Welcome back to the She’s Wild Podcast hosted by Nancy Surak! I’m so excited to have Danielle Atkins as our guest for today’s episode. Danielle is the owner of Land & Ladies, the first forestry consulting firm focused 100% on serving women landowners. In today's episode, Danielle and I talk about why she focused her firm on helping women landowners and how she leverages her social media strategy to educate her followers on forestry issues in a fun and exciting way.
Welcome back to the She’s Wild Podcast hosted by Nancy Surak! I’m so excited to have Danielle Atkins as our guest for today’s episode. Danielle is the owner of Land & Ladies, the first forestry consulting firm focused 100% on serving women landowners. In addition to offering forestry management plan development services, Land & Ladies host seminars and provides educational content in relatable, every-day terms, for women landowners who are looking to gain knowledge of various forest management and landownership aspects.
Danielle earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Forest Resources in Wildlife Sciences from UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and a Master’s of Forest Resources. Prior to Land & Ladies, she worked for the Georgia Forestry Commission and with the nationally awarded Sustainable Forestry and Land Retention Program. She has been working with women landowners, developing women-focused workshops since 2016. Danielle currently lives in Brunswick, Georgia with her husband and three children.
In today's episode Danielle and I talk about why she focused her firm on helping women landowners and how she leverages her social media strategy to educate her followers on forestry issues in a fun and exciting way.
Memorable Moments:
15:11- Sometimes I'll get, you know, some haters out there, which if you don't get haters, you're not doing something right.
19:52- Nine times out of ten, you probably do have the right plan. But how do you know unless you ask the right questions? And that's where I set them up.
22:53- People will spend two weeks researching the right toaster and then sell their trees to the first person that knocked on their door because they're in this emotional state, and so that's where I come through. And I'm like, here's how you ask the right questions, here are some red flags to look for.
25:32- I think I'm most proud that I'm able to show you can be a mom in work that type of career at the same time. The second thing I'm most proud of is, seeing these women take action onto their property, seeing women kind of light up afterwards, that really felt discouraged and didn't know how to go about it.
28:54- The worst thing you can do is be someone that works on the computer making business decisions and never having actually been in the field and understanding operations.
Connect with Nancy:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/nancysurak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancysurak/
Website: https://nancysurak.com/
Connect with Danielle:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/landandladies/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/landandladies/
Website: https://www.landandladies.com/
Danielle’s Podcast Recommendations:
The Jasmine Star Show: https://jasminestar.com/podcast/
Mind Your Business Podcast: https://www.mindyourbusinesspodcast.com/
The Ramsey Show: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9kYXZlcmFtc2V5LmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=0CAMQ4aUDahcKEwiY9Livuq74AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ&hl=en
She's WILD Sound Production by:
Luke Surak, Surak Productions: surakproductions@gmail.com
Nancy Surak 00:00
Welcome to She's Wild, the podcast for women in land and development. I'm your host, Nancy Surak. I created this podcast as a way to collect conversations of women in the land and development industry. I've been a land broker on the west coast of Florida for nearly 20 years. And I love to empower other women and to tell them about this amazing industry. But I find often that there just aren't enough women being featured on big stages, whether that's at local conferences, or nationally. So I set out to find these women myself, that are killing it in my business across North America that are changing the communities that they live in every single day, whether they're building condos, multifamily, single family, office, or industrial projects, I hope that you will find this space to be inspirational, motivating, and educational. From time to time, I will feature women who are not only in my business, but also career coaches, and motivational speakers. Hi, welcome to shoes, while the podcast for women in land and development. Today's guest is Danielle Atkins of Land And Ladies, Danielle, welcome to the show, I'm super pumped to have you here, because you represent a part of land that I haven't had on the podcast yet. So with that, I'm gonna let you go ahead and introduce yourself, tell us a little bit more about your background and what your company is.
