Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 114 - From Paycheck To Practice

Transcript

Ep. 114 - From Paycheck To Practice · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Or AI tech, which by the way has an extreme amount of risk to it.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of times those things aren't even, they never even hit profit lines.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_04: Here we are.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_04: We are back in the studio.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: And uh we've got a special guest with us.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: Got a super cool guest, man.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: This is actually uh, you know what's cool about this is this is one of our fans about Big Talk, which is really encouraging for us.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: It is that we actually have fans.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: Right, number one, and we're not getting paid.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: No, I know.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: So this is worth it.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: This is the reward.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: And he's uh he's also an aspiring entrepreneur.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, and uh did used to work with him, as a matter of fact.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: That's what you just said, yeah.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not um so we've got Sean Cole Farber with us.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_04: Is that how you say it last name?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I think the T's silent, but I didn't find out until I graduated college.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um okay, sorry, Sean.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, my friend was like, the T is silent.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_05: You're supposed to say Sean Cole Farber.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, what?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_04: Uh sorry, I know, right?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_04: I now know, yes.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: So C taught you how to pronounce your own name.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_04: Is that it?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right when I was that whole weekend before you graduate, that's when I got to know.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_05: Like, he's like, Yeah, your mom, your mom told me this is how you're saying.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, okay, let's go with what he said.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_04: That's crazy.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I love it when yeah, people try to argue with me about how my name is pronounced.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, you've got the hardest name in the world to see.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know why.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_04: It's Zweig?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_04: Zwyag?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_04: Long Eye, Budweiser is the whole key.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: Right, exactly.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: Zweig.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know how many times I've had to uh correct people in the last thing.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: It's been insane.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_04: So I I hear you.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_04: So Sean probably corrects everybody because they're gonna throw the T in there like I did.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_05: No, I don't do that because I was the one that messed up my own name.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: So for many years.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: So you used to work with Sean.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we worked uh back at uh White Spider together back in the day.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: So um, so that's cool.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: So at uh and you're still you're at Flywheel, you currently are employed.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: So here's a little, I think, from what I understand here, Sean, right?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, you're still employed or looking to start your own business.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and it looks very hard.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_05: You know, it looks like one of those mountains that and and I would like to do it in software.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_05: And so that even creates more complexity.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_05: Um really, it's you know, when the opportunity presented itself, I was like, well, any advice to just get me pointed in that direction would be helpful.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so for the record, like you are a software engineer yourself, right?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's what you're that's what you're employed to do.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: So this isn't like a you're not uh you're typically software ideas, right?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: And you're on the skill side, right?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: You're a programmer at heart, you know what you're building.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um I even know the customer that I want to build it for.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_04: Well, hell, that's that's a so what seems so difficult to you?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'm just curious.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_04: You've got the skill and you know what your problems you want to solve.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_05: Why does it seem like it's so onerous or so the the the idea is it deals with banking, and that's one of the things that creates all this complexity.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_05: Um if you ever look at banking, we're only really uh working with the person that's in the front office, the the one that takes your money, the one that tries to correct your problems.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_05: Well, if you start seeing what what actually happens at a bank, there's a whole other area that people don't even know about, that's the back office where they actually do the work.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_05: And um I've been at two different banks before I came and worked at White Spider.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_05: And the the jobs that I had at those banks were not programmers.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_05: Um the the the first job was a process design and engineer, and when I worked worked at that bank, it was such a big bank that the the stuff that we were working with was uh the only a few software programs that that we were helping our customers.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_05: There were over 800 people make sure that they could do their job.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: And if there was a roadblock, we had to fix it.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_05: And then when I switched to another bank that's a little a lot smaller, um I was kind of the IT guy that was supposed to fix everything.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_05: And that that was a little more of a struggle for me because it's like uh when you go in and you look at the problem, really it's like, oh, restart your router.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_05: And and sometimes we couldn't go on site, but we had to like walk somebody through what they needed to do.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_05: It's like so I I got to be really familiar with my phone and how to like, hey, can we FaceTime?