Rachael Becker, Founder & CEO of RB Builds, joins host James Mackey to discuss business efficiency, tech transformation, and creating standout user experiences.
With a unique blend of expertise across operations and technology, Rachael shares actionable insights on how organizations can streamline processes, improve internal alignment, and scale sustainably.
Thank you to our sponsor, SecureVision, for making this show possible!
Our host James Mackey
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Breakthrough Hiring Show.
I'm your host, james Mackey.
We got Rachel Becker here withus today.
Rachel is the founder and CEOof RBBuilds.
She's a good friend of mine andshe's an advisor to June, my AI
startup.
She's given me a ton of greatadvice and I know she's gonna be
able to provide you with a lotof insight too, rachel welcome.
Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, james, thanks for having I'm excited to be
here and talk about my favoritesubject, which is tech in the
workforce.
Grateful that I found you guysWith RBBuilds.
One of the unique things that Ithink that we can bring to
companies is the experience ofme and some of my experts
throughout our career.
We started in ops, hr and thencame into tech and efficiencies,
(00:40):
and with RBBuilds we have theconsultancy for the businesses
as well as the consultancy forthe go-to-market startups.
So that unique understanding ofboth what's actually happening
in the workforce right now,which changes so fast, and how
tech is being built, whichchanged so fast, creates a
unique, I think, niche that isbeneficial that we're seeing in
(01:02):
the market today.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, for sure.
And you handle, I think, a fairamount of different types of
projects for your customers,right, I know a lot of it.
It comes down to optimization,technology, transformation, but
you work in different industriesand, I think, different scopes
of work depending on what yourcustomers need.
So I'd love to I thinkeverybody would love to learn a
little bit more about thedifferent types of projects you
(01:23):
take on for your customers need.
So I'd love to I thinkeverybody would love to learn a
little bit more about thedifferent types of projects you
take on for customers.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Absolutely so.
Efficiency is our driving forceand within efficiency, that's
optimizing skills, yourprocesses, upskilling tech,
efficiencies within the user,your workforce, and so a lot of
times we're getting calls toeither do like an AI prompting
workshop, we'll get called to dofractional positions as far as
(01:48):
like COO coming in and creatingnew processes with the teams.
Through that process, we'vealso built and birthed temp
agencies after hours answeringservices to meet these needs as
these companies grow and evolvein the crisis that they're in.
But it is industry agnostic,even though I have a special
place in my heart for desklessworkers.
(02:08):
I think that's a verycomplicated industry.
It's where I cut my teeth, andso that's our main focus is
those deskless industries.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, absolutely, and you're doing that and you're
doing a lot of work with me atJune too, which is really
exciting in the SaaS space.
So one of the topics wediscussed really dialing into
today is user experience.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And I think when we've discussed it, like before,
we hit record, you use thatterm broadly as well.
We have, of course, ux for techand product, but I think for
you it goes beyond that andyou're looking at it, at
possibly every interactionwithin a company.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
it sounds like whether it absolutely yeah
employees and yeah, it's abusiness philosophy of ours that
that end user, that experience,goes beyond the tech that
they're using.
It's their, it's theirexperience working with you or
buying from you.
So it's not just the tech, itis their life cycle throughout
(03:04):
your company or their life cycleas your client and paying
attention to and building backfrom the way that they receive
it.
So in 2007, I entered theconstruction industry.
It was a very chaotic year.
I think everyone in the worldcan understand that and I
learned really quickly that if Ineeded a field worker to do
something for me in theconstruction industry, I had to
(03:24):
think like them and buildbackwards.
To me it was a very simpleconcept, but it's amazing how
that is just now turning what 10, 15 years later, to where we're
focused on how they're going toadopt it instead of shoving it
down their throat.
Basically and with June I'veseen that.
So when I used June to, I waslooking for superintendents in
(03:46):
New York City, which iscomplicated.
It's very high volume and thenthere was a skills gap that we
were trying to solve for beforewe got to the interview phase
and the construction workers.
These superintendents lovedJune.
They loved the fact that theycould elaborate.
During the process, they allauthenticated.
(04:07):
I think 17 and 18 haveauthenticated.
They enjoyed the ability totalk back and explain things and
by the time they got to theinterview, they stated that they
felt more ownership over therole, that they were heard and
seen and they were walking inwith more confidence than prior
before, and to me that that's awin.
That's what I mean when, whenfocusing on that UX and how
(04:27):
they're adopting the product.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah for sure, and so everybody tuning in, just so
you know too.
You've probably listened to thepodcast and you've probably
heard me talk about June a fairamount, but essentially, june
does.
It's like an AI interviewingagent, right?
So when candidates apply to ajob, june automatically reaches
out and conducts a pre-screeninginterview, and yeah, in this
case, I think it does provide.
There's like this.
(04:50):
I think here, like my wholephilosophy and this was it
actually started running aservices company was that great
experiences produce greatresults.
So it's like really dialing inon experience, like at every
little moment in the business,and maybe, honestly, I think I
did it almost to a fault.
I think I sometimes did it to asacrifice of scale.
For the first several years inbusiness, I think I was almost
(05:11):
overly obsessive on every littlething being perfect, and what
that led to, though, is we havea 4.8 out of five star customer
review rating at SecureVision.
We lead the category forembedded recruiting and RPO.
We're not the biggest firm yetFrom a quality perspective.
We got that down, and I alwaysdid believe it's.
If you take care of yourcustomers, that workflow and
(05:34):
your employees and you creategreat experiences on both sides,
you can have an incrediblebusiness when we were scaling
and we went from.
I mean, we had a 12, 18 monthperiod where we went from like
one to four and a half millionin revenue at SecureVision and
like a huge part of my focus wasjust getting employee
experience right, like justreally dialing in.
(05:55):
I consider all that like UX.
I just to me, you're right LikeI didn't really segment in all
these different buckets buckets,it's like I want to create an
efficient system in which peoplehave the resources they need,
to feel confident in theirability to produce great results
for the customers.
Like, yeah, and that'sbasically what we did, because I
always saw the business as likeany business.
(06:17):
To me it's two essentially big,like demand gen, like funnels,
if you will, will like two lifecycles.
It's like you have yourcustomers and your employees.
If you take care of thoseemployee experiences, they're
going to create incrediblecustomer experiences is how I
always saw it and it'sinteresting how that lens is
impacting how I think aboutbuilding a product company.
(06:38):
Now it's just a slightlydifferent perspective, similar
to yours, right, like where Ithink about the term more
broadly in terms of let's lookat okay, company wide, right
Every interaction we have withour customer, not just within a
product or every interaction wehave with employees, like how is
that going to impact it?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, I think it's the adoption over consumption,
and so it's something thatthey're going to hold on to and
keep for a long period of time.
It's not fleeting, it doesn'tsolve just one issue.
It's taking into considerationthe experience instead of the
transaction and I think, withwhether it's your employee, you
know, or it's the user of thetech that you're using, I think
(07:14):
that philosophy is what'swinning right now and it gets
people to believe in you.
I think you I just saw theother day that you have an
employee that you've worked with, or a recruiter you've worked
with and she's coming back, oryou're working together again.
You know.
That, to me, is a hugetestament of that end user or
user experience built into yourown company.
(07:34):
I have the same thing and itmeans everything and we're
successful, and we take thatsame philosophy into the
companies that we go in, becauseit's scary.
I walk in and people are scared.
I joke that the highest paidemployee should be nervous, the
lowest paid employee should beexcited, but it's still really
scary.
It's scary because of tech,it's scary because of
uncertainty, and so we come inand we try to understand where
(07:58):
that specific company isexperiencing pain points and not
just generalizations on techand fear and shoving it down
their throats.
We create a custom path forthem to get from point A to
point B, and it's critical.
Every single company in thiscountry could benefit from a
little efficiency rethink.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, like when you typically go into a customer
environment, like what are thehighest leverage areas that you
see or where's usually, where doyou see?
Okay, this is the area that wecan really dial in on and make
the biggest impact.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Feedback loops, Feedback loops and I learned
that in my first year in startupworld just how critical that
feedback loop is, not justbetween the user and the product
team, the investors, the sales,everybody needs to be on the
same page.
Missed information, searchingfor information, actually
(08:52):
building a tool, organizationaltransparency and oversight that
becomes connective tissue forthat to solve.
But that is the first thing wedo is get the lanes of
communication and expectationsaligned and then we build from
there.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Okay, nice, nice.
And I'm curious, just sincewe're working together a lot on
June just to dial in from a UXperspective, like you've given
us a lot of good feedback onwhat you think customer
expectations are going to bewith the features and
functionality, when you'respecifically looking at early
(09:29):
stage SaaS products, like youare with June, it'd be cool to
have a conversation about what'smost important for you or, from
your perspective, what shouldearly stage companies really be
dialing in on?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah, what are you solving?
Make sure you understand that.
I think you guys have a clearunderstanding of that.
The humility as you're buildingit, I think is very important.
I've seen really strongconfidence in your North Star
and then the ability to adapt tothe changing ecosystem that
revolves around the tech thatyou're building.
(10:00):
So those are two huge things.
I think that's important isunderstanding what you're
solving, for it's the sameadvice I actually give to
businesses is you've got to havethat North Star, you've got to
have that goal, becauseeverything becomes really
confusing when you're granularand you're pulled in like a
thousand different ways, and soyou guys are disciplined with
that.
(10:20):
I think that's truly important.
And again, the feedback loop.
My favorite question to asktech, even when I'm doing a demo
, is how do you weight yourfeedback?
