The Shades of Entrepreneurship™ - Pranav Dalal: Scaling Global Talent with Office Beacon

Speaker A: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Shades of Entrepreneurship. This is your host, Mr. Gabriel Flores. Today I'm here with Pranav. Did I pronounce that correctly again?

Speaker B: Yep, perfect.

Speaker A: I was. We were talking about this and you know, you know, folks, if you listen, uh, pronouncing names to me is extremely important. So, Pranav, how are we doing? Where are you calling in from today?

Speaker B: I am in Redondo Beach, California.

Speaker A: Oh, man. I'm sitting. Folks, let me just give you guys a bit of a little background. I'm sitting here right now looking outside of Portland, Oregon and rain, and I can see Pranav's background and it looks absolutely remarkable. Nice and sunny. We're gray over here. Now, Pranav, we're actually going to be here talking about the, uh, Office Beacon specifically. So it's a, it's a remote kind of work, um, uh, software. Uh, we'll talk a little bit more about that. But before we get into all that, go and introduce yourself. Who is Pranav?

Speaker B: All right, well, first of all, thanks for inviting, uh, me and having me on the show here on the podcast. And so, um, again, my name is Pranav. I'm the founder of Office Speak in. I started the company in 2001, before remote staffing was a thing. Um, I've got a long history with startups, um, in all industries, uh, but this has been my baby for the last 24 years. And, uh, it's really grown, uh, pretty exponentially and excited to share a lot of those details with you.

Speaker A: So give us a little bit of background before we get into your specific, uh, new adventure. Give us a little background of you. What made you get into entrepreneurship? What was that first entrepreneurial endeavor?

Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you, first of all, I'm from Toronto, Canada, and um, interestingly, my father, he worked for the, uh, Canadian government for years, uh, his entire career. And, uh, so I wasn't really exposed to entrepreneurship. I decided when I was in my 20s to move to LA. And uh, it was really here where I decided to explore different opportunities. And, and the first opportunity here in LA was with a company called, uh, PC Mall, um, which is very, very large company now. But back then it was, ah, purely a startup with many other incubated companies. And I was part of a lot of those. And that really gave me a great exposure to the mindset entrepreneurs here. And, um, and I found that I really took a liking to it. Um, and then one of the opportunities that came up for me that I identified was really coming up with a content company. Before I started my company office speaking, I grew uh, the world's largest content database, um, for different types of entertainment products like video games and music, etc. Uh, I partnered with a company out of New York. We licensed that data or content to hundreds and hundreds of E tailers and retailers. And then they bought me out. And so I was really hooked on uh, entrepreneurship. And from there I kind of leapfrogged into uh, what I'm doing today. So really it all, it just came to me uh, through you know, walking through open doors and you know it wasn't in my mind at the time but, but it kind of came to me uh, which I'm very thankful for.

Speaker A: You know, take me through that, that first process. One of the things you mentioned uh, early on was was the incubator. You kind of went there and I love incubators. Cause it's just like a kind of an opportunity to kind of network and create thoughts. Tell me about your experience.

Speaker B: Well, so um, so I worked for two brothers who started PC Mall, um, the Colusi brothers. And uh, they were great entrepreneurs. Um, and so uh, they actually had their first success with PC Mall and then started other companies that would compete against one of them in particular against Amazon. And Amazon at the time only had four categories. Music, books, video games and movies. Only four. And so uh, and there were a lot of competitors to Amazon and we were one of them. And so you know my job at the time um, in this startup was basically to get the content. So whenever you look for, look up a book and you read about the chapters or see a cover art or anything, that's all content that comes from somewhere. Well back then there was no company that provided all that really effortlessly. So I started that company and went off on my own. I started using offshore talent um, to help me. You know I didn't have any investors, it was just me. I'm just a middle class guy at the time and basically uh, created all this content and found a uh, partner in New York to sell it or license it. And uh, we were able to garner uh, like uh, the contracts were like 1% of all revenue. So if, if, if Amazon, even Amazon or Best Buy or Target, any of these companies that use this content, sold the product, we would get 1% of that revenue, which is pretty significant. Yeah, and so that was a great, great uh, foray into working with startups. Um, and this company was an incubator. So they ah, a toy, like a company called E Toys that would be A competitive Toys R Us and other words. And I was sort of involved um, at the grassroots and a lot of opportunities and um, really gave me a great exposure. And this was during the first Internet wave and first Internet bubble and crash, which happened in 2000. And that's when I decided to go on my own and say, okay, I'm going to just um, control my own destiny. And started off as speaking in 2001,

Speaker A: man, you know it's, it's. I love like being able to like you know, just go out and gain ideas from just you know, like incubators or a conference or any type of networking event because it really does spark like this inner fire within you because you start hearing about these ideas and thoughts and like, oh man, you know what I think might be able to do that? Tell me you mentioned you're working with these brothers. Tell me about like that kind of partnership. How did that work and then, and where did you go from there?