Danielle Atkins 01:32
Thank you so much for having me on here, I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you, I really love getting your message. And I was like, Oh, someone else really wanted this name to how neat and interesting and honestly, I don't know much about your sector as well. So I'm really interested to hear and grateful to learn from you. But what we do is we focus on empowering women across the southeast who have recently inherited or fixin to inherit forest land on how to manage it. So historically, you know, women tend to outlive their spouses, their their dads, of course, usually, and as well as their husbands. And so when that happens, the land tends to kind of fall into their lap. And also historically, they tend to be less engaged in the management and the daily decisions of their forest lands. And so all of a sudden, they've received this amazing asset, but they have no idea what to do, where to go, how to ask the right questions, how to find trustworthy answers. So that's where we come in, we have a variety of courses, programs, you know, short little content, things. And a network where women can get together and really feel comfortable and empowered to actually manage the land, they are like, You know what, I can do this, sometimes they have never actually been engaged at all. And it's just a whole new world. And they're getting all of this volume of information. And now they are able to receive it and digest it a little bit more. What I don't know what the right word is, but just a little bit more easily where it's not quite as like, wham, in your face. And other times we have women that have been engaged in the property for a long time. But they just weren't really quite comfortable with what they were doing. And now they feel a lot more confident in the management decisions that they're making, are confident to say no, this is actually the direction we want to go. Because this lines better up with our vision. Yeah.
Nancy Surak 03:34
So what's your background? I think you studied forestry in college, correct?
Danielle Atkins 03:40
Yes. So I went to University of Georgia. And while I was there actually wanted to be a pharmacist, which was a terrible idea. Absolutely terrible. So I changed that right away. And I got my undergrad in wildlife sciences because I knew I wanted to do something in education. But I still wasn't quite as my professors would say, focused enough to really be successful in the wildlife field, you have to be very, very focused. But the last two years, I got really involved in Forestry Club and through that involvement, I learned a whole different world of opportunities and careers out there, and really fell in love with the tree side of everything. Because that's what really unites almost all the natural resource fields are trees, trees for Habitat trees, for even fish, you know, and creating that help of ecosystem trees in the urban development. You know, I'm sure as you know, like trees help raise real estate prices as well. I'm not an arborist though. I will say that but just this whole concept of like trees is where I belong. So then I pursued my Master's of forest resources, and got my formal degree in forestry and started my forestry career from there.
Nancy Surak 04:49
Yeah, so thank you for giving us the full background. You touched on the fact that I reached out to you because I said hey, you have this name of your company. Landed ladies I want By Boehm, for those listeners who've been following the podcast, I settled on she's wild because there was an acronym there of women and land and development. And I thought it was a fun play on words. But originally, my business coach was like you should do land and ladies. So I did a bunch of research. And I was like, I can't do that. There's this young forestry woman who's like killing it in Georgia, I can't, I can't go that direction. But I put you on my list of people of potential guests, because I was like, You know what, I deal with clients who have forestry plans, from time to time I saw land that is heading towards development. But it's not always at the development stage. Sometimes it might be three or five or seven years out, in between the time of acquisition to the time of development, they've got to do something with that property. Or I have a number of land families who are not quite ready to sell some of their properties. And they're engaged on the forestry side, just making sure that they're doing proper management of that asset. So I love that our businesses don't completely overlay, but that they are related. But what I love more is that you've figured out a way to create a business targeted to women. And, you know, I'm a huge proponent of of women in my space. But I've noticed in my own business in the last 10 years, I'm dealing with a lot more women landowners, who exactly like you said, either they have made that investment decision, or in many cases, they've now inherited the family's land or their husband's land. And they're trying to figure out what to do now with this asset. So I want you to tell me the story of I think you get started in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, with your business. Tell me that story. What made you decide that what was the right time to pull that trigger?
Danielle Atkins 06:55
So I am going to have to step back just a few more years. When I was working with the state. I was counting forester at first. And that's when I noticed that when women would show up and ask questions. They had very similar questions. I just inherited this, I don't know what to do. And that was kind of the common theme. Now, of course, there are amazing women that have been like rock stars in there. But stereotypically that was the questions. And then I got promoted. And I was doing a lot more outreach. And so I was starting to dabble into these women's workshops. And I was starting to become a little bit more aware of different women's programs out there like women owning woodlands, which is very, very popular northeast and South Carolina has a chapter. So I'm starting to get more engaged in this. But then I started having kids myself, and so I have three kids now. But when I first had my son, I knew I didn't want to do the nine to five. So I left working with the state and just was a registered forester contracting out my services like part time, but I was still dabbling in this whole women's workshop spheres. So at the end of 2019, I actually got approached by the University of Georgia's Cornell School of Forestry, my alma mater, a professor there who wanted to do some research focused on female land ownerships and their perspectives and assumptions in Georgia. And he knew I've been doing a lot of this workshop. And so he's like, Hey, do you want to partner on this grant with me? It would basically host six workshops across the state of Georgia. And we would be doing our research with the attendees that are there. And I was like, yes, that would be amazing. Absolutely. So we partnered on this grant we happen and got get it. So it more or less guaranteed me additional funding for six workshops. And I was kind of like, if I'm going to make this a business structure. Now's the time I'm going to do it. That was more or less God sign. Sorry, one second. She was napping, and now she's awake. This is life. Yeah, she has a sixth sense for when I'm speaking.