What's important to you and howare you making decisions based
off of what's important to youinstead of based off chasing
that dollar really fast becausethis changed or something like
that?
What do you think about thefeedback loop and weighted
(10:41):
feedback?
I know we've talked about it acouple times.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, like in terms of customer feedback.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, so user feedback on like the product.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So whether you own or another tech, it's really, it's
been a really interestingexperience for me just coming
from the services side of thehouse where, like we always, we
had to in a disciplined companylike you always have to be very
careful about prioritizingfeedback, absorbing it like,
dialing, like reallyunderstanding it well, trying to
(11:13):
prioritize it and then making adecision on what should
actually be actionable and what,like, shouldn't be a priority.
We've done that in our servicescompany, but it's different in
that if we onboard a new companyand a services company, they
could say, oh, we have this onelittle ask and when you're like
as a services company, yeah,sure, okay.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
We can do that.
Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
We'll go over here and do this other thing for you.
That's not part of our standardwhatever.
But it's like with a productcompany.
It's like we have these dealsin our pipeline and it's, yeah,
this is good, but we just wantthis one little thing.
And then it's you find out,okay, at a product company,
building that one little thingisn't like one little thing,
because that one little thingimpacts like 100 other things
and it's also a diversion fromour product roadmap.
(11:57):
And Tony, my co founder he Itry not to upset him too much by
promising too much it's.
That is really like thatfeedback loop.
And I think the most interestingpart to me has been like
finding that balance oflistening to user feedback,
trying to go like through,really dialing in on signal
versus noise and then leveragingour own insights and experience
(12:20):
to try to determine, okay,where do we really need to build
.
And it's also very interestingnow because it's like at an
early stage.
We're essentially going wideinitially with a lot of these
discovery conversations, butthen also we want to hopefully
dial in on an ideal customerprofile sooner rather than later
, because we don't want to bebuilding product in 10
(12:41):
directions but we don't alsowant to overcommit, Right.
So it's just like this constantlike in terms of feedback, like
I don't think we've discussedit a lot.
You've given us a lot of goodfeedback.
Right now it's like still inthis very much so exploratory
stage where we're just we'rehaving a lot of conversations,
we're trying not to build toomuch product in too many
different directions and we'retrying to figure out, OK, what
(13:08):
features are safe to build nowthat we know will drive
immediate value, and when doesit make sense to turn down a
potential customer or just sayno.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
That's how I'm thinking about feedback and you
touched on two really importantpieces as you were talking about
it, and the first is how youlike consume the feedback,
because a lot of times you'llhear that's not the feature we
need to do, because the userreally doesn't know what they
need.
They just know their pain pointand instead of saying hey, this
is my pain point, they're gonnasay hey, maybe this, maybe that
(13:33):
, and so again, that's thatpsychology of working backwards,
instead of being like, no, okay, we're gonna take that, we're
gonna analyze it, we're gonnabucketize it with these other
features and you'll start tobirth really great features from
their like suggestions, which alot of product people I've seen
just brush off because it's nota feature they were intending
(13:54):
to build.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But if you focus on the problem, yeah, like, just as
you said, work backward, likethey say okay, what about this?
It's?
Why are you saying that?
What are you trying to?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
What are you trying to?
What were you doing?
I don't know if you guys sawthe Google sheet I set when we
first started with my feedbackis what were you doing at the
time?
What were you trying toaccomplish at the time?
And then what's your suggestion?
And so they still get thechance to say, oh, I wish it did
this, because that's what thisthing does and this is what I'm
used to looking at.
And then you've got the piece.
You weight that weight that.
(14:27):
You have your systematicprocess, you tie it to arr all
that.
And then, on the other side, isyou get?
How do you say no?
How do you keep them enticedand obsessed with your product
but tell them, no, we're notbuilding that yeah, yeah you had
to say that.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yet I don't think you said it, so I think what we've
done thus far is I'm trying toonboard customers and like
cohorts if you will, and reallybeing thoughtful about what
customers can get value out ofwhere the product is today and
being aggressive with revenuestrategy, but not being a
(15:00):
totally blunt instrument, liketrying to be a strategic
salesperson in this one of myseveral jobs, right and not just
push, push, push, push, just tochurn, and so it's like I'm
trying to be very aggressivewith growing revenue, but I also
don't want to onboard acustomer.
It's this could be a greatcustomer six months from now, to
some extent, like I thinkthere's that you've got to be
(15:21):
careful.
The perfectionist side right,where you're just like and of
course, as like we're notperfection, we push it out, like
we're trying, we're moving fast.
But there are some customerswhere, for instance, I know like
we have one deal in thepipeline now and it's one of
those things where it's likewe're like three, six months too
early, because I don't know ifthey're like a friendly, so to
speak.
We can sell and they'll paylike full price or close to it,
(15:45):
but are we ready for that kindof premium?
We want the revenue.
We want like that premiumpricing, the logo.
Yeah, all of that is awesome,but we don't want to onboard new
and then to ultimately share,and so I don't think I'm saying
no as much right now, becausewe're still learning, right,
we're still having conversations.
And hey, if 10 companies say ifyou had this thing, if we did
(16:07):
this, then we would sign, I waslike okay, wait, like we've
heard this from 10 companies now, let's okay.
But what I am trying to be verythoughtful about is saying
trying to put them in buckets ofcohorts, and it's just like we
(16:33):
have this one one sas companyand we're gonna be, we're gonna
at least we're like saying, hey,we're in the like, they need
the ability to do internationalscreening and so it's one of
those things.
It's like we could do now, butthere's just more that we need
to work on.
So it's like we're just tellingthem like, look like, opposed
(16:53):
to getting started now, over thenext six weeks, we're going to
be building out more here, solet's continue, like in the
future.
So I'm more so like justpushing folks out at this point
If I unless I know for sure likewe're not going to be able to
do it, but if it's like one ofthose things where it's like I
need to have a few moreconversations before knowing for
sure, then I am starting tojust I just try to push them out
(17:20):
a little bit further so wedon't overcommit anything.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, and I hear two things there that I validate.
One is that you have the motiongoing right, so it's probably
different communications to theones you're pushing out that
strategy there, that's yoursales motion.
But I think also when you canconfidently say not yet, or this
is what we're building instead,and this is why we think that
we should be building it.
We are the experts, you guys.
And so there's a story I alwaystell You've probably heard it a
thousand times.
I was in swimming lessons withmy middle son.
(17:48):
My middle son was bornmedically vulnerable.
He's great now, but it was ascary time.
And so finally he was two yearsold and we're in swimming
lessons and the practice was toblow in their face, dunk them
under the water and bring themback up.
And so I did it the first timeand his face came up and it was
just distraught.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
And she goes OK, do it again.
And I blew in his face and hislittle lip quivered and I just
held him to my chest, I didn'tdunk him under the water and she
screams at me.
He needs to trust you, not likeyou.
And I think that psychologyworks really well.
If you can say no, but givethem the reason why.
If you can say no, but givethem the reason why.
If you can say not, yet, givethem the reason why.
(18:32):
That, I think, is going tobuild actual adoption than
trying to give them somethingthat's not going to work or
something you don't believe iscore to the product.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, I definitely agree, and it's weird because
the salesperson in me, a salesleader in me from Secure Vision,
it's like being super dialed inon your ICP qualifying
disqualified deals fast.
Don't waste time on deals thatyou're not going to win.
Is your pipeline real or not?
Like really having those typesof conversations really building
(18:58):
out like buyer personaconversations and just being
very targeted, right?
And it's definitely like at thisstage it's a little bit
different right, like we'retrying to be that company, but
it's like we're still not atthat point yet where we can just
you got to gather data and usecases.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
That's why that feedback loop that you're using
inside is so important, becauseyou can start to not just bucket
feedback.
You can start to identify yourpower users in a way that you
wouldn't have if we wereguessing.
A-b testing.
I love, but you are absorbingas fast as you can in this early
(19:34):
stage to then put those inthose buckets, as opposed to the
other way around.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, that's really critical insight.
I mean, I think thinking aboutoptimizing a product or a
service toward the lens of notfocusing on an end feature
request but getting to the corepay point is something that I
don't think is done very oftenfrankly, particularly not on the
product side, like I coulddefinitely see product people
just like not understanding thatat all, particularly if it's
(19:59):
like an engineering background.
They're not even going to.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I now speak engineer.
I hear that took a while.
I see construction, enough.
I now speak engineer.
I hear that took a while.
I think construction yeah, yeah, it's not, and I think that's
where I just continue thatsystematic it's wild,
information's flying everywhereand it changes and so you taking
that information and putting itinto a framework I think really
helps calm that, calm the chaos, and it helps.
I think our systematicengineers understand too what
(20:25):
we're trying to tell them byputting it in some type of
formatted structure process.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, hey, just to switch gears a little bit, I'd
really love to learn more aboutthe work you do with deskless
employees and companies in thosespaces.
I would love to.
I know you've given us anoverview of some of the projects
you work on and what you helpwith like an overview of some of
the projects you work on andwhat you help with, but would
you be able to give us more of arecent example of the work you
do there, because I'm justreally curious to learn more
(20:51):
about what you do on that sideof the house for your business?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I was invited into a group ofcompanies recently, which I
really enjoyed.
It was a huge challenge becauseyou're walking in and you've
got multiple companies withinDeslis, but still multiple
different companies.
They were inter-company, sothey had feedback loops.
The tech was different in eachcompany, the processes were
(21:15):
antiquated and by hand.
