Entrepreneurs: How to Compete with Industry Leaders and Win with Arthur Kapoor + Others

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's got to be a better mouse trap than anybody else.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
OK, we would go live and we would sell you
social media.

Speaker 4 (00:15):
Now with your algorithm, it's really focused on interest.

Speaker 5 (00:18):
I'm Richard Garhart and.

Speaker 6 (00:19):
I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You just heard some snippets from our show.
We had amazing people on listen for the rest of it.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given
it hard, Now get it in gear. It's Passage to
Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 5 (00:38):
I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service
intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

Speaker 6 (00:45):
And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do
marketing for Gearhart Law. And I am the founder of
gear Media Studios, a content creation studio with the focus
on podcasting.

Speaker 5 (00:55):
Welcome to Passage to Profit, the Road to Entrepreneurship, where
we talk withentrepreneurs and celebrities about their business journeys. We
have an amazing guest, Arthur Kapoor, a visionary entrepreneur who's
reshaping healthcare one bold idea and probably a few sleepless
nights at a time. He's got the brains, the heart,
and just enough caffeine to power a small startup nation,

(01:19):
and we look forward to speaking with him.

Speaker 6 (01:20):
And then we have two great guests. Sherry Dindell is
a powerhouse behind Wholesome Hippie, a viral natural skincare brand,
and she has so many followers because she is also
a comedian, So really I just got it ready to laugh. Yeah.
And then we have Jim Berut. We've known Jim for
many years. He's a leading voice in the East Coast
innovation system, founder of Innovation Plus, host of the podcast

(01:43):
A few Things, and really helps keep everybody in New
Jersey up to date on what's coming down the pike, just.

Speaker 5 (01:49):
About what's going on. Absolutely. But before we get to
our distinguished guests, it's time for your new Business Journey.
Two and five Americans are business owners or thinking about
starting a new business. So we're going to ask our
panel a question, and the question today is how would
you handle the suggestion of a new employee or entrepreneur
where you know the suggestion is wrong. So let's start

(02:13):
with our guest, Arthur. Welcome to the show. What are
your thoughts on that.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I think the best thing to do is listen to
these people, because when they come to you, they have
an idea. Maybe some of them might not appear to
be very good initially, but some of them can turn
out to be good later on. So if you have
ordered the experience that it's not going to work, I
would say you should just kind of heir them out

(02:37):
and then point them to factors as to why a
business like this will not do well. And that's very
easy to show.

Speaker 5 (02:44):
I think that's a really great advice.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Jerry, I completely agree. I think anybody that has ideas,
you know, a lot of times the ideas just start
off as that just an idea, and so it doesn't
mean that it won't become something viable. So you don't
want to kill that passion. So instead it's just really
drawing into you know, let's troubleshoot it. Let's let's look
at the stress points, what would work, what wouldn't work,
and so that they have something they can take away
from that of like, Okay, here's why these things maybe

(03:08):
won't work. And maybe give them some other things to
consider so you don't kill their dreams, because a lot
of dreams just start. Is just that it just a
simple idea, Jemmy.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
I would just add that it would be a good
opportunity for them to talk to other experts to get
perspectives that they can bring back to the company. So
have them build on their idea, flesh it out more.
It may still be a bad idea, but at least
they hear it from other folks, other experts outside the
organization or company.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
I guess the takeaway from this is then really make
sure you hear out people who have ideas because you
don't want to you don't want to discourage them. So
now we're onto our main guest interview. He's Arthur Kapor,
a bold entrepreneur who once walked away from a thriving
corporate career to prove the health industry could and should
do better. His unfiltered approach to innovation has sparked both

(03:55):
admiration and controversy and shaped up the entrench systems along
the way. So, Arthur, let me ask, you've taken some
bold risks in your career. What is one that people
thought was crazy but paid off.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
One of them was that somebody asked me that what
do you know about healthcare when I got into healthcare,
and I said, I think I'm just following the scent
of money, And they said, how do you follow a
scent of money? I said, well, if there are five
hundred people make a living out of that business, whichever
business we're looking at, I think it's good enough for
me to follow through. And I said, but I will

(04:29):
not follow it the way other people are following it.
I want to follow the way where where does the
money trail end up at? So I want to be
that source which will control that money flows.

Speaker 5 (04:41):
So how does that last? The outlook work itself into
a business strategy.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Typically, when I entered or I was kind of looking
for my next venture. I had sold a company which
was in furniture, and next thing I was looking and
I was looking at people billing from home that there
will be as in the newspaper and saying you can
build from home and make and one hundred thousand dollars
two hundred thousand dollars. I said, that's a pretty good business.

(05:08):
So I went and attended all those shows where you know,
where people would come and talk about it, and then
I would have asked them a question, where do you
send these? So they said you would go to a
doctor's office, pick up the super bills, and come back
and build on the computer and then you send it
to the clearinghouse and the clearinghouse will send it out
to the insurance companies for it to be paid. So

(05:30):
instead of paper claims, now these are electronic claims. Right.
That was the business. So for me at that point,
issue was I didn't want to be another guy in
going picking up super bills from a doctor's office. I said,
let me find out where do these claims go to.
So there was one clearing house which was a national clearinghouse.
I went to them and I said, how do I

(05:51):
submit claims to you? They said, well, these are our
formats and you could submit to us. Well, there was
just an idea. I eventually became a competitive that to
that clearinghouse, and we became probably one of the largest
clearinghouses on the Eastern seaboard. So I competed with that.

Speaker 6 (06:07):
How did you grow so fast? Did you improve the processes?
Did you use?

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah? So our biggest thing at that point was everybody
used to do an old fashioned way. We came up
with a technology where if you could send a paper
claim to be printed on a dot matrix printer. Now,
so there was no laser. It was that matrix you
had to put the school in and if you could

(06:34):
take it. So we put a low ts R software
which would capture the entire image of the claim from
that printer, bring it into the into the database and
lay it out and exactly the entire claim would be
on a on a kind of software. And that software

(06:55):
was built by us, and now we could edit those
claims and then submit electronically. So nobody had ever done
anything being taken from a printer to be put into
the system. So we were ahead of ocr I'm talking
about way back in nine.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
So what gave you the courage to jump from office
furniture to medical billing when you didn't have any experience
in that.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
One of the things I'm always saying is that industry,
you have to look at industry. If there's an industry
which is always very profitable and there's a lot of chaos,
any industry you want to get into or what you
want to make money, there has to be chaos. If
there's no chaos, and everything is very copasetic. Then nothing
you can do if there's chaos, get into it because

(07:43):
you can always come up with an idea to make money.

Speaker 6 (07:46):
So are there any industries right now that you would
consider very chaotic?

Speaker 5 (07:50):
Just about all of them.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
I think everything is chaotic. I think healthcare is very chaotic,
always has been. I personally think banking has been chaotic.
There are many other ways to, you know, leverage other
things to make more efficient. But I think there are
other industries, last mile deliveries that are very chaotic. So
there's a lot of things that are going on, especially

(08:13):
now with AI coming in, it's going to be much
more chaotic than you can think of.

Speaker 5 (08:18):
So what made you take an entrepreneurial route as opposed
to stay on the corporate side. I mean, were you
attracted to entrepreneurism because you could have been probably very
successful just climbing the corporate ladder right.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
An, I'm not a guy who can work in a corporation.
I have to make decisions and I can't be told Okay,
this is not the policy. We have to do it.
Because if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, according
to what I've seen, you really need to go way
beyond what people can imagine to be and you have
to work hard, be got to come up with something.

