Latest / You've Been Heard / 446- Why IT Leaders Should Not Lead With No w/Bret Henning

Transcript

446- Why IT Leaders Should Not Lead With No w/Bret Henning · You've Been Heard

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Well, the first thing you have to do is not lead with no. Right? The first thing you gotta do is you can't tell them no because no gives them license to do what they're already doing. Right? Screw the IT people. I'm gonna do more shadow because they've just told me no. So you have to be careful about that answer. So generally you have to say, what are you trying to solve? How are you using it? What are you trying to use it for? How does it benefit you? And you have to be willing to find something that you can accept that does that same thing for them and have a conversation with them. You have to be able to provide something that is good, is, or better than what they're using. And you have to be explained to them why what they're doing is probably not what's best for the company or you. And here's the risks involved. So you've got to lead them with information. You can't just tell them no because no doesn't work. Shadow it, it doesn't happen. It's created. And it's created because you're not providing them something they need to do their job.
• 1:15
  Speaker B: After talking with IT leaders, I've come to discover one thing. And it's the same thing you know, it's the same thing everyone else knows, whether they want to admit it out loud or not. Nothing gets done in any company without it touching it. Nothing. But here's the thing. When everything's on fire, when nothing's working, when the ransomware hits, when the whole business grinds to a halt, it is completely indispensable. You're the most valuable asset in the company. But when everything's running like a well
• 1:49
  Speaker C: oiled Tesla, you're a line item, a
• 1:52
  Speaker B: cost center on a spreadsheet. You've done the work, you've built the career, you've earned your seat at the executive roundtable. But having a seat at the table is one thing. How much nicer would it be to actually be heard?
• 2:06
  Speaker C: This is.
• 2:08
  Speaker B: You've been heard.
• 2:09
  Speaker C: All right, welcome everyone back. We have Brett Henning, Information technology professional is what you have as your title on LinkedIn. But executive director Information at Avenzo Therapeutics. A long life of technology. How'd you get started in this world of technology? What was your first computer? I'm sure it was like you were born and knew right away that I wanted to be head of all the guys that open up tickets and fix everything so everyone doesn't lose their mind.
• 2:36
  Speaker A: No, that's not really how it got started. I actually was originally a music major in college and I was a mediocre musician, which kind of hurts a little bit. Greatness was not part of what I had. And you can't make any money. And so the allure of fame and
• 2:55
  Speaker C: being a rock star I think might get a lot of people. I'm not saying that that's what it was, but.
• 2:59
  Speaker A: Well, for me, actually I really was planning on teaching. Okay, right. So fairly low bar as far as music goes. But I don't know, it just the people in just was an odd mix of. Which is not the different than the computer business. Right. Technology has an odd mix of unusuals, as I call them. So it's not drastically different. Again, when I started. I've been doing this for a long time. This was in the early 80s, pre PC. Everything was mainframes or minicomputers. My first computer was not a computer. My first actual PC was an Apple ii, if you want to go back far enough.
• 3:41
  Speaker C: No, mine was an Apple iic, the one with the disc, where the disc goes in on the side. But I think the Apple. But all the computer labs, at least in my school at the time, they were all apples sitting on top of two floppy disk drives. The big fat one was that apple IIe.
• 3:57
  Speaker A: Probably an apple IIe, baby. Yeah, I think apple IIe. I think it's probably an apple IIe. But I actually worked for a pretty innovative. It was an electronics company. But the CEO was very technology focused. And what he used to do is he would actually pay you a reimbursement for you to go buy a computer. So he'd pay you like 40 bucks a month and you could use that money to buy a computer, but you had to show your receipt for the computer. And so he wanted you to buy a computer at home. So I had an Apple II, an Apple IIe. I had a Lisa, if you want to go back far enough. I had a Mac, one of the early Mac. I ended up with an IBM PC xt, I believe. And it just kind of went from that way. So I've been through all of them probably at some point in my life.
• 4:47
  Speaker C: Don't you wish you kept them all and you had your own little museum at the house with them all plugged in, still humming?
• 4:52
  Speaker A: I do and I don't because I already have a lot of stuff that I collect at home, so.
• 4:57
  Speaker C: Well, so you're a music major that didn't work out, at least for keeping the lights on anyways. How'd you end up there?