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, you see that one that has the red butt blinky light?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_05: Can we like turn that off and turn it back on?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_05: Where's the on-off switch?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: Why can't it be the next question?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I'd ask.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: Or it was like these marks are perfect in a client.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_05: There were other intense problems like I need to get into the software and I locked myself out, so let's get it done right now.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_05: So typical like back office IT work for financial institutions is what you're yeah, there's a whole array of what those people are doing, but they don't have the tools to do it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, one of the things that you see them do, a lot of times you get a letter from the bank, and it's because somebody's like got a Word document, deleting out your name, typing it in, and it it should all be automated, you know, is kind of the way that I think.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_05: And um a lot of times it's just because the the resources or all the money is going to make sure that your checking account balance is correct.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_05: Like one of the things that when you look at what they pay for that and then what they could pay for something else that's that's like a nice to have, uh, it just doesn't get there.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_05: And really, when I look at the problem, it's like I always think of the old ladies that are working in the back.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_05: They're like your grandma, and and it's just like they just need three more years to retirement.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_05: If you could treat them right, man, they give you cookies and you're just listening.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, smart.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_04: When when I was young, it was the word processing pool, and there were always cranky old ladies that ran that.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and so if you take them out to lunch once a week, whoever the head of that was, you could get your typing done.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, nice.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, she had to have a relationship with them, otherwise you go to the bottom of the stack.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_04: That's it, man.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_05: That that is it.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_05: Well, and it it one of the things that you like because of my responsibilities live somewhere else, and I didn't have a lot of the tools to help them get where they want to go.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, well, that's not a today problem, that's like the future problem.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and it's like so like I can see the thing that they need, and I've probably built it three or four times.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_05: I also see how to cut down on a lot of the problems that they have.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_05: Because, you know, not all banks are the same.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_05: It's really these banks that are in that middle tier where they're they're starting to think about getting IT.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_05: Like a lot of the stuff is just outsourced.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um whenever they think about uh like putting in a server, it's gonna cost them a management fee.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_05: It's already gonna cost them all these things.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_05: And and really, you know, it's just like I need to get in front of those people and then help them save money because that's really what business is all about.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_05: It's not first of all, they think, well, you're just gonna be expensive because you hear software.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_05: And then secondly, how can you save them money?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_05: There's a lot of places that you can find fees that they're getting paid that they have to pay other places.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_05: Well, really, you make them a system that streamlines all that stuff, and then you start taking money from the other people that pay up, you know, they they have to pay.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_05: And that's kind of really what I need to like figure out how to get started or give to the world.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so that's what you want to deal with.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_04: That is.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_04: So what's the problem again?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_04: Why can't you package up your offerings and figure out uh scope of services and pricing model and how you're gonna go to these people with an offer, sort of productizing what you've got?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_05: So the big problem is um getting the money to cover from you know the the thing that that I've heard is our we have a hair in a heroin addiction to our paycheck.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_05: And and I can see that being a stopper or a blocker for a lot of people.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_05: And then on the other side, when you start working, is that what you're talking about?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, absolutely.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_05: If I don't have that stop gap to get the first customer to prove out the product.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: So do you do okay, so this is I think I'm I'm tracking with you now.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: So are you saying that it's difficult for you to go find and acquire a new customer because you're too busy working full time during the business hours, right?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: That you should be talking to your customers.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: So I can I can understand that paradox a little bit.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, however, I mean I have created a website.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: So, but however, what I would say though, Mark asked a pretty important question that I think that maybe a lot of entrepreneurs or respiring entrepreneurs will skip past, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because we think, you know, if I was in your position, I'd be like, I have to have more time during the day to go see these people.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: When reality is, is I think that if you kind of took what Mark was saying, what is what is your presentation look like, right?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like I think I would I would really perfect the product offering, the value propositions.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because you know, one of the hardest things I think in business is clearly, quickly, and simply articulating what it is the hell that you do.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my God.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_04: And all the student business plans that I see, I have I tell every single one of them, I've got to know exactly what this business does within the first few moments of reading this.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_04: If I can't figure that out, I'm done.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, listen, this is this is like state job, like high-level genius stuff, right?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do you take something, and every business is extremely complex.