Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in the world. It’s Dr. Jan Fortman with Relationship Matters TV. I hope everyone is having a good, beautiful, blessed morning, afternoon, or evening. We are here in Chicago and guess what? We are so happy that it’s nice outside. I know I said this last week because we’re just so happy because we’ve had some horrible weather. But what do you think about the air pollution or the smoke that’s in New York City from the wildfires in Canada? Can you imagine? I know some of you out there are probably in New York, but you know, put in the comments how it is. Are you staying indoors? Does it smell like something’s burning or what? I just could not imagine going outside or just looking out the window and everything is orange. It’s almost like a science fiction movie. Here in Chicago, we had a little haze. You could kind of tell if you put your sunglasses on, you could really see the brown, and at one point, it was kind of a little difficult to breathe. But, you know, the environment is changing. But anyway, I’m glad to see all of you this evening because it’s evening here in Chicago, and I’m excited to bring a young lady on. I haven’t known her that long, but she is a dynamo. She has impressed me so much that I thought I told her, “You know what? I need to have you on the show because people need to know about you.” There used to be a program called “Someone You Should Know” that came on in Chicago. I don’t know if it came on anywhere else, but she is someone you should know. Now let me say this right up front for my viewers who see me every week for the last two years. Yes, I have a different hairstyle, so don’t put it in the chat because I know you will, like, “You got a new hairstyle?” Yes, I do. This is going to be my summer do. So I’m going to see how it’s going to do. But anyway, enough about me. Let me bring on Ms. Latoya Oliver Brown.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Hello everyone, thank you for having me.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, it’s my pleasure, Matoya Tolliver Brown. How are you doing this evening?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
I’m doing great, happy to be here. And I would like to say I love your hair. You inspired me while I was in the waiting room to put a little bit of lipstick on, so thank you for that.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, you’re welcome. I’m doing good this evening.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Great, great. So, you know what? I was looking at the bio that you sent me, and I was amazed. You know, I talk about sometimes a thread that goes on in people’s lives, and I looked and I asked, “What do you do?” Well, first of all, let me tell everyone where I met Latoya. I met her at our Toastmasters meeting. She came in and she jumped right in. A lot of times we have people who come and they sit and observe, and they don’t want to speak or whatever. Latoya jumped right in, and she decided to speak and she decided to take a role in what we call our functionaries. And I thought, “Oh my God, let me find out who this young lady is.” So I found out you are in customer service and you’re also a tax preparer. And this show is all about relationships, and in customer service, you have to be a person who pays attention to personal and professional relationships. And when I looked at all the things that you do, I thought, “You know what? You’ve been involved in customer service practically all of your life.”

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes, all of my life.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So just so people get to know who you are, just tell us a little bit about you personally.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
A little bit about me personally? Yeah, before we go into customer service. People want to know about customer service. I am 42 years old. I am married, no children, but I’ve always wanted children. So I have nieces and nephews, which are like my children. I have a big sister, a younger brother, my parents who’ve been together before I was even born. I still have my grandfather around who’s 91. I was really close with my husband’s grandfather who just passed in February. So I am a very family-oriented, spiritual, God-fearing, loving human being.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, how did you get into customer service? What did you do before you got into customer service?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Before getting into customer service, I was a kid. My first job, I was 15, and I wanted things that my parents couldn’t afford. So I was in high school, and they told me that I could take a job. So I grew up going to the Kingdom Hall, and there was a lady there, and I was always nice and speaking to everybody and kind. So she asked if I wanted to be the shampoo girl for her, and I said sure. So not only did she do my hair, she paid me every week to shampoo heads, and I got tips. All it required was me, and I was 15 years old, and all it required was for me to do a good job. So that got the ball rolling in terms of customer service. I said, “Oh, if I treat people right and I show up and do what I’m supposed to do, not only will I be rewarded by the person I’m working for, I also get a reward from the people that I’m serving.” So that was how I got into customer service. That was my first job, and throughout my teenage years, I enjoyed being a waitress and working at restaurants. I worked at the Martinique, which used to be on 95th and Western where Walmart is now. I’m sure some people probably remember that, but it was like a grand ballroom.