Business RadioX ®

  • Home
  • Business RadioX ® Communities
    • Southeast
      • Alabama
        • Birmingham
      • Florida
        • Orlando
        • Pensacola
        • South Florida
        • Tampa
        • Tallahassee
      • Georgia
        • Atlanta
        • Cherokee
        • Forsyth
        • Greater Perimeter
        • Gwinnett
        • North Fulton
        • North Georgia
        • Northeast Georgia
        • Rome
        • Savannah
      • Louisiana
        • New Orleans
      • North Carolina
        • Charlotte
        • Raleigh
      • Tennessee
        • Chattanooga
        • Nashville
      • Virginia
        • Richmond
    • South Central
      • Arkansas
        • Northwest Arkansas
    • Midwest
      • Illinois
        • Chicago
      • Michigan
        • Detroit
      • Minnesota
        • Minneapolis St. Paul
      • Missouri
        • St. Louis
      • Ohio
        • Cleveland
        • Columbus
        • Dayton
    • Southwest
      • Arizona
        • Phoenix
        • Tucson
        • Valley
      • Texas
        • Austin
        • Dallas
        • Houston
    • West
      • California
        • Bay Area
        • LA
        • Pasadena
      • Colorado
        • Denver
      • Hawaii
        • Oahu
  • FAQs
  • About Us
    • Our Mission
    • Our Audience
    • Why It Works
    • What People Are Saying
    • BRX in the News
  • Resources
    • BRX Pro Tips
    • B2B Marketing: The 4Rs
    • High Velocity Selling Habits
    • Why Most B2B Media Strategies Fail
    • 9 Reasons To Sponsor A Business RadioX ® Show
  • Partner With Us
  • Veteran Business RadioX ®

Robert Steele, Steele Financial Group (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 330)

February 24, 2021 by John Ray

Steele Financial Group
North Fulton Business Radio
Robert Steele, Steele Financial Group (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 330)
Loading
00:00 /
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file

Robert Steele

Robert Steele, Steele Financial Group (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 330)

Robert Steele, Steele Financial Group, joins host John Ray to discuss health insurance alternatives that significantly reduce costs for business owners. “North Fulton Business Radio” is produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.

Robert Steele, CEO, Steele Financial Group

Robert Steele has 40 years of Insurance, Employee Benefits, Healthcare, and Technology experience as a sales and marketing executive. Robert’s biggest asset is his ability to take companies in transition and turn them around when sales, marketing or product development was causing financial or operational bottlenecks.

He has taken four companies that were all facing growth problems with a different underlying problem at each company and created new opportunities for growth, financing, or product development and enhancement. Robert loves challenges. He is adept at dealing with C-Suite executives where a trusted advisor relationship becomes the difference between making a sale and losing a sale is a key to his success. His innate ability to ask key questions, at the right time, to get executives engaged in the process has led Robert to close six, seven, and eight-figure deals.

Robert’s passion is helping teams re-invent themselves to a level of excellence in their sales activity and exceeding objectives. He has mentored peers, colleagues, and even competitors to think differently about themselves and their approach to problems that have been plaguing their sales challenges.

His diverse set of skills earned him the title of Top Sales performer with $25 million in Total Contract Value (TCV) in a single year. Robert has closed more than $750 million in TCV in his career with his largest single sale being $90 million. He is a published author and has written for numerous publications and is working on his next book about insurance and healthcare issues currently causing consumers to find themselves either confused, frustrated or angry about the current state of their financial situation.

Robert is also a “pay it forward” person that sees the value in investing in the future development of people wanting a career in sales. He founded the Steele Center for Professional Sales at the University of North Alabama, his alma mater. This program places 100% of its’ graduates, earning a degree in Professional Sales, into positions with some of the largest companies operating in the US today. The students are widely recruited and compete in numerous national competitions against universities all over the country.

Connect with Robert on LinkedIn

 

North Fulton Business Radio” is hosted by John Ray and produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Tagged With: employee benefits, health insurance, Robert Steele, Sales, Steele Center for Professional Selling, Steele Financial Group

Wellstar Chamber Luncheon Series: Esports Industry Impact, with Todd Harris, Skillshot Media and Brennen Dicker, Creative Media Industries Institute at GSU

February 23, 2021 by John Ray

Skillshot Media
North Fulton Studio
Wellstar Chamber Luncheon Series: Esports Industry Impact, with Todd Harris, Skillshot Media and Brennen Dicker, Creative Media Industries Institute at GSU
Loading
00:00 /
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file

Skillshot Media

Wellstar Chamber Luncheon Series: Esports Industry Impact, with Todd Harris, Skillshot Media and Brennen Dicker, Creative Media Industries Institute at GSU (GNFCC 400 Insider, Episode 57)

Metro Atlanta–and North Fulton specifically–are home to a thriving esports industry, and all the necessary ingredients are in place for continued growth, according to panelists speaking at this GNFCC Wellstar Chamber Luncheon series. Todd Harris, founder of Skillshot Media, and Brennen Dicker of Creative Media Industries Institute, joined moderator Asante Bradford, Georgia Department of Economic Development, to discuss the dynamics of the region’s esports industry and why its future is bright.

