Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From Startups to Exits in the Telecom Industry: The Entrepreneurial Journey of Glenn Poulos

Transcript

From Startups to Exits in the Telecom Industry: The Entrepreneurial Journey of Glenn Poulos · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Imagine you're at a crossroads in your entrepreneurial journey, having built a business from the ground up, but now unsure whether it's time to scale, pivot or sell.
• 0:12
  What would you do if you had the chance to learn from someone who's not only been there, but excelled at it twice?
• 0:18
  Today's episode features Glenn Poulis, co founder of Gap Wireless and an award winning author.
• 0:25
  With a dynamic entrepreneurial journey that spans over decades.
• 0:30
  Glenn shares insights from his extensive experience in the telecom industry.
• 0:35
  He takes us through his humble beginnings, transitioning from government service to a career in sales in the 1980s and eventually founding and successfully exiting two companies.
• 0:47
  Glenn Sheds light on the challenges and rewards of building and maintaining a sales focused business in the rapidly evolving telecom market.
• 0:57
  He also discusses the importance of sales skills to entrepreneurial success, the nuances of hiring the right people, and the art of sustaining profitable relationships with manufacturers.
• 1:09
  Additionally, Glenn offers an overview of his acclaimed book Never Sit in the Lobby and how building a robust personal brand has propelled his career forward.
• 1:21
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:27
  Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Fulfillment podcast.
• 1:31
  I'm your host, Dave Goulis, and this week my guest is the co founder of Gap Wireless and award winning author, Glenn Poulous.
• 1:41
  Welcome, Glenn.
• 1:42
  Hey, Dave, nice to be here.
• 1:44
  I just realized our last names are not spelled the same, but they rhyme.
• 1:47
  It's Goulis and Poolis.
• 1:49
  Yeah, they do rhyme.
• 1:52
  Cool.
• 1:54
  Anyway, sorry about that, but carry on.
• 1:56
  Yeah, okay.
• 1:57
  All right.
• 1:59
  So Glenn, if you would, for everyone, can you just give us a summary of your entrepreneurial journey and how you got to where you are?
• 2:07
  Sure, sure.
• 2:08
  Yeah.
• 2:09
  I had a bit of a big change recently as well.
• 2:11
  I'll get to that sort of at the end.
• 2:12
  But I started working for the government in the early 80s and in around 85 I decided to go into sales and, you know, and I thought I could make more money and, you know, live the high life or
• 2:28
  whatever.
• 2:28
  So I did that.
• 2:29
  And it did that for a few years and I realized that there was opportunities for me to start my own sort of sales company.
• 2:36
  So in 91, I ventured out on my own to start a company which I ran for 15 years.
• 2:42
  Sold that in the early 2000s.
• 2:44
  Then I had the opportunity to, believe it or not, to start another company in 2007 with a, with a partner.
• 2:51
  And we started that 2007.
• 2:54
  We sold it in 2022 and then we exited this year just at the end of 2024.
• 3:01
  You know, we Sort of timed out with the, the transition with the new owners and I left that business on New year's Eve of 2024.
• 3:10
  And that sort of brings me to today.
• 3:12
  So I've sort of started two companies, had two exits and now I'm looking for the next best thing.
• 3:19
  Okay, all right, so two companies, two exits and you were with each one for roughly about 15 years, huh?
• 3:26
  Yeah, that's right, yeah.
• 3:28
  Now was that your plan going in is to, to exit?
• 3:32
  No, never, never really.
• 3:34
  I mean, the first one, it came, came as a surprise.
• 3:37
  When it did, I hadn't even thought about it, but and then the first one, throughout the, the 15 year journey from 2007 to the early 2000 and 20s, people came and went and you know, it never seemed like
• 3:51
  the right time.
• 3:51
  But then there was kind of a boom in the early 2000s and it, it when they started calling at that point, we started taking a harder look at it.
• 4:00
  But I mean, I guess we knew we would sell at some point.
• 4:03
  But for the most of the part, you're just sort of like trying to keep things going and you know, you want to, you want to stay and remain successful and, but in the back of your mind you're always
• 4:15
  hoping, I guess one day that you'll have an accident.
• 4:17
  Right?
• 4:18
  Okay.
• 4:19
  Did you have to do a lot of work to get the company ready, ready to sell?
• 4:23
  Well, the funny thing was, you know, the business is cyclical.
• 4:28
  We're in the telecom space and you kind of go in and out of windows of opportunity because you need sort of three years of decent performance.
• 4:35
  Right?
• 4:36
  Because they kind of average your last three years.
• 4:39
  And so, you know, the first thing about getting ready is to make sure you're in the right window of, you know, where you're not picking up maybe a bad year, right.
• 4:47
  Which is dragging you down.
• 4:49
  And so we were lucky enough that, that we had from 2019, 2020, 2021, those, those were all good years for us.
• 5:00
  Right.
• 5:00
  So I mean that was kind of luck of the economy.
• 5:03
  We didn't have to do that.
• 5:04
  But you know, but I mean, you want to have your books in order, you know, you want to have your, your paperwork, you know, easy to find.
• 5:13
  And, and because there's a, these data rooms when you, when you sell the business and they just keep asking for documents, right?
• 5:21
  And so the better you are keep record keeping and processes and things like that, the smoother it goes.
• 5:27
  Right.
• 5:28
  So.
• 5:32
  In my world, a personal brand is invaluable.
• 5:35
  A year ago, EasyDC was brand new with just a couple of customers and no online presence.
• 5:41
  Then I found Hicks Marketing.
• 5:43
  They help me amplify my personal brand, build a solid content strategy, publish my podcast and 10x the number of customers we serve, all in less than one year.
• 5:53
  Do you need a marketing partner who gets you and cares about your success?
• 5:57
  Reach out to aliciaxmarketing.com for more info.
• 6:01
  And tell her Dave Gula sent you.
• 6:03
  All right, so, so you what, what led you to get into the telecom business?
• 6:09
  Well, the company I worked for in the early 80s that got me into Sal, they were a general purpose electronics sales company and I saw that there was a emerging market and in wireless communications and I'd approached them
• 6:25
  about starting a business that they could, you know, to co found a business with them but focused on telecom.
• 6:32
  And they actually refused me and didn't want to, they didn't, they just thought, they just wanted me to keep doing what I was doing and don't get distracted.
• 6:39
  And that was.
• 6:40
  I decided to quit.
• 6:41
  And you know, the reason why was because the, the business that I was focusing on was going after companies involved in the cell phone space.
• 6:48
  Right.
• 6:49
  And, and of course we all know where the cell phone ended up, so it ended up being the right gamble, but I mean I ended up doing it without the, without the former, the former owners.
• 7:01
  But I just saw that as being all the wireless space as being a, an endless growth sort of opportunity, which it's been for quite a while.
• 7:10
  So.
• 7:11
  Okay, and then the, the first business you started was that in the, the telecom space also?
• 7:15
  Yes, it was, yeah.
• 7:17
  They were very similar companies, slightly different technology that I was selling, but, but for the most part calling on people that own, operate, maintain wireless networks and the like.
• 7:30
  Okay, all right.
• 7:31
  And so you, you mentioned early on, right that you got into sales early in your career, right.
• 7:38
  In terms of income opportunity and just wanted to create a better life.
• 7:41
  And then you, you, you know, you had the business success which you mentioned.
• 7:45
  How important was that foundation of sales to your, your entrepreneurial career?
• 7:51
  Well, it was really, for me it was kind of everything because I mean the what, what, what the business was was really, you know, a sales company.
• 8:00
  Right.
• 8:00
  We were, what we were doing was we approached companies from around the world that had advanced technologies and we said, hey, we will be firm in Canada.
• 8:10
  And and so really there wasn't a lot of like, in other words, we weren't producing a product.
• 8:16
  Right.
• 8:16
  I didn't have to have raw materials and production and equipment and you know, and factories and things like that.
• 8:24
  Right.
• 8:24
  We were just buying products from around the world, making sales calls, selling them to Canadian telecom operators.
• 8:31
  And so selling was.
• 8:32
  It was all the business was.
• 8:33
  It was the beginning and the end.
• 8:35
  It was everything.
• 8:35
  Right.
• 8:36
  You know, other companies have sales departments, but they also have software, engine, hardware, engineering, production, you know, assembly, test, you know, etc.
• 8:45
  Right.
• 8:47
  Our business was a lot more simple.
• 8:48
  It was just sales and marketing, accounting, you know, that was it.
• 8:52
  Right.
• 8:52
  So.
• 8:53
  So the, the selling was the foundation of the business.
• 8:57
  It was, it was, it was really everything.
• 8:59
  Okay.
• 9:00
  And so you mentioned too that you didn't have those.
• 9:03
  All those other departments.
• 9:05
  Right.
• 9:05
  You just could focus on the sales.
• 9:07
  So did you ever run into issues with, you know, dealing with your partners or contractually where, you know, people maybe try to cut you out or try to, you know.
• 9:20
  Yeah.
• 9:20
  The biggest problems we would have would be when you got.
• 9:23
  There's a fine line of being.
• 9:25
  Getting too successful for.
• 9:27
  Because we were selling other people's products.
• 9:29
  Right.
• 9:29
  So company in Sweden would develop a new wireless, you know, gizmo or whatever, and we would say, hey, can we sell this product in Canada?
• 9:36
  And they'd say, sure, no problem.
• 9:38
  They didn't have any sales.
• 9:39
  They didn't care.
• 9:39
  It was just more business for them.
• 9:41
  Right.
• 9:41
  But then you grow the business and there's a fine line where if you got too successful, they realize, hey, we can actually afford to hire our own people in Canada now.
• 9:49
  And you can.
• 9:50
  Then you start to compete against the manufacturer.
• 9:52
  Right.
• 9:53
  And that's the hardest thing when you're running a distributor or sales business is competing.
• 9:57
  You can compete against other distributors and other sales companies, but competing against the manufacturer itself is impossible.
• 10:04
  And.
• 10:05
  And so the biggest challenge was against our supply chain and, you know, them wanting to change the way they go to market or change our discount or things like that.
• 10:16
  I never had any problems with my business partners throughout the, you know, the same ones that started.
• 10:21
  Yeah, yeah.
• 10:22
  Fifteen years later ended.
• 10:24
  You know, we left the business together as well and we're still friends to this day.
• 10:29
  So I didn't have any problems that way.
• 10:31
  And so most quite.
• 10:34
  Yeah.
• 10:35
  But in terms of competing with the manufacturer, like, did you ever run into a situation where you got too successful in a certain region?
• 10:43
  Oh, yeah.
• 10:43
  And it created.
• 10:45
  Yeah, the.
• 10:47
  It's happened several times where they decided that, you know, once you get to a few million dollars in sales, you can do the math fairly simple that, you know, that they could afford to hire a dedicated salesperson to
• 10:59
  keep all the margin for themselves.
• 11:01
  Right.
• 11:02
  They can control the sell price and you Know, they can pay for their staff in the country.
• 11:06
  You know, they buy and hire a sales guy, they handle everything else remotely.
• 11:10
  And that happened numerous times over my 40 year career and it's very frustrating and you know, and so again, like I said, you just don't want to become too successful.
• 11:21
  But over the years we learned to migrate more towards companies that had a very solid foundation on being distribution friendly.
• 11:29
  Meaning they weren't a company that was going, you know, that it was part of their DNA that they wanted to work with distributors in their, in their, in their chosen markets.
• 11:39
  And so when you, when you work with companies like that, they, they don't do that.
• 11:43
  Right.
• 11:44
  It's, you know, it's the smaller businesses that are more willing to make some of those, you know, make some of those moves.
• 11:52
  Right.
• 11:52
  So later on we started picking better partners, you know, to avoid that coming later.
• 12:00
  Okay.
• 12:02
  Another question too that, you know, comes a lot, comes up a lot in entrepreneurs find challenging is how to hire the right people.
• 12:11
  So given that you had, you know, 30 plus years in business, how did you go about hiring the right people?
• 12:19
  Yeah, so hired lots of the wrong ones, let's put it that way.
• 12:23
  That's one thing I can tell you for sure.
• 12:26
  And the, so you learn a lot through bloody noses and things like that by hiring the wrong person.
• 12:32
  Right?
• 12:33
  But, but also, you know, following, you have to follow the rules, like higher, higher, slowly, fire quickly, right?
• 12:41
  So if you make a mistake, you have to end it quickly, right?
• 12:44
  Like you don't want to, like, oh, let's give them a year, let's do this.
• 12:46
  And like, the more I always tell people, you know, the, the right time to fire someone is the first moment you think you need to fire them.
• 12:53
  That's usually the right moment.
• 12:55
  That never really gets better if you ever start thinking you need to let someone go.
• 13:00
  And, and so, you know, the, it's always a chance when you're hiring people, right?
• 13:08
  Because even if you're taking them from a successful, you know, company and you think, hey, they're doing really well there, you know, there might have been support structures in place that were, you know, that were a big part
• 13:17
  of their success, right.
• 13:19
  It wasn't so much their magic.
• 13:21
  And so the best thing we found was, you know, where the biggest success were was hiring guys, engineers, guys gals out of, out of university because we're a technical sales company, right.
• 13:33
  And hiring, you know, kind of people that had that kind of salesy, you know, style to them.
• 13:38
  They wanted to go into this, into sales but they were technical as well.
• 13:43
  And grooming them into our core values of our business from their, from the, from the get go, getting them right out of school.
• 13:50
  Right.
• 13:51
  So that you can, you can instill your core values in them and you're not sort of picking up 10 years of history from someone else.
• 13:58
  Right.
• 13:59
  And so that's where some of our biggest successes were with the people that we've invested in since the day they graduated.
• 14:06
  Ah, okay.
• 14:08
  So trying to basically get them early enough where they're not, you know, maybe bad habits that you have to help unlearn.
• 14:14
  And, and like you said, other, other culture.
• 14:17
  Work cultures, I suppose.
• 14:19
  Yeah, exactly.
• 14:20
  Okay.
• 14:21
  And so Saya, since the, the company was, was a sales company, as you said, I'm sure training, ongoing sales training and you know, managing and metrics and all that was, it was a key part of it.
• 14:36
  How did you go about doing that?
• 14:38
  Yeah, so, you know, the, it sort of breaks down into kind of, well, two main areas for sure.
• 14:46
  One would be the technical training and one is the sales training.
• 14:49
  Right.
• 14:49
  And so, you know, on the technical training we would rely a lot upon the vendors themselves because they of course know, know 10 times more about their product than we do.
• 14:59
  And so we would, you know, throughout the years we've had schedule, we every, every Friday at 11am we would ask people to never book customer meetings at that time, not before, not just after.
• 15:11
  And we would dedicate that to a, you know, an ongoing time slot for vendor training so that every, you know, new products from vendors and what have you.
• 15:20
  You know, we didn't, we often sometimes had to cancel the Friday meeting.
• 15:23
  We didn't have a training but, but overall, every Friday we knew we were going to be learning something new about a vendor.
• 15:29
  Right.
• 15:29
  And we would then want to then, you know, flip the script, take that, that new information and then start imparting it upon our customers.
• 15:37
  And that's where you know, the training and kind of the training that I reflect upon in the book as well is that we were, we're kind of a face to face sales company.
• 15:46
  Right.
• 15:47
  Like the products we have don't sell over the Internet.
• 15:49
  They're very expensive products.
• 15:51
  They need to be demonstrated.
• 15:52
  People want to see them, feel them, touch them, try them, make sure they work.
• 15:56
  And that doesn't happen by myself.
• 15:58
  Right.
• 15:58
  So we're, we're training people on how to get, act and stay in front of their clients and to be a pleasure to do business with always.
• 16:06
  Right.
• 16:06
  We're not, we're not really running a SaaS business or something that can be handled over the.
• 16:11
  Over, you know, the Internet.
• 16:13
  We.
• 16:13
  We need to figure out ways of.
• 16:15
  Of finding our ways to get in front of our clients and staying there so that we can look at what they're doing in their business and show them how our products can.
• 16:23
  Can improve their, you know, whatever.
• 16:26
  Whatever part of the business they're working on.
• 16:29
  Right, okay.
• 16:31
  Yeah.
• 16:31
  And so we spend a lot of time on.
• 16:33
  On sales training and, you know, overcoming objections and things like that and, you know, how to, you know, different ways of securing appointments and.
• 16:44
  And again, staying in front of the customer.
• 16:47
  That's the key, right?
• 16:48
  Getting in front of them and staying in front of them.
• 16:51
  And then when you get there, how do you act when you get there?
• 16:54
  Right, so.
• 16:56
  Okay, and yeah, so you mentioned the training, of course.
• 16:59
  And then you mentioned that the.
• 17:01
  Your.
• 17:01
  Your book, which is called Never sit in the lobby.
• 17:05
  And so what.
• 17:06
  What made you decide to write a book?
• 17:09
  Yeah, so what?
• 17:10
  In the early 80s, when I started learning, I learned from these guys that ran this business before I left to start my own company.
• 17:16
  And there were four owners.
• 17:17
  And these guys are really, really good salespeople, very professional.
• 17:21
  And I noticed over time that they were doing things over and over.
• 17:24
  Right?
• 17:24
  And so, you know, it's kind of like, you know, they say, like the definition of insanity, you know, you do the same thing over and over, expect a different result.
• 17:32
  Well, in this case, you want the same result, right?
• 17:34
  You do it over and over again.
• 17:35
  And.
• 17:36
  And I.
• 17:36
  So I started jotting down some of these things that I would see them do, and, you know, it formed the basis of this little notebook.
• 17:44
  And then I used to, you know, and I used to name some of the rules that I would come up with after people.
• 17:50
  And.
• 17:52
  And then I started sharing some of these stories with people, and often I would, you know, share it with some funny, humorous stories to go with it.
• 18:00
  And people, you know, sales guys would laugh, and then they're like, oh, my God, that's so funny.
• 18:03
  And then people started asking me to come and present some of these topics at their sales meetings.
• 18:09
  And then, of course, people just naturally said, oh, my God, you have enough to write a book.
• 18:12
  You should write a book.
• 18:13
  Right?
• 18:14
  And I actually never.
• 18:15
  I never did write the book until the pandemic came along, and I finally had time, and nothing to Canada was locked down for quite some time.
• 18:24
  And so I thought, you know what?
• 18:26
  It's been all these years, I have all these rules written down, Never done anything with it.
• 18:30
  I'm gonna.
• 18:30
  I'M gonna take this time while I'm stuck at home, and I'm gonna write the book.
• 18:34
  And so in 2020, that's when I wrote the book.
• 18:37
  And.
• 18:39
  And, you know, and I was able to get it finished.
• 18:42
  Okay, and so, so what, what, what.
• 18:45
  What was that process like in terms of.
• 18:48
  Right.
• 18:48
  You know, like, you said lockdown.
• 18:50
  So I followed.
• 18:51
  I.
• 18:52
  You know, people ask me, how do you write?
• 18:54
  How'd you write a book?
• 18:54
  Or whatever?
• 18:55
  And I said, I had no idea how to write a book.
• 18:57
  So I googled it, and, you know, and the first thing that came up was this guy on this podcast, which I listened to, and he said, if you want to write a book, it's easy.
• 19:05
  He says, you just have to commit to writing 500 words every day until the book's finished.
• 19:09
  And I thought, oh, that's interesting.
• 19:11
  And.
• 19:12
  And he's like, day in, day out, you got to write the 500 words.
• 19:15
  You can't.
• 19:15
  You're not 450, not 50.
• 19:17
  Don't know.
• 19:18
  I'm tired today.
• 19:19
  I'm gonna skip it today.
• 19:20
  I'll do, you know, and, you know, and I thought to myself, okay, well, the way my week is structured and whatever, it's hard for me to, you know, commit Monday to Friday doing that kind of behavior.
• 19:32
  But I.
• 19:32
  But on the weekends, I said, you know what I'll do?
• 19:35
  I'll do 5x to 500.
• 19:37
  So I'll do the 2500 words on Saturday and Sunday.
• 19:41
  Right.
• 19:42
  And I'll skip Monday to Friday.
• 19:45
  And so what on the weekends, I got up really early in the morning, and I just basically founded out 2500 words every weekend until it was done.
• 19:53
  And I already had, you know, like dozens and dozens of titles of.
• 20:00
  Of chapters based on these different rules and techniques that I had.
• 20:05
  Right.
• 20:05
  And so then I just had to take each one and evolve it into a story, oftentimes trying to find a funnier or meaningful, memorable way of sharing that rule with something with you, you know, throughout the book.
• 20:18
  And, and so that's what I was working on was turning each sort of rule into a chapter or a group of chapters.
• 20:26
  And.
• 20:27
  Yeah, and it actually went surprisingly quickly once, you know, once you get into it and once you get a routine going, you know, it's, You're.
• 20:36
  It's surprising what you can.
• 20:37
  What you can.
• 20:38
  What you can get accomplished.
• 20:39
  Right.
• 20:40
  Okay.
• 20:41
  Yeah.
• 20:41
  And like we mentioned earlier, the book is one.
• 20:43
  It's award winning.
• 20:45
  It's done very well.
• 20:46
  And, you know, not only with the book and promoting that, I I see you've been on numerous podcasts, so you've got a big LinkedIn following.
• 20:55
  So you've done a lot of work to, to grow your personal brand.
• 20:59
  I have indeed.
• 21:00
  How has that helped you as an entrepreneur?
• 21:03
  Yeah, so it, the, the, probably the biggest, most meaningful way from recently that, you know, like, since the books come out that I, that I've realized is that it kind of like, it's kind of like a, like a
• 21:18
  Good Housekeeping seal of approval kind of a thing, you know, like in the sense that like, like when you're going to meet people, like oftentimes, you know, you would check each other's LinkedIn or whatever and you would get
• 21:29
  a sense, okay, this guy worked here and here and whatever.
• 21:31
  But when they check my LinkedIn now, they see I've had 40, 000 followers and I'm a LinkedIn top voice and I wrote a book and you know, and they can see all these, these artifacts of substantiation.
• 21:45
  Right.
• 21:45
  And so there, you know, it's sort of like, sort of preordains you as having some level of authority, which kind of gives you a little bit of a leg up.
• 21:55
  I mean, you still need to deliver once you show up, but it's kind of like people are interested to meet you because they've sort of seen what you're doing on LinkedIn and they start to follow you and they
• 22:06
  start to get your posts every day.
• 22:07
  And, and so it really has helped a lot in the sense that, you know, people like, oh, yeah, I've been following you for a while, was looking forward to meeting you or what have you, where that wouldn't have
• 22:19
  happened if it was just my LinkedIn profile with my resume on it.
• 22:22
  Right.
• 22:23
  And so those artifacts, you know, having the book there, having the podcast episodes come up and all the, all the posts that I do, it really, you know, it really gives you sort of a, a little bit of
• 22:36
  celebrity status, if I could say it that way.
• 22:39
  But, you know, and, you know, and it just kind of helps to break the ice with, with people, you know.
• 22:47
  Okay, yeah.
• 22:48
  All right.
