D4M $LOAN

Tell everyone who you are and what you do.

What’s up everybody! I’m D4M $loan. I’m from West Philadelphia. I’m a music artist, actor, and a fashion dude, haha.

What made you want to pursue a career in the music industry?

What made me want to pursue music was the passing of my friend Tamir who died in 2015 due to a drowning accident. I started off making music with him and my other friend Jahsir who also passed away and the goal was to keep his name alive and go hard with music in memory of him.

How would you describe the music that you typically create?

I would describe the music I typically make as TrapRock music…I always felt like that word was self-explanatory. Go in your phone, search my name, listen to “Swagg Talk,” and you’ll understand what I mean!

Let’s talk about your single and the motivation behind the song. Well, I got two singles out right now: “Blahh Blahh Blahh” and “Tat Tat Ma Ma.” Those songs were based off two different meanings. The first song, “Blahh Blahh Blahh,” was just a song I made on how I feel about the critics and people hating me from afar. As far as the second song, the ladies love me so I made a song they can all feel is about them.

Who would you like to collaborate with?

I really don’t have a particular artist I want to work with, but I’m down to work with any artist if the music is dope.

If you could change anything in the industry, what would it be? If I could change anything in the industry, I would change how the BET Awards are now. I would change it to how it used to be. It used to be so raw.

What has been the biggest accomplishment in your career?

I really feel like the biggest accomplishments of my career have yet to come, but I would say landing my first acting role in Bel-Air, the remake of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, meant a lot to me.

If you could perform anywhere in the world, where would it be?

If I could perform anywhere in the world, it would be Japan and in the UK. Especially Japan - they appreciate the music culture a lot.

Are you working on any new events or projects?

I got a new album about to drop called “I couldn’t decide.” This is my first album, and it showcases about 70% of my range in music. It shows my wolf side and my Swag side. When you hear it, come back to this response and it will all make sense.

Where can the readers follow you? Thanks to everyone who tuned in. I go by D4M $loan. You can find me everywhere at d4msloan, with or without the $.

Tell everyone who you are and what you do.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to have this conversation with you. I’m Celina Shands, the chief executive officer/founder of Full Capacity Marketing. We are a 20+ year old national consultancy specializing in brand storytelling and strategic communications for those in the workforce, education, and entrepreneurship sectors.

While the company has been around for more than two decades, it was quite the journey to get here!

This is my third company and by far the best experience and teacher I’ve had to date.

What’s unique about my company is that many of our team members, including myself, have “been there” like so many of the clients that our customers serve to lift out of traumatic experiences like homelessness, poverty, immigration, and government assistance.

We are an inspired bunch! Everyone in the company understands the bigger picture of the impact of our work. One of our customers, an adult education school, recently shared a story where they helped a homeless woman living in a storage unit obtain her high school equivalency, followed by stackable credentials. Today she is earning over $60K/year, just by finding an educational pathway that worked for her and learning the right skills.

Our team knows that our marketing work is helping to recruit underrepresented and underserved populations that can lead to these kinds of remarkable success stories. That is a motivator—to share stories about the positive impact of how our work contributes to making a difference for our customers and those that they serve.

Motivator #1 was survival. Early on in life, I was driven to become an entrepreneur because I craved something better than my childhood. I was born and raised in North Carolina and, like so many of the millions in this country, had a tumultuous childhood where alcohol played a negative role in our family dynamics. Fortunately for me, my sister was the constant in my life. She raised me and consistently told me that I could do anything and be anything if I dreamed it. Even though I doubted myself, she didn’t, and more importantly led by example starting her own company. To this day, she is listed in my contacts as Sissy Shero.

Motivator #2 was a cat named Sheldon. Yes, a cat. I had a dream one night that I had a cat named Sheldon (even though I was a dog lover) and two days later found an abandoned baby kitty. I ended up starting a company, in part, so that I could spend more time with him working from home. He was with me for 19 years.

Motivator #3 was a drive to innovate. As time went by, the “survival” motivator was replaced by the drive to find innovative solutions in my field of workforce development and education. I get inspired every day by seeing how lives can completely change by learning the right skills and leaning into what you love to do.

What made you want to pursue a career as a communications expert?

I believed that getting a strong foundation in marketing and communications would be a great set of skills to apply within any industry. While I wasn’t sure in which industry I would eventually land, I wanted to pursue a major that had wide applicability.

I also had a passion for sports and was fortunate enough to earn a basketball scholarship to help pay for college. When I graduated, I had to take some time to heal my injured athletic body.

degree in sports medicine within a year and a half by challenging some of the classes. It was in my late 20’s that I started my first company called “Life At Its Peak” and became a rehabilitation director at a multidisciplinary practice. We set up a fantastic program to help people out of their physical pain.

I wanted to share the knowledge and have others replicate our model at the clinic, so I talked to the CEO about writing a book. To my surprise, he handed me a signed blank check and said, “I believe in you; just pay me back when the book sales come in.” I was floored; talk about a pivotal moment and a pivotal person in my life. No one other than my Sissy Shero had ever had that kind of faith in me.

The book was self-published and launched me into a consulting career, helping doctors integrate sports medicine and holistic services as part of their practice. But when insurance laws changed, the model became outdated and like so many entrepreneurs I knew that I had to reinvent myself.

Who or what inspired you to

be the person you are today?

I’ve had three prime motivators in my life.

I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and enrolled in a school to earn a 1,500hour certification as a holistic health practitioner and education (HHPE). I then parlayed that into earning a master’s

I was growing weary of the big city life after ten years, so I moved south to take a job as the marketing director for the San Diego Health & Human Services Agency to build my skills in journalism and crisis communications. I happened to write a business plan for a foster youth facility as part of my work and someone on their board approached me about working with his nonprofit which focused on workforce development.

