The Exchanges

Q Got it for you. And so let's sort of break that down, right? When you did three and a half million last year, um, you know, talk to me about like one of the services that one of your big customers paid and maybe tell me the story of, of, of how you delivered.

A Yeah. So that was our, that would be our enterprise program. And so what we ended up, we sort of moving away from transactional and moving into what we refer to enterprise. And that's looking at the entire sales journey from start to finish. So when you think about a B to B sale and you think about everything that they go through from the initial contact and initial lead all the way through to a closed deal, and you start looking at all the gaps in between and think, what do they need if you're in B to B sales, selling something that's enterprise? Um, we look at it from a product box perspective. Cube that we created, which is basically marketing, sales, training, and customer experience. And so by breaking that down to how do we help support all those different things, that's what we did essentially with AT&T, and it just happened with them that they needed a huge amount of training. So we basically ended up mapping out their sales journey. They were launching DirecTV Now, the product DirecTV Now, and they had like, 2300 sales reps on the ground that needed training. And there was inconsistencies in terms of what was happening and what they were doing. And so Our job was to basically build a repeatable, scalable training model. And so we helped do that.

AI assessment note: “that's what we did essentially with AT&T, and it just happened with them”

Q What else goes into the, if they pay you a quarter million bucks, what else, what else do they get?

A You know, some of it's just a la carte, to be honest, different divisions that need different, different things related to sales enablement. Um, but it could be, like I said, it could be from marketing, sales, training, and customer experience. So for example, we might be building out, um, when you look at the sales journey, you might be mapping out their sales process and, and arming the team with everything that they need to help follow up and follow through and nurture the sales cycle. We found that on average people follow up about three times, but it takes a team plus contacts to actually close a deal. So there's a big discrepancy between those two. And you start looking and go, why are they not following up? And you start finding that they're running to call reluctance. They're running out of gas. So these large companies are spending a huge amount of money on, on driving the lead in the first place, but then they're not, uh, really supporting the sales enablement side enough to actually see it through and get a closed deal. So we start creating content, whether it's decks, case study material, uh, experienced trailer content, all the different things are going to help win confidence and, and, and give them tools to stay the course and close the sale.

AI assessment note: “we start creating content, whether it's decks, case study material”

Q video, and then I've shot one on my cell phone and run an A-B test. And you know what? Many times the sloppier, cheaper, many would call uglier one performs better because it looks less produced. Like I'm trying to hide something. You must get into this debate all the time with, with your customers. Where do you fall in terms of what video is working today and what's not?

A You know, I used to say exactly what you said years and years ago. He said the exact same thing. And then we really started going heavy on it. But I think there's truth in what you said in both angles. I think that, I think that content creation and, and, and recording on your phone and doing that sort of rough, authentic piece has value. But I, at the same time, I think that when you're dealing with a fortune 500 company and they have a specific pitch in their Microsoft cloud, they're pitching their Microsoft cloud. There's a level of professionalism and polish to the deck, into the pitch, and everything that's being presented to the audience, and I think it's very different. It comes down to the audience and who you're communicating to, and they're expecting the same way you would have a polished site, the same way you would have a polished deck or a polished webinar. There, there's It needs to say the right things to the, to, in a way that's going to compel and move the audience. And I always say to people that I don't believe that clients are coming to us for video. I believe they're coming to us for communication. Our job is to actually understand who's watching this, why they're watching this, what are the pain points, how to get in their head and how to move people in a way that's compelling. And ultimately that's what we're doing. Um, I think anybody can create a video.

AI assessment note: “It comes down to the audience and who you're communicating to”

Q And so do you find yourself sort of repeating the same line to your kids? Like they'll come to you with a problem and you'll say, son, I know you can figure it out. Or, you know, do you find yourself sort of repeating the same sort of, what is that line?

A Oh, absolutely. Uh, you know, absolutely. You know, I, my son came to me recently and was asking me how, how he could make money. And I said, I said, I have a million ways to make money. The question is, do you know how to make money? You need to start coming up with ideas on how to do it. I could tell you all day long, but if you can't figure it out yourself, you know, You need to know that you need to start listing and writing out and getting your creative gears going of how you could make money. So you should flip it around and come to me. And, and I think that those kinds of things, I think as an entrepreneur, When you're teaching children, I think that it's important to challenge them and get them thinking in the right way so you have the mindset to build a company. And as you start shifting your mindset, then the ideas start coming in, as I'm sure you know, and, and that's going to help them be looking at things and asking themselves questions.

AI assessment note: “Oh, absolutely. Uh, you know, absolutely. You know, I, my son came to me recently”

Q Yeah. Interesting. And why, why is, I mean, do you, it sounds like your, your family comes from a sort of business lineage. Is there, where, where's the creative gene come from?

A As long as I can remember, I always want to be an entrepreneur since I was like eight or nine, I'd be writing ideas for businesses. And so it's always, it's just what I, it's just who I am. I think it's always what I wanted to do. I, I, that was the one thing that I really had, had a strong reality with my dad on. That's what I want to talk about. We were talking about business. And so I had that, I luck, luckily had that exposure. So if we went golfing, I would be out there talking business with other people. And I think that since I was young, you know, I was talking to some of the top people at general electric when I was like, And I just remember that. I just, I think for me, I just know it can be done. Um, we now have a couple different companies we're building within Richter Group of companies, and, um, I just think that's what I want to do.

AI assessment note: “As long as I can remember, I always want to be an entrepreneur”

Q What did your parents do? You know, we have a lot of, uh, entrepreneurs listening who are trying to raise entrepreneur kids, and it sounds like your parents did a great job with you. What were they telling you when you were 13 and 14 that made you feel confident enough to go talk to Dell sales executives that young? How did they raise you to think like an entrepreneur?

A Honestly, I think one of the best things you can do for people is just believe in them. And I think that my parents, they just believed in me. So no matter what I was doing, they just kept encouraging me and sort of fanning your confidence. The truth is one of the strongest things you can have is confidence. And, and, and that was one of the things where I knew that my parents were in my corner cheering me on, especially my mom. And I think that That has always anchored me. In fact, when she passed away last year, that was one of the things that I had this huge gap and, and I had to kind of replace and find a way to replace that. Um, cause I didn't realize until then, I, a lot of what I was doing was, was for my folks, you know, and, and, and you have to replace that. But I think confidence, if you, if you're trying to teach your children, you got to teach them to be confident and, and, and, and believe in their own idea and, and see it through and, and not be dependent on you to do things for them.

AI assessment note: “my parents, they just believed in me. So no matter what I was doing”

Q That's good. And do you think you'll, I mean, are you basically sort of hire, you're reinvesting everything right now for the next couple of years? You're probably going to be break even the next few years. Yeah.

A You know what? When, when this pandemic hit, I started getting really aggressive about like, Like, set asides, and building a war chest, and all that kind of stuff, because that was really interesting. Like, I, at, around February, I don't, I'm, Usually unflappable, but I got a little freaked out. And we made a commitment that we were not going to fire anyone whatsoever. We wanted to keep everybody on board and just keep going. And so we basically four X everything that we were doing. We started, I personally was making 50 plus phone calls per day. We started making cold calls, just whatever, everything. It got super aggressive. And, and we just paid off debt basically. And then we built up our war chest and we're continuing to do that. And so everything that we're doing this year, it's Actually, interesting enough, been a great year for us.

AI assessment note: “we built up our war chest and we're continuing to do that.”