The host of “The GNFCC 400 Insider” is GNFCC CEO Kali Boatright, and the show is presented by the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®. John Ray and North Fulton Business RadioX served as the media sponsor for this event.

Asante Bradford, Moderator

Asante Bradford, Georgia Department of Economic Development

Asante Bradford is Project Manager for Digital Entertainment and Emerging Media for the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the sales, and marketing arm for the State of Georgia.

The Global Commerce Division conducts extensive business development, sales, marketing, and promotional activities in order to attract entertainment projects and businesses to the state. The division’s team also assists the local, national and international entertainment industries with information, expertise, and resources.

Asante helps promote the growth of the digital media industry as well as identify initiatives that will help grow businesses for the state of Georgia in interactive entertainment and eSports. He also helps educate potential prospects and provides clients with information about the Georgia Entertainment Industry Incentives Act.

His area of concentration with the Global Commerce office is to increase the impact of interactive entertainment for the State of Georgia as well as being a dedicated liaison to assist with promotions, logistics, and business development for attracting digital media companies outside the state to relocate in Georgia.

Esports is becoming an economic driver for Atlanta with Fortune 500 companies, a thriving tech center, film, TV, and videogame tax incentives all play into the mix. Georgia esports is also a sanctioned activity at the local high school level with a focus on STEM exposure.

Company website

Todd Harris, Founder and CEO of Skillshot Media

Skillshot Media
Todd Harris, Skillshot Media

Todd Harris (@toddalanharris) is an accomplished entrepreneur who has been leading video game and esports businesses for 15 years and involved with technology product startups for 25 years. Todd co-founded Hi-Rez Studios, one of the largest video game studios in the Southeast and is currently Founder & CEO of Skillshot Media, a leading esports infrastructure and production company, President of the North American Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF), and co-owner of esports professional team Ghost Gaming.

Skillshot connects leading brands to engaged esports fans.  The company has hosted thousands of esports tournaments, paid out over $10M in prizing for competitive video games, and delivered over 1 billion views of esports content.  Skillshot also powers the National Association of Collegiate Esports (NACE) competition with member universities awarding over $16M in esports scholarships.

Ghost Gaming is an Atlanta-based professional esports team and gaming lifestyle brand that has won 13 tournament championships and cultivated a fan base of over 5 million.

NASEF is the leading scholastic esports solution for high school students, providing opportunities for all students to use esports as a platform to acquire critical communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.

Throughout his career, Todd has garnered industry recognition including “2019 Most Admired CEO” by the Atlanta Business Chronicle as he works with partners toward advancing the esports industry.

Company website

Brennen Dicker, Executive Director, Creative Media Industries Institute

Brennen Dicker, Creative Media Industries Institute

Brennen Dicker, a film and television professional with 25 years of experience, is Executive Director of the Creative Media Industries Institute at Georgia State University. Before joining Georgia State, Brennen was the General Manager for SIM International (Post) Atlanta. SIM provides production and post-production services for many episodic television series and feature film productions, including; “Stranger Things”, “Watchmen”, “The Gifted”, “Dynasty”, “Good Girls”, “True Detective” S3, as well as the blockbuster “Get Out”.

Brennen previously served as Director of Post Production Sales at Crawford Media Services, has broad experience in all aspects of film and television production, and deep ties to Atlanta’s production community. He worked with networks – National Geographic, HGTV, and Discovery and also with series “The Walking Dead” and “Vampire Diaries” while at Crawford.   Earlier in his career, he was executive producer and principal of American Mongrel Productions (Chicago). He was the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship Recipient in 2001, and 2018 inaugural Women in Film and Television ( WIFTA – Atlanta) Gallantry Award winner.

Brennen is a current member of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce Screen Coalition Committee and is on the board for the Atlanta Esports Association (AEA). He chairs the CMII Working Group which is comprised of leaders in film, television, gaming, and music for the state of Georgia. He also serves on the Board of Directors for The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.

He has served as Chair of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Atlanta Advisory Council, and as Chair of Gov. Relations with the Georgia Production Partnership (GPP) board, and was the Chair for the 2018 and 2019 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. He has also served on the board as Vice Chair for The Frazer Center and served on the Executive Board for the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce.

Institute website

About GNFCC and “The GNFCC 400 Insider”

Kali Boatright, President and CEO of GNFCC

“The GNFCC 400 Insider” is presented by the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce (GNFCC) and is hosted by Kali Boatright, President and CEO of GNFCC. The Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce is a private, non-profit, member-driven organization comprised of over 1400 business enterprises, civic organizations, educational institutions and individuals.  Their service area includes Alpharetta, Johns Creek, Milton, Mountain Park, Roswell and Sandy Springs. GNFCC is the leading voice on economic development, business growth and quality of life issues in North Fulton County.