I had no clue what workforce development was all about. Once I understood that it was an entire public sector system that receives federal funding to help youth, job seekers and entrepreneurs find their career path through education and training, I was all in. After all, that was something that I had done my whole life through the help of my mentors. Shortly after that my current company was born.

How would you define your purpose?

I’m blessed to say that I have found my purpose and it’s all about empowerment. In our day-to-day projects, we give the customers with whom we work the strategies to build a high-valued brand so that they, in turn, can recruit underserved and under-represented populations to their programs; build effective public/ private partnerships to solve complex community workforce issues; and garner much- needed funding to be sustainable.

The very process in which we work with our customers empowers them to succeed long after our contract concludes. That’s why I named the company Full Capacity Marketing because we want our customers to be at full capacity to succeed with or without us.

The whole concept of education and workforce is beyond a passion for me, knowing that it can replace poverty and despair with a true sense of self.

What is one goal you want to accomplish by the end of the year?

We are working right now with the Coalition on Adult Basic Education (COABE), a national association that represents 79,000+ adult education providers across the country, from colleges that offer adult education to nonprofits and public organizations that serve adult learners. We launched a national campaign to engage employers in the work of adult education called Behind Every Employer.

It’s important that adult education providers understand how to reach out and engage companies to hire their adult learners or provide a space for work-based learning opportunities, like internships, apprenticeships, and mentorships, to help them gain more work experience. The campaign builds their capacity to conduct effective employer outreach.

The campaign website houses a locator map to help employers find and connect with their local education providers. We are in the process of helping COABE find funding to promote this aggressively across the nation to high growth sector companies that want to tap into alternative labor pools.

Our goal is to achieve a high level of visibility for the campaign so that employers see the value of adult education and want to participate in this important mission.

How was the experience being a finalist of the women who mean business?

Joyful! And humbling. I had to pinch myself being in the room with all of these amazing women executives who are so passionate about what they do. Their drive to help others and share their knowledge is so inspiring. There is something powerful about like-minded women who have a collective intention to move “the needle” within their industry, whatever that needle is.

Let’s talk about some of the outreach campaigns you have worked on helping job seekers. Oh, I’d love to share that! We are working with the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) and have deployed a statewide campaign, called Your PathYour Future, to help adult learners and job seekers understand the options that are available through adult education.

During the pandemic, student enrollments declined by 22% nationally, on average, between 2020 and 2022. The decline was primarily at the community college level, with a variety of factors influencing these trends, among them a lack of access to technology, a changing job market, shifting demographics and the gig economy presenting a multitude of non-degreed and non-credentialed job opportunities. Illinois was impacted with student enrollments dropping by nearly 43% in 2020.

Our company was awarded a contract to create a coordinated, statewide capacitybuilding initiative to support adult programs, community colleges, school districts and community organizations with adult learner recruitment. The initiative included a highly strategic digital statewide campaign to reposition and raise awareness about the value of adult education coupled with communication tools and assets to support enrollment efforts at the local level.

Because collaboration is critical to such a large-scale campaign, we partnered with the Adult Learning Resource Center, the Illinois Center for Specialized Support, the Southern Illinois Professional Development Center, and created an advisory committee to drive the process and leverage resources that were already established.

The results have been promising, with 99% of all ICCB programs receiving prospective student leads and clicks on the link to Hotline Program Directory coming in at more than double the standard benchmark. The initiative has led to an overall increased enrollment in fiscal year 2021-2022 that was 40.5% higher than the total enrollment in the previous year in Illinois. We love these results because it means more adult learners are finding their pathway to success.

What is one fun fact about yourself?

I just started horseback riding after 40+ years. I used to muck out stalls in exchange for riding lessons. My trainer would find riding clothes and boots that I could borrow for horse shows, and I loved the competitive aspect of the sport.

Fast forward to today, and I’m back at the stable, honing my equitation skills. What’s healing for me is that I can fully participate in as much riding as my schedule allows and my body seems to be able to tolerate the impact. My goal is to get into a show this year, but I have a long way to go!

Are you working on any new events or projects?

I’ve had two offers from people who wanted to buy my company and I have thought about selling it. But both offers, for one reason or another, didn’t sit with my intuitive “gut.” Now I know why. I recently hired a vice-president of operations, Anika Jackson, and in just a few short months that we’ve known each other, we are taking Full Capacity Marketing into a broader direction so that we can expand our services to entrepreneurs and small businesses across all industries.

As a workforce and education thought leader, I’ve known that entrepreneurship has always been identified as a critical workforce development strategy, even though it’s a path less often taken. It makes sense that through our collective expertise as entrepreneurs, we also build the capacity for those seeking to take this path. I feel like a little kid again expanding the company at my age, but I now understand why selling the company didn’t feel right; there was yet another chapter in the company to come!

One of the services that we are launching soon is the eFCM Learning Hub which combines Anika’s Your Brand Amplified ® courses for entrepreneurs that we will also adapt specifically for our public sector and nonprofit organizations. These online courses can be packaged with coaching as well as our brand storytelling services to help entrepreneurs and organizations build a thriving, well-recognized and valued brand.

It doesn’t surprise me that through the powerful partnership of two women, we are going to take Full Capacity Marketing to even great heights and move the needle for a larger segment of people who want to find their dream career and make it a reality.

Where can the readers follow you?

Feel free to schedule a meeting via our website, connect with me on LinkedIn, and find FCM on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube!