting platforms are starting to provide transcripts.

00:31:08.002 --> 00:31:13.432
So, listeners, if you go to the wantrepreneurshowcom, you'll find transcripts of all of our episodes.

00:31:13.432 --> 00:31:20.205
Apple, in and of itself, is starting to transcribe every single podcast episode if you listen through their app.

00:31:20.205 --> 00:31:23.923
So a lot of good work being done but, rebecca, a lot more work to do.

00:31:23.923 --> 00:31:25.708
What sort of tools are out there?

00:31:25.708 --> 00:31:31.846
Drop some of your favorite ones, whether they're internal for us to use with our own teams or the public facing stuff.

00:31:31.846 --> 00:31:35.212
You've talked about some auditing tools that we can use for our websites.

00:31:35.212 --> 00:31:36.214
What are a few of those?

00:31:37.421 --> 00:31:39.729
I'll give you a couple.

00:31:39.729 --> 00:31:41.787
I'll give you maybe a couple here.

00:31:41.787 --> 00:31:58.771
One in particular that I like for color contrast, believe it or not, is going to be who can use dot com, and when you go to it, it really just shows you what your different color contrast, what different things, will look like in the eyes of different people.

00:31:58.771 --> 00:32:04.332
So people who maybe have different visual disabilities, things like that.

00:32:04.332 --> 00:32:05.461
I love that personally.

00:32:07.064 --> 00:32:11.131
Some people will ask me a little bit about AccessiBe, which is an overlay.

00:32:11.131 --> 00:32:22.917
I have my own personal opinions about overlays, but if it's something that you're like, I just need something in the moment and we can build in that is actually a really good option as well.

00:32:22.917 --> 00:32:30.671
What that will do is people who click on it and they will be able to see some differences in font and things of that nature.

00:32:30.671 --> 00:32:37.441
Things like NVIDIA for screen reading is also a very good one.

00:32:37.441 --> 00:32:50.550
I don't want to go too far into it because I actually have a resource I'm gonna give everybody after this with some really just easy, simple tools to use.

00:32:50.550 --> 00:33:01.384
That will be, you know, that are mostly free and low cost, because, even though I am a consultant, it's about making sure that people have access at the end of the day.

00:33:01.866 --> 00:33:02.690
Yes, I love that.

00:33:02.690 --> 00:33:07.352
Listeners, we're about to drop that link in just a second because Rebecca has so many resources.

00:33:07.352 --> 00:33:11.511
Truly, rebecca is the person of resources and accessibility.

00:33:11.511 --> 00:33:14.769
I already tooted her horn for the way she shows up on LinkedIn.

00:33:14.769 --> 00:33:16.165
We're going to get there in just one second.

00:33:16.165 --> 00:33:27.250
But, rebecca, my last question that we always wrap up these episodes with before we drop these goodies and these links, is what's your number one takeaway for listeners who tuned in today and they obviously want to move forward in their own businesses?

00:33:27.250 --> 00:33:29.703
We covered a lot of good stuff here today.

00:33:29.703 --> 00:33:34.973
What's the one thing that you hope everyone walks away from today's episode with and says you know what?

00:33:41.210 --> 00:33:42.817
Rebecca pushed me to finally think about, or do this.

00:33:42.817 --> 00:33:53.476
The one key takeaway I want everybody to think about is that supporting your neurodivergent people is not speaking to a culture, a political view or anything like that.

00:33:53.476 --> 00:33:57.666
It is good business strategy and it is good business practice.

00:33:57.666 --> 00:33:59.271
These are the people.

00:33:59.271 --> 00:34:08.804
When you go and you look for new hires, you're always trying to find the new, latest and greatest thinker, the new innovator, the change maker.

00:34:08.804 --> 00:34:10.990
They are already in your businesses.

00:34:10.990 --> 00:34:18.052
They are just needing support to show you how much they can shine and to bring your business to the next level.

00:34:18.052 --> 00:34:25.134
Fun fact they actually believe Albert Einstein, isaac Newton people like that were neurodivergent.