(08:51):
It's got to be a better mousetrap than anybody else
out there. Now, can you come up with the mousetrap
every time? No, but you can't come up with the
mousetrap sometimes.

Speaker 5 (09:01):
But in terms of okay, so there's always this debate, right,
is that the idea or is it the team or
the individual? What do you think is the most important
factor there?

Speaker 2 (09:11):
I think it's it's an idea, But team is very
important because if you don't have the right team, which
it doesn't think or is in sync with you, you
can never build a company. So building a company needs
a good team and that team is the key.

Speaker 5 (09:27):
And what kind of culture did you strive to create
with the companies that you built?

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Culture is always one of the things that you know.
You asked that question about people. People would come to
me and that crazy ideas and I would always listen
to them and I would say, there is always one
thing that you can find in every thought process there
and I learned my lesson. There was one person who
came to me one time and he said that there
was a great idea, and I told him, I said,

(09:52):
I don't think this is going to work. Well, the
guy resigned two days later and he set up a
shop later on and he became successful. So I've learned
my lesson that don't shut people down because you got
to be open to them because they have ideas that
may be worth it. It'll take a look at it.

Speaker 6 (10:11):
You're very innovative, but these industries you're working in are
highly regulated. Like if you try to do innovations in
the medical industry, try to do innovations in the financial industry.
How do you marry innovation to regulation.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
I think there's a fine balance. Regulation is when people
talk about healthcare, they say, oh, your data has to
be protected, and you know, it's got to be hipA,
this and that. Now, those are basic things that you
cannot do anything without. So you got to work with
the premise that you have hippa, you know, part of
the whole thing. But what you should always realize is

(10:45):
every time you try to innovate, you have to come
up with a better way of doing things. Like for example,
I'll tell you today people are saying to me that
you know you've done this, why can't you help these
states bring the cost down of healthcare? So what do
I do? I will tell them for every state, I
would tell them their governors and their staff, how do

(11:07):
you bring the cost down? Because and I'll do it
free of cost, because I want to tell them that
that's where the problem is. But I do say, if
you feel that I will save you X amount of dollars,
then I do need my percentage from that.

Speaker 5 (11:21):
So and how do they react to that?

Speaker 2 (11:25):
They're very open to it because listen, you go to
a state and you save them four hundred million dollars,
no governor is going to come back and tell you,
I'm sorry, that's not a good idea.

Speaker 6 (11:35):
I do want it. Well, there might be some, but
I do want to go back to Hippa for a minute, because,
as you and I talked about before the show, I
heard a radiologist speaking about how they're using AI and
people's data is getting fed to these AI engines sometimes
and hopefully they're not putting your name with like your
cancer screening or whatever that's going into an AI database.

(11:55):
How does is that even possible with Hippa to have
everybody's medical data going into AI into databases?

Speaker 2 (12:01):
You know, again, I think we're using the word AI
very loosely. So you know, when you talk about specially
factors about diagnosis, you talk about conditions, and you talk
about then you're connected to the name social security. A
lot of those things that are all encrypted, so even
engine of AI has to take that data decrypted and

(12:24):
then lay it out. So listen, there will always be
people who will try to break you know, we have
seen this in cyberspace. People have come in and they've
broken down the companies they've gotten in. There'll always be
people doing it. But I think overall what I'm saying
now healthcare companies are becoming very proficient in saving their

(12:45):
own data because they have learned that it was easy
to leave some doors open and people used to come in. So,
to answer your question, radiology is one example where a
lot of those things are still very because the images
and that kind of stuff. But to connect an image
to a person and to the social security, it's going

(13:07):
to be not that simple. So what they do is
they can maintain different file systems for different things, so
it's only one layer where it will all come out clear.
So if you decrypted, yes you can cause damage, but
if you encrypt it, You're okay.

Speaker 5 (13:22):
So healthcare is a big topic right now. Everybody is
concerned about the cost of health care, but we all
want good health care. What types of things would you
do to improve the delivery of health care and reduce
the cost make it more affordable.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
The first thing is that you have to really look
at decision support, which is to make the life of
a physician better, which is to give him or her
the support that they can make decisions on you, which
is your pay there as a patient, so that you
can take benefit from what they might have missed out.

(14:00):
So AI will come in and help physicians from that perspective,
But how do you control the cost? The healthcare system
today is a high expensive item because people have not
been watching the dollars. You know, States give major contracts
to companies who are just kind of building an old

(14:22):
product and that product needs a lot of band aids
and they keep spending more money on it. So the
way to do it is they have to make it
lean and mean, deploy the best of the latest technologies,
and make sure that people who are using it are
benefiting from it and the patient at the end of it.
Just like us, we take advantage of what AI will

(14:43):
bring to it.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
Do you think more regulation is the answer?

Speaker 2 (14:46):
No, less regulation, because what you need to do is,
right now, everything is regulated to the point that you
cannot even breathe anymore. So what they have to do
is they have to lose in the guidelines, but make
it such that physicians about the quality more than the
money that they're making. So it's a fine balance. Right now,
states are not thinking like that. States are only thinking

(15:08):
about how do I manage my balance my budget. But
there might be a different way to look at it,
which could be that if I'm spending one point eight
billion dollars I'm just saying on healthcare today, maybe I
can bring it down to one point two billion dollars.
Just humor me on that if that six hundred million
can be saved in implementing things which were not required

(15:31):
before and now it can.

Speaker 5 (15:33):
Can you give an example of that.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, so you might be taking statin, but statins could
end up making it such that you mess up your kidneys.
And if that happens, were you watching out for ESRD,
which is an early stage renal disease or no? And
if you didn't, maybe there'll be a problem later on.
So you know, I'm just giving example that it could

(15:56):
be anything like this. So if you follow a guideline,
a clinical guideline, sometimes you got to go beyond it
and say, let me do something different.

Speaker 5 (16:06):
Arthur Kapor, visionary entrepreneur. We have to take a commercial break.
I just want to mention that you can experience the
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Speaker 1 (18:28):
Now back to Passage to Profit once again, Richard and
Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 6 (18:32):
And our special guest Arthur Kapor. We've been having a
great discussion and we're going to continue it now.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Arthur.

Speaker 5 (18:39):
During the break, we were talking about sort of how
you got an early start and some of the challenges
that you faced as as a young man making his
way in the business world. Tell us a little bit
about what happened when you first left school, Richard.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
This was a very interesting because I left school and
I thought I'm going to be good for the corporate market.
And I go in the corporate market and every be
kind of took my resume said oh, either you're overqualified
or underqualified. So I never got a job. So I
was trying to make my ends meet. I was trying
to write some business plans for SBASBDC. You know, I

(19:13):
used to get paid based on writing a business plan.
And in one of those business plans, there was a
client who had an issue with their profits being taken away,
and you know, the revenue was pretty high. But so
I ended up writing a business plan for this client
and in that process, one day my director called me

(19:37):
and she said that they are here to meet with you.
And I'm like, what happened? Did I do something wrong?
So it was one of those things that I met
with the folks and they said, well, we want you
to come and implement this business plan. And I said,
I really have no idea. How you know office furniture is.
So they said, well, if you wrote the business plan,

(19:59):
you should know this. So I ended up working there.
I was a consultant kind of. They brought me in.
I had no idea. I was very young, and then
only to find out that I got down to the
brass tags and found out where the problems were. Everybody
was happy and there were three other business salespeople who

(20:21):
were leaving that company and they asked me to join
them as a as a partner. I had no money,
so I said, I don't have money to invest. They said, well,
you know, your sweat capital is good. And that's when
I left that company and I embarked on my journey
as an entrepreneur. That was my first business and I
was only twenty six years old then, so I was like,

(20:47):
I guess I was like, okay, I'm going to take
the risk.