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: Your business you just went through, although the the solution's simple, the problem, you know, is extremely complex.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not sure the solution is I'm I guess I'm not totally sure what Sean's gonna be doing.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Is he writing software?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, but I'm so I'm I'm gonna say like this the idea of a software containing a you know, that the idea that this is a software that solves a bunch of problems.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I mean the the mechanics behind the engineering and all the functionality may be extremely complex and all the different things it deals with.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: But I think that the solution of being like, hey, I have a software that solves a lot of these problems, that offering is fairly simple.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the roadway to communicate all these problems so that somebody on the receiving side can go, I understand what you're talking about, I understand that's my problem.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and you've hit those bullet points because like in the sense with like I've I've faced a lot of these issues just within my company, and I'm full-time.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I have full-time people in it, and the problem is still plaguing us of this articulation, this value propositioning.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's so often overlooked.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think I don't think the answer for an entrepreneur is to have full-time capability because if you if you step out there and you don't have that value proposition done correctly, you actually have a big chance of burning the hell out of a lot of cash and finding yourself in a worse.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because your number one goal is to drive revenue, right?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like you have to get clientele.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I would say, like, if instead of going, how do I get out and and be full time?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's more about how, like, I would I would put a goal in my brain.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: If I have my lunch hour, can I go see a client once every day throughout the week and I can sell them in that two times or in the morning and get faster at it.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_03: But right, can I go have a meeting and I can sell in that meeting?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: I can close a deal with meeting.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: That would be an ultimate goal because if you can figure that out, then going full-time is worth it.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_05: Really, if I had my first customer, I wouldn't be as stuck as I am.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, my reaction to what you're talking about is A, it needs more definition for me, because I didn't follow it.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_04: I I I heard of a service business more than I heard of a software solution.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: Secondly, um I would I do things like if you were putting out a lot of content on LinkedIn about these are typical problems that, or this is a typical problem I see in the back office of a bank, and here is is the solution for it, or this is a typical problem um that people have, but they're not dealing with it.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the more you do that, the more hooks you're putting out there in the water that where people are gonna go, hey, what is the answer to that?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: Can you help me with the answer to that?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_04: I like people calling me, okay, if I can, and then having that lunch meeting.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um, that's fair.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_04: So doing things that sort of set the hooks in the water to drive the demand, you know, it you don't want to just have one possibility and then work that all the way through.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_04: What you need is like five possibilities.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_05: So so one of the things I think.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_05: One of the things that I struggle with is I can talk about it more on the the banking side.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_05: So like one of the things you don't may not understand it is there are so many different regulations that the government has put on a bank.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I do understand.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_05: That they have to generate a letter for every single one of those things.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_05: And so, like, my first job when I was here was bouncing between different departments, building out a database for garnishments, a database for uh reggae, a database for reclamation, meaning if somebody died, you need to tell them that their account is now frozen or the assets that are in there, and that you need to go work the legal system before you come back.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_05: You know, there's all these different letters.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, sure.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_05: And it was our full-time job to build these uh databases that were just like an access database or an Excel spread a sheet spreadsheet that would just automate, you know, if you if this department's doing 20, this department's doing 10, this one over here is 300, just trying to help each of those back offices so they didn't have to manually do it.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_05: And that was at a bigger bank.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_05: And at the smaller bank, really the bosses uh they're aware of the work that needed to be done, but they didn't want to get into the weeds to be like, oh, maybe we could fix that problem for you.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, once once you build a solution, then they're like, oh wow, we can't get rid of this solution, you know.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_04: It's difficult to unhook.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_04: There's no reason for them to.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_04: That's the great thing about a group mission critical software, as we all know.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, for sure.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_04: You want something that people have a hard time unhooking from, they got to keep paying you for.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, but back on your thing, I mean, like, so again, uh I mean, it seems to me like if I was gonna market whatever it is that you're trying to do, I would want to be starting out with some kind of audit of where the client is.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I would have my my checklist of all the things that they're doing, whether they're doing all the problems that you know you could help them with, yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_04: You need to have a complete list of all those and say whether they need it or not.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good idea.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I could see him like this, like he and I would see like a pitch like this, like if you go back to the LinkedIn thing, right?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: You're just popping out messages, hey so-and-so, uh, my name's Sean, I have this product, or my name's Sean.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: I would love to come in and do back office efficiency analysis or something, right?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, like, and I think that there might be like a little free teaser to where you go in and you spend 30 minutes talking to a few people, and then you can pitch back a more comprehensive audit that actually pays you.