00:34:25.134 --> 00:34:31.668
Obviously, they didn't have testing back in the day, but I want you to think of it, as you may have the next Albert Einstein already in your business.

00:34:31.668 --> 00:34:33.159
You may have the next Albert Einstein already in your business.

00:34:33.159 --> 00:34:39.608
You may have the next Sir Isaac Newton in your business, but you will never know it if you don't start building in support.

00:34:41.139 --> 00:34:53.561
Yes, rebecca, I'm going to publicly praise you here, not only for the amazing work that you do, but you have a really incredible ability to articulate it and simplify it in a way that allows us to take action.

00:34:53.561 --> 00:34:59.467
And, speaking of Albert Einstein, I've always loved his quote where he said if you want to impress somebody, make it complicated.

00:34:59.467 --> 00:35:01.603
If you want to help somebody, make it simple.

00:35:01.603 --> 00:35:10.927
And you so succinctly sum that up for us here today in a way that's super actionable for all of us and, I think, lays a really clear challenge for all of us to accept in our own businesses.

00:35:10.927 --> 00:35:19.304
So, with that in mind, you've got so many incredible resources to help us usher in those changes for ourselves, our teams and our audiences.

00:35:19.304 --> 00:35:21.309
So, rebecca, drop those links on us.

00:35:21.309 --> 00:35:22.751
Where should listeners go from here?

00:35:23.659 --> 00:35:26.005
People can find me primarily on my LinkedIn.

00:35:26.005 --> 00:35:32.012
I'm on there a lot actually, but if you type in my name, rebecca Prejean, I will come right up.

00:35:32.012 --> 00:35:35.865
You can also search my business there as well EB Graphics and Consulting.

00:35:35.865 --> 00:35:43.632
I post on almost a daily basis with strategies, information, things like that, so please feel free to reach out to me there.

00:35:43.632 --> 00:35:45.505
You can also find me via email.

00:35:45.505 --> 00:35:46.887
I'm very accessible there as well.

00:35:46.887 --> 00:35:59.956
So rebeccaprejean at ebgcnet, my website, wwwebgcnet, feel free to reach out through the contact form or, if you want to just kind of get some bi-weekly information.

00:35:59.956 --> 00:36:02.628
I also have a newsletter and you can sign up through my website as well.

00:36:03.311 --> 00:36:05.179
Yes, listeners, you already know the drill.

00:36:05.179 --> 00:36:12.710
We're making it as easy as possible for you to find those links that Rebecca just mentioned down below in the show notes, wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode.

00:36:12.710 --> 00:36:14.574
You don't have to memorize those links.

00:36:14.574 --> 00:36:19.630
You don't have to remember how to spell Rebecca's last name, which is Prejean Rebecca Prejean.

00:36:19.630 --> 00:36:24.659
You can find her on LinkedIn, but we're linking to all of those links down below in the show notes, so click right on through.

00:36:24.659 --> 00:36:30.489
Rebecca, on behalf of myself and all of our listeners worldwide, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

00:36:31.291 --> 00:36:35.947
No, thank you so much for having me and giving me an opportunity to talk all things neurodivergency.

00:36:36.561 --> 00:36:42.125
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:36:42.125 --> 00:36:46.108
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:36:46.108 --> 00:36:55.326
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:36:55.326 --> 00:37:04.103
There's a reason why we are ad-free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:37:04.164 --> 00:37:06.170
These are not sponsored episodes.

00:37:06.170 --> 00:37:07.777
These are not infomercials.

00:37:07.777 --> 00:37:11.246
Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

00:37:11.246 --> 00:37:22.193
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

00:37:22.193 --> 00:37:30.692
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:37:30.692 --> 00:37:32.043
We also have live chat.

00:37:32.043 --> 00:37:35.865
If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

00:37:35.865 --> 00:37:38.045
Initiate a live chat.

00:37:38.045 --> 00:37:47.467
It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always, every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.