The welcome letter, the newcustomer letter even, was still
by hand, not even copy and pastefrom a template.
The man hours to the collectiveman hours across the companies
were twice, if not three times,the benchmark, and so it was
very clear that there was atleast an efficiency issue.
They called it a payroll issue,but as you get in you're
(21:37):
starting to see it's anefficiency issue as well,
because the people that arebeing paid this much aren't
accomplishing what you know.
Industry benchmarks say thatthey should.
So we came in, we did some.
I prefer to upskill as opposedto let go, but in some
circumstances that's necessaryand in some circumstances they
don't want to upskill, theydon't want to learn tech, they
don't want to learn a newprocess, and so there's a little
(22:02):
bit of that kind of shake thathappens.
We handle anything, any exitsthat need to happen, gracefully.
I have another philosophy isyou give a bigger party when
they leave than when they camein.
And then we got down to nittygritty and we started with tech
stack.
We I vetted all the tech stackthat they were using, thankful
for AI.
It's pretty quick, obviously,my connections in the industry,
and so we'll vet the tech stackand see if it's worth keeping.
(22:25):
What integrations andimprovements Do they iterate
quickly?
Are they changing fast witheverybody else?
If I have a tech partner in theindustry, I'm pretty hard on
them.
So the demos are always thefunnest.
They typically end up lastingtwice as long.
But my questions are becauseI'm putting something into a
client's ecosystem for life.
(22:45):
I'm going to have to deal withit or hear about it, so I like
the control there.
So we start with the tech stackand then we start to integrate
processes, create SOPs.
My favorite format is RACI docsso everybody understands who's
responsible, accountable and soon and so forth.
There's nothing missed.
There's nothing missed, and soit's funny because I believe the
operations and HR really arebecoming way more connected than
(23:11):
they ever have.
If you take the two roles andtheir tasks and align them next
to each other, they're prettymuch the same thing.
And so we come in with thatoperations HR blend, because if
you're building a process asoperations, don't you want to
know how that impacts the personpulling off that process?
So again, it's back to that enduser.
(23:32):
So basically what we did waswent in there, shifted people
around a little bit, took peoplethe right person in the wrong
spot looks like the wrong person.
So we shifted responsibilitiesa little bit to where it worked.
We integrated new tech, wetrained field staff, we trained
(23:52):
vendors and external partners toutilize the tech.
We really just go in andupskill and create efficient
processes and ensure that staffcan then carry those processes
on after we leave.
The goal is to leave.
I want to work on bigger andbetter things with that company,
so we get them good and healthyand then we come back on growth
projects, expansions, thingslike that.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Is that the primary, like the North Star, as to why
folks bring you on board to, isit usually like some kind of
form of a revenue target, growthtarget?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So we start with.
We start with bottom line.
So they're yeah.
What we don't want to do is,like you were saying too you've
got all these people, but youdon't want to bring them in and
not have a good place to land,and so what we don't want to do
is increase revenue before wehave the proper processes and
efficiencies in place, becausethen your reactionary as opposed
to due to proactive.
(24:47):
So it's a.
Within the first 90 days, I haveclients on average see 2X
increase in customersatisfaction.
Revenue increases actually, butthat's not intentional.
Even with our temp services,which people often think are
more expensive and complicated,they're saying 10 to 20% savings
(25:07):
in their payroll, and then thetech efficiencies and whatnot.
So it's basically about marginto begin with, and then we can
go into sales motions, marketing.
We have a great marketing armin RB Builds as well, and so
that's the fun part.
When that team comes in.
That means that we've beensuccessful, we've created a firm
(25:29):
foundation and it's time togrow.
And it's quick and it's easy.
I know these circumstances andconsultants sound scary, temps
sound scary, but it's quick,painless.
We could be turned around inabout 24 hours because we know
these industries so well.
Is.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I think it's revenue growth is also very hard.
Everything about building acompany is insanely hard.
But I think what is hard aboutgrowing revenue is not just that
you're growing top line, it'sgrowing with strong unit
(26:05):
economics in the business.
So your actual margin is notjust depleting where it's like
you have more revenue andoverhead but you're making less
money, which is most businessesand to some extent it is
inevitable.
In some cases, overhead isgoing to have to grow a little
bit if you start to scale acompany, but there's no point to
grow if the company is not tosome extent maintaining profit
(26:30):
margins.
That's the point, and I thinkthat when it comes to protecting
margins or increasing margins,I think that there's still a lot
of people in executivepositions that they're starting
to understand the value of AI,the value of tech, the value of
even offshoring more roles.
But I think that there's this abit of an oversimplification on
(26:52):
okay, I'm going to review a P&Land that's how I'm going to
optimize for margin.
That's it.
It's just through the lens ofwhere's the waste right, where
can we cut.
But I don't think that a lot offolks actually have the
expertise on how do we build abetter machine, a better engine,
a better process tech,everything to just drive
(27:13):
efficiency and actually increasemargin.
It's deeper than going into aP&L and I think a lot of times
that's where the executivesthat's what they do right.
They're going to reviewquarterly report, they're going
to see okay, what can we do?
Is there anything efficiencygains?
But like what you're doing is,it's really impressive because
it's incredibly hard and ittakes a lot more expertise than
(27:34):
just simply looking at a P&L.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
That's where we start to actually is the P&L.
So I sit with the ops guy, thefinance guy.
Typically the finance guy isgiving me a call because he's
mad at the ops guy becausethings are falling apart and
we'll sit with the P&L andthat's where I start as compared
to industry benchmarks.
But then we get granular and weunpack the impacts and maybe
the worst performing piece isn'twhere we start, because you
want to stop the bleed rightaway as well as build these
(28:01):
efficiencies into place.
And it's no fault to anyonethat this is happening.
It's happening to the entirecountry, to the entire world.
So we used to be able to throwmoney at things and fix it.
We used to be able to throwpeople at things and fix it.
That's not working right now.
So some of the conversations Ieven have before we even get
(28:21):
started is you're not running abad business.
I know it's not working and Iknow you're frustrated, but
that's.
Everybody in the world rightnow has to really look at their
bottom line and get that healthy.
Ai is not replacing jobs.
I think it's saving jobsbecause companies would be going
under without it.
So I think that a reframe, aswell as a tool and not a
replacement is a positive way tolook at tech right now.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, it's definitely interesting that is a very
interesting topic as well tothink about AI's impact on the
employment market, I do see.
Of course, certain jobs aregoing to probably disappear.
They're going to evolve intodifferent jobs.
I don't know how much it'sreally going to hurt the
employment market.
(29:04):
I think that things are justgoing to continuously move a lot
faster right, even withdevelopers and engineers.
We still need developers andengineers.
Like the code that a chat GPT isgoing to push out, even if an
engineer is asking for help,it's not going to be the highest
quality code.
There's going to be errors init, it's going to be too long,
there's going to be problems,but it can help an engineer, a
(29:27):
senior engineer, go from workingon a problem for a week or two
weeks to doing it in anafternoon, and that doesn't mean
that, like software isn'tnecessarily going to become a
commodity.
It means that we're going to beable to build more complicated,
better products, superiorproducts, and so the bar is just
going to be raised right, like.
It's not that we're not goingto need people.
(29:48):
It's just that people are goingto be doing a lot more.
We're going to be building moresophisticated products.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
The bar is raised.
Yeah, like we're there and it's.
You got to get there or you'renot going to get there.
It's a saw, an electric saw.
You just got cooler toys.
Tech is also connecting, I think, recruiting and recruiters to
the workforce.
Yes, maybe taking a sorcererjob here and there, but I also
think that in that case too,it's still a tool that
(30:15):
somebody's using.
I had to stop recruiting untilI found June, because I didn't
have the capacity to handle thevolume that's come in.
That isn't replacing the highvolume is a newer thing as well,
and so I'm hitting a blockerthat's not replacing anyone.
I just can't do it now becauseso much is coming in June.
Came in and said I'll have thatfirst combo with them.
I'll can't do it now because somuch is coming in June.
(30:35):
Came in and said I'll have thatfirst combo with them.
I'll get the warm and fuzziesgoing, I'll qualify them, you
can look at it in a scalable,digestible way, make your
decision and move forward, andso tech actually allows me to
recruit again, if that makessense.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, for sure, for sure, and it's interesting.
Building June yeah, for sure,they're sure, and it's
interesting.
Like building june isinteresting too because it's
like I obviously I have arecruiting services company too,
right, so it's like I buildrecruiters.
Then I have a tool that enablesand potentially could even like
help companies run with leanersourcing organizations.
Possibly yeah, we don't knowyet, but yeah, I think the goal
is, even if you have an ai agent, like, for instance, like with
(31:13):
june right, it's an ai agent,like, for instance, like with
June, right, it's an AI agent,technically it could handle a
lot of the screening in someenvironments, maybe like the
entire screening interview, soit goes straight to the hiring
manager interview.
But to me, as a senior recruiter, we have a culture at Secure
Vision where it's like everybodyworks with customers, right,
like everybody.
So, even like in the late stageof my career, I've had hands-on
(31:38):
projects.
I've always been engaged withcustomers.
Even when I was building SecureVision over the past few years,
I was always involved and Iwanted an agent, I wanted an
assistant, I wanted an agent, Iwanted a direct report.
So to me it's like, still, no,I didn't see it as lacing my
role as a recruiter, not as aCEO, but even as, like a hands
(31:58):
on recruiter.
It's not even that.
It's like.