Nancy Surak 08:57
I hear you. It's all good. We'll keep it we'll get into the baby questions too.
Danielle Atkins 09:06
All right. So we got awarded the grant in February 2020. So before everything, you know, kind of hit the fan. And so I more or less made my decision like this. I was working towards making this business model. Of course, COVID happened. It really changed everything. But it also reaffirmed more than anything, I really wanted to work for myself. And there was still this need out there. And so officially creating a business in the middle of a pandemic seems absolutely insane. But it also was the right move for us. And I really believe it was like God's hand kind of pushing me to get out of the comfort zone and like go do this.
Nancy Surak 09:48
That's a great story. So I found you because I was searching for the name right. But then I started following you on LinkedIn. And I'm just mesmerized every time I see one of your videos, I'm like, oh, there's Danielle again bouncing with the baby. You mentioned you have three children. They're all under what? Like four or five, four. Okay. Kudos to you, sister. Let me just tell you like I have two kids. They're grown now. But I had two that were 90 months apart. And that was hard. And I, you know, my husband, I joke around that we lived in a cloud for all longed it's you're just in such a haze, so more power to you. But you have this amazing way that you've incorporated your children into your marketing and into your videos on LinkedIn, and Tik Tok, I want you to tell me, what made you decide to do that in the first place was it like, I can't get away from it. And so I might as well be as real as possible with with my potential clients
Danielle Atkins 10:53
a little bit. So my third one Ray, the one you see in all the videos primarily, she's just really really clingy, honestly, like, stage five red flag clinger, way clearer than my other two kids. And so a lot of it was just, I physically cannot put her down. She will not let me put her down. So she's gonna be in the videos with me is 95% A bit? Honestly, I wish I could say it was like this smart marketing of like, I really wanted to connect with moms. But it wasn't it was just a, I had her in the middle of this business. And I still had things to do. So when I had her, I was actually supposed to host my very, very first symposium in 2021, we actually had to change the date, because that symposium fell on my due date with Reagan. So we started planning this big event. And then like four weeks later, I was like, Oh, by the way, guys, I'm pregnant. So we're gonna have to move the date. So we moved it back a month, but because she was also my third, you know, you're kind of just like going with the flow. At that point, I already knew a lot of expectations that unless something really bad happened, I knew I would be able to do whatever it is I needed to do. So at four weeks, she came to my first workshop, at five weeks, she came to the symposium just tucked her in and just, you know, go at it, she was breastfeeding during every q&a, because, you know, she just has to. And so from that point on, I still had all these different events, I started getting on video a little bit more. And I really just was added necessity. So no, she's adorable. And she's way more popular than me, honestly. But it wasn't, it didn't start off as a marketing to connect, but it did have that side benefit of people and women especially were able to connect a lot more because that I was juggling mom life with work and forestry.
Nancy Surak 12:51
So what's that been? Like? Have you heard from clients that have said like I that resonates with me?
Danielle Atkins 12:58
Yes, actually. So the majority, I would say about 90% of them really do enjoy seeing her either on video or having her present during the events, I do have to let y'all know starting in June, she'll be going to preschool with her older two, so she won't be nearly as present. Which I'm very excited about. Now I can work with two hands instead of just left handed and I'm not even left handed. But they they I think is one of the just like unspoken challenges like we all have this unifying challenge together. And so just kind of seeing her there. And being able to work through the motherhood and those priorities while trying to explain how important this land is. And she also gives a really good visual of talking about the feature. And a lot of times I emphasize the whys. Why are you doing this? Why you make these decisions. And a lot of times it's for children or grandchildren, I would say 90% of them are for one of those reasons. And so she does kind of provide that visual of imagine when she's older, and of course they all have their own grandkids but also having a baby right in front of you just brings a little bit of something that you can't verbally explain a lot of times,
Nancy Surak 14:13
right? No, it's I can see how you're like oh, I wish I thought of this as a marketing ploy, but it really wasn't that the other choice, but I do love it so. So I do want to talk about what's been the reaction on Tik Tok to some of your videos or you know, I follow you on LinkedIn but I know that they really are hosted on Tik Tok. I love that you're educating so many people through those videos, and I love your use of music when you're incredibly creative. But tell me what sort of feedback do you get from just general everyday people?