Speaker 5 (20:49):
Were your parents entrepreneurs? Did you have entrepreneurs in your family? No?

Speaker 2 (20:53):
None, No, none of my family. My father was a scientist,
so he never you know, he was only so I
was only I think I'm the black sheep in the family.

Speaker 5 (21:04):
Well, I mean we were talking on the phone during
our pre call, and I kind of grew up in
the generation where a successful career was climbing your way
to the top of a corporate ladder, and you know,
being an entrepreneur is like, well, what's that you know
and what do you do? And you know, it turned
out that going entrepreneurial was really one of the best

(21:26):
decisions that I ever made. I have to thank my
wife Elizabeth for encouraging me and supporting me on that.
But it really does change your perspective on I'm business
and I feel like I've grown a lot as an entrepreneur.
I've had to acquire a lot of new skills and

(21:46):
develop capabilities that I don't think I would have ever
gotten in the corporate world. And I'm the same way.
I mean, I you know, I can follow direction, but
if it's stupid direction, then it just frustrates me to
no end. So I think I'm probably better off my own.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Also, you have to remember as an entrepreneur, you are
responsible for the success of the company or the failure
of the company. So it's a very big risk that
you take. But if you do have in built asset,
which is about how do I recognize how to make
profit or how do I recognize that I can make
this idea hum and this idea make much more money,

(22:26):
you should be an entrepreneur because otherwise, you work in
a corporate life, you will get a bonus check and
that will be the end of it. Now, as an entrepreneur,
your ability to make money is a lot more and
you should also you know, every two weeks you need
to be worried about how you make your payroll, so
you know there comes with the pluses and minuses. But listen,

(22:47):
at the end of the day, if you're an entrepreneur,
you are master of your own universe. You set your
own block.

Speaker 5 (22:53):
While we talk about the freedoms that entrepreneurs have, you
get to associate with the people that you want to
associate with. Freedom of income. You have freedom to decide
how you want to spend your time, and you have
freedom to pursue the projects that are important or meaningful
to you. But the freedom comes at a cost. I mean,
there are times when things just really stunk, you know,

(23:15):
and it was a real struggle to keep things going.
And there were times that our backs were against the wall,
and somehow, some way we managed, you know, to figure
it out and keep the ship going, you know, and
it really I mean, let me ask you, in your companies,
have you ever felt like entirely comfortable that the company

(23:39):
was going to continue on or did you ever have
a concern that something might change at any moment and
that you would have to react to it.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Well, you know, if you're an entrepreneur, Richard, you should
be always prepared that something can change, Anything can happen.
It's never the same. You know, you could be humming
along pretty good, you're doing very well, and suddenly one
of your client calls you and says, okay, we're ending
the contract because we found another vendor, or we don't

(24:09):
have the money, or whatever it might be. So you
can never underestimate that things can go wrong. So things
can always go wrong. But as an entrepreneur, your biggest
thing is you have the ability to pivot and be quicker,
because if you can't do that, you won't be an entrepreneur.
So if you can pivot and find a way. Okay,

(24:30):
this is my downtime, this is what has happened to me.
Can I come out of it? How do I come
out of it? Those are the things that you always
think about.

Speaker 5 (24:39):
Yeah, well I think you know. Having a positive attitude
is important too too.

Speaker 6 (24:43):
So you jumped into brand new industries that you really
hadn't worked in. Do you think people need to work
in the industry to learn it before they jump in
as an entrepreneur or do you think you can just
learn it on the job, so to speak.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
So there are two traits for entrepreneur. One is a
trait of an entrepreneur who is very good at what
they do, they've learned it, and then they want to
start a business. That's different. There's another trait of entrepreneur,
which is gutsy entrepreneur who gets into something but makes
a better mousetrap than anybody else. So there are two types,

(25:18):
so you have to always remember the one, the gutsy one,
is the one who says I'm not happy with what
I have right now, I want to make it better.
And they review the whole marketplace, they look your competition,
they do everything. They say, let me make something which
is better than all my competition, and people will come
to me. And that is true. If they make a
product or a platform where people will come there head

(25:41):
of the game, and that's what happened.

Speaker 5 (25:42):
That's great. So we're going to wind up the segment, Arthur.
Where can people find you if they want to contact you?

Speaker 2 (25:47):
They can look at wwelegenthealth dot com. It's a company
which is doing all care management for many states now
and they're working on it.

Speaker 5 (25:57):
Well, congratulations, we know it's going to be successful. You've
got a great website and certainly anybody who is interested
in improving their understanding of their hospitals data should definitely
reach out and investigate. So now it's time for IP
in the News, and today we have a really kind

(26:18):
of current subject and that is Lululemon has sued Costco
for patent infringement.

Speaker 6 (26:26):
Yes, I know you've shopped at Costco because I've made
you go there, but I don't think you've ever been
to get out and I know that you've ever been
to Lululemon, but Lululemon has the reputation of a really
high end athletic apparel store and lifestyle brand too. And
the clothes are a little pricey, not out of reach,

(26:47):
but a little higher end of the price scale, but
really nice in one at the mall near esh. There's
always a line.

Speaker 5 (26:54):
Yeah, there's just give an example. So in the article
we read Lululemon hoodie cost one hundred and twenty bucks,
and you can get something similar at Costco for twenty bucks. Right,
that's a big difference.

Speaker 6 (27:07):
So but they have patents to which makes them their
case so much stronger.

Speaker 5 (27:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (27:12):
Right, So most people that are suing over this copycat
stuff are using copyright or maybe trademark, but they actually
have patents on some of the stuff they do, so.

Speaker 5 (27:21):
Which is unusual for an apparel company, by the way.

Speaker 6 (27:24):
Right, right, So I don't know that most people would
that no fashion, let's say, would confuse Costco with Lululemon. Honestly,
I remember when we lived in Atlanta, down Georgia, bought
a dress at Costco and went down to the pool
at our subdivision, goes, hey, she's wearing your dress mop

(27:45):
so uh, and it was pretty obvious it was a
Costco dress, but that was way back when. But by
the same token, I mean, they put a lot of
money into designing this stuff and they are fashion trend centers.
So should Costco be able to just I mean what.

Speaker 5 (28:01):
That's what the lawsuit is all about.

Speaker 6 (28:03):
Right, What would you think if you developed a really
high end, nice product that was really soft and pretty
and everything, and there was a cheaper knockoff. I mean,
I don't think Costco should be allowed to do that.

Speaker 5 (28:14):
Of course, as an intellectual property attorney, I'm going to say, well,
you know, you have to protect your brand and everything.
But the fashion industry is a little bit different than
other industries. Sort of traditional for the top design houses
to get knocked off by everybody below them. They sort
of set the trends and then everybody else sort of
copies it. And people weren't using patents to protect clothing

(28:35):
in the past, but Lulu Lemon decided to do this,
and we're going to see what happens here. I think that,
you know, on the one hand, you have sort of
the industry custom. On the other hand, you have the
intellectual property that Lulu Lemon invested in and I guess
we're going to see what the court has to say
about it. But before we talk about that, I want
to hear what Jim Brewd has to say about it. So, Jim,

(28:58):
what do you think about this stuff?