The productivity gains I canget of having a direct report
that works for me 24 seven isamazing and that person's gonna
make me look great.
And they're not even gonna askfor credit, they're gonna ask
for a promotion, they're gonnaask for a raise it.
So it's to me it's, even ifyou're in a position where it's
like there's AI coming in,that's like an agent that can
actually evaluate and makedecisions and push things along
(32:18):
in the process, like there's away to leverage that in order to
make your productivity andvalue to the company a lot more.
And I think that's just thefolks that I think just are
probably gonna have to beconcerned with, like the ones
that like aren't thinking abouthow to leverage AI.
Like even on the developer side, like there's engineers that
they've been doing their thingfor 15 years and they just can't
(32:39):
wrap their head around buildingAI data products.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I had one the other day was like, hey, I used AI to
help this code and I'm liketoday, you didn't.
Two weeks ago, six months ago,what's going on?
You got to grab a hold and somepeople that I've worked with I
going on.
You got to grab a hold and somepeople that I've worked with I
wouldn't expect to go into thisnew tech revolution easily and
I'm dragging them.
I'm like you are relevant, youdo need to be in this industry,
(33:05):
you need to be working, butyou've got to leverage these
tools because there are 50 to60% of people sitting at home
that want your job and they arelearning how to use this.
I love it for just a thoughtpartner.
I'm like, yes, sobriety, testthis, sanity, test this, that
type of thing and I like to divein and really unpack ideas and
(33:27):
thoughts, and that alone hasbeen a huge game changer, let
alone the efficiencies that techis bringing us, with the
ability to really unpack an ideaand dig in with someone at the
drop of a hat at any time.
I think it's really valuable.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yeah, it's definitely .
It's like a super exciting timeto be in technology.
I love what you do.
I love RV builds.
I think it's a really coolconcept.
This is the kind of stuff thatI love to like nerd out on, yes,
and almost like in my role islike somebody that's responsible
for a scale as my primarydriver.
Again, like at SecureVision,there was so many times where I
was just like I just want to getin there and optimize, like I
(34:04):
just I love that motion and it's, of course, as the CEO, it's
like that balancing growth rightand having a strong team to
help with those help optimizealong the way.
But we had a customer, aSecureVision customer that an
advisor for, and it was asimilar, different kind of
(34:25):
project but similar in that Iwas brought on board as an
advisor because they needed toincrease net retention.
That was the goal we need toincrease net retention and so it
was really cool because for thetalent strategy, it's like all
right, let's go in there, let'stalk with everybody, let's
uncover process, let's uncovertechnology, let's uncover
everything about what's workingin the environment, everything
(34:46):
that's broken, let's uncoverwho's succeeding and why and
who's struggling and why, andstarting that recruiting motion
and then I ended up genuinelyhad openings.
I did target folks fromcompetitors and we were
considering them and I also waslike a kid in a candy shop,
asking them questions like howdo you run your environment,
what is your process?
What tech do you use?
What's your pipeline?
Look like Doing that wholemotion and like that whole.
(35:08):
It's incredibly fulfilling work,like helping companies just
build a healthier, just businesslike something that's humming,
something that's like awell-oiled machine is something
that's.
I know how challenging it is.
That's why I'm so impressedwith everything that you're
doing.
It's hard work, but I know it'sincredibly fulfilling as well.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Incredibly fulfilling .
I'm getting goosebumps talkingabout it.
I remember the first time weran the numbers, I was nervous.
I'm like are we more efficient?
Are we healthy?
It I was nervous.
I like are we more efficient,are we healthy?
It felt good.
People were happy.
They were showing up more sothan they did.
They were over, going above andbeyond to be involved in this
process.
(35:45):
They trusted that we weremaking changes as they did it,
and so it felt good, like thevibes were good, but we were in
the numbers almost cried.
I was like we did, we are good,it does work, like we know what
we're doing.
It was like we did we are good,it does work, like we know what
we're doing.
It was really strong gains andwhat I would say saved some
companies and so that it's ascary moment and I would click
the button and I was like, wow,we did it.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
We did it, like you.
It's like such an impact toyour businesses, to your
customers, if you're justcreating like true enterprise
value, like You're creatingprofitability, but that also
increases the ability to unlocksustainable growth, like revenue
growth that actually scales,that makes sense.
One of the simplest businesslessons I learned in my early
(36:27):
20s.
It's like look, if you can havea company that it's a $2
revenue and you get a $1 profit,do you want that company or a
company with revenue and you geta one dollar profit?
Do you want that company or acompany with ten dollars revenue
and a one dollar profit?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I want the two dollar .
Speaker 1 (36:42):
I want less risk.
I don't want to have 10x theexpenses to make the same money,
it says.
I think that's there.
Is this over emphasis on this?
Like the revenue metric, whichis still incredible.
You can't have a bottom linewithout the top line, yeah, yeah
.
So it's not that it doesn'tmatter.
It's just like when we start tothink about scale, that's where
everything starts to break down, because we're not looking at
(37:03):
our ability to scale profits andI think we have all these types
of misconceptions in ourbusiness about what's going to
hold up at scale and what'sgoing to break down.
I know this is just a bigmistake that I made in early
days of Secure Vision is we usedto have a lot of like
month-to-month contracts and weworked with a lot of startups
and growth stage companiesproviding recruiting services.
It was like embedded recruiting.
(37:24):
They would pay us, like peoplewould borrow recruiters from us.
They'd pay us a subscriptionfor those recruiters and
sometimes, like the startups,like they would hire for a few
months, they would stop.
So we had it was like a highchurn motion as a recruiting
agency because we fill the rolesin the, but we were considering
that recurring revenue.
Really, they pay us monthly.
They pay us monthly.
It's like it's okay, but yeah,but like your churn is high,
(37:45):
it's not really recurringrevenue.
It's like you don't decide ifyour business is recurring
revenue.
Your customers do, and likethose types of misconceptions
could start to really messthings up at scale.
But there's a billion of themright, like when it comes to
process, when it comes to tech,when it comes to business model,
when it comes to, like yourdifferent financial metrics,
like things that you think areeverything changes, everything
(38:06):
changes, and that's why it's soimportant to catch what, like
the stuff you do for yourcustomers.
It's so important to do earlyon, because if you get to the
point where you're at a scaleorganization and there's all
these fundamental things thatare wrong with how you're
operating and your businessmodel, it can kill you.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
It will, and fortunately that's where we're
at too.
Again, you can't just throwmoney at something you can't
borrow anymore.
You can't.
You've even got insurancespikes with the inflation
logistics.
It's just.
It's impossible to not beintentional about the framework
that your company operates inand that's that's the hardest
(38:48):
part.
I come in and I'm the scapegoat.
My temps that come in, myfractional leaders that come in.
We do frontline like love onour frontliners today, because
we're scapegoats, we're a threat, we are thought partners and we
do really well in those.
In that uncomfortable here Ican give really good, really bad
news.
Really gets dirty, it'sexhausting and that's some of
(39:09):
the tension that we carry sothat these companies can wrestle
with real issues.
Point at me, blame me, okay,but let's talk about what you
need to do to save your business.
We're really good at that piecetoo, because there's a lot of
change, management and weightthat comes with these types of
convos.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
That's also similar to the value of a good COO
brings to the table.
It's to get to implement allthe necessary difficult change
so the CEO can focus on culture.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Exactly yes.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Showing up like all right guys, great work.
That's funny.
I've definitely had thoseengagements too as an advisor,
where it's like you come in andyou're like the-.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Dirty work.
Yeah, I'm the guy.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, just more of the hyper-analytical.
And of course you do what youcan, but when you come in and
make changes sometimes you gotto make big changes and I think
it is also helpful for a CEO tohave a partner that's coming in
to assist with that, becauseit's your business and you've
been in it for years andsometimes it's hard to see
objectively and it's hard toremove yourself enough to make
(40:10):
strong enough to even if you doreally understand some of the
motions that you're doing forthem.
It's still so much hardersometimes when it's your own
business in a way.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Oh, 100%.
That's the first thing I everfound.
It was that situation exactlyworking at a church and a woman
came in and had been reallyupset, like she was sobbing.
I never met her before and shesaid that she's a doctor's wife
and she was at school and one ofthe kids asked for extra
pancakes on pancake day.
She wasn't going to give it tothem, thought they were being
(40:38):
like selfish or something.
And the teacher says they won'teat tonight.
Let them have a pancake.
And she just could not.
She's like I don't know how tofix it.
I got to fix it and I was likeI do and I just started to build
the bones of her pain point andwe created a nonprofit.
The first year they said thatone of the largest food
(40:59):
distribution humanitarianorganizations in the area said
we'd never qualify and afterfive years she was getting an
award for their the highestpatron or something with them.
Yeah, like she.
It's that whole point.
She was so overwhelmed withwhat was in front of her that
she couldn't put the bones to itwhen I did, and the rest is
history.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, I love it, rachel, we're coming up here on
time.
I've had a lot of fun speakingwith you today.
I really appreciate that youcame on the show.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Thank you for having me.
I look forward to growing Junetogether and talking more.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Let's do it.
And for everybody tuning in,just want to let you know that I
do highly recommend Rachel towork with her in any capacity.
Again, I've had an amazingexperience working with her.
At June she came on as an earlycustomer and very quickly
turned into a design partner andadvisor.
High impact, straight to thepoint, limited amount of hours
getting an incredible amount ofvalue.
So if you ever have the chanceto work with Rachel, I
(41:50):
definitely recommend it.