Speaker B: Well, so you know, working with them and for them, um, basically it was a very freeing experience because I could really um, dictate what I wanted to do. I was, I was coming in from Toronto, Canada, had my mba, had great background. So one of the things that I like about the um, sort of incubator, um, you know, situation or environment is with a skill sets that I have, I could really get involved in many different areas and so identifying you know, where you know, the company needed, the startup, needed help. I was really able to, to, to get involved. Um, but I mean the hours are long. Um, you got to be passionate about it and um, you kind of got to believe in the business model and I think that's, you know, uh, that back then anyone could have won that race. We saw, we saw like we uh, had partnerships with Google at the time and AltaVista and Yahoo and all like there were like 15 different search engines. We didn't know who was going to win that race. And so it was a really, really interesting time. And ultimately only you know, the, the main, you know, category, uh, leader in each category, one, you know, like the Amazon or the Googles, et cetera. And so um, fortunate and for unfortunately you know, the, the start, some of the startups that I was part of did not succeed. But from that I learned a lot and um, and opportunities presented itself and, and you know I saw Remote Stopping as one of those big ones 24 years ago.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know it's interesting you kind of bring up that time. That era was really unique. You know folks, we might be aging ourselves here. But this is uh, Amazon just sold books like that's where they started. Right. They're going up against like Barnes and you know, Borders bookstores. And so it's interesting to kind of see their transition.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And as you mentioned, I used to use Ulta Vista. I was like, oh, this is the search engine that's going to win. Yeah. And Google just completely destroyed everybody right now. You, you mentioned you have a specific skill set. Like you, you mentioned, you know, we were working with entrepreneurs and startups. You're, here's my skill set. I'm able to provide to you. What is that skill set? One and then two. You also talked about failure. What was one of the biggest kind of learning experiences you had at, during one of your failure, uh, moments?

Speaker B: Okay, so uh, let's talk about skill set. So me personally, which it's very important I think as a, anyone in business to really hone in on what you can do best. Right? So I can do a lot of things like operations. Am I really like passionate about get, you know, running operations?

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: So I, I know that that's not an area that I really want to you know, uh, spend my time in. Um, and where, where I find my, my personal strength is, is really identifying what I call hooks. And hooks are basically identifying an opportunity that will get noticed immediately and quickly. And so it could be a marketing hook, it could be a business concept, business strategy, whatever it is. I, I think my years of just going through that, you know, process of, of understanding what a consumer, whether it's a business consumer or an actual, you know, personal consumer would like is something I'm really good at. And so even, even the people I work with in my company are, you know, they tell me, hey, stick to that right? Stick to your lane there because we got, we got it over here. And that's true. Like I, we have people in the company that will just take care of their areas and uh, that's an ideal scenario for me as a company. You know our, our um, strategic advantage is really that we've, we've been in this business for many, many years. So we've been able to build up an infrastructure of thousands of full time employees globally. Office space infrastructure, um, you know, operating methods, um, as well as economies of scale from a pricing standpoint that are really ah, hard to, hard to beat. So I think we've got a lot of things, you know, in our favor that really have helped us now in terms of failures. Um, I think on, in terms of failures, I would say I Let me just not call it a failure, because I think.

Speaker A: Learning moment.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So, um, I think the biggest thing over the years is really making sure that I've got the right people in the right position. Right. So, um, I think I've definitely had some failures there. I mean, I'd say my hit rate is pretty good, but, um, sometimes I have failed and those ones are, you know, disappointing, uh, to me. So I think that's always a challenge for any, uh, business operator, founder, you know, whatever it is, to make sure you've got the right people. And I spend the most, most of my time working on that and making sure I've got the right people in the right, right seat.