• 17:28
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_04: Or you have to fill out a questionnaire.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_04: Like here, if you're interested in if you feel like you've got some issues in your back office that could make it more efficient, fill out the questionnaire right here.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_04: It's free.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, here's a link, boom.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: And then once you do that audit, then you have a software that solves all these problems from your audit.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: Then here's the solution.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: Boom.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_05: So one of the other things with banking is they don't make moves until for two reasons.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_05: One being, like you guys just said, an audit.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_05: So like they pay third parties to come in and say, Well, oh, wait, you're not you're not clearing this.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_05: So we need an in and out and make make this solution, or you need to figure out how to prove to us that you are sending out these letters on a certain cadence.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_05: And so I mean, I was part of the team that had to generate a solution within two weeks because oh, we have an audit that just came back that if you guys can't prove this, then you're in out of compliance and now you're in trouble.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you risk your FDIC insurance or whatever, right?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so it took two people in uh you know, 80 hours of work to figure out a solution that, okay, you know, and and that was the funny thing, you know, in these bigger banks, it's not anything like they they can't go to the IT department to fix it because they've got programmers and all that stuff.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_05: Because if they did that, that's now three months out, you know, you got all these processes, and so we cobbled something together, and then over the next two months we put in like those um nice to haves, I guess, the the things that keeps your old ladies in the back room from quitting because they're just like, no.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_05: The the other reason why they would want to make a switch to a different product is if they've all of a sudden had a problem because they merged.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_05: You know, whenever you merge, that was one of the things that I got to see.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_05: I got to see two mergers.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_05: Whenever you merge, everything just blown apart.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_05: And then you're like, uh it's the CEO's fault, you know, he's gotta figure it out.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_05: And so then, like, you can't really just say, Oh, I can help you with that, because all their problems are you need to fix this process here, you need to fix that one, how do we streamline over here?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_05: And that's not the time that they're gonna want to have that advice.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_05: And then the other the other side of it is when you start talking to smaller banks, well, that's a nice to have.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_05: I don't really need that.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_05: And so it's like when I started thinking about this problem, I know the customer that I need, like how many branches they have, I know how many they have.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_05: I also know that it takes them three months to decide on anything because one of the things that they're trying to figure out is do I really need the software or can we just like add five more bodies, you know, to fix this problem?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_05: And and then they're it's it's like there's no way to like incentivize them.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_05: And so then, like one of the things that I I learned in the back office, like how I would start this business, is attack a problem that already has a fee generated where in their process they just decide we're not gonna do the work over there, we're just gonna credit the account because it's too expensive for us to even do this.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_05: But I don't know how to have that conversation with somebody when they don't even know I exist.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_04: I again, I mean, I I still am not sure that what you have is a complete software sale you're trying to make, as much as it's a consulting service with a software element to it.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's good.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_04: And I I mean, to me, it's the audit.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's where it starts out.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_04: You look at everything they're doing, and you go, okay, these are the problems that we see.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_04: A, C, and G on our list, and we can solve that for you, and this is what it's gonna cost you to solve that.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I do, I mean, what you just said about mergers and banks, super common.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_04: That's a great market to be serving.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_04: They probably have tons of issues, as you said, yeah, with this kind of a stuff.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_04: So, I mean, if you're part of a team that's involved in the integration of these two things, again, it's gonna start with an audit of how each one's doing it and then finding the best way, I would think.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_04: You know, as a part of the merger process.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so what process who what whose process are we gonna use for this problem?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_04: Who's got the better plan of the two entities, you know?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_04: But it it it all starts with an audit.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, drive, you need to think about what you're selling exactly.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_04: Articulate that, as Eric said, make the offer.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you gotta come up.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_04: I think you gotta have audit service that you use in order to diagnose exactly what where you're gonna go with this client if you make them a proposal as a front end.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: You need to promote yourself so leads come into you, so you don't have to go call on anybody and try to sell them.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_04: You want them calling you.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_04: So, I mean, you got a variety of ways to do it.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_04: You can build an email list, you know, the banks that are you could find the banks and whoever would be the one that you need to appeal to with this, or and or you can use um social media predominantly LinkedIn to sort of promote what you're doing.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know what I would say, like it I I agree with Mark, like I think you should really consider that consult that service.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like you have a managed service business that has tech tech stacked behind it, because that might you know, one of the you know, things of dealing with software in my career, like it it's not an easy road, right?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: It requires substantial capital, a lot of risk, you know, and and it's really hard to sell.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it really is.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas, to your point and to Mark's point, like, hey, when mergers happen, I know as Sean, because I'm an expert in this and I provide great service.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'm the guy that figures that out.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: That that that causes these four problems, right?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so out of those four, here's one that I can fix, I have a hundred percent confidence in.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: I know, like for the major and and by the way, that same problem exists for the majority of banks that are going through mergers.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so now you have this leading service that you can target banks that are going through mergers, and you hit them with that dead-on value proposition.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: The price is right, it might be an audit, could be something that fixes something, but most likely to Bark's point, and audit's good because it takes the it takes the sales out of of the customer, right?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: They don't feel, and they shouldn't, and if you do it correctly, you're doing it as more advisory.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I mean, like you come in, I'm gonna take a look at this, make sure you don't have these further pitfalls.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I'm good at.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I can do really well.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: I can specialize in.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: Really specialize.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's not, oh, by the way, this isn't a 12-month agreement that blah blah blah stuff.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's a one-time fee.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: It provides instantaneous value the second you walk out of that office.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's another big thing.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't have this long-term wait until I get some value out of Sean's, you know, you gotta pay Sean$100,000 a year to start to sell.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_03: Blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: Real low risk.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: And to your point, the ladies in the back office are gonna be immediately happy because Sean came by today.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: He actually asked them about what they're doing or whatever, right?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then he fixed the problem.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the culture's happy.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: That is substantially valuable, right?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so to Mark's point, like if you can narrow it down into this customer segment with the specific thing that they need, with you know, a couple of products that give instantaneous value, they're not cumbersome, they're not complicated, it doesn't require, you know, and then by the way, you're local, there's some other value props to this to where you walk in, you're in person, it's not over the phone, it's not through some software.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have to download a new software, I don't have to, the second you say software to banks, I imagine they're like, okay, let's send that to IT, as you probably know.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: How does this integrate with our big mainframe?
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• 26:30
  SPEAKER_04: Or compliance is this how how how is this gonna actually be compliant?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then we have the and so right.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_03: Here's the thing, Sean.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: If you narrow this down, like Mark and I are discussing, this is gonna answer a lot of your question about what your other one was is how do people even know about me?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, right.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: If you narrow it down, now you can talk more deeply about these four problems, yeah, yeah that are with mergers and acquisitions, and then you just start talking about it generally on LinkedIn.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: Start writing some content, you do some video shots, you doesn't have to be a big deal.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: This is a problem I encounter, this is how you deal with it.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: You you go out and you get on other shows and you discuss it on some banking video podcasts or whatnot.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you just kind of work that and then you start you start becoming known for that.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: So when the you know, and then when then if you have some supportive issues and you see the mergers happen, then you send a solicitation out.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, by the way, you don't forget to connect with all the bankers.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_04: Build your list.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_04: Build your list.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, go where the bankers are, wherever they are.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_04: Is there leading it?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_05: That was one of the things that I did do when I was working for banks.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_05: It people love to connect with you if you have the title of the bank on there.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_05: Sure, right.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_05: So my LinkedIn went from I think I had 300 to now I have six thousand.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_05: Good for you.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_05: Probably about three three thousand of them.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_05: The other the other half is you know in the CPG space because Eric introduced me to a lot of people.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, sure.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: But I think that you know the the um there is Mark and I have talked about this a million times.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: People often, especially in today's time, overlook the value and the opportunity of service-based businesses that provide legit service.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: They're the majority of businesses that are out there, they're specialized too.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: Specialized services.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's let's tell Sean a little bit about why that's such a good thing versus because I'm with you.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: You you worked in IT in this, you work at you've been a software developer.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how are you gonna think about specialized services?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: And like that's probably might be a negative thing and a little bit florid, but some values to me is is like you can basically build a price sheet right now, you could do that, and this is what I'm talking about trying your question about quitting your day job.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, don't do it because here's what you're doing, right?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: Spend the time building your price sheet, yeah, thinking about the value proposition.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and you can do that on your own right now, right?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_03: And you really don't need a whole bunch of help on that.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then I'd say a huge value is that you have immediate clientele that might have needs.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: And to me, being able to walk in, here's the biggest thing immediate revenue.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: Immediate revenue, right?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: Versus trying to get somebody to buy software.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that takes a long development cycle.