Rachel, it's great speaking toyou and I'm sure we'll probably
talk to you later today ortomorrow, sometime soon.
Bye, see ya, all right, bye.
Welcome to the Breakthrough Hiring Show.
I'm your host, james Mackey.
We got Rachel Becker here withus today.
Rachel is the founder and CEOof RBBuilds.
She's a good friend of mine andshe's an advisor to June, my AI
startup.
She's given me a ton of greatadvice and I know she's gonna be
able to provide you with a lotof insight too, rachel welcome.
Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, james, thanks for having I'm excited to be
here and talk about my favoritesubject, which is tech in the
workforce.
Grateful that I found you guysWith RBBuilds.
One of the unique things that Ithink that we can bring to
companies is the experience ofme and some of my experts
throughout our career.
We started in ops, hr and thencame into tech and efficiencies,
(00:40):
and with RBBuilds we have theconsultancy for the businesses
as well as the consultancy forthe go-to-market startups.
So that unique understanding ofboth what's actually happening
in the workforce right now,which changes so fast, and how
tech is being built, whichchanged so fast, creates a
unique, I think, niche that isbeneficial that we're seeing in
(01:02):
the market today.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, for sure.
And you handle, I think, a fairamount of different types of
projects for your customers,right, I know a lot of it.
It comes down to optimization,technology, transformation, but
you work in different industriesand, I think, different scopes
of work depending on what yourcustomers need.
So I'd love to I thinkeverybody would love to learn a
little bit more about thedifferent types of projects you
(01:23):
take on for your customers need.
So I'd love to I thinkeverybody would love to learn a
little bit more about thedifferent types of projects you
take on for customers.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Absolutely so.
Efficiency is our driving forceand within efficiency, that's
optimizing skills, yourprocesses, upskilling tech,
efficiencies within the user,your workforce, and so a lot of
times we're getting calls toeither do like an AI prompting
workshop, we'll get called to dofractional positions as far as
(01:48):
like COO coming in and creatingnew processes with the teams.
Through that process, we'vealso built and birthed temp
agencies after hours answeringservices to meet these needs as
these companies grow and evolvein the crisis that they're in.
But it is industry agnostic,even though I have a special
place in my heart for desklessworkers.
(02:08):
I think that's a verycomplicated industry.
It's where I cut my teeth, andso that's our main focus is
those deskless industries.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, absolutely, and you're doing that and you're
doing a lot of work with me atJune too, which is really
exciting in the SaaS space.
So one of the topics wediscussed really dialing into
today is user experience.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
And I think when we've discussed it, like before,
we hit record, you use thatterm broadly as well.
We have, of course, ux for techand product, but I think for
you it goes beyond that andyou're looking at it, at
possibly every interactionwithin a company.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
it sounds like whether it absolutely yeah
employees and yeah, it's abusiness philosophy of ours that
that end user, that experience,goes beyond the tech that
they're using.
It's their, it's theirexperience working with you or
buying from you.
So it's not just the tech, itis their life cycle throughout
(03:04):
your company or their life cycleas your client and paying
attention to and building backfrom the way that they receive
it.
So in 2007, I entered theconstruction industry.
It was a very chaotic year.
I think everyone in the worldcan understand that and I
learned really quickly that if Ineeded a field worker to do
something for me in theconstruction industry, I had to
(03:24):
think like them and buildbackwards.
To me it was a very simpleconcept, but it's amazing how
that is just now turning what 10, 15 years later, to where we're
focused on how they're going toadopt it instead of shoving it
down their throat.
Basically and with June I'veseen that.
So when I used June to, I waslooking for superintendents in
(03:46):
New York City, which iscomplicated.
It's very high volume and thenthere was a skills gap that we
were trying to solve for beforewe got to the interview phase
and the construction workers.
These superintendents lovedJune.
They loved the fact that theycould elaborate.
During the process, they allauthenticated.
(04:07):
I think 17 and 18 haveauthenticated.
They enjoyed the ability totalk back and explain things and
by the time they got to theinterview, they stated that they
felt more ownership over therole, that they were heard and
seen and they were walking inwith more confidence than prior
before, and to me that that's awin.
That's what I mean when, whenfocusing on that UX and how
(04:27):
they're adopting the product.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah for sure, and so everybody tuning in, just so
you know too.
You've probably listened to thepodcast and you've probably
heard me talk about June a fairamount, but essentially, june
does.
It's like an AI interviewingagent, right?
So when candidates apply to ajob, june automatically reaches
out and conducts a pre-screeninginterview, and yeah, in this
case, I think it does provide.
There's like this.
(04:50):
I think here, like my wholephilosophy and this was it
actually started running aservices company was that great
experiences produce greatresults.
So it's like really dialing inon experience, like at every
little moment in the business,and maybe, honestly, I think I
did it almost to a fault.
I think I sometimes did it to asacrifice of scale.
For the first several years inbusiness, I think I was almost
(05:11):
overly obsessive on every littlething being perfect, and what
that led to, though, is we havea 4.8 out of five star customer
review rating at SecureVision.
We lead the category forembedded recruiting and RPO.
We're not the biggest firm yetFrom a quality perspective.
We got that down, and I alwaysdid believe it's.
If you take care of yourcustomers, that workflow and
(05:34):
your employees and you creategreat experiences on both sides,
you can have an incrediblebusiness when we were scaling
and we went from.
I mean, we had a 12, 18 monthperiod where we went from like
one to four and a half millionin revenue at SecureVision and
like a huge part of my focus wasjust getting employee
experience right, like justreally dialing in.
(05:55):
I consider all that like UX.
I just to me, you're right LikeI didn't really segment in all
these different buckets buckets,it's like I want to create an
efficient system in which peoplehave the resources they need,
to feel confident in theirability to produce great results
for the customers.
Like, yeah, and that'sbasically what we did, because I
always saw the business as likeany business.
(06:17):
To me it's two essentially big,like demand gen, like funnels,
if you will, will like two lifecycles.
It's like you have yourcustomers and your employees.
If you take care of thoseemployee experiences, they're
going to create incrediblecustomer experiences is how I
always saw it and it'sinteresting how that lens is
impacting how I think aboutbuilding a product company.
(06:38):
Now it's just a slightlydifferent perspective, similar
to yours, right, like where Ithink about the term more
broadly in terms of let's lookat okay, company wide, right
Every interaction we have withour customer, not just within a
product or every interaction wehave with employees, like how is
that going to impact it?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, I think it's the adoption over consumption,
and so it's something thatthey're going to hold on to and
keep for a long period of time.
It's not fleeting, it doesn'tsolve just one issue.
It's taking into considerationthe experience instead of the
transaction and I think, withwhether it's your employee, you
know, or it's the user of thetech that you're using, I think
(07:14):
that philosophy is what'swinning right now and it gets
people to believe in you.
I think you I just saw theother day that you have an
employee that you've worked with, or a recruiter you've worked
with and she's coming back, oryou're working together again.
You know.
That, to me, is a hugetestament of that end user or
user experience built into yourown company.
(07:34):
I have the same thing and itmeans everything and we're
successful, and we take thatsame philosophy into the
companies that we go in, becauseit's scary.
I walk in and people are scared.
I joke that the highest paidemployee should be nervous, the
lowest paid employee should beexcited, but it's still really
scary.
It's scary because of tech,it's scary because of
uncertainty, and so we come inand we try to understand where
(07:58):
that specific company isexperiencing pain points and not
just generalizations on techand fear and shoving it down
their throats.
We create a custom path forthem to get from point A to
point B, and it's critical.
Every single company in thiscountry could benefit from a
little efficiency rethink.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, like when you typically go into a customer
environment, like what are thehighest leverage areas that you
see or where's usually, where doyou see?
Okay, this is the area that wecan really dial in on and make
the biggest impact.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Feedback loops, Feedback loops and I learned
that in my first year in startupworld just how critical that
feedback loop is, not justbetween the user and the product
team, the investors, the sales,everybody needs to be on the
same page.
Missed information, searchingfor information, actually
(08:52):
building a tool, organizationaltransparency and oversight that
becomes connective tissue forthat to solve.
But that is the first thing wedo is get the lanes of
communication and expectationsaligned and then we build from
there.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Okay, nice, nice.
And I'm curious, just sincewe're working together a lot on
June just to dial in from a UXperspective, like you've given
us a lot of good feedback onwhat you think customer
expectations are going to bewith the features and
functionality, when you'respecifically looking at early
(09:29):
stage SaaS products, like youare with June, it'd be cool to
have a conversation about what'smost important for you or, from
your perspective, what shouldearly stage companies really be
dialing in on?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah, what are you solving?
Make sure you understand that.
I think you guys have a clearunderstanding of that.
The humility as you're buildingit, I think is very important.
I've seen really strongconfidence in your North Star
and then the ability to adapt tothe changing ecosystem that
revolves around the tech thatyou're building.
(10:00):
So those are two huge things.
I think that's important isunderstanding what you're
solving, for it's the sameadvice I actually give to
businesses is you've got to havethat North Star, you've got to
have that goal, becauseeverything becomes really
confusing when you're granularand you're pulled in like a
thousand different ways, and soyou guys are disciplined with
that.
(10:20):
I think that's truly important.
And again, the feedback loop.
My favorite question to asktech, even when I'm doing a demo
, is how do you weight yourfeedback?
What's important to you and howare you making decisions based
off of what's important to youinstead of based off chasing
that dollar really fast becausethis changed or something like
that?