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, I remember.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Oh, it was one of the best jobs I ever had. I would do that because I heard waitresses complain. Oh no, if you have good customer service skills and you know how to treat people, you don’t let the bad outweigh the good. You’re always going to run into people, and you can kind of, I don’t like to stereotype, but you can kind of see who will pay and who won’t pay. But sometimes the way you treat people, that might make them dig into their pocket and give you something. I was a waitress when I was a teenager in my early 20s, so something was better than nothing. I wasn’t complaining. It wasn’t like I needed that to survive off of. Yes, I enjoyed waitressing because you bring money home every day, and plus you get a paycheck. That’s what I enjoyed. Then I started thinking about my future, and I attended Robert Morris College when I was in my 20s, and it was a business school. So then that got me into creating a resume and started thinking about administrative things, but always customer-focused. My first corporate job was at Pitney Bowes, and I worked inside of the mailroom. We worked inside of a law firm, and there was a manager and there were supervisors, and I was just a regular person. But I would sort the mail in the mailroom and then deliver it to the people on the floors. You develop relationships with the attorneys, the assistants, and if you’re not doing a good job, they can say, “Hey, we don’t want her to come back.” I did that probably from maybe 22 to like 30 because I went from Pitney Bowes to another outsourcing company called Williams Lee, and I was there for about five and a half years before I got laid off. So that was during the time when companies were outsourcing. Williams Lee was also outsourcing. We worked inside of law firms as well. I worked for Williams Lee. The first law firm was Sidley and Austin on One South Dearborn, the law firm that Barack Obama worked at.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yeah, no, he was not there then. This was like in 2005 or something like that. Then I worked at Latham and Watkins, which was in the Sears Tower. These were all customer-focused roles, but they were in a corporate setting. You have to carry yourself a certain way because you’re around different people, and so that helped me develop a different type of customer service skill. After leaving the outsourcing, I’ve been working at the University of Chicago since 2014. It’s been not necessarily customer, but customers because the students, their parents pay tuition, and so they want the students to be treated a certain type of way.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
What did you do as far as the students were concerned?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
When I first started, I was a desk clerk, so I worked inside of the dorms. The dorms are for freshmen and sophomores, so coming to Chicago, we were kind of like their mamas, kind of monitored them a little bit without really saying we monitor them. But if they have guests that need to be checked in, we make sure you can’t get past us and sneak anybody in. That’s a security issue, so we had to make sure that their guests were checked in. If they party a little hard on the weekends, you have to make sure, “Are you okay? Can you take care of yourself?” It was basically maintaining the front desk, making sure the kids were safe and making sure the building was safe. We didn’t have to leave the post, but just sitting there. If the students get locked out of their rooms, we would give them a lockout code so that they could have access. It was so many things. If there was anything, if somebody got stuck in the elevator, you call the engineer. We just did everything.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Did you form lasting relationships? I know you had to be a very astute person, especially around college kids, brand new, and so you had to use your customer service skills, your personal skills.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes, so I didn’t necessarily develop relationships with the students in the dorm, but I’m a person who always is looking for the next thing, next best thing, or trying to advance or better myself. So I went into a role at the library. I stayed with the university, and then I went to the library, which is the main library on campus where the students come to check out their books. The library was open 24/7. The circulation and reserve desk that I worked at closed at 1 a.m. in the morning. I developed relationships with the kids there because we had student workers, and I learned so much from them. The University of Chicago is a school of humanities, and the students that I’ve encountered want the world to be a better place. They were just super awesome. I enjoyed working at the library. I was there for like a year and a half, and then I resigned from the university and moved to Wisconsin for a little over a year. Anybody that thinks about leaving or going somewhere, I think that they should do it because you don’t know what’s out there unless you try. I appreciate the experience, but I did come back. I went there for a relationship that didn’t work out, and let’s be honest, that’s the truth. So I came back, and because I had a good rapport at the university, they let me right back in. I didn’t even have to interview. They were like, “Oh, Matoya, yes, come back.” So I came back part-time, and then I was working full-time at the Alzheimer’s Association. I started working for the Alzheimer’s Association in January of 2018 through April of 2021. That was also a customer service role, even though my job was helpline agent, and I was responsible for consoling and advising caregivers of persons living with dementia or Alzheimer’s.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh my goodness.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I know that was very interesting.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