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_04: That's then I gotta get outside financing.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_04: You don't want that.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_04: That's the last thing you need, in my opinion.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I was kind of thinking going the approach of what I've seen Eric do at White Spider, you know, we had a product that was called Skew Ninja, and I got to support it.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_05: I I mean it's still living.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_05: Like there's customers.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_05: I I just sometimes feel like if it was priced right, you know, it's like price to get people in the door.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_05: Then maybe if it was priced so that we could continue the offering, then uh it might be something that continues until I die, you know.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, don't forget though, what's that that Eric started his business as a basically a consulting firm.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_04: 100% service.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_04: That was an outgrowth of being in that business and seeing a problem that was recurring.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_04: They developed the software to serve their clients and then said, Oh, by the way, this can be a product.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: Is that not a fair statement?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we built it to make us efficient at providing services.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_04: So the the the I mean, to me, again, I I think, you know, we're really hitting on something that you need to consider, and that is consider yourself more of a of a consultant to improve back and back room operations more broadly.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um and as a part of that, you may have this software solution.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_04: There may be other software solutions besides this to deal with other problems that are in the back end, right?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, not just the letter com issue and compliance or whatever else.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just saying it's just one tool that you can employ that does have recurring revenue associated with it, which you want, right?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_03: You you need to Okay, yeah, you need to flip the chess pieces here.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: Think and don't let this discourage you because the expertise that you're driving, the consultancy, yeah, is that's what's first.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: You walk in, you might already have, you might have already developed a software at 80% right now, and so you could legitimately if somebody would just damn it buy the damn subscription and fix it for them.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: But I promise you, yeah, that sale is incredibly difficult.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas you could still have this tool, go and meet on the consulting services, provide instantaneous value, instantaneous revenue, credibility, and then you're working that job, and then you're over here using your tool to make yourself efficient.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: Now you have a competitive advantage in your consulting businesses that nobody else has because you have a tool in your back.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, and then by the way, after you work with them for a period of months, you're like, hey, all you gotta do, like I've got everything built for you in this tool.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_03: Just subscribe to the tool, and I can lower my consulting services down.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: And now you're just paying the software to do it.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: Let me train you real quick, and it's done.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of time, like, but the problem is is we've taken this software thing and we put it on the front end.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: And when you do that, that's what you hear all the VC, the capital, the private equities, all this crap that's going on in the world in Silicon Valley, they're all dumping billions and millions of dollars into building a whole team to build out a software tech or AI tech, which by the way, has an extreme amount of risk to it.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of times those things aren't even they never even hit profit lines.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they sell on the red because but that that's that whole game's so different and foreign to what you're doing.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_04: And low probability of success.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_04: Very low probability, right?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas being a consulting business first has a super high probability of success.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_04: Low overhead associated with it.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_05: So I do like your idea.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_05: I guess I kind of felt that I already went through that pain when I was at the two banks.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_05: Um, my first job probably was more of a consultant than uh and things that we got to see was like the problems what happened when you st when you're a big bank and you and you've got a transfer from one credit card or debit card vendor to another.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_05: Like it takes three years just to get to that point, you know.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_05: And then then realizing that all these little things break, and then I've seen how it just becomes, oh, that guy over there in the corner, let's get him to do it.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: So, Sean, fortunately, I we're gonna have to cut soon, but all right, so to your statement just now.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe you know more about what you got going on than than what we can actually you know understand right now.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_03: My point to you would be is if it is software, you are gonna be left to no choice than to become a capital raising professional.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: And you're gonna have to now all the things we talked about about building a value proposition and articulating that, yeah, now you gotta go do that to a bunch of folks that have money that understand fine fintech, right?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then you're gonna have to go in the spree of raising capital in dollars.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: Once you're involved in that, then you're gonna have to lay out the proformas, you're gonna have to do all this type of business side, which by the way, will take you out of complete software development land, everything you build.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: Complete foreign territory.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so, what I would advise on that basis is you should really consider maybe a business partner that is great at capital raising, and you're the developer that's built this tech.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: There is extreme value in that though.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not gonna discount this.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: So, this whole dialogue is is you're you're asking a really good question, which I think a lot of entrepreneurs are facing, right?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: Is like, how do you go like what's your right pathway, right?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know that there's a right or wrong thing, there's pros and cons in going with a lot of them.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: I would say that if your ambition is to, in one of your main questions, transitioning from employee to operator to your first question.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: I would like to be an entrepreneur.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: My name's Sean.