What do you think about thefeedback loop and weighted
(10:41):
feedback?
I know we've talked about it acouple times.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, like in terms of customer feedback.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, so user feedback on like the product.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So whether you own or another tech, it's really, it's
been a really interestingexperience for me just coming
from the services side of thehouse where, like we always, we
had to in a disciplined companylike you always have to be very
careful about prioritizingfeedback, absorbing it like,
dialing, like reallyunderstanding it well, trying to
(11:13):
prioritize it and then making adecision on what should
actually be actionable and what,like, shouldn't be a priority.
We've done that in our servicescompany, but it's different in
that if we onboard a new companyand a services company, they
could say, oh, we have this onelittle ask and when you're like
as a services company, yeah,sure, okay.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
We can do that.
Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
We'll go over here and do this other thing for you.
That's not part of our standardwhatever.
But it's like with a productcompany.
It's like we have these dealsin our pipeline and it's, yeah,
this is good, but we just wantthis one little thing.
And then it's you find out,okay, at a product company,
building that one little thingisn't like one little thing,
because that one little thingimpacts like 100 other things
and it's also a diversion fromour product roadmap.
(11:57):
And Tony, my co founder he Itry not to upset him too much by
promising too much it's.
That is really like thatfeedback loop.
And I think the most interestingpart to me has been like
finding that balance oflistening to user feedback,
trying to go like through,really dialing in on signal
versus noise and then leveragingour own insights and experience
(12:20):
to try to determine, okay,where do we really need to build
.
And it's also very interestingnow because it's like at an
early stage.
We're essentially going wideinitially with a lot of these
discovery conversations, butthen also we want to hopefully
dial in on an ideal customerprofile sooner rather than later
, because we don't want to bebuilding product in 10
(12:41):
directions but we don't alsowant to overcommit, Right.
So it's just like this constantlike in terms of feedback, like
I don't think we've discussedit a lot.
You've given us a lot of goodfeedback.
Right now it's like still inthis very much so exploratory
stage where we're just we'rehaving a lot of conversations,
we're trying not to build toomuch product in too many
different directions and we'retrying to figure out, OK, what
(13:08):
features are safe to build nowthat we know will drive
immediate value, and when doesit make sense to turn down a
potential customer or just sayno.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
That's how I'm thinking about feedback and you
touched on two really importantpieces as you were talking about
it, and the first is how youlike consume the feedback,
because a lot of times you'llhear that's not the feature we
need to do, because the userreally doesn't know what they
need.
They just know their pain pointand instead of saying hey, this
is my pain point, they're gonnasay hey, maybe this, maybe that
(13:33):
, and so again, that's thatpsychology of working backwards,
instead of being like, no, okay, we're gonna take that, we're
gonna analyze it, we're gonnabucketize it with these other
features and you'll start tobirth really great features from
their like suggestions, which alot of product people I've seen
just brush off because it's nota feature they were intending
(13:54):
to build.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But if you focus on the problem, yeah, like, just as
you said, work backward, likethey say okay, what about this?
It's?
Why are you saying that?
What are you trying to?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
What are you trying to?
What were you doing?
I don't know if you guys sawthe Google sheet I set when we
first started with my feedbackis what were you doing at the
time?
What were you trying toaccomplish at the time?
And then what's your suggestion?
And so they still get thechance to say, oh, I wish it did
this, because that's what thisthing does and this is what I'm
used to looking at.
And then you've got the piece.
You weight that weight that.
(14:27):
You have your systematicprocess, you tie it to arr all
that.
And then, on the other side, isyou get?
How do you say no?
How do you keep them enticedand obsessed with your product
but tell them, no, we're notbuilding that yeah, yeah you had
to say that.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yet I don't think you said it, so I think what we've
done thus far is I'm trying toonboard customers and like
cohorts if you will, and reallybeing thoughtful about what
customers can get value out ofwhere the product is today and
being aggressive with revenuestrategy, but not being a
(15:00):
totally blunt instrument, liketrying to be a strategic
salesperson in this one of myseveral jobs, right and not just
push, push, push, push, just tochurn, and so it's like I'm
trying to be very aggressivewith growing revenue, but I also
don't want to onboard acustomer.
It's this could be a greatcustomer six months from now, to
some extent, like I thinkthere's that you've got to be
(15:21):
careful.
The perfectionist side right,where you're just like and of
course, as like we're notperfection, we push it out, like
we're trying, we're moving fast.
But there are some customerswhere, for instance, I know like
we have one deal in thepipeline now and it's one of
those things where it's likewe're like three, six months too
early, because I don't know ifthey're like a friendly, so to
speak.
We can sell and they'll paylike full price or close to it,
(15:45):
but are we ready for that kindof premium?
We want the revenue.
We want like that premiumpricing, the logo.
Yeah, all of that is awesome,but we don't want to onboard new
and then to ultimately share,and so I don't think I'm saying
no as much right now, becausewe're still learning, right,
we're still having conversations.
And hey, if 10 companies say ifyou had this thing, if we did
(16:07):
this, then we would sign, I waslike okay, wait, like we've
heard this from 10 companies now, let's okay.
But what I am trying to be verythoughtful about is saying
trying to put them in buckets ofcohorts, and it's just like we
(16:33):
have this one one sas companyand we're gonna be, we're gonna
at least we're like saying, hey,we're in the like, they need
the ability to do internationalscreening and so it's one of
those things.
It's like we could do now, butthere's just more that we need
to work on.
So it's like we're just tellingthem like, look like, opposed
(16:53):
to getting started now, over thenext six weeks, we're going to
be building out more here, solet's continue, like in the
future.
So I'm more so like justpushing folks out at this point
If I unless I know for sure likewe're not going to be able to
do it, but if it's like one ofthose things where it's like I
need to have a few moreconversations before knowing for
sure, then I am starting tojust I just try to push them out
(17:20):
a little bit further so wedon't overcommit anything.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, and I hear two things there that I validate.
One is that you have the motiongoing right, so it's probably
different communications to theones you're pushing out that
strategy there, that's yoursales motion.
But I think also when you canconfidently say not yet, or this
is what we're building instead,and this is why we think that
we should be building it.
We are the experts, you guys.
And so there's a story I alwaystell You've probably heard it a
thousand times.
I was in swimming lessons withmy middle son.
(17:48):
My middle son was bornmedically vulnerable.
He's great now, but it was ascary time.
And so finally he was two yearsold and we're in swimming
lessons and the practice was toblow in their face, dunk them
under the water and bring themback up.
And so I did it the first timeand his face came up and it was
just distraught.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
And she goes OK, do it again.
And I blew in his face and hislittle lip quivered and I just
held him to my chest, I didn'tdunk him under the water and she
screams at me.
He needs to trust you, not likeyou.
And I think that psychologyworks really well.
If you can say no, but givethem the reason why.
If you can say no, but givethem the reason why.
If you can say not, yet, givethem the reason why.
(18:32):
That, I think, is going tobuild actual adoption than
trying to give them somethingthat's not going to work or
something you don't believe iscore to the product.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, I definitely agree, and it's weird because
the salesperson in me, a salesleader in me from Secure Vision,
it's like being super dialed inon your ICP qualifying
disqualified deals fast.
Don't waste time on deals thatyou're not going to win.
Is your pipeline real or not?
Like really having those typesof conversations really building
(18:58):
out like buyer personaconversations and just being
very targeted, right?
And it's definitely like at thisstage it's a little bit
different right, like we'retrying to be that company, but
it's like we're still not atthat point yet where we can just
you got to gather data and usecases.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
That's why that feedback loop that you're using
inside is so important, becauseyou can start to not just bucket
feedback.
You can start to identify yourpower users in a way that you
wouldn't have if we wereguessing.
A-b testing.
I love, but you are absorbingas fast as you can in this early
(19:34):
stage to then put those inthose buckets, as opposed to the
other way around.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, that's really critical insight.
I mean, I think thinking aboutoptimizing a product or a
service toward the lens of notfocusing on an end feature
request but getting to the corepay point is something that I
don't think is done very oftenfrankly, particularly not on the
product side, like I coulddefinitely see product people
just like not understanding thatat all, particularly if it's
(19:59):
like an engineering background.
They're not even going to.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I now speak engineer.
I hear that took a while.
I see construction, enough.
I now speak engineer.
I hear that took a while.
I think construction yeah, yeah, it's not, and I think that's
where I just continue thatsystematic it's wild,
information's flying everywhereand it changes and so you taking
that information and putting itinto a framework I think really
helps calm that, calm the chaos, and it helps.
I think our systematicengineers understand too what
(20:25):
we're trying to tell them byputting it in some type of
formatted structure process.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, hey, just to switch gears a little bit, I'd
really love to learn more aboutthe work you do with deskless
employees and companies in thosespaces.
I would love to.
I know you've given us anoverview of some of the projects
you work on and what you helpwith like an overview of some of
the projects you work on andwhat you help with, but would
you be able to give us more of arecent example of the work you
do there, because I'm justreally curious to learn more
(20:51):
about what you do on that sideof the house for your business?
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I was invited into a group ofcompanies recently, which I
really enjoyed.
It was a huge challenge becauseyou're walking in and you've
got multiple companies withinDeslis, but still multiple
different companies.
They were inter-company, sothey had feedback loops.
The tech was different in eachcompany, the processes were
(21:15):
antiquated and by hand.
The welcome letter, the newcustomer letter even, was still
by hand, not even copy and pastefrom a template.