Speaker A: You know, that I feel like that comment, uh, is. Has been stated pretty consistently throughout different episodes because, you know, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Right? And if you bring in, you know, a staffer that really doesn't believe in the culture, really doesn't believe in the mission, and they can truly erode a lot of that from other colleagues.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, like you were the average of the 10 people who hang out the most kind of thing. And so it is important, like, I always. So I'm in healthcare. I've been in healthcare for over, you know, two decades. One thing I'm always training our new employees is fours are not fives. And what I mean by that is, in healthcare in particular, you know, we're, we're scaled on patient satisfaction and hipaa, uh, or the HCAHP scores, right. And press gaining. And we have to strive for fives because it actually correlates to reimbursement rates. And so what, I mean, fours aren't fives. If, if we're getting fours across the board, we're actually the lowest ranking hospital in the entire country. Okay? So that's, that's one. That's how you have to think about it. If you're getting fours across the board, you're the worst hospital in the entire country. So you have to kind of strive for five and having the right people in the place, having the right member on the bus. And, you know, I really love what you mentioned is your team really does focus on their zone of excellence, right? Like, hey, stay in your lane. I know operations, I don't know marketing, um, I don't know the hooks. But you do. Let's. I really love that concept as well, because it does allow you to freely focus on that, you know, zone of excellence versus core competencies. And I think as startups, as founders, you know, most entrepreneurs, when they're first starting out your business, you're, you're wearing all the hats, right? Uh, your operations, your marketing, your finance. I get, I get it. But I will tell you, one of the saving graces for me personally recently was actually coming to this realization. I, I can't edit audio and video. I can, but that's not my zone of excellence. Have some competencies in it. So I've been actually outsourcing. As you guys can see, a lot of my stuff's getting better. So, so the product's getting better, the quality is getting better, the sound's getting better. Again, this is all because I'm now outsourcing that product because I know somebody else has a much better zone of excellence in that specific market than me. And so identifying those individuals is very important because a lot of times what will happen is we'll get a, uh, overachiever and then we'll try to fit that individual into a square when they're a circle, right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And so they become disengaged unpassioned about what they're doing. And so you really have to kind of not only pick the right people, but also pick them based on those skill sets. And what is it that you truly need that's really going to help push you forward?

Speaker B: Yep, I believe in that 100%.

Speaker A: Yes. I love it. And one of the. Now, now you're talking about your uh, your business currently remote work, which is again a very, very difficult thing to do. Um, because your team. Actually I was looking at your guys website you guys support and folks, you guys can check out the shades of you dot com. We'll have all this information on there. So subscribe to the newsletter. But you guys support a lot from marketing to finance to all sorts of these things. So first tell me, tell me like why did you start the business? What, you know, what problem did you identify that you're solving? And then two, how did you begin to build it up?

Speaker B: Um, thanks for that question. So back, back in the day, you know, I had a choice. After the Internet bubble crash of 2000, I said to myself, am I going to start a software company or services company? And I remember sitting down and thinking about this and I said, okay, services is definitely going to be easier from the perspective, uh, we just had an Internet bubble crash. I mean software is just going to be difficult, uh, at this moment. So I said, services. Uh, fortunately I had some friends call me up, uh, who owned businesses and said, hey, I know you've started something in India. We want to, you know, train you on what we do. And I said sure. I didn't know the, it was actually in the promotional product industry which is a uh, Now a AH20, 25 billion dollar industry but back then it was still multi billion dollar but I didn't know anything about it and so I said sure. And basically just walking through the door and saying okay, I'm taking this opportunity and learning. Well that, that really led us uh, to many opportunities in that industry. We started with graphic design services um, in that industry because um, everybody else outsourcing was doing it, software development, call center, especially out of India. And I said why am I going to compete against things that are already being done? So I said let me look at something different. Which was a uh, great thought on my part because we really, really grew. We're one of the largest license holders of Adobe products now. Um, we have significant capability. But then what happened after we started that was all of our customers were saying you're so good at this, can you help us in finance, can you help us in other areas, call center, et cetera. So, so I thought to myself well it's better uh, I don't want to be the best graphic design company in the world. I want to be the best HR company in the world. The best company that could manage talent of any skill set in any part of the world. So we really started focusing on that and that's why we started um, offering services after literally hundreds of services and, and the way I, I personally look at it is if, if we're doing it for ourselves which we do all these services we might as well offer that as a, not just a cost center but as a revenue profit generating center to our clients, you know. So um, so it really has ah, expanded significantly and signet and, and also as you said it's tough because we're not in one country. There's not a, there's very few privately held companies like mine um, which can go from country to country and start up and then really be successful. There's a lot to it. Um, you know so now we're in four countries, we're going to keep growing and um, yeah it's been exciting, it's been a long haul but I'm just astonished at where we are today because I, I did not expect any of it to be honest.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I was again I was checking out your guys website and I was like wow, they provide a lot of um, you know, services now. I really love what you said and you're like hey, I don't Want to be the best, you know, creative person. I want to be the best HR department, which again is a larger umbrella with a bunch of sub departments underneath it now. So one of the things you mentioned too is you guys have a bunch of different skill sets, right? You got finance, you got marketing, you got all of these different things. How does your team. And one of the things you also mentioned was the first time you brought on somebody is you had their kind of, you know, service experts train your team, you know, SME service, uh, subject matter experts. How do you kind of consistently make sure that your team. Because to be honest, I'm looking at as a win because now I don't have to train, I don't have to hire. Right, I have to retrain on the rehire.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So how do you ensure like high quality for the staffing that your team. Because like you mentioned getting the right people on the bus. What kind of, what kind of onboarding do you have to ensure you do have the right people on the bus? They are training up to par. So you know, you do have this continuously excellent service.