• 5:06
  Speaker A: Well, there was a trade school in town that did computer stuff and I signed up and went. They were teaching programming and pretty basic stuff. And I went through that, graduated from that, and just basically got my first job at this kind of great small electronics company. At the time, it was the lowest job there was in it, which was called a computer operator. So my job was turn it on and type stuff. Turn it on. I did backups, I managed the printers. I did support change disk drives. Back in the day when you actually changed disk drives, we did. I mean, that was my job.
• 5:48
  Speaker C: What were you backing up? Like, just like the, like the accountants register or something. Like what?
• 5:53
  Speaker A: We had inventory. It was a manufacturing company, so we had inventory that we did. There was payroll. We ran locally ourselves.
• 6:02
  Speaker C: Let's think of some of the earlier jobs the technology did that was just like so helpful. Yeah, payroll would be one. Think about that. That's just like really made a difference in someone's life. And then inventory, we did manufacturing.
• 6:17
  Speaker A: So we had manufacturing records of everything that we built. And so it was a very practical thing. We had to keep track of what we made, what went into it, how much it costs and who we sent it to. Right. It was very practical stuff.
• 6:32
  Speaker B: So it was important.
• 6:34
  Speaker A: Right. You wanted to back that data up. And the me time between failure back then on some of these equipment was quite short. So disk drive failure is not an unusual thing. And these were big platter discs with giant handles that you had. But in essence, how I got started was at that low level. Again, the company I was at was very progressive. And so I ended up doing kind of development work and programming and getting into that and doing building applications. And again, I got an experience doing. I had to do accounting systems, I had to do payroll systems, I had to do inventory. So all the workings of a business I learned, which made me a better rounded kind of person because not only did I know the technology part, but I also knew how the business worked.
• 7:21
  Speaker C: Super important, super important. At what point in your career trajectory do you feel like technology started to stop being like the dorks in the back room that could like swap out the tape drives and stuff and actually affect the business? Like, at what point, because you were getting that kind of education, I guess early on. At what point did someone notice, hey, this guy's valuable to the bottom line, we should bring him in on more in depth business strategy discussions. AKA maybe he should be in on some of these executive roundtable discussions. And in general, just kind of like historically, what was like kind of like this major turning point in technology where we realized that.
• 8:11
  Speaker B: Most IoT leaders don't need more technology, they need less noise. Over the years, infrastructure quietly gets complicated. Multiple locations, multiple Internet providers, different contracts, separate bills and reactive support. Nobody plans that that way, it just happens. What we do is vendor neutral advisory. That means we don't sell platforms or force change. We start with low friction areas. Internet telecom, Microsoft licensing. Places where complexity builds quietly and can usually cleaned up without disruption or capex. Sometimes we find savings, sometimes we find nothing. Either way the outcome is the same. More clarity, less distraction and it that's boring in the best way possible. If you want a second set of eyes from people who sit on the buying side of enterprise infrastructure every day, just go to you've been herd.com and answer the questions to simplify, streamline and save.
• 9:06
  Speaker A: Well, I think early on the computer was the afterthought. Right? So you did something and then you told the computer what you did. Right? It was I moved some inventory around and then I went to the computer and I said this inventory was moved from here to there. So the computer was what you caught up to. Right. And at some point there was a functional shift where you removed that step that was done manually or on paper and you did it just on the computer. Right. And so that functional shift meant that you couldn't do anything without the computer and so it became how you did your work. And that was really the functional shift where you couldn't do your work without your computer.
• 9:53
  Speaker C: Yeah, it was like mid-90s or I
• 9:55
  Speaker A: would say it was probably about the mid-90s when systems were broad enough, the cost was low enough, everybody had a computer on their desk.
• 10:05
  Speaker C: I remember a time where it was like acceptable to hand in like a. It was still acceptable to hand in like a high school paper, either handwritten or on the computer. Like there was people still handing in their papers handwritten, which for some of you out there, I mean, can you imagine, like you just can't have a spelling mistake or what do you do, write it in pencil and then go over in ink?
• 10:26
  Speaker A: Um, well, we used to. And some of our papers had to be typed.
• 10:29
  Speaker C: Yep.
• 10:30
  Speaker A: On a typewriter.
• 10:31
  Speaker C: I remember the typewriter days, how you
• 10:32
  Speaker A: did the light out if you have an IBM Selectric with correction on it. You were the king of the world. Well, there again there was a functional shift where the computer became how you did your work versus what you did after you did your work. And again that was probably about the mid-90s. PCs were on everybody's Desks, you had laser printers. You had Excel or VisiCalc, I think was the first version of that. And that's how they did their work. I mean, if the computer wasn't there, there was not much you could do except stand.
• 11:07
  Speaker C: Can't believe we're talking about this. Can't believe, like, we're two people still breathing, living, still alive.
• 11:14
  Speaker A: That hurts.
• 11:14
  Speaker C: Like, no, no, but we're like, no, but it's. It's insane. Like, I still. Like, I don't. I say this all the time. I never get tired of talking about this. But, like, we're alive and look at how far it's come.
• 11:26
  Speaker A: It's a pretty short period of time. It really took off from the 90s forward.
• 11:31
  Speaker C: At what point did you feel like a business leader versus just the computer guy? At what point did that really kind of like, take off? Because that was like, okay, we have to have technology in the business. We have to have it. We have to have a position. Now 95. Like, you're like, the position is established if you don't have a computer guy in your company. Like, I don't know, what are you doing? Like, you're probably the Laundromat or something that can still survive maybe without it, but the Laundromat, that actually brought in like a POS system and something like, you know what I mean? Like, at what point did it become, like, this valuable business partner, you think? And I mean, from like, a strategy standpoint, because you said you were learning the business. Like, I'm assuming you mean like, bottom line, cogs and flow through profit, ebitda, stuff like that. At what point did the IT guy know what EBITDA meant?
• 12:17
  Speaker A: Honestly? And this isn't a good thing, this may be a bad thing, but the year 2000, when we did the switch and the Y2K, I think that's at the point the business realized, right? Because it was such a crazy thing. I remember I had to work. I had to be there at midnight. The business realized it was integral, and it was so ingrained in what we did. And I think after that, people started looking at it as like, how can we use technology to make things better? I did a very early CRM, before they had the name CRM, before it was that name. But I worked with a.
• 13:00
  Speaker C: It's called a database before, right?
• 13:02
  Speaker A: I worked with external. We had an external sales team at one of the companies I worked at. And they lived based on how they were selling and what they were selling into who. And so I actually worked with One of the sales managers to build the system so they had visibility of sales. Seems pretty small.
• 13:23
  Speaker C: But no, no, no. If you think about like what VC like or people that are buying up a company, like what do they look at?
• 13:29
  Speaker A: Right.
• 13:29
  Speaker C: They're going to be looking at like sales growth, like typical customers, opportunities created over time and all these different things. So yeah, yeah.
• 13:37
  Speaker A: So I did a very early version again before CRM was really coined as a term. This was kind of an early piece of that. And it really made a big impact on that sales team. And I did get noticed. People went like, wow, information is important. And getting information, please tell me what
• 13:56
  Speaker C: you did or what it was popping out and what was required. Because one thing that's really hard to get sales guys to do, especially like top sales guys that get really arrogant and feel like they run the whole company. And if I wasn't here, like this company would go under, which is true in some cases.
• 14:10
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, but the guy who's shipping the product out doesn't do a good job. Doesn't matter what you did on the sales side. Everybody's important in the food chain.
• 14:19
  Speaker C: Everybody is. I guess the old adage is like, nothing happens until somebody makes a sale. The farmer doesn't get the order for the beans to get the tractor to the market, blah, blah, blah, blah. So anyways, what did you put together? How did you gather that information that you were going to deliver in said system that was important?
• 14:36
  Speaker A: I think. Well, the challenge was at the time, the said system was a typical green screen kind of mini computer application. And I needed to get it to a personal computer so people could see that information. So there was some technology we used. I found a company that would take data and move it and get it to a form that I could actually then do analysis on. And it was pretty transfer. I think that was the first time where I worked the business saw this value because the salespeople were pretty blind. They would get stuff at the end of the month and it was on a big sheet of paper, right. And they couldn't drill in on it. They couldn't see the details. And so I was able to extract all this data out, all these details and then build a nice kind of early web interface for them to see what was happening today. I mean, when a sale came in, it happened today, but they didn't see it till the end of the month. And so now they could actually see how they were doing throughout the month and see where that activity and they could focus their attention. Right. It's Like a lot of times they would focus attention on a customer that already bought something, but they didn't know they bought something. And this allowed them to focus their attention on the customers maybe that weren't buying something or what those things are.
• 15:59
  Speaker C: Profile other customers that are like other said good customers that buy things, go after more people like that, right?
• 16:05
  Speaker A: Whatever it is, they didn't have information. They didn't have information even though the data was there. So it was really just taking information we already had, transforming it into a different form and giving it to the people who needed it.
• 16:19
  Speaker C: So fast forward to today, that sounds like a similar project that someone with a creative business mindset could actually put together a good AI point solution to benefit the business. Because it's really the same thing now, the same level of thinking, just exponentially, insanely faster and changing every moment. Like back in the day, it used to be like, oh, what new technology do we have this year? Then it was like, what technology do we have this quarter? Now it's literally like, oh, what version of Claude are you on this hour?
• 16:57
  Speaker A: Right? And everybody already has access to this stuff. So you as an IT person, your challenge is they're already using tools, they might already actually be ahead of you in usage and stuff. And so it's a little harder to find your value because typical technology person, the first thing they would do is limit somebody's access. You can't use that because it's not approved, right. So they start pulling things away and they become kind of the bad guy. So the, the, your challenge really is being able to embrace that or giving them something that is good or is better than what they can actually get. Already it's a bit more of a challenge because again, everybody is now an expert, right? They use it at home, they use it here, and so all of that comes into the office and, and you basically, like, I think you use the term herd, have to herd the cats to some degree.
• 17:47
  Speaker C: Herding cats, term one in the IT urban dictionary. Okay, so I guess how do you herd cats and still stay ahead? Now that everyone's an expert, how do you stay ahead of the experts? And I think some of the biggest frustrations across any department nowadays could be, and I would imagine everyone's dealing with this is yes, shadow AI.
• 18:11
  Speaker A: Correct. Well, the first thing you have to do is not lead with no. Right? The first thing you gotta do is you can't tell them no because no gives them license to do what they're already doing. Right? Screw the IT people. I'm gonna do More shadow because they've just told me no. So you have to be careful about that answer. So generally you have to say, what are you trying to solve? How are you using it? What are you trying to use it for? How does it benefit you? And you have to be willing to find something that you can accept that does that same thing for them and have a conversation with them. But I think the initial normal reaction of somebody is saying, no, you can't use that. I'm going to block it. It's this instant no thing. And it's much more of a subtle conversation. You have to be able to provide something that as good as or better than what they're using. And you have to be explained to them why what they're doing is probably not what's best for the company or you. And here's the risks involved. So you've got to lead them with information. You can't just tell them no because no doesn't work. People will say no. That's not in our policy. Right. It ends the conversation, but it doesn't end the habit of what they're doing. You have to change their mind and you have to provide them something as good or better than that. And you have to explain to them the why, not just the absolute no. And it is more of a challenge now because there's so much of it and it's everywhere.
• 19:43
  Speaker C: I guess two questions would be is one is, how do you do that? Does it start by asking questions? What are you trying to accomplish? What's your challenge?
• 19:49
  Speaker A: I think it starts by asking questions, really. You've got to let them tell you why and how they're using it and what they're trying to solve. You have to listen first and talk later. Again, that's a typical response. A typical response would be, here's the approved ones. These are the only ones you can use. Here's the only thing you could use it for, really. You start with this whole limiting factor before you've had a conversation. And I think if you have a conversation with people and you engage them, they'll understand the what and the why. Why would you limit their choices? What is the risk to the company? How can we help you solve this same issue in a different way? That conversation has to happen. And if it does happen, the people tend to be more invested in that because they feel like they were part of that decision versus just saying no.
• 20:42
  Speaker C: It's the art of telling someone no,
• 20:44
  Speaker A: what can we while you have kids, you know how it is. That is probably, probably how you have to treat pretty much most of your customers. If you have that view, it's much easier to understand.
• 20:59
  Speaker C: So my follow up question to you was, which is first of all like, what are some of the steps of how we could explain to these people? My thought was one, like what you were saying was like ask a lot of questions like how do we ask an open ended question to ask another question, you know, what's your challenge? What are you trying to solve so we can kind of understand their job and what they're trying to do. Because we might actually have, like you said, an option that's better than what they're trying to figure out with already approved technology.
• 21:23
  Speaker A: Correct. So it's, it's really listen first and it's 100% fair. You listen first, you gather information to say, look, let me go back and needle on it a little bit and then I'll come back to you with some recommendations. Right. Don't make a judgment call initially. Listen first, gather the information and think about it. And then again, you got to provide them something that is good as or better than what they're using or they're just going to continue to use what they're using. So you have to set the boundaries pretty wide otherwise they will go around them. So again, shadow it. It doesn't happen. It's created. And it's created because you're not providing them something. They need to do their job or at least in their mind they need to do something.