The man hours to the collectiveman hours across the companies
were twice, if not three times,the benchmark, and so it was
very clear that there was atleast an efficiency issue.
They called it a payroll issue,but as you get in you're
(21:37):
starting to see it's anefficiency issue as well,
because the people that arebeing paid this much aren't
accomplishing what you know.
Industry benchmarks say thatthey should.
So we came in, we did some.
I prefer to upskill as opposedto let go, but in some
circumstances that's necessaryand in some circumstances they
don't want to upskill, theydon't want to learn tech, they
don't want to learn a newprocess, and so there's a little
(22:02):
bit of that kind of shake thathappens.
We handle anything, any exitsthat need to happen, gracefully.
I have another philosophy isyou give a bigger party when
they leave than when they camein.
And then we got down to nittygritty and we started with tech
stack.
We I vetted all the tech stackthat they were using, thankful
for AI.
It's pretty quick, obviously,my connections in the industry,
and so we'll vet the tech stackand see if it's worth keeping.
(22:25):
What integrations andimprovements Do they iterate
quickly?
Are they changing fast witheverybody else?
If I have a tech partner in theindustry, I'm pretty hard on
them.
So the demos are always thefunnest.
They typically end up lastingtwice as long.
But my questions are becauseI'm putting something into a
client's ecosystem for life.
(22:45):
I'm going to have to deal withit or hear about it, so I like
the control there.
So we start with the tech stackand then we start to integrate
processes, create SOPs.
My favorite format is RACI docsso everybody understands who's
responsible, accountable and soon and so forth.
There's nothing missed.
There's nothing missed, and soit's funny because I believe the
operations and HR really arebecoming way more connected than
(23:11):
they ever have.
If you take the two roles andtheir tasks and align them next
to each other, they're prettymuch the same thing.
And so we come in with thatoperations HR blend, because if
you're building a process asoperations, don't you want to
know how that impacts the personpulling off that process?
So again, it's back to that enduser.
(23:32):
So basically what we did waswent in there, shifted people
around a little bit, took peoplethe right person in the wrong
spot looks like the wrong person.
So we shifted responsibilitiesa little bit to where it worked.
We integrated new tech, wetrained field staff, we trained
(23:52):
vendors and external partners toutilize the tech.
We really just go in andupskill and create efficient
processes and ensure that staffcan then carry those processes
on after we leave.
The goal is to leave.
I want to work on bigger andbetter things with that company,
so we get them good and healthyand then we come back on growth
projects, expansions, thingslike that.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Is that the primary, like the North Star, as to why
folks bring you on board to, isit usually like some kind of
form of a revenue target, growthtarget?
Speaker 2 (24:26):
So we start with.
We start with bottom line.
So they're yeah.
What we don't want to do is,like you were saying too you've
got all these people, but youdon't want to bring them in and
not have a good place to land,and so what we don't want to do
is increase revenue before wehave the proper processes and
efficiencies in place, becausethen your reactionary as opposed
to due to proactive.
(24:47):
So it's a.
Within the first 90 days, I haveclients on average see 2X
increase in customersatisfaction.
Revenue increases actually, butthat's not intentional.
Even with our temp services,which people often think are
more expensive and complicated,they're saying 10 to 20% savings
(25:07):
in their payroll, and then thetech efficiencies and whatnot.
So it's basically about marginto begin with, and then we can
go into sales motions, marketing.
We have a great marketing armin RB Builds as well, and so
that's the fun part.
When that team comes in.
That means that we've beensuccessful, we've created a firm
(25:29):
foundation and it's time togrow.
And it's quick and it's easy.
I know these circumstances andconsultants sound scary, temps
sound scary, but it's quick,painless.
We could be turned around inabout 24 hours because we know
these industries so well.
Is.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I think it's revenue growth is also very hard.
Everything about building acompany is insanely hard.
But I think what is hard aboutgrowing revenue is not just that
you're growing top line, it'sgrowing with strong unit
(26:05):
economics in the business.
So your actual margin is notjust depleting where it's like
you have more revenue andoverhead but you're making less
money, which is most businessesand to some extent it is
inevitable.
In some cases, overhead isgoing to have to grow a little
bit if you start to scale acompany, but there's no point to
grow if the company is not tosome extent maintaining profit
(26:30):
margins.
That's the point, and I thinkthat when it comes to protecting
margins or increasing margins,I think that there's still a lot
of people in executivepositions that they're starting
to understand the value of AI,the value of tech, the value of
even offshoring more roles.
But I think that there's this abit of an oversimplification on
(26:52):
okay, I'm going to review a P&Land that's how I'm going to
optimize for margin.
That's it.
It's just through the lens ofwhere's the waste right, where
can we cut.
But I don't think that a lot offolks actually have the
expertise on how do we build abetter machine, a better engine,
a better process tech,everything to just drive
(27:13):
efficiency and actually increasemargin.
It's deeper than going into aP&L and I think a lot of times
that's where the executivesthat's what they do right.
They're going to reviewquarterly report, they're going
to see okay, what can we do?
Is there anything efficiencygains?
But like what you're doing is,it's really impressive because
it's incredibly hard and ittakes a lot more expertise than
(27:34):
just simply looking at a P&L.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
That's where we start to actually is the P&L.
So I sit with the ops guy, thefinance guy.
Typically the finance guy isgiving me a call because he's
mad at the ops guy becausethings are falling apart and
we'll sit with the P&L andthat's where I start as compared
to industry benchmarks.
But then we get granular and weunpack the impacts and maybe
the worst performing piece isn'twhere we start, because you
want to stop the bleed rightaway as well as build these
(28:01):
efficiencies into place.
And it's no fault to anyonethat this is happening.
It's happening to the entirecountry, to the entire world.
So we used to be able to throwmoney at things and fix it.
We used to be able to throwpeople at things and fix it.
That's not working right now.
So some of the conversations Ieven have before we even get
(28:21):
started is you're not running abad business.
I know it's not working and Iknow you're frustrated, but
that's.
Everybody in the world rightnow has to really look at their
bottom line and get that healthy.
Ai is not replacing jobs.
I think it's saving jobsbecause companies would be going
under without it.
So I think that a reframe, aswell as a tool and not a
replacement is a positive way tolook at tech right now.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, it's definitely interesting that is a very
interesting topic as well tothink about AI's impact on the
employment market, I do see.
Of course, certain jobs aregoing to probably disappear.
They're going to evolve intodifferent jobs.
I don't know how much it'sreally going to hurt the
employment market.
(29:04):
I think that things are justgoing to continuously move a lot
faster right, even withdevelopers and engineers.
We still need developers andengineers.
Like the code that a chat GPT isgoing to push out, even if an
engineer is asking for help,it's not going to be the highest
quality code.
There's going to be errors init, it's going to be too long,
there's going to be problems,but it can help an engineer, a
(29:27):
senior engineer, go from workingon a problem for a week or two
weeks to doing it in anafternoon, and that doesn't mean
that, like software isn'tnecessarily going to become a
commodity.
It means that we're going to beable to build more complicated,
better products, superiorproducts, and so the bar is just
going to be raised right, like.
It's not that we're not goingto need people.
(29:48):
It's just that people are goingto be doing a lot more.
We're going to be building moresophisticated products.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
The bar is raised.
Yeah, like we're there and it's.
You got to get there or you'renot going to get there.
It's a saw, an electric saw.
You just got cooler toys.
Tech is also connecting, I think, recruiting and recruiters to
the workforce.
Yes, maybe taking a sorcererjob here and there, but I also
think that in that case too,it's still a tool that
(30:15):
somebody's using.
I had to stop recruiting untilI found June, because I didn't
have the capacity to handle thevolume that's come in.
That isn't replacing the highvolume is a newer thing as well,
and so I'm hitting a blockerthat's not replacing anyone.
I just can't do it now becauseso much is coming in June.
Came in and said I'll have thatfirst combo with them.
I'll can't do it now because somuch is coming in June.
(30:35):
Came in and said I'll have thatfirst combo with them.
I'll get the warm and fuzziesgoing, I'll qualify them, you
can look at it in a scalable,digestible way, make your
decision and move forward, andso tech actually allows me to
recruit again, if that makessense.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, for sure, for sure, and it's interesting.
Building June yeah, for sure,they're sure, and it's
interesting.
Like building june isinteresting too because it's
like I obviously I have arecruiting services company too,
right, so it's like I buildrecruiters.
Then I have a tool that enablesand potentially could even like
help companies run with leanersourcing organizations.
Possibly yeah, we don't knowyet, but yeah, I think the goal
is, even if you have an ai agent, like, for instance, like with
(31:13):
june right, it's an ai agent,like, for instance, like with
June, right, it's an AI agent,technically it could handle a
lot of the screening in someenvironments, maybe like the
entire screening interview, soit goes straight to the hiring
manager interview.
But to me, as a senior recruiter, we have a culture at Secure
Vision where it's like everybodyworks with customers, right,
like everybody.
So, even like in the late stageof my career, I've had hands-on
(31:38):
projects.
I've always been engaged withcustomers.
Even when I was building SecureVision over the past few years,
I was always involved and Iwanted an agent, I wanted an
assistant, I wanted an agent, Iwanted a direct report.
So to me it's like, still, no,I didn't see it as lacing my
role as a recruiter, not as aCEO, but even as, like a hands
(31:58):
on recruiter.
It's not even that.
It's like.
The productivity gains I canget of having a direct report
that works for me 24 seven isamazing and that person's gonna
make me look great.
And they're not even gonna askfor credit, they're gonna ask
for a promotion, they're gonnaask for a raise it.
So it's to me it's, even ifyou're in a position where it's
like there's AI coming in,that's like an agent that can
actually evaluate and makedecisions and push things along
(32:18):
in the process, like there's away to leverage that in order to
make your productivity andvalue to the company a lot more.
And I think that's just thefolks that I think just are
probably gonna have to beconcerned with, like the ones
that like aren't thinking abouthow to leverage AI.
Like even on the developer side, like there's engineers that
they've been doing their thingfor 15 years and they just can't
(32:39):
wrap their head around buildingAI data products.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I had one the other day was like, hey, I used AI to
help this code and I'm liketoday, you didn't.
Two weeks ago, six months ago,what's going on?
You got to grab a hold and somepeople that I've worked with I
going on.
You got to grab a hold and somepeople that I've worked with I
wouldn't expect to go into thisnew tech revolution easily and
I'm dragging them.
I'm like you are relevant, youdo need to be in this industry,
(33:05):
you need to be working, butyou've got to leverage these
tools because there are 50 to60% of people sitting at home
that want your job and they arelearning how to use this.
I love it for just a thoughtpartner.
I'm like, yes, sobriety, testthis, sanity, test this, that
type of thing and I like to divein and really unpack ideas and
(33:27):
thoughts, and that alone hasbeen a huge game changer, let
alone the efficiencies that techis bringing us, with the
ability to really unpack an ideaand dig in with someone at the
drop of a hat at any time.
I think it's really valuable.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yeah, it's definitely .
It's like a super exciting timeto be in technology.
I love what you do.
I love RV builds.
I think it's a really coolconcept.
This is the kind of stuff thatI love to like nerd out on, yes,
and almost like in my role islike somebody that's responsible
for a scale as my primarydriver.
Again, like at SecureVision,there was so many times where I
was just like I just want to getin there and optimize, like I
(34:04):
just I love that motion and it's, of course, as the CEO, it's
like that balancing growth rightand having a strong team to
help with those help optimizealong the way.
But we had a customer, aSecureVision customer that an
advisor for, and it was asimilar, different kind of
(34:25):
project but similar in that Iwas brought on board as an
advisor because they needed toincrease net retention.
That was the goal we need toincrease net retention and so it
was really cool because for thetalent strategy, it's like all
right, let's go in there, let'stalk with everybody, let's
uncover process, let's uncovertechnology, let's uncover
everything about what's workingin the environment, everything
(34:46):
that's broken, let's uncoverwho's succeeding and why and
who's struggling and why, andstarting that recruiting motion
and then I ended up genuinelyhad openings.
I did target folks fromcompetitors and we were
considering them and I also waslike a kid in a candy shop,
asking them questions like howdo you run your environment,
what is your process?
What tech do you use?
What's your pipeline?
Look like Doing that wholemotion and like that whole.
(35:08):
It's incredibly fulfilling work,like helping companies just
build a healthier, just businesslike something that's humming,
something that's like awell-oiled machine is something
that's.
I know how challenging it is.
That's why I'm so impressedwith everything that you're
doing.
It's hard work, but I know it'sincredibly fulfilling as well.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Incredibly fulfilling .
I'm getting goosebumps talkingabout it.
I remember the first time weran the numbers, I was nervous.
I'm like are we more efficient?
Are we healthy?
It I was nervous.
I like are we more efficient,are we healthy?
It felt good.
People were happy.
They were showing up more sothan they did.
They were over, going above andbeyond to be involved in this
process.
(35:45):
They trusted that we weremaking changes as they did it,
and so it felt good, like thevibes were good, but we were in
the numbers almost cried.
I was like we did, we are good,it does work, like we know what
we're doing.
It was like we did we are good,it does work, like we know what
we're doing.
It was really strong gains andwhat I would say saved some
companies and so that it's ascary moment and I would click
the button and I was like, wow,we did it.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
We did it, like you.
It's like such an impact toyour businesses, to your
customers, if you're justcreating like true enterprise
value, like You're creatingprofitability, but that also
increases the ability to unlocksustainable growth, like revenue
growth that actually scales,that makes sense.
One of the simplest businesslessons I learned in my early
(36:27):
20s.
It's like look, if you can havea company that it's a $2
revenue and you get a $1 profit,do you want that company or a
company with revenue and you geta one dollar profit?
Do you want that company or acompany with ten dollars revenue
and a one dollar profit?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I want the two dollar .
Speaker 1 (36:42):
I want less risk.
I don't want to have 10x theexpenses to make the same money,
it says.
I think that's there.
Is this over emphasis on this?
Like the revenue metric, whichis still incredible.
You can't have a bottom linewithout the top line, yeah, yeah
.
So it's not that it doesn'tmatter.
It's just like when we start tothink about scale, that's where
everything starts to break down, because we're not looking at
(37:03):
our ability to scale profits andI think we have all these types
of misconceptions in ourbusiness about what's going to
hold up at scale and what'sgoing to break down.
I know this is just a bigmistake that I made in early
days of Secure Vision is we usedto have a lot of like
month-to-month contracts and weworked with a lot of startups
and growth stage companiesproviding recruiting services.
It was like embedded recruiting.
(37:24):
They would pay us, like peoplewould borrow recruiters from us.
They'd pay us a subscriptionfor those recruiters and
sometimes, like the startups,like they would hire for a few
months, they would stop.
So we had it was like a highchurn motion as a recruiting
agency because we fill the rolesin the, but we were considering
that recurring revenue.
Really, they pay us monthly.
They pay us monthly.
It's like it's okay, but yeah,but like your churn is high,
(37:45):
it's not really recurringrevenue.
It's like you don't decide ifyour business is recurring
revenue.
Your customers do, and likethose types of misconceptions
could start to really messthings up at scale.
But there's a billion of themright, like when it comes to
process, when it comes to tech,when it comes to business model,
when it comes to, like yourdifferent financial metrics,
like things that you think areeverything changes, everything
(38:06):
changes, and that's why it's soimportant to catch what, like
the stuff you do for yourcustomers.
It's so important to do earlyon, because if you get to the
point where you're at a scaleorganization and there's all
these fundamental things thatare wrong with how you're
operating and your businessmodel, it can kill you.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
It will, and fortunately that's where we're
at too.
Again, you can't just throwmoney at something you can't
borrow anymore.
You can't.
You've even got insurancespikes with the inflation
logistics.
It's just.
It's impossible to not beintentional about the framework
that your company operates inand that's that's the hardest
(38:48):
part.
I come in and I'm the scapegoat.
My temps that come in, myfractional leaders that come in.
We do frontline like love onour frontliners today, because
we're scapegoats, we're a threat, we are thought partners and we
do really well in those.
In that uncomfortable here Ican give really good, really bad
news.
Really gets dirty, it'sexhausting and that's some of
(39:09):
the tension that we carry sothat these companies can wrestle
with real issues.
Point at me, blame me, okay,but let's talk about what you
need to do to save your business.
We're really good at that piecetoo, because there's a lot of
change, management and weightthat comes with these types of
convos.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
That's also similar to the value of a good COO
brings to the table.
It's to get to implement allthe necessary difficult change
so the CEO can focus on culture.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Exactly yes.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
Showing up like all right guys, great work.
That's funny.
I've definitely had thoseengagements too as an advisor,
where it's like you come in andyou're like the-.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
Dirty work.
Yeah, I'm the guy.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, just more of the hyper-analytical.
And of course you do what youcan, but when you come in and
make changes sometimes you gotto make big changes and I think
it is also helpful for a CEO tohave a partner that's coming in
to assist with that, becauseit's your business and you've
been in it for years andsometimes it's hard to see
objectively and it's hard toremove yourself enough to make
(40:10):
strong enough to even if you doreally understand some of the
motions that you're doing forthem.
It's still so much hardersometimes when it's your own
business in a way.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Oh, 100%.
That's the first thing I everfound.
It was that situation exactlyworking at a church and a woman
came in and had been reallyupset, like she was sobbing.
I never met her before and shesaid that she's a doctor's wife
and she was at school and one ofthe kids asked for extra
pancakes on pancake day.
She wasn't going to give it tothem, thought they were being
(40:38):
like selfish or something.
And the teacher says they won'teat tonight.
Let them have a pancake.
And she just could not.
She's like I don't know how tofix it.
I got to fix it and I was likeI do and I just started to build
the bones of her pain point andwe created a nonprofit.
The first year they said thatone of the largest food
(40:59):
distribution humanitarianorganizations in the area said
we'd never qualify and afterfive years she was getting an
award for their the highestpatron or something with them.
Yeah, like she.
It's that whole point.
She was so overwhelmed withwhat was in front of her that
she couldn't put the bones to itwhen I did, and the rest is
history.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, I love it, rachel, we're coming up here on
time.
I've had a lot of fun speakingwith you today.
I really appreciate that youcame on the show.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Thank you for having me.
I look forward to growing Junetogether and talking more.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Let's do it.
And for everybody tuning in,just want to let you know that I
do highly recommend Rachel towork with her in any capacity.
Again, I've had an amazingexperience working with her.
At June she came on as an earlycustomer and very quickly
turned into a design partner andadvisor.
High impact, straight to thepoint, limited amount of hours
getting an incredible amount ofvalue.
So if you ever have the chanceto work with Rachel, I
(41:50):
definitely recommend it.
Rachel, it's great speaking toyou and I'm sure we'll probably
talk to you later today ortomorrow, sometime soon.
Bye, see ya, all right, bye.
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