Speaker B: Um, so uh, what we do well and first let me just go back into remote staffing. There's different types like here in the US Remote staffing means employees working at home. In my world it means, hey, we've got employees in different countries like India, Philippines, South Africa, Mexico, who are mostly working from our offices. Some of them are working from home. But that's, it's sort of a little bit different. And so our value proposition is the labor arbitrage, which is the salary differences between a US based salary and offshore. So that's, that's the first thing. And then what we do is we really have a, uh, very strong recruiting and HR teams that are constantly looking at the job requirements of what our clients are looking for, matching that up with talent either in our company already or, or through the extensive database we have so we can onboard talented individuals very quickly. We have a very, we have a specific team that's um, focused on onboarding. So when a client signs a contract, they're working very closely with that client, matching them with the right, you know, team members, making sure they're, you know, going through testing of their skills, um, which is a multi week process, maybe even multi month process. We're setting up the KPIs, we have dashboards, we have complete visibility to our transparency to our clients with paperless workflows so they can track everything that's happening. So we really believe in that trend. Yeah, call it Like a managed service. In the IT world, you have managed servers and managed it. Well, we're managed human talent. Like, we basically provide all the tools, um, and all the accountability to, and transparency to our clients to make sure they understand at every given minute of the day that everything's being handled on time with the right quality, um, and, and uh, at the right price, at the price that they agreed to. So, so that's how we do it. We're just very transparent about our entire process.

Speaker A: I love that your onboarding process has KPIs embedded into it. I don't think enough organizations or small businesses are really, when we start, I don't think people like really think about strategy too much and think about KPIs. You tend to hear it more often in like the marketing world. But again, if you're in the business world, you should be understanding what KPIs are as key performance indicator. And what does that mean? So for example, let's say I have a goal. My goal is, uh, I want to, I want to, I want to build a, uh, business that's going to make me a million dollars. Okay, well, how do I get there? Right, well, I'm going to create some tactics. All right, well, tactic might be one, I might go to like a farmer's market. Tactic two, I might, you know, sell online. Tactic three, marketing campaign, so on and so forth. But then you have to measure, do each. Are these tactics working? So what is the measurable goal, your key performance indicator that says that you've actually achieved Tactic one, which was, hey, open a store. Right. Tactic two, E commerce. Tactic three, marketing campaign. So you have to have some type of, uh, some type of measurable goal, right? And it could very much be like, hey, I want to get my E Commerce up and running within one year. Hey, that is a key performance indicator that you're moving forward. Right. Essentially the, the KPIs are there to kind of help you, propel you forward, but they're also there to be a safeguard and saying, hey, you can't start your next goal until you get these KPIs and you actually have achieved this goal. Now you could probably do multiple goals at the same time, certainly. But it's all, it's kind of like a stage gate, right? When you're product development, each stage, you want to make sure you've completed that stage before you move on to the next one. Uh, I always, I always love this. It's a good idea, a good practice to start thinking about KPIs when you think about goals, even personal goals. If you have a personal goal, right, maybe you want to lose weight, or maybe you want to, you know, save money or, you know, whatever it is, or read a book, a KPI. Hey, if I read two pages a night, right, or maybe even I read a chapter a week in a book, right, that's a KPI, okay? That's a key performance indicator that you're getting to that goal. So again, I always encourage people to use it either in a business perspective, personal perspective, because it's just a nice tracker. Now, now your team is scaled. You mentioned, and I really also love what you, uh, mentioned to you. Like, your team really is like a human service remote. And I love the, that you created the distinction, uh, between our version of remote work, which, which I think is a misconception. Everybody just sits at home and does nothing. I, I wish it did not work from home because I never turn it off. Um, I'm constantly working now. There is, there is no lunch break. There's no water cooler conversation. There's work and then there's work and then there's kids going to bed and there's more work, you know. So as you, as you've been getting to scale, what would you say has been some of the difficulties, if any, uh, of scaling this business to where it's at today?