Danielle Atkins 14:48
Most of it's really good um, sometimes I do get feedback of well that's not right. And a lot of it's just misinformation since you've been following me You know, I promote a lot of like cut your tree As you know, logging is good forestry, sustainable, it's helping climate change, to actually help climate change, you should cut your trees, and all of that. And so sometimes I'll get, you know, some haters out there, which if you don't get haters, you're not doing something, right is what I followed on with titles, like I really liked that I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal that mindset. So when you get negative comments, you just think about that. And I try to very politely I take a breath, and then I try to politely like respond. And sometimes it's just like, we're gonna have to agree to disagree. But usually, most of the time, it's polite, respectful comments, and they'll put like, with the with the utmost respect and parentheses, because you know, in text, a lot of things can be misread quite rudely. But overall, it is very, very positive. Other comments I get are, can you make your videos just a little bit longer, and I'm like I would, but the trending audio is only eight seconds. So that's what I got right now. Or they'll they'll hit on like another aspect of like, what you forgot to mention XYZ. And then that's when I usually apply, like, check out my other videos, I hit on that because this one's only nine seconds long, you can only say so much in nine seconds. But overall, it is positive. And I think a lot of people are kind of refreshed, since no one is seemingly doing this type of content for industry in this fashion. So it's a different approach to how everyone else is trying to educate right now.
Nancy Surak 16:32
And I love that I love that you ended with the word educate because I look at it as an educational process to right like your videos, even though they're really short, usually have something that either resonates with me as Lynbrook, or like I juggle, you know, I laugh out loud, sometimes where I'm like, you can tell these people and God love our landowners, you can tell them exactly what they need to do. And it's really up to them on whether or not they're going to do it. And so I read, I personally resonate with a lot of your videos where you're like, Yeah, I give them all this information. And then I just nothing happens, and how frustrating that is for you. Because I get it, you know, they hire you for your expertise. And then they don't do anything the way that you hoped. But I just I really love that. And I also love that you're correcting or better educating what the benefits are of forestry, and why it's so important to manage what's on the property itself. Because I know down here in Florida, we have we've been very, very fortunate that we don't have a lot of brush fires. But it does occur from time to time. And I have had to educate landowners on Hey, this is what you need to do for your property to make sure that you know that doesn't happen on your piece. And sometimes when people have inherited things, they just don't even know that they need to go in and do underbrush clearing or whatever. So I'd love to talk to you about like, what are some of the challenges that you are seeing amongst your landowners, when you first engage them or you give them a forestry plan? What are the challenges that they you know, come at you with.
Danielle Atkins 18:13
So I don't write as many forestry plans anymore, I do the focus on trying to connect them with resources because my women do come from across the southeast, and I'm here in Brunswick, Georgia. So I'm right above, you kind of you're in Tampa, so the opposite side of Florida. But the fact that again that I have three kids, I just can't travel. And depending on where they're at their forestry can be fairly different and fairly significantly different. So I'm always like, Okay, here's how you find your resources. That here's how you connect, here's how you ask the right questions. So I don't write it as much forest management plants. And your question was what what is? What are their challenges? Yeah. So the biggest challenge really is communication. Overall, that's where when they first come to me if they've never been with me before, that's where they struggle the most because they don't know the dark and there is a ton of jargon. And most foresters, especially consulting foresters, you know, bless their heart. It's second nature to them. And sometimes they may or may not take the time to actually explain, they'll say, Okay, you need to do a chopping and herbicide spraying and we're gonna play at 705 trees per acre for your level a pine, and that's how you're going to maximize your timber profit. And they're like, oh, okay, sure. If you say so. But there's still that, like, uncertainty of I don't know if this is really right. I don't know if this is the right price. And 98% of the time, I'm saying we have great ethical professionals, they may just not know how to explain it. And so nine times out of 10 You probably do have the right plan. But how do you know unless you ask the right questions, and that's where I set them up. We in my woman landowner can wait six weeks, we get together weekly on Zoom, we go through a workbook and we go through these different stages. So like, week one is just how do you answer the questions when you first call a forest? Or what do you own? What is it? Where is it? Why do you own it? And having a strong why conviction versus objectives, they're very similar, but they're different objectives are how foresters are going to provide you plans. And your Y is what's going to motivate you to keep going for the next 25 plus years. And so we go through that. And we go through finances, understanding budgets and realistic costs, you know, trying to keep track of all of that. So you can make wiser decisions and apply for cost shares. And say yes, without having to go into debt. Reforestation terms, common practices, selling your timber, how do you again, ask the right questions? When do you sell your timber? What are the different approaches you can go about doing that? So I provide them all these all these resources and tools, and then it's more or less up to them. But by the end of the six weeks, they have this this network of women of 30 to 80 plus women that they can reach out to and ask questions like, how did you deal with this? What do you think about that we celebrate each other's wins. And I get a lot of feedback. But by the end, they're like, You know what, I wasn't sure about my plan, I wasn't sure how to ask. But now I feel much more comfortable. And I'm calling my county forester today, and we're gonna go apply for a cost share. I had one woman's comment that she had a consultant forester come out to her property two years ago, before she came to me. And she's like, I got this plan, but I just I didn't know like, if I could trust him, and she's like, and looking back, he said everything right. And I'm gonna call two or three consultants and interview and find one that I can actually start moving forward with. So she had kind of started the process, but then got a little squirrely stepped back, let her land just sit there for two years, and is now ready to jump on board. Again, it's a really, that's the biggest challenge, no matter where they're at, it's all about communication, and feeling comfortable and confident in the resources. And I'm sure it happens a lot in your area, like when they just inherit it, especially if it happens by death. You got those unethical folks out there that call on like, Hey, I see you have some land, I can offer you a cash value.
Nancy Surak 22:21
The real issue in my business space,
Danielle Atkins 22:23
I can imagine, it's probably way worse than in mine, it happens in mine. And that's where I try to educate some like, nine times out of 10. Again, I believe in our loggers, I believe in our foresters, but it's that one to 2% You have to be worried about because they're gonna come at you with a silver tongue, and they're just gonna be my coworker says they're just gonna be so damn nice. You know, your grandmother doesn't get swindled of all of her life savings by a rude guy, you know, and people will spend two weeks researching the right toaster and then sell their trees to the first person that knocked on their door because they're in this emotional state. And so that's where I come through. And I'm like, here's how you ask the right questions. Here are some red flags to look for. The red flags individually may not mean anything, but together, they're kind of like a maybe you don't want to work with this guy. Because cold calling is a common practice in our industry. Knocking on doors, when you're down the road is a common practice loggers are trying to be efficient. But if they have that, plus, all of this, you know, it's like, maybe you don't want to work with them.
Nancy Surak 23:29
So tell me what, what is the biggest red flag that you hear or that you're like,
Danielle Atkins 23:36
the biggest red flag for me, it's the pushiness of like, really need to make this decision right now the prices aren't going to last there, someone's saying the prices are going to last pass the weekend. Or like after they leave, that's the really the biggest red flag. And so them saying I can offer you $30,000 Now, but you know, Mark is gonna go up. And I don't want you to lose your value, that type of conversation. And then talk a little bit more for sure jargon, if they offer you like per ton prices. So you're getting paid by different products that your treats are, and they tried to push you to look towards the highest quality and be like, well look at here, I know we're not getting much down here. But if you look at here, you're gonna really make it up at your poles. without you realizing you have no poles you only have that low quality tree. But they're really trying to keep your focus. So that's probably the biggest red flag all the others just kind of compound it because good foresters are going to be like, Hey, take your time. You know, sometimes there is a Time Rush if you have to log during dry weather. Or if you have dry land and it's wet weather and you have the ideal. It's like hey, let's pounce on this now, but ideally you would have built up that relationship you trust them. So when they say okay, it's time to go now. You can jump on it and feel very comfortable in that decision. You know, I tell you spend 25-30 years growing this don't sell it in 30 minutes.
Nancy Surak 25:05
Right? Right. Great advice and great insight as into what people should be looking for that might be a red flag, I appreciate that. So when you look back at your career and the business that you've built for yourself, what are you most proud of?
Danielle Atkins 25:28
I don't know, it's a lot of little, it's a lot of little things, I think I'm most proud that I'm able to show you can be a mom in work that type of career at the same time, that's probably my one of the things I'm most most proud of next, I'm most proud of is seeing these women take action onto their property, seeing women kind of light up afterwards, that really felt discouraged and didn't know how to go about it. And we're thinking about selling it. And sometimes selling it for development reasons might be the right choice for them, but I want them to do so with confidence, like, this is the best decision for our family, you know, we're never gonna get on the same page. And so but I really do think I'm most proud of the fact that I can build this business to fit around that work life balance that I really strive for. And now I'm working on taking steps to get team members that have very similar life stages, as I do that want that more work life balance, we want to be here for our kids and not miss the moments when they absolutely drive us crazy by showing us how they jumped with their feet apart. 27 times. Like, we don't want to miss that, even though it drives us crazy. But we also want to have this like passion, build career and really show that we're making a difference.
Nancy Surak 26:49
Yeah, no, I just watching your daughter, like completely crawl over you on this podcast. It just brings back so many memories for myself, of being of trying to balance everything as a woman, trying to balance being, you know, a good mom and a good business owner and have really good relationships with my friends and my husband. And it's a lot for us. So I'm really nodding to you like I am very impressed by your ability to kind of incorporate everything, because I think it's a lot harder today than what it was 20 years ago, to be honest with you, there's a lot more distractions. So kudos to you being able to figure everything out, I usually wrap up every interview with a series of questions. You made a mention of looking at growing your team. So this is a good segue. If a young woman called you and said, Hey, Danielle, I'm really interested in forestry. I studied this in college and I love it. Do you have some advice? Or what are you looking for? In a new employee? Like how can I be awesome? When I go out into the workforce? What would you tell her to focus on? Or what are you looking for? On your team?
Danielle Atkins 28:06
Well, I'll start at more. So she came to me in studying for she wants to study forestry, and wants to know, like, how can I be successful? Not necessarily just working with me just how can I be successful in this career field? I would say definitely get out of your comfort zone, you know, go somewhere new that you haven't been because you don't know what you don't want to do, unless you've kind of tried it, you know. And so I actually when I was doing the research, I was working with a master's student. And she kind of asked that question like, you know, what should I do, I think I want to be in the field. But I'm really interested in forestry sustainability, I said, Well, you need to get boots on the ground, nine times out of 10, get boots on the ground, get that field work, you don't have to do it forever. I remember when I went to school, I was like, I do not want to cruise timber. But you have to cruise timber, to be able to have that real world application, the worst thing you can do is be someone that works on the computer making business decisions and never having actually been in the field and understanding operations. So that would be my first suggestion is get boots on the ground, get out of your comfort zone and go somewhere outside your hometown. That experience is really invaluable those connections, your meeting is invaluable, you know, volunteer for all those different aspects. And also I don't know how to say this with nicely ish, but don't be offended so easily. Um, for sure is a male dominated field, you know, similar to what you're kind of used to. And so if you're kind of offended of like, oh, well, they're treating me differently because I'm a woman or you know, XY and Z. I feel like today's society can get so offended so easily and it's just not the case. I work the fire line for a couple years when I was working with the state. And so it's kind of I assume, you know, wildland firefighters are very similar to like sailors. They're just very rough around the edges and the more they like Whew, the more they're gonna poke fun of you, too. So you can't be offended, you kind of gotta throw it back at them, you know, mean a more or less at that level. And that's just building relationships, building connections. And if you can do that you will be successful. If you can not be offended by every little thing, if you can stretch your comfort zone, your work is going to speak for yourself. I mean, I'm a five foot three woman in the forestry field. Yeah, and I was five foot three work in the fire line. And so there was many times they didn't want me to carry things because they're like, Oh, well, it's just too big for you. But after a couple of days, you know, your work character, your work ethic is going to out shopping, and they're no longer going to put those stereotypes on you. So let your work ethic speak for itself. You don't need to defend yourself. And so that would be my number two advice. It's just it is a male dominated field. But don't be offended and don't think you can't do something just because you may be a short woman.
Nancy Surak 30:55
Yeah. Now that that's great. I love that. I'm going to put that on my, on my cork board that just says Don't, don't think you can't do something just because you're five, three. So there you go. Yeah. I love that. I also like to ask, is there an inspirational book or a podcast that you listen to? I know you're a busy young moms. So you may not have a whole lot of free time. But if you do, is there something you'd like to share with our listeners?