Speaker 4 (29:00):
I think if it's a design, you know, just the
colors or the patterns, that might be tough. But if
it's the actual fabric where they have patent pending or
patents on it, you know, replicates it really closely, they
can have a stronger case. But you know, we were
just talking about it on the way here with my daughter.
She wants to go to Canal Street and you know,

(29:20):
get some you know, nice Gucci.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
Bag or whatever.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
You know.

Speaker 4 (29:25):
I was trying to explain to her that the investment
in that brand, they have a right to try to
stop those knockoffs, you know. And so it's a similar
but they've taken it to court. And Costco is an
established company which sells brands as well. I bought Closer before,
you know, you know, so, so they do sell branded things.

(29:50):
So it's a little a little different, But you know,
I think it's it definitely is a dilemma. It'll be
a close call, I think, yeah.

Speaker 5 (29:57):
I mean, isn't that sort of Costco's business model to
kind of sell knockoffs of other stuff for cheaper I mean,
I go into Costco, I haven't seen like a huge
number of brand names. I guess more on the grocery
store side, but you know, you get those huge bottles
of Ketchup that have their own zip code, right, you know,
and that's Heinz Ketchup. But there's also a lot of

(30:18):
stuff that they sell that's off brand that kind of
looks like it's on brand, right, And so I think
that's part of their marketing strategy is to you know,
find those kind of gray areas. So anyway, Sherry, what
do you think, Well, I.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
Mean, as somebody who owns a boutique and has sold
a lot of clothes, I find it fascinating that they
were able to patent, which is again I'm with you.
If it's the fabric specifically that makes sense to me,
the design of the leggings or their sweatshirts. I mean,
I just am curious how you patent like that because
there's not a lot of variation in the fashion world.

(30:51):
Everything kind of looks the same cuts, the similar it's
often the name. I can see if somebody's trying to
knock off, you know, their name or whatever.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
But but this is interesting again fabric fabrication. Yes, I
guess if you had like something really special about the
brush of the fabric, the cut, not the cut of
the fabric, but like the feel or the way it's manufactured.
It is interesting to me that they're able to do
that with the cuts of the clothes.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (31:16):
Well, I mean you can file something called a design
patent and it doesn't really protect the function of the article,
but it protects the way it looks, and so if
they have an especially unique cut or unique shape, it's
possible to get out.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
That's what I'm curious about. Is my kids own Lululemon
leggings because they are not cheap, you know, they look
like all the other pair of leggings I have in
my house. So that's where I'm like, Yeah, they just
look I mean, they're Lulu Lemon. That's all the kids
care about is that it has that name on it.
But that is I mean, they just look like another
pair of leggings. That's why I find it interesting that
it's like, oh, there must be something unique about the

(31:52):
way they sell it or the way they cut it,
Like you said that, Yeah, I don't know. I mean
as far as I shop at Costco and I see
a lot of brand stuff like you on the on
the non grocery side, you know, they're selling a lot
of electronics in different brands of you know, products, and
clothing is one of them. You know that typically you'll
see their Costco brand, but they do sell a lot

(32:13):
of branded clothes, so it'll be interesting to see. I mean,
I think that in the generic space, you know, the
knockoffs for I could see like a Gucci bag, you're
trying to sell a Gucci as like a fake Gucci.
I don't know. Is Costco trying to sell it as
Lululemon and it's not.

Speaker 5 (32:26):
I think that's all under their own brand, the Kirkland brand.

Speaker 6 (32:28):
But what they're saying here is people might assume that
it's Lululemon because they do have name brand manufacturers that
produce things for them under the Kirkland name, So they
might make that assumption that, oh, this is really Lululemon.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
They're just selling well, Lulu Lemon has partnerships with other brands,
for example, Peloton, you know, has A has a Lulu
Lemon partnerships, but usually their name, they still put their
name on it.

Speaker 5 (32:50):
Well in any case, Lululemons like made ten billion dollars
last year. Costco made two hundred and fifty billion last year,
so they're doing okay, yeah they I hope they work
this out.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
This could set up a new trend of how IP
protection is going to work in the future, because this
is I have never heard of it, and I think
this is you know, you could go into software and
say okay, the lines of code were written and you
can say okay, this does the same. So there's a
way to do that. But I don't know. Clothing is hard.

(33:23):
I mean I just saw something which was very different
that Prada just unveiled a new type of sandals and
they're selling it for like fifteen hundred dollars for those
sandals and they're like a knockoff of a design were
from India where those sandals were they sell for like
two dollars, So.

Speaker 5 (33:50):
Are you telling me.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Identical? So I'm looking at and this is at their
RAM show and I'm like, okay, this is pretty good.
So if this would stand or if there's a way
that this case will come to some kind of decision.

Speaker 5 (34:05):
It's interesting legal theories and designer fashion houses have wanted
a special copyright type of protection for some of their designs,
but it never made it through Congress. Design patents they
take about eighteen months to get so by the time
you get the patent filed and issued, the design has

(34:26):
to have some longevity. It just can't be like a
seasonal thing. But yeah, I think this is actually pretty
new because normally when clients approach us and they want
to get patent protection on their clothing designs, we have
to work really hard to get something through the patent office.
So I think you're right, Arthur, this could be a
we'll see. We'll be watching this carefully and it could

(34:49):
be just the tip of an iceberg. And speaking of patents,
if you have an idea or invention that you want
to protect, contact us at Gearhart Law. We work with
entrepreneurs worldwide to help them through the entire h process
of obtaining patents, trademarks, and copyrights. You can visit learn
more about patents dot com, or learn more about trademarks
and sign up for a free consultation with a Gearhart

(35:09):
Law attorney. Or you can also download a white paper
on patents or trademarks, the Entrepreneur's Guide, and you'll learn
lots of really good stuff. So stay tuned. We have
to take a commercial break. We have Secrets of the
Entrepreneurial Mind coming up soon. Stay tuned.

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Speaker 1 (37:23):
Passage to Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 5 (37:28):
Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show heard
in thirty eight markets across the United States, and our
podcast is ranked in the top three percent of podcasts globally.
And we've also been recently selected by v spot Podcasters
database as a top ten entrepreneur interview podcast and that's

(37:48):
for the second year in a row. So subscribe to
Passage to Profit show on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and on
the iHeart app and you can hear all of our episodes.
We'd like to do a shout out out to our
listeners hearing us in the Chicago Kanka Key market courtesy
of WKAN thirteen twenty am and one oh one point

(38:09):
three FM. Thanks for listening, Elizabeth, it's time for your spotlight.
So what have you been up to.

Speaker 6 (38:16):
Well, the studio is up and running and I've actually
gotten paid, yeah, like maybe point zero zero one percent
of what we've invested in it so far. I'm hoping
to catch up with that. And I'm doing the consulting too.
I think the consulting is almost more important than the
studio itself. But I've rebranded kind of a content creation

(38:39):
studio because people are coming for different reasons and the
way that we have the three cameras set up and
the really nice mics and everything. People like walking into
that and being able to just record something. And then
some people just want the straight files. So if it's
a video, it's an MP four file, if it's audio,
it's an MP three file. And some people want editing.
So I have a great editor and we've been able.

(39:02):
I've gotten different styles from her that I'm able to
show people that come into the studio and they can
tell me what they want, and different people want different things.
I really am enjoying this a lot.