Speaker B: Uh, oh, yeah. So scaling is a difficult thing. And what I have focused on, particularly, let's just take the first 15 years of my company, it was all organic growth, you know, the traditional things like trade shows and, you know, cold calling things that every other company does. Um, after that, about eight years ago or so, I, I had a mindset shift. And my mindset was, how do we scale our lead generation? How do we really get to a point where we can predictably grow our sales every day, every month, every year. And so I started on that journey because that's sort of my skill set is coming up with new concepts. So we built a very, very complicated but very effective lead gen program, um, in house, which, um, generates a lot of incoming leads. Um, you know, to give you some perspective, um, we, we get about 120,000 visitors to our website every month, which is pretty significant for a remote staffing company.

Speaker A: Yes, it is.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty significant. We are doing local, um, events throughout the country. Uh, last year or this year, we're planning to do about 200. So it's all a sort of a uh, connected, interrelated Legion program and funnel that we've. We generated without spending A single dollar. Um, sorry, Google, like, uh, and Facebook, but single dollars on Facebook ads or, or Google Ads. Um, and so, um, you know, while we're starting to do that a little bit, we really haven't, um, relied on that. We haven't relied on someone having to click on an ad to come to our website. And so, um, so it's been a very interesting journey. So the, I think the, the most difficult part of scaling for any business is really how do you, how do you scale your prospecting and lead generation? I mean, I hear, I talk to business owners all the time and that's kind of one of their number one pain points as well as talent. Getting the right talent is, you know, a lot of companies have a problem with that, which is where we kind of, you know, fill those gaps.

Speaker A: Yep, this is, this is so very true. This is so very true. In fact folks, you know, again, you can see this information on the sage, the uh, shades of e dot com. Please subscribe to the newsletter. We'll have this information out there. But one of the things, you know, you mentioned is kind of as you grow, you know, we have a non. Profit. We created this non profit, right. And one of the things that's very interesting is we're beginning to grow. Like you're starting to think about all these operations and thinking about like, how do we streamline things, how do we be more transparent, how do we. All of this information, it's like an information highway, right? And like you kind of get boggled down in all these different policies and processes. How does your team m. You kind of alluded it to you. You don't love operations, but you do it. But what are some like, tools or things that your team uses to kind of manage themselves, manage track of projects? Because I'm assuming they might work for multiple, multiple companies, more than just one, you know, one day over here and who knows over there. So how do you kind of keep them? Like what, what do you have some, um, you know, proprietary thing that your team only uses or is it something public that you kind of use?

Speaker B: Uh, there's actually three things I'm willing, I'm definitely open to share. One is we do have our own, um, paperless workflow software called work2 47 or work24 7. It basically tracks all the jobs in the company, where they are, what stage, who's working on it, et cetera. We needed that, um, we needed that a long time ago, which. We built it a long time ago to really provide that transparency for day to day Projects we use Asana, quite frankly, uh, we don't want to build anything like that when there's publicly available tools like Asana. And then the other thing we're starting to really use heavily is uh, eos, which is the entrepreneur operating system software, which I think is a great way to keep your executive management team, uh, leaders in a company on track with the company vision and achieving goals in their respective areas to meet those vision targets. So we're really being intentional about how we're going about tracking, um, keeping everyone on the same page because we're distributed globally and it's really hard to um, keep everyone communicating properly. Me myself in la, I see my key executives maybe once a year. Can you imagine, I have to travel to a different country once a year probably and then meet with them. And so it's all virtual for me, um, while they may be working with their local teams pretty heavily. So we have to use these tools to make sure we're all on the same page at all times.