• 22:49
  And so you mentioned too, you just exited the, the second company after it was acquired, and you, you know, you fulfilled your time there and now you are, you've got something else in the works, but you're not ready
• 23:02
  to announce anything yet.
• 23:04
  So even at this stage in your career, right, You've been, you've been at it since the 80s.
• 23:08
  You've had a long, successful career.
• 23:10
  You seem really excited for the next venture.
• 23:15
  So.
• 23:17
  Yeah, pretty Much.
• 23:18
  You know, the, the.
• 23:20
  The.
• 23:21
  So pretty much what I'm going to be doing is the exact same thing, but I'm trying to expand into a different industry.
• 23:28
  So it's not competitive against any of the old businesses and my old employer, the new company that bought my business.
• 23:34
  And so not only am I switching technology, space and the.
• 23:38
  The market, I'm going more into the electrical utility space, power generation, batteries and things like that stuff.
• 23:47
  We were never involved in, in the telecom.
• 23:49
  I mean, telecom uses batteries and the like, but we never.
• 23:52
  We were never involved in that stuff.
• 23:54
  And so changing the technology and also of changing the country, so I was able to apply for and get a visa to work in the US So I'm moving from a permanent residence in Canada to Florida, where I
• 24:07
  am now.
• 24:08
  And I'm gonna try and do a third time.
• 24:12
  Not 15 years, because I don't think I have.
• 24:15
  You know, that would put me.
• 24:16
  That would put me almost at 80.
• 24:18
  Right.
• 24:19
  But, you know, just try to build up another one and just see if I can make my final mark because I'm just not ready to hang up my hat and.
• 24:28
  And do nothing.
• 24:30
  And I don't have enough hobbies for that.
• 24:32
  And, you know, I realized over the years that the part I enjoyed the most was not when it was bigger, but when it was smaller and building it up.
• 24:41
  Right.
• 24:41
  And finding, you know, finding the team and, you know, when it was like four or five guys, then it became 10, and I mean, and growing it over the years to 40 and then 80 people.
• 24:52
  I mean, those were.
• 24:53
  Those were fun things.
• 24:54
  I mean, I'm not suggesting I'm gonna go back to 80 people, but.
• 24:57
  But, I mean, you know, looking to take a business that's small and grow it into 10, 20 people and see what I can.
• 25:06
  What I can do in this final phase of the sunset of my, my career kind of thing.
• 25:12
  So it sounds like the best part of it for you has been the actual journey of.
• 25:17
  Of growing a business.
• 25:19
  Yeah, yeah.
• 25:20
  I mean, you know, finding the.
• 25:21
  How you're going to do the marketing, you know, building the websites, figuring out the marketing messaging, you know, putting in sales automation systems, cr.
• 25:30
  You know, how are we going to manage?
• 25:31
  I love doing all that stuff, right.
• 25:33
  And.
• 25:34
  And having my finger in all the different parts of it, including just the selling and being in front of customers, you know, and.
• 25:42
  Yeah, so it's really.
• 25:44
  That part really motivates me.
• 25:47
  All right.
• 25:48
  And Glenn, if people, if people want to get in touch with you and learn more about, you know, what you're doing in this, this next chapter or, or get in touch for any other reason.
• 25:57
  What's the best way that people can, can reach out to you?
• 26:00
  Best way would definitely be via LinkedIn.
• 26:03
  You can connect with me there.
• 26:05
  And very active, as you'll see, and happy to respond to anyone that reaches out to me.
• 26:10
  And always looking to collaborate and meet new people and, you know, learn some new things and share, share ideas.
• 26:17
  All right.
• 26:18
  And we'll, we'll link that in the show notes for everyone.
• 26:22
  So, so they have it there.
• 26:24
  All right.
• 26:24
  Well, Glenn, thank you so much for taking this time and sharing these lessons from your journey with you, with our audience.
• 26:29
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 26:31
  Thanks, Dave.
• 26:31
  Great to be here.
• 26:32
  All right.
• 26:33
  And that's all the time we have for now.
• 26:34
  We will see you next time.