It was very, very interesting. It was very, very fulfilling as well. If I can help one person, my day was much better. The calls ranged from a man crying on the phone, women, husbands, wives telling me their whole life story. It was a lot, but I appreciated it. It was a good time for me. Then I ended up working for the university full-time. I was full-time from the university from 2014 all the way until I resigned. When I came back, I did part-time and then did the Alzheimer’s Association full-time. I always held on to the university because it’s just a place that I love. I just feel safe there. After I got my broker license, the position in the department that I’m in opened up, and it’s dealing with leases. So now it’s customer service.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
But you decided to get a real estate broker’s license.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So why did you decide to do that?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
I think I discussed this with you. I had a conversation with someone, and they owned the property, and they had a management company that was managing the tenant, but the tenant was not happy because they were not fixing things, and they were constantly billing this person. I’m like, “This seems odd. It doesn’t seem right.” So I said, “I wonder if that’s something that I can do, property management, because I know I would be honest. I would make sure my tenant is taken care of because if you don’t have a tenant there, you ain’t getting paid.” It was like this management company was just basically taking advantage, doing the bare minimum. If you wanted to contract with them or you don’t live in that state, you’re basically at the mercy of them. I know that I can do a great job at being a property manager because that is customer service. I took a property management class with the Chicago Association of Realtors, and Taft West, he was in property management for like 30 years. He talked about all the time he managed the projects. When I say this man was super awesome, it was a two-day course that I took with him. He had me on fire. I was really into it. Then something said, “Let me just, if I can get my broker’s license.” I always do my research before I actually step into something because I want to make sure that I can do it. I don’t want to get my hopes up high. Then I actually signed up for a class, and it was in the summer of, I think it was 2019, and it was every Saturday for the whole summer. I didn’t care for the instructor. I said, “This is my summer. I’m out of here. I’m not learning anything.” I dropped out.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You did?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes. Then the very next year, the pandemic hit, and I was still working, and I think I was working from home. I said, “I’m going to try this again.” I actually went to a school that I originally had been looking into for the longest. It’s almost like the Toastmasters. It was something that I wanted to do for a very long time, and then when I got the opportunity, now you see I’m the first class, I’m volunteering. I took the class with the school that I really wanted to go to, and I got through it. I passed.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right, okay. So you went from shampoo girl to a real estate broker.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
When we look at the thread, the thread is customer service.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
The thread really, if you think about it, the thread is serving. So that’s who you are. That is your gift. So now, all right, you became a real estate broker, and now let’s go through your careers. Now also, you are a tax preparer.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
What made you want to do that?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Because I enjoy learning things, and I feel like when I just hand my stuff off to people, and I don’t, I’ve had somebody else doing my taxes for years, and I didn’t understand and know anything about taxes. You know what? I can’t even really say what started me wanting to learn about taxes, but it has been a gradual process. When I first decided I wanted to do taxes, I was in Wisconsin, and I signed up for Jackson Hewitt. They had an online program where you just take different modules, and after the 12th module, then you’ve completed the program, and you can work for them. While I was doing the modules is when I decided I was moving back to Chicago, and so then they kicked me out of the system, but then they got me in contact with someone from Illinois because there’s different districts to Jackson Hewitt. Some of them are franchises, some of them are corporations, so it was a whole bunch of stuff that was involved. The people in Wisconsin said, “Well, if you’re not going to be here with us, then you can’t