Speaker A: Yeah, I can't imagine you could have a global company without some type of virtual education. Now one of the things you mentioned too was the lack of marketing funding and ad spend and specifically because of strategic outreach, you know, one of the things you talked about was, you know, identifying the right customer, uh, making sure you're not spending too much, you know, ad dollars on those people. Tell me about the importance because this is kind of where my world sits within the healthcare world. I do strategic outreach. So I got in the community and build business. Right, Business development. Tell me about strategic outreach from your perspective and kind of how it's helped create customers and draw uh, leads, uh, back to your guys organization.

Speaker B: Well I speak on this a lot. Uh, you have to have a hook, you know, to get every, every business person probably gets every day 10 different solicitation messages either on LinkedIn, email, sometimes voicemail, phone calls, whatever it may be. Um, and 99% of those never get even opened or responded to. So you really have to find something different, um, to cut through all that clutter. And so we've done that, we've taken different strategies. I'll give you an example. When we were opening our South Africa office, um, I wanted our customers and our prospects to actually hear the voice, hear the voices of the people, um, and experience that so that they would call us. So what I did, I remember going into a Hallmark cards and picking up a birthday card and it was one of those audio cards, you know, that, that either had some sort of message or tune a uh, Happy birthday song or whatever. I said, well, I need one of these, and I need to be able to record a voice and a message on this card. So I found the company that did it. They had a patent on it, and I created these cards. And it was a custom card, personalized, you know, that we mailed out with the voice of someone from South Africa, inviting them to explore our new service, which was a huge hit. It really stood out. Um, first of all, it was a mailer, which people don't get mailers that often anymore. And it was a personalized message that they could hear right away with a QR link to a landing page to learn more. And so that's an example of where you got to stand out these days and do something very different to get attention. And so we're constantly coming up with ideas on, um, different things we can do, because everything. Every company is sort of chasing each other. They see something online. Oh, there's a billion companies doing that same thing. And you're. You're literally going to just be another one in the line, and that's not going to get the attention you're looking for.

Speaker A: Yes, that's very true. The hook and the story is so important. You know, one of the things. Again, folks, Latino Founders is the nonprofit we started. We have Pitch Latino, so we recently trademarked that. And so we've been going around the country doing these pitch, uh, competitions. And one thing I do when I'm coaching our or individuals that are doing a pitch is when I tell them the first, like, two slides or first slide or. So that's where you're going to introduce yourself, and you kind of talk about your story, how you found this problem. Because, again, you're. You're solving a problem, right? Entrepreneurship is essentially solving a problem. Okay? I want you to make your story relatable so everybody understands and they can relate to the problem that you're solving. And then start talking about the problem you solved after that. Um, I'm not trying to be rude, but nobody cares about your story after that. You are the guide of this story. You are. You are Samwise Gandhi, and these folks are Frodo Baggins and Lord of the Rings. And you're leading these people to see the value of the solution that you created, so then they're willing to actually pay. And I, again, what. I love what your mailers did. And, folks, this is also a testament to, like, snail mail still works sometimes, if it's unique. Right? One, two. There's a value. There's some type of value on that document. Uh, and it has to be a pretty quick value add because when you're seeing it and you're going to the recycling, it's pretty quick and things like one or two seconds right now. With that said, the last thing I really loved was the call to action and the QR code. Here's how you can access us really quickly. Just scan this and here's the call action. Learn more. I'm gonna give you a, I'm gonna give you a carrot, I'm gonna hang a little carrot in front of you, but I got a whole stack of them back here. You just gotta scan this QR code. And again, that's kind of how you bring people in. But the biggest thing really for the folks listening is one, you have to identify and really, really know who your customer is. And with that customer segment, you're targeting it because you also have to understand what they consider as valuable and how they want that value proposition to come across. Um, they might want it in snail mail, they might be Facebook, might be other, you know, avenues. But understanding, you know, your, your uh, your market segments is extremely, extremely important because then you can kind of create your value proposition around that market segment again, making sure it aligns with the, uh, with the solution that you created. Uh, you can't just, you know, willy nilly, but nonetheless it's, it's, it's, I really love that kind of process.

Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah.

Speaker A: Now you, you were, your team's built, you're starting to grow. What's on the horizon? What does the next five years look like?