• 22:15
  Speaker C: There's a big communication gap between the IT department and them. Maybe the IT department they feel like is on their own island is what I'm assuming is how often this happens. But the problem is that at least in the mid market to Fortune 5000 space, the ratio of IT leadership to end users is about one to a hundred. So you've got, for every one IT person, you've got a hundred end users out there doing stuff. Maybe you're more fortunate.
• 22:41
  Speaker A: My follow up question, I've done a lot of work with startups. When you work at a startup or an early stage company, sometimes you're the only IT person. Yeah.
• 22:52
  Speaker C: I mean I've had whole healthcare organizations with 1200 end users. They got one IT person.
• 22:57
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 22:57
  Speaker C: My follow up question that I want to ask you is how would you train other IT people to be able to listen? In other words, how would you teach or how would you coach? Because I'm assuming you've had some coaching experience and you like mentoring other people growing up in it. How would you mentor someone in the art of no.
• 23:15
  Speaker A: Well, again, here's a key component is selecting your people that are teachable. Right. I hire a lot of underachievers because overachievers tend to be more problematic when it comes to saying no. Because they're right. Just ask them. Right. So I tend to hire people who are a bit of an underachiever, right. They got good solid Cs in school and they tend to work harder for things and they didn't always have things handed to them. So that's the first thing is picking, not assuming that a high achiever is going to be the person that's going to be best at communicating. And it's really, you got to listen first, talk second. And when you do say something, it should be something that's important.
• 24:07
  Speaker B: How.
• 24:08
  Speaker C: How do you find those people? Is it a feeling or is it like you can just.
• 24:10
  Speaker A: It's a feeling. I can usually tell after about 30 seconds. I don't know. But you do make some mistake because some people are actually really good at fooling you. But you can look in their job history. If you hire somebody as a support person, maybe their first technology job, maybe their second technology job, right? And so you'll look and say, okay, they were a barista at Starbucks. You're looking at life history that says, look, these people know how to deal with people. And so that's what I tend to look at more versus somebody.
• 24:47
  Speaker C: That the Starbucks rule is actually really key. If they were at a Starbucks for like multiple years, I really do think that that's like an arbitrage hire for customer care.
• 25:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, it definitely is. Because they have to deal with people who are kind of probably not the nicest people and probably don't treat them well, but they're the ones that have to be the positive side of that. And so that life experience is important.
• 25:13
  Speaker C: I went from Starbucks to a Cisco startup and I really do think that a lot of my old restaurant management and Starbucks management history just did so much for me from a business management standpoint because I was a store manager and they're like ridiculously strict on managing a pm. Know, but you have to talk with everybody that comes in that place. If you're a good store, if you're going to be a good store, you have to teach all of your people how to talk to people. You've got to get everyone's first name, you've got to remember their drinks. They know how to make it the same way every time. You don't have to tell them multiple times, like Sometimes you come in your drinks just already ready, they saw you in the parking lot.
• 25:49
  Speaker A: Well, it gets back to the original discussion that we started about which has to do with vendor relationships and that connection. It's the same thing, right? Finding good vendors that give you good service and staying with the person. It's the same thing on when you're providing support, right? It's finding that good person who can connect, who has life experiences and shows some level of empathy. Right. That's the hardest thing to teach. And again, I always believe that good technology people are born, they're not necessarily made. You can change a person about 20%. That's my theory. This is Brett's theory. So it. They are who they are and you maybe can mold them 20% either direction, but that's about as far you can move them. If somebody's already a jerk, it's hard to unjerk them, so to speak.
• 26:46
  Speaker C: Yeah, that whole book series that started with first break all the rules now discover your strengths now put your strengths to work or something. It's basically a pretty life altering book for me. First break all the rules. The VP of Starbucks actually gave it to me, his personal copy, signed it and I was like, oh, thank you. And it really, the whole theory is focus on people's strengths, don't try to fix their weaknesses. And then it goes back to put the people in the right seat on the bus and that type of thing. But you said something that really stuck with me and I'll never forget it. And I want to say thank you because I've already used it on multiple, multiple calls and in talking with people. And it's just the way that people put words together sometimes. And it's probably not the first time that someone said this, but you said you really appreciate people that honor the relationship. Let's just end with this. I want to give you a few minutes just to say, what does that mean to you? What does honoring the relationship mean?
• 27:34
  Speaker A: Well, one, there's a level of mutual respect, right? They have some level of expertise that you may not have or some way of doing things, and you have that as well. And so knowing those things, like your Starbucks thing, that's the first thing about that, is having some empathy for the other person and respecting their expertise, right? So they are good at certain things and you need to respect that. And that comes down to even when you're managing somebody, if you have somebody who works for you and they have a level of expertise, you've got to let them use that expertise. You can't be the person that's telling them what to do and how to do that. You have to let them them do that. And so managing that relationship is knowing people's strengths and weaknesses and letting them use them. I think a lot of especially new managers and new people will be the hover manager and try to make all those decisions. And again, letting people make their own decisions and do the things and honoring that relationship is respecting that. And like I said, when I have a vendor idea with, or a customer I deal with or an employee idea with, it's understanding that and understanding where they're coming from. And again, I would tell people I would mentor would ask me, it's like, well, when you talk to this person, you talk this way, and when you talk to this person, you talk this way. And when you talk to this person, you talk differently because it seems like it's inconsistent and you're having different conversations. And I said, no, what I'm doing is I understand that person and where they're coming from. So you have to communicate to them differently. You're adjusting your communication based on that relationship. And that's a very difficult thing to do. And again, you have to start by listening to them. And I think once you get to that level of trust, it's the same when you're working with your executive levels. You've got to get to that level of trust where they trust you to do your job and you trust them to do their job and that you have stuff happens.
• 29:45
  Speaker C: Is there any way to speed that up?
• 29:46
  Speaker A: Well, AI is not going to do it. How's that?
• 29:49
  Speaker C: Not using AI, it's what not to do. Well, there's true, it's like a lot of times it's what not to do.
• 29:56
  Speaker A: So you can be proactive, right? As a person. Before you have to interact with a person, you can actually reach out to them and have a conversation just about nothing. But you help establish that relationship. So it, you can be proactive to start that relationship and get it going in advance of having to have a business conversation around that. So I think that's important thing to do is be proactive, which tends to accelerate it.
• 30:22
  Speaker C: I had asked you before, when it comes to vendors, what's your single biggest frustration, problem or concern? And then I asked you, it's what vendors really knock it out of the park. And it's usually a person, it's not actually a company because people buy from people or in relationships. And you had mentioned the person that really honors the relationship, the person that really listens And I had a manager one time that said, it's tlt the little things count. The little things matter. Like, how much does it make a big difference when someone actually did a little bit of research on you or your company before they spoke to you or they made like, you know, they took that extra step to just, I don't know, show that they care that you're like an individual. And you know what I mean, they're not just treating you like a script or like something that they just have to show up to work and do every day.
• 31:10
  Speaker A: They're under their relationship that is part of that. I mean, you walk into somebody's office or space and there's personal items there. I mean, there's an they care to know you. You notice. It's like, oh, is that your family? Right. Again, it's the hardest thing for people to do is having some level of empathy for the individual you're dealing with and find a way to connect to them. Trust me, there's plenty of people I do not like. If I was not in this business, I would never have a relationship with that individual because I don't really like them. But unfortunately, I don't have that choice. Right? So I have to make that connection whether I like them or not. I learned to ask kids all the
• 31:48
  Speaker C: time, like, I don't like people, but I do want to see them change for the better.
• 31:54
  Speaker A: Correct. And it's the same with a vendor relationship. You could keep it professional if they have respect for you and you have respect for them. It's important. And again, the company doesn't matter. The company actually generally is in the way. Right? The company's in the way. So you want an advocate at that company that can help you get around that company and get stuff to you in the way you need it because they always want to give it to you a certain way and you might want it another way. Like I said, I've worked at a lot of startup companies and I'm looking at this technology and they said the implementation is going to cost this and take this much time and you need all these resources. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, you're not listening to me. I'm a startup. It's me, one person. I still need this technology. And so once you build that relationship, instead of me having to go through that exercise, what I get back is I said, well, I realize you're a startup. These things are actually too complicated. Here's a good choice for you. Because the implementation is easy. The costs are lower and you can work your way so they start understanding you and then they give you the information you need before you have to go through the dance, so to speak, to get it down to that. And I think that's an important thing. And it works both ways.
• 33:13
  Speaker C: Brett Henning, you've been heard. Thank you very much for being on the show, and it's been an absolute pleasure. And we look forward to having you in our private community, communicating with the rest of your peers and helping change the world and help people honor the relationship more. I think it's very important.
• 33:38
  Speaker A: Sam.