Speaker 5 (39:12):
Yeah, you are coming home every night with a smile
on your face.

Speaker 6 (39:16):
Well, when I can get in. I could have had
to close the studio this week because they ripped up
the road in front of it and nobody can get there.
But other than that, it was something that I never
would have imagined ever doing in my life.

Speaker 5 (39:28):
Right, And like Arthur said, you were started. You find
a market need right right.

Speaker 6 (39:32):
Well, a lot of people want to start podcasts and
want to have podcasts, but they don't know how to
get over the hunt. But my next target customer, my
ideal client, really is going to be a marketing agency
who has a client who wants a podcast for their business.
Because podcasts are getting so important for business now, not
just for what does Google call it. They called the

(39:53):
eeat expertise and authority and trust to position yourself as
a leader. As Jim has a podcast, he knows. But
also it's important for that amongst the society, in the
people you work with. But it's also important for all
the search engines on Google that you be all over
the Internet everywhere. And video is the most important thing

(40:14):
you could be doing right now for search engines to
find you and promote you to people.

Speaker 5 (40:18):
So it's podcast studio, but we really do mostly video.

Speaker 6 (40:21):
It's going strong and we're having meetups. I'm having a
lot of fun. So that is that. And now for
the second half of my little time, I am going
to do the medical minute. A woman in Texas has
died from a rare brain infection after flushing her nose
with water that had been stored in the tank of
a recreational vehicle. You gotta be kidding me, No, so

(40:45):
she was only seventy one years old.

Speaker 5 (40:46):
Did the water come out of the tank and into
like the faucet? Is that how it came?

Speaker 6 (40:51):
No? She I think she had one of those netty
pots or something. So it was an amoeba, and they
didn't find it in there, but they found that it
wasn't disinfected well enough. The water wasn't affected well enough.
So anyway, the moral of the story is, if you're
going to flush your nose out used distilled water, or
boil the water first and let it cool.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
And wind out, Google is your friend. Yes, google it.

Speaker 6 (41:10):
This is a great segue because Sherry Dindall is next,
and she's a comedian, but she also has this really
great natural skincare brand called Wholesome Hippies. So Sheerry, we
definitely want to hear from you. We want you to
keep being funny too.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
I mean, I can't. I told you I was going
to behave myself. I can't help it. It just happens.
It's got me in trouble a lot in my life.
So now I don't get in trouble for it as
much because I'm just comedian. Is very new title for me.
It's not not even six eight, maybe nine months old.
That's a new title for me. So never considered myself
to be the funny. But yes, I do own a company,
own a couple companies, but Wholesome Hippie is my big

(41:46):
baby and it yeah all natural wellness and beauty brand
that we manufacture in the state of Georgia. It's all
all natural, no synthetics, no parabins, all clean ingredients. And
we've been in business for a little over five year now.
We actually launched right before COVID hit, not on purpose.
We already had been in the works and we managed
to survive because we make products that help people, and

(42:08):
so that's why we do it again. We make wellness
products to help people with pain and anxiety and stress,
and so we just make things to help people attack
pain and anxiety and stress and sleep just sleep issues
and stuff naturally without any of those side effects.

Speaker 6 (42:22):
What are you doing to promote your products.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
I've been a live seller for years, so it's really
we started with a wholesome hippie as a brand that
we wanted to have just exclusively for my boutique because
we would go live and we would sell through social media.
So I've been doing that for over almost ten years now.
We do a lot of live shows, but we've been
around long enough that we have established ourselves pretty well
in the e commerce space. We have an app and

(42:46):
people can shop through our app or they shop through
the website and so and I also have a very
large social media presence, so I use that as well
to help promote my business. We just use everything at
our disposal.

Speaker 6 (42:55):
Basically, what social media platform works best for you, I.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Would probably say to date has been TikTok. I mean,
I've been on Facebook for many, many years selling through Facebook.
But TikTok just has this unique algorithm that you can
just randomly go viral for no reason, you know, not
no reason the algorithm does what it does, just has
this ability to take brands that nobody's ever heard of

(43:20):
before and put them on the map. And so that's
what it did for us. Two years ago, we had
a product or our magnesium infused products that went viral
on TikTok and the rest is kind of history. My
advice would be to anybody that's getting into selling a product,
or even if you're not new in the business, you
have something that you know people need or that people

(43:40):
would want, is put yourself on all the platforms. It's
very competitive out there. The social media space is highly competitive.
You have TikTok Shop that everybody wants to compete with
now and TikTok Shop wants to compete with Amazon, and
you've got Instagram and Facebook or Meta, who is like,
we want part of that market share back. So they're
doing things to make their algorith them more dialed in

(44:01):
and more competitive. And so I would say get on
all of them, don't pigeonhole yourself, but don't don't put
all your eggs in one basket, because all of social
media has very high highs and very low lows, and
it is it will knock yourself like you just it
can make you you feel great today and you feel
like a loser tomorrow. And so you can't put all
of your eggs in one basket because it's better to diversify.

(44:22):
When I created a brand, it was out of my
own needs, my own sensitive skin, my own desire for
cleaner products. I really resonate and drive our business towards
people that want clean ingredients, that want stuff they feel
safe putting on their family, They feel safe putting on
their kids, they don't have to worry about, you know,
dies and parabins and sulfates and fake synthetic ingredients.

Speaker 5 (44:43):
So how do you build that trust though with the
customer that what you're providing them really.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Is safe transparency, authenticity, creating a relationship. That's what social
media is about. Like people think social media is just
pure like marketing, marketing is finding out that there's a
disconnect there and that's because they lack the relatability. They
lack building that trust through relationships. And so that's what
social media really is about today. People want something that

(45:08):
isn't perfectly curated. They want somebody that says it like
it is. I don't sugarcoat. I like to just say
it like it is, and so people relate to that.
They want real and so it's really talking about allowing
people to have the opportunity to ask questions. That's what
makes the live aspect of what I do so unique
and special is it allows you have a live audience
where people can ask questions, you can interact with them.

(45:29):
It's about again, authenticity and transparency, and I think that's
what a lot of people have a desire for and
that's what I connect with as people not knocking any
large brands that are out there, but transparency just has
become something that is not really there for the consumer.

Speaker 5 (45:44):
Can you share a story about your entrepreneurial journey with us,
like maybe when you were first starting out.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
Sure, so I've spent most of my life in the
corporate world. Twenty six years I spent the corporate world.
Quit my job with no plan. I had always had
a lot of great ideas through my career in corporate
like that I thought, you know, I I'd love to
start my own business, had no idea how to do that.
When I finally got burnt out and decided to quit,
I quit with no plan. It was scary to quit
my job without any idea of what I was going

(46:10):
to do, no plan, no roadmap. I didn't know how
to be anything but an investigator, which is what I
had been for so long, And so it was. You know,
I spent a lot of time not doubting myself. My
advice to people in my story would be, don't doubt
yourself because it might have took me ten years to
get here, but ten years later I have multiple successful businesses,
large social media platform that I would have never imagined,

(46:31):
a new title called comedian, which is wild to me.
But for me, my story is that I didn't give up.
You know that I didn't believe that I was not
good at anything. It sometimes it takes a while to
figure out what you're good at well.

Speaker 6 (46:45):
And sometimes it takes a while for you to get
noticed and to get built up. So when we started
the radio show, we're like, wow, we hope we can
do this. And now it's been seven years and that
went so fast, and Jim was on one of our
early episodes. We'll talk with him. And now we're like
top three percent globally, and it's part of the reasons
because we've been doing it so long.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Here's the thing, though, you wouldn't be doing it this
long if you weren't good at what you're doing. And
so that's the thing is that is that sometimes you
can be good, but there's a difference between being good enough,
right good and good enough. And so you've obviously been
doing something right and continue to grow and work on
being great or even better than you were, so that
you still are relevant today seven years later.

Speaker 6 (47:23):
And you have to keep up with the changes. Like
you said with the social media, it was very interesting
what you said, because our Facebook did great in May
and in June it was terrible, and then our Instagram
did okay in May and took off in June, and
it's like, but they're owned by the same company.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Advice, that's part of it, right there, a different algorithm.
Some advice would be to keep up with what Meta does,
because they do and although they're owned by the same company,
they do play against each other. So I have a
very large presence on both, almost about two million on Facebook,
one point six million on Instagram. TikTok's like one point
seven And and the difference in this is your Instagram

(48:02):
audience versus your Facebook audience is much greater value. And
those two both combined are even greater than any TikTok value.
So for every one TikTok follower you have, or every
ten TikTok followers, it's like one Instagram. So that's kind
of the ratio of value there.

Speaker 5 (48:19):
So in building your social media, which has obviously just
been amazing, did you have a strategy or did you
just decide I'm going to be me and this is that's.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
It right there, I'm just gonna be me. I think
social is going to change tremendously. AI is going to
I mean we're in the era now like the next
five to ten years. Your next big trillionaires, billionaires and
celebrities are going to come out of AI. There already
is content creation that is dirictly AI generated.

Speaker 6 (48:47):
How do people find you to buy your skincare products?

Speaker 3 (48:49):
You can visit us at Wholesome Hippie dot com. That's
a wholesome Hippie hippy Wholesome Hippie dot com and all
of our products are there, and uh, yeah, we're hard
to find.

Speaker 6 (49:00):
And you're doing a tour right now.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
I am. I love that you asked me that. So yes,
I told you. Comedians a new title for me. So
I'm on tour with some other content creators and we
are traveling all over doing comedy slash variety show. Shout
out to all the gen xers in the world. It's
called the gen X Takeover. And you can find information
on gen xtakeover dot com about where we're playing and

(49:25):
where they can come see us. And yeah, we're we're
already gearing up for twenty twenty six and have lots
of shows booked for twenty twenty five. So who knew?
Gen X has always been told to be quiet and
we were the forgotten and now it's it's our time
to shine. So that's what we're doing.

Speaker 6 (49:39):
Okay, So with that, I.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
Start a baby boomer comedy.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
You guys, should, baby, it would be hilarious.

Speaker 4 (49:46):
What's the ship I want to go see one of those.
It's a variety, So just explain that a little more
for the audience.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
Yeah, So it starts off so all four of us
will be on stage doing our own little comedy bit, right,
and then we all come together after that and do
a little bit more of a variety show. We get
the crowd on their feet and we sing. We do
sing along stuff with some old throwbacks to the eighties.
Uh and uh yeah, it's just it's a good time.
Then we have for some people stick around for meet

(50:12):
and greet and stuff like that, but no, it's a
it just continues. Well, we got a guy on stage
with us. Now that's a one man band that plays music,
and he has a keyboard and guitar. And I don't
know what twenty twenty six is gonna look like. It
might look really wild, but it's a great time. The
show is a couple of hours. The feedback so far
has just been phenomenal. We went from back in September
last year Labor Day. We started off playing one hundred

(50:33):
seater in Nashville and we just played Saint Louis June
first to it's a two thousand people, so less than
a year.

Speaker 6 (50:41):
I wonder do you have a Yeah, do you have
a garden, because you know how to grow things.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
I don't have time to actually grow anything at home,
but I do like to garden. I mean, I'm at
the age now where bird watching is coming into my Oh,
it's coming into my realm. Yeah, I who knew?

Speaker 6 (51:00):
Sherry Dindall? What is your handle on.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Social People can find me under the real slim Sherry.

Speaker 6 (51:06):
And do you have any events coming up in the
New York area?

Speaker 3 (51:10):
We actually do. New York is like our number one city,
all four of us that are on tour together number
one New York. So that we knew we had to
do the Northeast. So we're playing Newark at the NJ
Pack on August twenty third. Okay, Jennick's takeover Newark. We're
in New York. We're coming for you. It's going to
be a great show. Yeah, Mark you, Yeah, for sure,
it's gonna be an awesome show. The venue is beautiful,

(51:32):
it's gonna be the biggest venue we've played so far.

Speaker 6 (51:35):
We have to have you back on so we could
do more of this passage.

Speaker 5 (51:38):
To profit with Richard Analysabeth Gerhart.

Speaker 6 (51:40):
I'm going to switch over to Jim now. So Jim
Berude has been a fixture in the New Jersey entrepreneurial
community ever since I lived there twenty years.

Speaker 5 (51:49):
I remember when we went to his first meetups twenty
years ago, remember at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Speaker 6 (51:55):
Yeah, and he just has his finger on the pulse.
And what's interesting about Jim I just want to bring
up but he's doing events again, really good events, and
he gets a lot of people there, and post COVID,
it's been kind of hard to get people coming back
to events. So I want to pick his brain on that,
and I want to hear what he has to say
about AI. So you choose, Jim, do you want to
continue the AI conversation, you want to talk about your events?

Speaker 4 (52:15):
I'll talk about AI a little bit and entrepreneurship because
this has been such a great discussion and some great
entrepreneurs next to me. And as you said about the
social media, now you really have to even though you
have an amazing audience, I mean, you're like with the
top point zero one percent of people who have audiences
that big. But now with the algorithm it's really focused

(52:38):
on interest, right, So if you do really interesting content,
the algorithm will find it and serve it up to hundreds, thousands, millions, whatever,
and then they'll go viral, right, And that's what you
really want. So the good thing is you've got a
great audience. The good thing for new people, though, if
you do some really good content, you might be able
to go viral and become as successful as you. But

(53:00):
then some of the sort of best practices you probably
know is once you go viral, is to capture that
audience and make an email list, right, and serve them
up a weekly, monthly, whatever newsletter of what you're selling.
Because then you own that audience and you're not victim
to the platforms if they change your algorithm or don't.

Speaker 5 (53:19):
Like you anymore for any reason.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
That's why I said diversify. If you only have a
TikTok audience, nobody knows what the future of TikTok is.
It could go way tomorrow, exactly.

Speaker 6 (53:27):
It's not that because too many people are making money
from it.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
No no, no, no doubt, but they keep continuing to hold that.
And the truth price is that it could. I mean,
one day it could just go away.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Yeah, and you've been part of this big megage frend
about live selling for a long time before it's become
really you know, the next week's life selling. Tell our audience, Well,
it's going on the platform, and sure you can talk
about it, you know, going on the platform and talking
to your audience and sell them streaming live stream it's
live streaming.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Kind of QBC style almost if you think about it.
People are just demonstrating and showing the product kind of
like you would watch, but you're the person that they're
connecting with.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
Or it could be part of a comedy scale or
something where you just can sell something on the side,
or I'll show up and you can click on it.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
These days, literally some people aren't even there in right
faces and in the frame. It's just their hands with
a camera and they're like opening stuff and showing you
how it works, and people are just buying it. It's
just wild.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Life selling was also very common. I'm talking many years
ago at night after eleven o'clock when TV channels didn't
have anything, they would be selling all these products, you know,
for nine ninety nine, right, that's what it was. Life setting.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Well, now people lay in bed with their phone and
they watch it while they are getting ready to sleep
instead of watching TV. A lot of people are watching
live shows, live selling and buying from their pajamas.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
And you know what times people are actually buying. You
can track that, Yeah, you know when it is the
optimal time.