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to have control over my schedule.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: I have this idea, I really want to get into this scenario, this new life.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, right?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: If that's your question, then I would say the fastest way to get there in the next 90 days would be going the consulting advisory service because you'll hit instantaneous revenue with your clients.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: You could no overhead a second.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: No overhead.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: You're in business, buddy.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_03: In 30 days, you got money rolling in, you can stop your current job, you can be on this track.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: If that's your vision and your desire, that's your way to go.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: If you are trying to be a software developer, okay, now your circumstance changes.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_03: Now you're gonna have to do one of two things.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: You have to go get some capital for somebody to support you to spend all day.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: Now you borrow$50,000 from somebody and you're burning through that cash.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's probably fans and uh friends and family, yeah.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_03: Whose feelings are you gonna hurt when you burn through the capital and you never raise another dollar?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're gonna be in that game.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's gonna most likely deter or postpone this desire to be out on your own.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and the probability of success in that latter scenario is a lot lower than it is in the former scenario.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's very fair.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_04: It I I'd say it's probably ten times easier and more likely to succeed going just selling consulting with this as an option to solve their problem, the software solution, than it is going the other way.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_03: I want to make a big point.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: The very beginning of this conversation, Mark goes, after you were talking, so what's the problem?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: Why aren't you in business?
• 37:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of times entrepreneurs don't understand the value of what they already know.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that in order for you to go out in the consultancy, you should have a high level of confidence you can be successful at that.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_03: You you actually do have that ability.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: Now, do you see it?
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: But I think that that's to Mark's point, right?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_03: Is that why aren't you doing it?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_03: Because you already know it.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: There's not anything, honestly, blocking you from being on your own as an entrepreneur in that capacity.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_03: On the software side, there's about a hundred blockers.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_05: Before we close this off, can I give you guys something?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_05: I I just wanted to thank you guys for your um your encouragement for this community and what you guys are doing.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_04: Look at that man, man.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_05: We're working on getting one big enough for you to put a ball cap on.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_04: Hell yeah, man.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_04: What do you think?
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_04: We could stick this cap on there.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_04: It wouldn't be very good, huh?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, that one?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's a little big for that.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, here, put them down and see if it works, man.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_05: It even says big talk on there.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, man.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_05: Dude, that is awesome.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_04: No, that's that's wonderful.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_04: That's cool, man.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there we go.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_04: So you do you do get his cap that's in there, right, dude.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_03: Come on, my bad.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there we go.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: So you bust these 3D prints out on your own a little bit.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: This is kind of like your hobby, right?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_05: Well, yeah, I just learned it two weeks ago.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, within the two weeks, trying to figure this out.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_05: So that's hysterical.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_05: I'm still working on another one that you can put the cap on it.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's like the Mount Roshmore podcasting there, isn't it?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_04: It is, Moon.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_04: These two.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_05: If you guys ever need to give out awards, you know, the big talk award, just let me know.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_05: We'll make them up and get this done.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_04: This is great.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_04: Put your questions back in the mark before we button.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you know, I I want to make sure that um if Sean wants to come back and talk with us about this again, like okay.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_04: If you get your plan a little more formalized, okay, um, I'd love it, I think it'd be great.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_04: I think it'd be helpful.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_03: I really like this dialogue.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's just a good platform for the show.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_04: It's useful to people.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_04: It is.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_04: A lot of people are like Sean.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and we thank you for bringing this to us, right?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like, I mean, we appreciate you reaching out.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I think that this is, you know, hopefully it's been valuable for you.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's always valuable for us, and I'm knowing it will be for the listeners because I imagine there's a lot of people in your position with the questions that you're asking, right?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: Which is, I think, the whole point of the show.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_03: And until next time, it's been another episode of Stay With Us Sean.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_05: Big Talk About Small Business.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com, and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
• 40:19
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• 40:23
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