Danielle Atkins 31:19
Oh, so I do listen to more podcasts now than I ever thought I would just simply because the fact that I don't tend to have hands and my kids color and all the books I'm trying to read. And so I stick it on my phone up on like the windowsill. And so right now I kind of switch between three different ones, I do try to learn more about business, my field of expertise is in forestry. So it's not naturally business minded. So I do try to do a lot of self development for business. I'm Jasmine star on social media, and better understanding how to utilize social media, and what I can learn from my field. James Wedmore, he does a lot of like business by design. So I do listen to him and try to how do I articulate what I have a lot more effectively. Instead of just say, Here's forestry stuff. And this is why it's important. It's like there's a lot more art to it. And then my third one is, it's Dave Ramsey. So we follow the Ramsey financial peace plan in our own personal life. And so I try really hard to do that in my business life and keeping the business step free. That is very important to me. And I do believe the land management should be financially sustainable. And so I do would listen to like the Ramsey Show podcast and get inspiration from other people going through these different money journeys. To help keep me motivated and not fall and slip into like, well, I could do it just this one time, and try to stay more financially free focused.
Nancy Surak 32:45
Yeah, awesome. And finally, I like to ask, you know, I talked a lot about your social media presence on Tik Tok and LinkedIn, where if someone's listening, and they're like, Okay, I have to like, check out Danielle, where should they follow you for, for all these great videos and your insight in your forestry content?
Danielle Atkins 33:06
So majority of my videos, start off on Instagram actually in will get posted onto Facebook. I'm working on building up the tick tock, I think I'm gonna do something a little differently as tick tock on them. I have to strategize a little bit so stay tuned for that LinkedIn and you can just search landed ladies Atlanta ladies for all of them. And then of course our website www dot landlady's dot com Subscribe. And we're also working on some goodies for our subscribers that will be subscriber only.
Nancy Surak 33:34
Awesome, cool. Now, before I say goodbye, is there anything else you'd like to share? about your background? Or any questions you might have for me so that I can just, you know, wrap this up with a nice pretty bow.
Danielle Atkins 33:47
I'm really I I guess I don't have any questions for the podcast for you. I would love to just get to know you a little bit more. And I think honestly, I could see us doing some stuff in the future together. Development is one leg that you'll probably see me preach a lot against just because of forest land being forced there. But I also believe there is some opportunities and things for consideration that I think we could collaborate on together. And hopefully we'll get to know each other build this relationship and see what happens. Next.
Nancy Surak 34:21
Yeah, I'm sure you know, because like, like I said earlier, I have landowners that are that are holding on to pieces that they need to manage. And they need to better understand a lot more women stepping into those roles that just they need a better foundation of what is it that they have and what do they own. And I'm huge proponent of development. I love it. It's my you know, it's just who I am. But I also recognize that conservation is really equally important. Like we in order to have nice beautiful places and a good environment you have you know, you have to be able to balance things, which is really why I wanted to have you here because you are a woman who is Just focusing on the land business in a different way than what you know many of my guests are, but that that makes it I think, really intriguing and interesting for a lot of my listeners, and you guys have, you know, as fortress have a very important role in our future of, you know, how you take care of of the earth. And also just, you know, you're we're talking big swaths of land for forestry. But, you know, the role of trees and forestry in development is is equally as important, you know, and we're seeing that a lot in masterplan communities, too. So what is the role of making sure children have a place sometimes to play in those forests? And how do you manage the forest pieces that are in maybe these really large master plan communities that you're not going to get to for 15 years? Yeah. So I look forward to having you know, a much better relationship with you. And I'm wishing you just tremendous success in your business and in your young family. And I'm so thankful that you agreed to jump on today. And to educate us a little bit more about you know, what you're doing and your career. And we'll talk soon, and I'm sure we'll meet in the near future.
Danielle Atkins 36:09
Yeah, definitely. Look forward to it. And thank you so much for reaching out and let him be a guest on your podcast. You bet.
Nancy Surak 36:15
Thank you. Let's see you soon. Thank you for joining us for another episode of she's wild, the podcast for women and land and development. If you enjoyed today's show, please go out and rate us so that we can be found by other women in our industry. And if you know women who are working in land and development, please share this podcast with them. And if you know a total rock star woman, badass chick who is killing it in land and development anywhere in North America. I want to know who she is. Please reach out to me so that I can feature her on an upcoming episode.