Speaker 6 (54:50):
Just plutch your crystal ball. What do you think AI
is going to do to us in the next couple
of years?

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Are for us?

Speaker 6 (54:58):
I shouldn't say too us.

Speaker 5 (54:59):
I should say open questions, pets.

Speaker 4 (55:04):
Wait, well, speaking of AI, I mean I should say
that there's also this resurgence of humanity, right, sure, you
just mentioned people are coming to our shows. You just
mentioned people are coming to my events. There's sort of
this re engagement where people are tired of screens. There's
a sort of fatigue, as there should be because we're
on them all day and all night and buying things

(55:25):
left them, right, And so there's that reality too, right,
And I think there's and that's a great thing, right,
People are really trying to sort of reconnect in person,
and that's a great development and hopefully that continues, right,
especially for our young people who don't know how to
talk to each other because they're on devices all day
and that's one of the downsides. Now they're gonna have
AI girlfriends and boyfriends or friends. And sometimes that's good.

(55:48):
If it's a therapist, that's helpful. Of course, a real
life therapist is better. But for people can't access those things,
that's better than nothing. And so that's the one of
the scary futures is our kids or the young people,
old people too, are going to have many friends, many
AI friends, fake friends, fake friends, and we're gonna have

(56:11):
to live with that reality.

Speaker 5 (56:12):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (56:12):
And you already hear stories about people marrying AIS. And
then there's the dark side of AIS, you know, these
smart ais or you know, being a little mischievous.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Right.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
On the other hand, it's thus humans which are more
mischievous and using AI to cheat people out of thousands,
millions in some cases of dollars and doing really negative
things with deep fakes, you know, sextortion and things like that,
or just regular extortion.

Speaker 5 (56:43):
I just have to say, AI it does scare me.
I mean, I find it amazing and wonderful. We use
it a lot, but when people start exposing their innermost
emotions to these computers and they're recording this information and
synthesizing it, it does give the the AI database a

(57:03):
basis to start becoming more human, right to the point
where it's it's you know, it's indistinguishable, I would think,
and you know that that scares me because there's there's
good and bad and human beings. Right, it's just it's
it's and you know who's thinking through this and we're
glad you are. Yeah, So you have.

Speaker 6 (57:25):
You have salons, you have places where people are gathering
and kind of talking about how to humans handle AI
and what's coming at as.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
Yes, so it's changing every day, right, So it's really
it is hard to keep up, and I do hold
events all the time on this, just trying to explore
these topics, right, how to use them in your business, right,
how to use them in your personal life. You know,
how to plan ahead, how to survive, how to thrive right,
and so there are so many positives from it, but

(57:56):
there are these negatives.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
Right.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
It will be disruptive, people will lose jobs over time,
and hopefully at the end of this disrupted period, however
long it lasts five years, ten years, that there will
be more jobs just like we have in the past,
there will be more equal number of jobs after this
disruptive phase of this all powerful technology. And I try
to be hopeful, but some days I'm not so hopeful.

(58:18):
But on the other hand, everyone should be learning how
to use it. I think that's the sort of the
same refrain we hear over and over. You will lose
your job to someone who knows how to use it,
not to an AI, but someone who knows how to
leverage AI. And so just I always recommend play with
it two or three hours a week if you can.
In fact, again, they're getting better every day. Today's AI

(58:40):
is the worst AI you will ever encounter. It's just
getting said. On the way here, we were my daughter
and I were talking to the chutch ebt about a
number of things. We're talking about careers because she's, you know,
going into her senior year, and she had had some
questions about how to make a lot of money, because
you know, young people want to make a lot of money.

(59:00):
And while I was grimacing because that's not when I
want her to focus. I wanted to focus on something
was a bit more meaningful. It was replying to her
about how to get from here to there and what
classes and majors to take. And then we were talking
about some travel and it was wonderful. So there's there's
so many use cases, and I think it's just a
matter of balance using those learning it, keeping up with it,

(59:23):
but not letting it consume you too much, right, just
like social media can be so consuming, these digital cocoons
were in all of us. It's really you really have
to break yourself out and go to live events like
Sherry's Jenex Live or Genics Experience. And that's important to
realize that.

Speaker 6 (59:40):
And I do ask this the people. Maybe I don't
know all the time, but I think the term agentic
AI and AI agents A lot of people haven't heard
that yet, maybe, but it's becoming more and more common.
Can you explain agentic AI?

Speaker 4 (59:54):
I will try to, but again it's changing so fast.
But essentially it's leveraging an AI or a program to
do a number of tasks strung together right, essentially go
make a reservation for me, or being an agent customer
service agent, essentially a really high powered chatbot. I can
really solve a problem for our customer, gaining knowledge and

(01:00:17):
data from past experiences and then be able to do
something for you or plan for you, or make an
appointment a reservation for you or think for you, it's
going to become very very trendy and it's a new buzzwords,
so it is something that is getting very very popular
and talked about. But time will tell how these because

(01:00:38):
they're still hallucinating, right There's still there are still issues.
It's still not perfect, and we still have to sort
of be skeptical and be careful and hopefully there are guardrails.
But what we can do ourselves is sort of just
be as knowledgeable as possible about these changes.

Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
And I do want to say one word of costion
for that, because I do know someone who's traveling overseas
and I said to him, I said, first of all,
be wear pickpockets because you're gonna be in really crowded areas,
so like wear your wallet under your shirt. But and
I know you guys have heard this before, have a
code word. So if somebody steals your voice with AI
and calls us or someone that you know and says, hey,

(01:01:18):
I'm in jail, I need ten thousand dollars, or somebody
got sick, we need ten thousand dollars, wire it to
us right away. You can ask them what's the code word,
And we're not telling you the code word, Richard, because
you gave it away on the radio last time, and
we had just.

Speaker 5 (01:01:30):
Going to say, last time we talked about this, I
gave up the code word on the radio. So I
had to come up with a new code word.

Speaker 6 (01:01:35):
But we do. But but that's because AI can imitate people.

Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
In five seconds. In five seconds, they could take me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
But those bot those people, I mean, they copy you.
They're like you. No.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
One of the guys I'm on tour with literally had
somebody somebody made a video of him talking to one
of his fans. They were trying to scam them, obviously,
and that video got circulated back to him and we
were and it was wild to look at how I
could tell it was AI just by watching the movement
in his mouth, but it was. The voice was spot on.

(01:02:08):
You couldn't tell the voice at all. And the look
was there. It looked just like him, but it was
not him. It was completely AI generated.

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
Yeah, in six months from now, it's going to be.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
And that's on social media, people sending that to somebody
in a DM going hey it's me, send me X.
I get people constantly that are like, is this you
messaging me? I'm getting DMS asking me for money, and
I'm like, no, it's so many scams out there.

Speaker 6 (01:02:31):
I have a question about that, Jim. Do you think
there will be a cottage industry that grows up around
detecting AI in communications?