Speaker B: Uh, the next five years is uh, AI. Right. So, uh, ah, this is a game changer. There's not many platforms or technologies that can change the world that come along every day. And so um, AI, we uh, see that as a huge opportunity because we're in the business of helping companies improve their business process. This is just another way to do that. And so, um, we're excited. We've got an AI team. We're building, you know, for our current clients, we're building applications that can really help their workflows improve. We're building products, um, where we think there's going to be a really great strategic, uh, opportunity, especially in lead generation. And so really, um, beyond just growing our remote staffing service to other types of industries and countries, AI is a big portion of what we're going to be doing moving forward.

Speaker A: Yeah, and I, I've, again, I've, uh, anybody has listened to this podcast before knows I always say that you're not going to lose your job to AI, you're going to lose your job to somebody else using AI because at the end of the day you still gotta, you gotta train the AI, you gotta make sure that you do kind of have to, you know, check its, uh, you know, basically be the, the spell checker essentially. Right. You got to double check it's work to ensure it's quality. But more importantly that like one of the things I really like what your pro, your head's going is I've always been telling people this too. If you can create an AI product that service providers can use for their clients, that's even better. Right? So like if you're able to create like some type of knowledge hub for the finance world or something, right? And then you have account managers, those are your clients. And then account managers, they have their own clients. Right. But, and what's the beauty of that concept too is it makes your pool a little bit smarter. You really know what your target audience is. And you said it's a specific niche. Right? The, the riches are in the niches, they say. Right. And so if you can focus on a specific niche, right, and really drill all down on that, uh, that's, that's really where you're gonna be like again, you were a first mover in the remote work world, really.

Speaker B: Right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: And how has that been successful for you?

Speaker B: Hugely successful. Uh, and so I think, you know, in this area, I'm excited we've got some product launches in the next, uh, two months in AI, um, sort of combining AI with human, um, employees. And we uh, think those are going to be game changers. I mean, we're already using it internally and it's been successful. Again, it's our model of we're our own guinea pig, we eat our own dog food, and then once we like it, you know, we're gonna let our clients use it. And so that's sort of been a, uh, key to our success. And so, yeah, so we're, I'm excited about this next phase, the next five to eight years for sure. Um, this is, this is, this is huge. I mean, it's just crazy to think how AI is going to impact our world. It's just, it's just unbelievable.

Speaker A: Yeah. And the beauty of it is the younger generation, they're getting trained on it now, like in the beginning of school. And you know, one thing I would encourage teachers, I know, like, there's a lot of frustration over every time I get a book report, it's AI written, I'm like, well then maybe we should be teaching individuals what AI cannot do. Right? There's a lot of things that AI cannot do yet, uh, focus on those, those are core competencies that we've been lost for a while, you know. So, uh, going back to that, I would, I would encourage him. Now you've been doing this for, you said you've specifically the recruiting business for over 25 years. I believe it was.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Have you ever had a moment of self doubt?

Speaker B: Um, uh, self doubt? No, but I think um, really you know, assessing, you know, kind of where I, where my business acumen was. And the one thing I did which was really valuable to me, um, which I, I went back to Harvard Business School. So I enrolled in a program called the Owner President Management Program. It's a three year program. It's their equivalent of an executive mba. I had already done my MBA in Toronto, Canada, but I really felt like I needed a refresher. I also wanted to benchmark myself and understand kind of where I was in compared to like many of the best in the world, best business people. And I felt really good because I, I, I could really understand, you know, when you're, when you're an entrepreneur, you're pretty isolated, you're, you're working on your own, you're not around a lot of business people. So this was a great opportunity. And what I learned was, um, was I was pretty good in certain areas, especially in strategy and um, and along the way I met a lot of great people, a lot of great friends. We just had a, a reunion in Thailand with over 70 of our cohorts. I mean it's just an incredible community. And so I think it wasn't so much doubt as really just benchmarking myself and understanding what I knew, what I didn't know, kind of how I was, sort of how I felt about, you know, um, any gaps that I may have had. So I think that's always important is to kind of check yourself and see, you know, your blind spots and if you can know where those are, um, you're in pretty good shape.

Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, I completely agree. In fact one of the things you mentioned that ah, you noticed as soon as you, we came on the show. So those folks are just audio only. I'm wearing a swear, a Syracuse sweater. And I actually mentioned, you know, that's where I went and got my graduate degree. You know, I went and got my MBA over at Syracuse. I got, I'm from Oregon, got my undergrad here at Portland State. And then, you know, as, as time went on, I actually got accepted to the University of Oregon executive MBA program. And I'm very thankful for them. Thank you very much. I do, I really do appreciate it. Although I was also kind of in this weird kind of time where I was like, I kind of want to get out of this state because I, I, I'm comfortable here. And I, I think in order for me to grow, I need to get out of my comfort zone. And so I ended up going to Syracuse. And I gotta tell you, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. Syracuse is actually a really, really remarkable school. Remarkable education, cold as hell, but it was really, really. And, and to your point, my network, because of that, has absolutely expanded exponentially and, and attacks, you know, really individuals who are, you know, Fortune 500 companies, Joe Biden, the former president. I don't care what you guys say about. That's fine. I'm just saying he's an alumni of Syracuse is all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying, folks. Don't shoot me the messenger over here, okay? But again, there's a lot of other great people. In fact, I was able there to see, uh, the Governor of New York, she actually gave her commencement speech. And I was so proud because m. She was able to hear, or my daughter, she was about 3 or 4 years old at the time. One of those things she said, she's like, you know, you can go to any college in the world and become a congressman's wife, or you can go to Syracuse and become a congresswoman. And that for me, I was like, women empowerment. I got a girl right here. This is what she needs to hear. So for me, it was a really cool experience. I'm not saying education in school and higher learning is for everybody, but it is an opportunity to get out there and meet people, even if it's not college. Again, as we started this conversation, conferences, trade shows, uh, networking events, check out your own local, uh, entrepreneurial support organizations that you have there, uh, in your communities or chambers of commerce, there's always events. So just go out, share thoughts. Nobody's going to steal your idea because as we were mentioning earlier, you got to have real passion about your idea to go through with it, because it's a lot of lonely nights, a lot of long days. You'll, you're by yourself quite a bit, and you really have to have a passion to go through all of that process. But one thing you'll learn is when you share your ideas, people actually Might have some tips or tricks or support to get you to that next KPI. So, again, always, always network. I'm a big fan of networking. Now, before we leave, folks that are interested and want to connect with you, where can they find you online? Where can they connect with you?

Speaker B: What I, uh, would recommend to any of your, um, listeners and viewers is just go to our website. There's contact us, um button at the top, reach, um out, put a message in there, let us know how we can help you. Uh, we're interested in helping companies scale, obviously save money, but more importantly scale and, um, and succeed. And so we've helped thousands of companies do that. And I think it's something that you've got to have in your toolkit. A company like ours that will help you achieve your goals.

Speaker A: Again, folks, that is the best of the Office Beacon. They're one of the best virtual assistants out there. And again, we'll have this information on the shades of e dot com. So please don't freak out if you don't forget any of this. Go ahead and check out the shades of e dot com. Go ahead and subscribe. We will have the Office Beacon information there. We'll also have some backlinks to the page for the contact. Uh, for the contact, they'll have a newsletter. Again, it'll be on the newsletter. So please subscribe@the shadesofe.com now, before we go, is there any last words you have for the listeners?

Speaker B: Uh, yes. Um, I wasn't going to hold it against you, but that Vegas Raiders behind there, I was gonna, I was gonna hang up, but, uh, that's. That's okay. I'm a Rams Chargers guy. We've got a partnership with Sofi Stadium and then we work there every day. But it's like, okay, all right, it's almost time. Season's almost here.

Speaker A: Nobody's perfect. My. So this is true story, folks. My wife and my in laws, huge Kansas City Chiefs fans, they have season tickets. I deal with. I. There, I. There's. There's photos of me freezing Kansas City. The Chiefs are up at like 34. My father was like, nope, we're not leaving. I'm gon like, I'm gonna make you stay in this negative 20 degrees weather for you, man.

Speaker B: I feel for you.

Speaker A: It's very much like the commercials, the lights commercials with the Christmas sweaters. That's. Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you again so much for being on the show. I really do appreciate it. Hopefully. Hey, I'm, I'm hoping the Raiders have a good. And hopefully the Rams have a good year, too. I mean, yeah, you guys got a heck of a team. So, uh, again, uh, I'm really excited about the NFL season, but just as excited about office speaking. So, again, folks, we will have this information on theshadesofe. Com. Please subscribe to the newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Again, this video will be available on YouTube and the Patreon members. You will have this video a week early, as well as some extra content. So go ahead and, uh, subscribe to Patreon. Thank you, and have a great night.