use our software to learn taxes.” So I said, “Well, individual taxes.” But I was determined at that point because it started getting interesting to me. Like I said, they put me in contact with the district manager for Illinois, and so I was able to get back online and do the online again. After I completed it, they hired me to work at the Jackson Hewitt in Walmart, and I did that, but I didn’t feel like I was prepared enough to work in Walmart because I was learning everything on my own, and so I was a little intimidated. I didn’t even really get any customers, but after that, I started, so into it, they have a free program where you can teach yourself taxes. I just started learning more and more, and then I did my taxes and my husband’s taxes, and my parents trusted me to do theirs, so I thought it was big stuff then. Then my husband told one of his best friends, “Hey, my nickname, Toya, did our taxes.” So his friend trusted, and I’m like, “Oh my goodness, okay.” So I just had H&R Block software that year where I think it was like 10 taxes that you can do, and it was like maybe a hundred and something dollars, and you just do them. It was like a self-prepared type of thing. But again, back to the customer service and me saying, “Hey, I want to be good at this. I don’t want to just be mediocre.” I ended up getting in contact with a certified public accountant. He let me work with him for a whole year, well, a whole tax season. I learned a bunch just from him. Now, he did not have time to talk to me, but I would pick up on things that he would say, and in between the busy season, I would ask him questions. I prepared probably, if I spent four hours with him on a Saturday, I probably did maybe about six or seven tax returns. But he had a system, so I would be the first. I would enter all the person’s data and all the tax information that they have, then he would have somebody that reviewed it, and then he would do the final review before he submitted, which is awesome. I don’t have that system, but I asked him for his feedback, and he said that I really didn’t have any errors in the information I submitted, and that all I need to do is build my clientele and just learn more. So I think feedback is very important. Because of that, and then he told me to join the National Association of Tax Preparers, and just giving me just so many good nuggets just to you, and everything he told me, I did. So I joined the National Association of Tax Preparers. They have online module classes that you could pay for, of course, you could write off on your taxes. Last year, I went to TaxCon, which is this big conference in Las Vegas where every day you’re sitting in rooms and you’re learning about the tax laws. So I did that.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Is there one tax law that you could think of that most people don’t know?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
A tax law that most people don’t know? No.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
In other words, something you know that you could probably write off and most people don’t.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Oh, write off? If you have energy-efficient appliances and you’re a homeowner, the max credit is $300 that you can get. So if you buy a new furnace or you buy a new water tank and it’s energy-efficient, there’s a tax credit for that. There’s also an Illinois tax credit for property taxes that you get, but I think that one might be income-based. So I know about that, but oh, we bought a refrigerator last year and it’s energy-efficient. That might, it may, I have to look up the rules. It’s so much, I like to follow the rules. So you can go to the IRS website and just look it up and see exactly, but I know my parents got a new furnace, and so I was able, so it’s only, I think it’s like maybe 25% of the cost, and the credit is up to $300, and I think it’s a lifetime credit. You can only do it once, I think. So yeah, only the year. Tax laws are made for rich people and people that have businesses because you get to write everything off. But if you’re a single person or you don’t have any dependents, it’s kind of hard. So I have to explain that over and over to my nephew, who is, he found, he was 23 years old, and they changed the earned income credit. You had to be 24 or older to claim the earned income credit for the 2022 year. The year before that, when the COVID was going on, they had so many credits out there, they were giving people away. He got like $1,500 back, and he worked maybe 10 hours for the whole year. I’m being funny, but when they take taxes out, you get that back, and then if you’re in a certain bracket, you get the earned income credit. But then because he was underage, they changed a lot, and that’s the thing. They changed the laws like every year, and you have to stay up to date on the laws. With me being a small business, I try to stay up to date on everything that I can write off. My sister is also a small business. She’s a cosmetologist, and so I am like her tax, I’m like her accountant because I have to stay on top of her. But you asked something about, oh, how did I get started? So it’s just been gradual, and he told me that basically it’s a referral-based business, just like real estate. So if you do a good job, then somebody will refer you. This was a beautiful thing. My real estate client, she hadn’t prepared her taxes. She trusted me so much, she let me do her taxes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes, and so I felt super special about that. So I would say I have been doing it professionally for the last three years, and each year I have gained about five extra clients.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wonderful. Latoya, you know, well, it shows, number one, you know what an awesome customer service person you are, and the fact that you do it out of service. You know what I mean? Like people go into careers for money and, you know, period. But I can see when you talk about all the things that you do, you know, that there’s that glow about you where you really enjoy what you do. So what I need to do is take a quick break, and when we come back, I want to talk about, I have a converse, not me, but you, but you know, have a conversation about customer service and the commonalities with customer service and personal and professional relationships. What do they have in common?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Okay.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes. All right, so we’ll be right back. This has been a really great, great conversation with Matoya, but this is not, but this is the Relationship Matters TV show. When I was looking at customer service, I started thinking about how, what are the commonalities that you have to have in order for people to come to you? Because a lot of times we just think it’s customer service, it’s somebody on the phone that you can talk to, to ask different questions or whatever. But when you look back and where Matoya started, she started in customer service. She was a shampoo girl, but that was customer service. So anyway, don’t go away, just a quick commercial, and we’ll be right back.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
We are back with Matoya Tolliver Brown. Customer service and personal and professional relationships share commonalities, and there is a significant relationship between the two. So let’s talk about communication. I know you’re part of Toastmasters now, so how does communication play a role in customer service as it relates to forming personal and mostly professional relationships?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Sure. Well, people need to understand you for sure. You need to be able to communicate effectively when it comes to personal relationships and professional relationships. Communicate effectively and be on the same page, and that helps the relationship grow, if that makes sense.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah. Now, what about listening?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Listening is very, very important. We have an active listening webinar at the job at least every other month. But yes, in relationships, you have to listen to the other person in order to understand how they feel. Bring it back to customer, if a customer is complaining, you have to listen to them in order to understand how they feel. So listening, being patient, kind, understanding, it’s all part of communicating effectively.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Exactly, because I think listening is extremely important. When we’re talking about customer service, I’m not going to mention my internet provider, but to me now, customer service is like out the door. I was trying to get a point across, and nowadays you’re not talking to a live person, so to speak. I wanted to talk to someone on the phone, but I had to go through the chat, which of course they’re not understanding what I’m saying. Then finally, when I did get a live agent, it was still not really listening to what I was talking about. They come back and they say what they think the problem is, and I know they’re reading the script, so to speak. So customer service and listening is extremely important. So what about empathy, especially I would say when you are preparing someone’s taxes?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Let’s see, it’s very important. Empathy is important in all areas. What I thought about was when I was working at the library, and I tell this in interviews when they ask, “What would you say you went above and beyond in terms of customer service?” In the library, they have the book stacks. There was a student that came to the circulation and reserve desk looking for a book that he couldn’t find. So I looked it up in the system, it says it’s on the book stack, but I know from working at the library, it may not be exactly in the space it’s supposed to be in. It could be on the shelf above, over to the side, or below. So I took it upon myself, because I had empathy for this person, to go ahead and put the office sign up for a moment and find the book for him. So that was an example of showing empathy. I can show all the empathy I want for tax clients, but if they don’t listen and they’re going to exempt for the whole year and they expect to get a refund, I mean, I could only talk to you about what you should do. But definitely have empathy, but the law is the law, the rules are the rules.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, and I know sometimes they will probably come to you with concerns.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yes, my husband’s stepdaughter, she got audited, and so I helped her get out of her jail by, I said, “Okay, we’re going to go straight and narrow.” She got audited, I believe it was two years ago. So last year, I did her taxes, did them the correct way. I did them the correct way this year. She ended up getting a refund, a small refund, but she got something. Next year, she’ll get her full refund, but it’s because I was able to review the taxes that they audited and said, “Girl, what in the world?” One thing people do, there’s no way I’m going to say you went to school if you don’t have a form from the school showing that you went to school. That’s one, like I said, another reason why I wanted to learn about taxes, because if somebody’s just doing anything just to get you back money, you don’t understand, that’s really, that’s a downfall. It could be a downfall, especially if you want to become a homeowner. You have to have all that stuff in order, and if you become a business, you don’t want the IRS coming back at you. So I guess empathy does.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, right. So now, empathy also has to do with emotions. So what happens when someone, well, I know you talked about when you were working for the Alzheimer’s Association, and you had to be empathetic to people who were calling you, like you said, crying and telling you their life story. Do you see that that’s something that you had to bring from working with the Alzheimer’s Association to, let’s say, your real estate business or your tax business? Do emotions, other people’s emotions, play a part?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
I would say that hopefully with real estate, because I’m the type of person, I don’t want you to feel like I’m gearing you or pushing you in the direction of something that you want. I want you to be 100% happy with the choice you make. There are agents out here that will convince you to get things that you want, but like my last client, the same one, she’s a young lady, she has two kids, and when we were in negotiations with the seller’s agent, I’m saying, “Hey, this is a single woman, these things need to be fixed. I’m not going to just allow my client to just accept anything.” I just kept reiterating that to her over and over, “She’s a single mother with two children.” We got everything that we needed, and the seller got, they sold the property, so everyone was happy in the end. But yes, empathy definitely when it comes to any of my clients, because of course, I don’t want them to be taken advantage of.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so has anyone come to you with taxes and start crying like, “Oh God, I didn’t know”?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
No, not really.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Right, not yet.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Just my stepdaughter, just her situation. Now she understands, “Hey, don’t play around because you need your money, you’re a single parent, and so it’s not worth it.”

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Now, one thing you talked about was trust and respect. When you said that your real estate client trusted you so much that she had you do her taxes, in personal and professional relationships, you gotta have trust and you gotta have respect because those really are the foundations. What you talked about, especially with your real estate client and the fact that she became also a client as far as her taxes are concerned, that’s something that I can see that you do. I think what happens with customer service people, a lot of times you don’t trust them. I guess it’s, I don’t know if it’s a feeling or if it’s how you communicate to people. Why do you think she trusted you anyway to do her taxes?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
I will tell you why. I nurtured her for a whole year. She was a lead because I sold my sister’s property in Indiana last year in June, and my management broker said, “This is a lead, someone that put their information in because they like this house and they’re interested.” So I reached out to her last June and stayed in communication with her for the whole year, telling her about down payment assistance programs. Whenever you’re ready, just let me know. She said, and I didn’t even know that, she said that people were, other realtors were reaching out to her, and she said, “No, I got my real estate agent.” So I was like, “Wow, I didn’t even know.” She started to trust me and trust the process. She has a beautiful family, two beautiful little girls. I met her mom, and it’s just, I feel like all of my clients are good people, and I don’t know if that’s who I’m attracting, but it’s just kind of like, I like the people that I interact with, and I like my clients. It’s also teaching me, I have to say, to be, like when we talked about empathy and listening, it’s helping me be better in my marriage, customer service, because I’m more empathetic. My husband tells me all the time I don’t listen, so I’ve been trying to be better at listening. You’re right, I have to think about, “Hey, if you’re good to these customers, you definitely have to be good at home to your husband, to your mom,” because moms can be, you know, call you all day, every day, so you cannot get annoyed with them. I think she would be happy with me because my jobs have taught me patience, and so I’m using that in my personal life.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, all right. And problem-solving?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Problem-solving, oh goodness gracious. Problem-solving, it’s like each situation has its own thing. You can’t kind of use them together. It’s something different. Like with the Alzheimer’s Association, I started work at 6 a.m. in the morning, and I had a lady, a caregiver, call me and say that her husband, who was the dementia patient, was trying to leave the house, and they were in another time zone, so it wasn’t even light outside. She said, “I don’t know what to do. I cannot get him in.” She put him on the phone, and I said, “It’s dark. Have you looked outside?” I don’t even know exactly what I said to him, but whatever I said worked. I said, “Come in, have some coffee. When it gets light outside, then you can go, but right now it’s not a good time.” She said they lived by a bridge, and he didn’t know how to swim, and she was really concerned. He was not listening to her, and some kind of way, it just clicked. I wouldn’t be able to use that same thing, that same scenario, that same way I solved that problem with my personal relationship or in a situation when it comes to real estate or taxes. With problem-solving, you just have to take whatever the situation is and just kind of, I don’t know, how do you do it? You just have to do it, your intuition, I guess.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so have you ever come into conflicts with being in customer service?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Of course.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And how do you deal with it?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Conflict, in a while, I think that with conflict, you just kind of just apologize to people and just say, “I’m sorry, we can make things,” just be empathetic, listen, and just apologize even if you weren’t in the wrong because people just, sometimes they might choose you to beat up on even though you might not be the problem. So I understand that sometimes people are dealing with their own thing, and they can take it out on you even if you’re not the problem, and they’ll make you the problem. So it’s just about trying to de-escalate situations, and it’s based on that person and their personality.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So when you were like the dorm mother, I also call it that, with the college students at the University of Chicago, never any conflicts?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Not with none of the students, no.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, over some of the faculty?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Not really, no. I don’t know, I mean, I think I make one friend with whatever company I work for. I always have somebody that I end up staying in touch with, so I’m not like a, I just try to get along with everybody because I like money, number one, and I’m not going to let anybody mess that up, and I’m not going to do it on my own. So it’s like, “Girl, you and your problem, or boy, you and your problem, you need to keep it over there.”

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, okay. So a question came in through a text here, and the first question is, what is your next big venture?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Hmm, that’s a really good question. Well, I’m finishing my bachelor’s degree, so that’s going to be huge for me. That’ll be December of this year, and then once I do that, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m getting the bachelor’s degree in, well, it’ll be a Bachelor’s of Arts, but I’m in a continuing education program for adults who’ve already been to school and have so many credit hours, so they just help you complete your degree. I came to Chicago State with 83 credit hours, and so it’s called the individualized curriculum, and so the rest of my classes just basically have to meet the degree requirements, which is, I think it has to be so many 300 or 400 level classes. But I spoke with the dean of the business school and just getting some guidance from him because I had a mentor at the university, and she made me think about intentions behind everything because she said, “Okay, you’re finishing your bachelor’s degree, but if you have an interview and you say, ‘I got my bachelor’s in individualized curriculum,’ then however, yes.” So I spoke with the dean about that, and he said, “Well, you know, you can sell yourself. You haven’t been in school since 2015, and so now you’re complete.” He said, “You can sell yourself, but you can also get a minor in management if you do five upper-level management classes,” which I’ve already completed. So I actually have a meeting with my name in the adult learning program department tomorrow to talk about the minor, but yeah, it’ll just be in arts, and so I’ll have to sell myself.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so but still, would you say that your major then is in business management, or?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
It wouldn’t be the major, it would be the minor because the major, I’m probably missing maybe five classes, five or six classes for business to be my actual major, like a calculator.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Would that be your next venture? Is that something you’re looking forward to doing, or something different?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Something different. School, I don’t see how people get, I don’t know how you got your PhD because it is, oh my goodness. I mean, it’s rewarding, it’s rewarding, but it’s hard.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, it’s hard. After I got my bachelor’s, I’m like, “I’m not going back,” but then I was convinced to get my master’s, and then once I got my master’s, I’m not going back ever. But then your fellow Toastmaster, Dr. Sarah Crawley, convinced me, “Come on, let’s get our doctorate together, and let’s work together.”

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Oh God.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You guys, oh, I love saying, do you know how many doctors are in the Toastmasters group that I’m with? What is Dr. Sandy, Dr. Secret, Dr. Are you crazy? I love it. You know, if you ever decide that you want to go that far, you have our support.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Okay.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
But it ain’t easy.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I mean, really, I mean, it affects your personal life, it affects your, definitely your professional, it really does because it takes a lot. So the other question that came in here is like, would you like to learn a foreign language?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Yeah, I would prefer to learn an instrument, but I mean, it’s not off the table. If I didn’t have a full-time job and if I was wealthy, I would be definitely learning multiple languages. I would be in shape, but it’s just not enough time in the world for me to do everything.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
What instrument?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
That’s a really good, I played the clarinet in high school, and I did enjoy that. So maybe the piano, I don’t know, something though.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, that sounds good, that sounds good. I played the piano, I am a pianist, classical.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Wow, look at you.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Only because my mother made me, but then you know what? Once I got to be an adult, it’s like, wait a minute, I made a little money playing the piano at church and stuff like that, so I was grateful. But when I was a teenager, practice, I don’t want to be outside or whatever. So we only got a few minutes, so tell us, why did you join Toastmasters?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Because I want to get better in public speaking, and that’s the main reason. Honestly, I love Oprah Winfrey, and I love how she interviews people. She does not offend anyone, she asks the most intelligent questions, she asks questions that everybody, and just her confidence and her, just, you know, and I want to be like that. So I know that Toastmasters is going to help me get there.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so Gwendolyn Dunbar says, “I am proud of your drive, keep it up.”

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Thank you, Gwendolyn.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And Sandy Barney Innis says, “I played violin.”

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Oh, really?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
“But now I play steel drums, go for it.”

Matoya Tolliver Brown
I love it, thank you so much.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Hi, Sandy Barney Innis. You know what? I’m putting you on blast right now. I would love to have Sandy Barney Innis on my show. Not only is she Dr. Sandy Barney Innis, but she is an amazing person and now someone you should know. She has a talent that she doesn’t really kind of involve herself in a lot, but it’s just, it’s very unique. I’m not going to talk about it, but I am putting you on blast, Sandy Barney Innis. And now I know you, wait a minute, this is what she says, “Okay, I’m being kind.” But now I know you play the steel drums too. Who do we know that plays the steel drums? OMG. But anyway, yes, Sandy, I’m coming off of you. What she said, “I did.” Oh, okay, well, I forgot, Sandy. After all, you know, I’m a senior citizen. Anyway, but Matoya, what last piece of nugget would you like to leave with my audience?

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Be kind to yourself and be kind to others.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
No, that’s wonderful, that’s wonderful. Be kind to yourself because when you’re kind to yourself, you can definitely be kind to others. Well, thank you so much, Matoya, for being a guest on my show. You’ve given us a lot of value, and you made at least me think broader about customer service and what customer service is. I did a speech once called “Are You Listening to the Universe?” and what it was is like things that you love to do when you’re a kid or things that you see yourself doing, it’s like that thread. Then when you get to be an adult, you end up doing what it was that you were doing. It’s like connecting the dots. I also did what’s called connecting the dots because when you started out as a shampoo girl, you were doing customer service, and you loved what you were doing. Now you’re a tax preparer, you are a Toastmaster, and it’s like, OMG, you’re a real estate broker. All of that has to do with customer service. You definitely connected the dots.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Thank you.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So thank you so very, very much for being on the show, for being a guest. You are delightful, and I am looking forward to seeing you again at a Toastmasters meeting and do a speech about customer service.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
Okay, I will. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right, you have a beautiful, blessed rest of your evening.

Matoya Tolliver Brown
You too. Bye-bye, everybody.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow, this is great, this is great. I really never really, I guess, involved myself in what customer service is. You kind of think, ah, you know, so they help people, but it’s a lot involved in it. So I do want to thank all of you for watching tonight. I really appreciate it, and I want you to remember there are all kinds of relationships, and there are all kinds of relationship matters. So we will see you again next week. Next week will be an encore presentation, so what I will do is just put it out there as to what episode, what show people would like to see again, and that will be the show for next week, next Thursday. So I won’t be live, but I will be back on June 22nd. It is our anniversary, my husband and I’s anniversary, and we’re going to celebrate our anniversary. So anyway, have a beautiful, blessed rest of your morning, afternoon, or evening, and I will see you again on the Relationship Matters TV show. Bye-bye.