Speaker 4 (01:02:39):
There already is. There's a lot of companies working on.
It's sort of watermark, you know, so to make sure.
But let me just respond to the study about you know,
us getting dumber because especially young people, they can't critical
thing because they're and you know, I know people include
my gives it users probably too much. So the study
wasn't perfect, but it is a reality. On the other hand,

(01:03:00):
the advent of AI tutors should the promise promise is
that we'll bring everyone up, you know, custom personalized education
will bring everyone up to speed at their own pace,
very effectively. So I'm hopeful for that vision and not
us losing our critical thinking capabilities. The best we can
do is just try to teach our kids, or teach

(01:03:22):
everyone you know, how to think critically, and there are
some strategies to that, but it's a challenge when there's
shortcuts everywhere.

Speaker 6 (01:03:28):
So what do you think about this? I was at
a presentation and the guy that's a head of technology
for summ At Schools, said they have classes now teaching
the kids in high school how to craft queries for
these large language models. They're teaching them how to interact
with the large language models.

Speaker 4 (01:03:46):
Yes, I agree, you're going to have to integrate it
into the education system because they're going to use it
to cheat no matter what, and there is no detector
out there right now that can detect it. It's as
simple as that. But also how to leverage it to
do great outputs, you know, to to really be more
effective because they're going to need those skills when they

(01:04:08):
go into the workplace.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
I think it's just like when the when cell phones
or iPad technology came out, computers, whatever, it's the same thing.
Some people are quick to adapt, others are very slow.
But the ultimately the reality is that everybody will have
to eventually adapt because it's not going to go away,
right all.

Speaker 6 (01:04:24):
Right, Yeah, It's like we all had to learn how
to type, right, Jim, do you have any events in
August or September coming up?

Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
Stay tuned for ourant. We have a Quantum one lining up.
Quantum is the next thing after AI, which will sort
of turbo charge AI even more so that's probably in August,
but maybe a few things in between them.

Speaker 6 (01:04:44):
But so how do people find you and find your events?

Speaker 4 (01:04:47):
Well, I think LinkedIn is probably the best James Perud,
there's only one and it's b A R.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
R O O D.

Speaker 7 (01:04:53):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:04:54):
Yeah, really, people, if you want to hear what's coming
next these meetings that Jim has a really great Richard
spand to some of them too.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (01:05:01):
Absolutely, listeners who.

Speaker 6 (01:05:02):
Are listening to the Passage to Profit Joe with Richard
and Elizabeth Gearhart and our special guests today Arthur Kapor,
and we have just had fabulous discussions about many different
topics and ended with AI as always seems, We'll be
right back.

Speaker 9 (01:05:18):
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If you've been involved in a serious car, truck or
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(01:05:41):
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Speaker 8 (01:06:03):
Eight hundred four nine two seven oh one four eight
hundred four nine two seven oh one four eight hundred
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four nine two seventy fourteen.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
It's Passage to Profit.

Speaker 5 (01:06:20):
Alicia Morrissey is our programming director at Passage to Profit
and she's also a fantastic jazz vocalist. You can scroll
to the bottom of the passageprofitshow dot com website and
check out her album.

Speaker 6 (01:06:34):
And now it is time for Secrets of the entrepreneurial mind. So,
Arthur Kapor, what is a secret you can share with
our audience.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
You need to understand the people that you're talking to,
or that you're presenting to, or you're in a meeting with.
So you should be able to look around in a
room and you should be able to see who is
the person who's thinking like you who is the person
who's a green with you, And you will always find
that there will be two or three people in that

(01:07:04):
room who will never agree with you, no matter what
it is. So what you need to do is figure
it out the objection of those two people to what
you're talking about, and somehow fine tune your speech in
such a way or your presentation in such a way
that they are also they get their answers to what

(01:07:24):
they're looking for. You have to read the room. This
is one of the biggest things of an entrepreneur. An
entrepreneur always is it's not about just you go out
and build a product. It is also about that you
go in meetings and you talk to clients and you
convince them to use or buy your product. And that's
where you need to know how to read the room,

(01:07:45):
because in that room you'll have some people who will
never agree with you. So you need to figure out
how to break that.

Speaker 6 (01:07:51):
Oh that's a really good one. So the real slim Sherry,
Sherry didn't tell what is your secret?

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
I think I said it earlier. It's not really a secret,
but I think more people need to be authentic, not
only for you, but for whoever your customer is be
authentic because authenticity builds loyalty faster than any strategy. And
that is the world I think that we're currently living
in and where the future is is building that trust.
If you want to build something, be authentic, be genuine,

(01:08:18):
and that is the fastest path I think to building
a brand today.

Speaker 6 (01:08:22):
Excellent, Thank you James Berude.

Speaker 5 (01:08:24):
Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
I want to just build on that real quick before
I build on Arthur's. Authenticity and reputation and brand will
be the distinguishing factors in the world of AI, so important,
and so we have a great example here and I
just want to build on what Arthur said. One thing
to help read the room is to meet everyone before
that meeting and engage them somehow, charm them too, especially

(01:08:48):
those detractors that might be there. That's sort of a secret,
just to sort of set yourself up for more success
during any type of meat presentation, meeting, pitch meeting, sales meeting,
anything excellent.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):
There's plenty of room for humanity right in this world
of AI because of those are human attributes.

Speaker 6 (01:09:06):
It seems like there's always a pendulum swinging, and every
once in a while it goes through the perfect balance point,
but then it gets knocked off again and we're swinging,
swinging back wildly, now back and forth. Richard Gearhart, what
is your secret?

Speaker 5 (01:09:18):
My secret is work, even when you feel like crap.
I was just thinking, like today now I feel pretty
good today I don't, but yesterday was not such a
good day. But obviously just getting in there and working
sometimes makes you feel better. Sometimes it doesn't. But delivering
on your goals consistently is really important for entrepreneurship. And

(01:09:40):
I don't think you can afford to be too moody.
Right If you have a to do list, whether you're
feeling good or bad, I think you need to attack
it and do the best you can.

Speaker 6 (01:09:48):
So mine is going to be e EAT. So what
is e EAT. It's expertise, experience, authority and trust. And
the reason that's my forwards actually is that that's what
Google's looking for when it looks at your online presence.
Podcasts help with that. Of course I help people start podcasts.
Of course, that's kind of the lens I look through.

(01:10:10):
But they're not just looking at your website. They're looking
at Google as your whole online presence. When they're looking
where to put your website when people go searching, or
when to offer you up as an answer when people
go searching. We've said we had this show for seven
years and it's really helped us in that regard. I
think because Richard has been the answer to people looking

(01:10:30):
for a patent attorney on chat GBT three times now
in the last couple month or two. So when you're
thinking about your company and promoting your business, it's social media.
It's your website, it's your podcast, it's everything you do
online and video. Of course, Google bought YouTube, so video
is huge now because in Google's favoring video now because

(01:10:52):
that's its business. That's my secret.

Speaker 5 (01:10:54):
That's great. Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio
show appearing in thirty eight markets US in the United States.
In addition, Passage to Profit has also been recently selected
by feed Spot Podcasters database as a top ten entrepreneur
interview podcast. Thank you to the P two P team,
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(01:11:18):
our studio assistant Risicatbusari, and our social media powerhouse Carolina Tabares.
Look for our podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts
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You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram x and
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(01:11:40):
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Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs.
You can find us at gearheartlaw dot com and contact
us for free consultation. Take care everybody, Thanks for listening,
and we'll be back next week.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
The proceeding was a paid podcast. Iheartradios hosting of this
pot cast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered
or the ideas expressed.