The GNFCC promotes the interests of our members by assuming a leadership role in making North Fulton an excellent place to work, live, play and stay. They provide one voice for all local businesses to influence decision makers, recommend legislation, and protect the valuable resources that make North Fulton a popular place to live.

For more information on GNFCC and its North Fulton County service area, follow this link or call (770) 993-8806. For more information on other GNFCC events such as this North Fulton Mayors Appreciation Lunch, follow this link.

For the complete show archive of “The GNFCC 400 Insider,” go to GNFCC400Insider.com. “The GNFCC 400 Insider” is produced by John Ray and the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Tagged With: Asante Bradford, Brennen Dicker, Creative Media Industries Institute, eSports, Esports industry, gaming, Georgia Department of Economic Development, Hi-Rez Studios, Kali Boatright, Skillshot Media, Todd Harris, virtual gaming

Amol Nirgudkar, Patient Prism

February 22, 2021 by John Ray

Patient Prism
Dental Business Radio
Amol Nirgudkar, Patient Prism
Loading
00:00 /
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file

Amol-Nirgudkar-Patient-Prism

Amol Nirgudkar, Patient Prism (“Dental Business Radio,” Episode 14)

Amol Nirgudkar, CEO of Patient Prism, joins host Patrick O’Rourke to discuss how his firm uses AI to train and inspire patient-facing practice personnel, reengage lost sales opportunities for their dental practice clients, increase their revenue and bottom lines, and much more. “Dental Business Radio” is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient: PPO Negotiations & Analysis and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Patient Prism

Patient Prism’s software shows which marketing investments generate the highest-value phone calls from potential new patients. The use of AI technology enables busy practices to convert more of these callers into patients. Dental offices can increase their revenue growth without necessarily spending more on marketing. Dentists and practice managers can do so without spending hours listening to recordings of entire phone calls.

Patient Prism holds five utility patents issued by the USPTO and is the only call tracking company that leverages artificial intelligence and human call coaching validation to deliver patients directly to dental practices.

Follow Patient Prism on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Amol Nirgudkar, CEO, Patient Prism

Amol-NirdudkarAmol Nirgudkar helps dentists grow their practices and reach their goals.

He is in an unusual position to offer practical insights. As a certified public accountant, business consultant, author, entrepreneur, and former owner of several dental practices, he has 20 years of experience working with dental practices, both large and small.

Through the three companies he founded, Amol has served more than 1,000 dentists across the United States. Through his work, Amol saw firsthand a growth challenge that all dental practices face. No matter how successfully they may market their practice, almost 50% of new patient calls don’t end in a booked appointment.

To help solve that problem, he founded Patient Prism in 2015. The Patient Prism service uses both A.I. and American call coaches to evaluate the way dental offices handle phone calls, identify the callers that didn’t schedule, and teach the team how to win them back – all within 30 minutes of the failed call.

Amol co-invented the patented technologies used in Patient Prism. One eliminates the need to listen to recorded phone calls by providing the information visually. The other technology details specific words spoken by the patient during the call so dentists and managers know which services callers are requesting and the revenue opportunity associated with each call. Amol continues to PatandAmolonDBRwork with artificial intelligence and machine learning to empower dental teams to deliver a better patient experience and build even more successful practices.

Amol has also written several articles and e-books, and published a paperback book called Profitable Niches in General Dentistry (2014).

Connect with Amol on LinkedIn.

Questions/Topics Discussed Include:

  • How is AI affecting our life and why it matters
  • How Patient Prism uses AI to deliver new patients to dental offices
  • Why speed matters
  • What an average practice should expect when signing up with Patient Prism
  • Additional insights Patient Prism provides to dental offices besides scheduling percentage
  • The best way to learn more and sign up for Patient Prism
TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Live from the Business RadioX Studio in Atlanta, it’s time for Dental Business Radio. Brought to you by Practice Quotient. Practice Quotient bridges the gap between the provider and payer communities. Now, here’s your host, Patrick O’Rourke.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:00:20] Hi there, friends of Dental Business Radio. This is your host, Patrick O’Rourke, on a sunny day with my friend, Amol. Amol Nirgudkar.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:00:32] You got it almost.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:00:34] Well, we’ll try again later.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:00:35] Yes, sir.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:00:36] So, Amol, my friend that I met originally down in Tampa on Harbor Island one day for lunch, who is a generous and smart individual, a numbers guy with a CPA background. He’s also an author and the founder of Patient Prism. Patient Prism holds many different patents that we may or may not get into, I don’t know. But when somebody asks you on an elevator and they say, “What is Patient Prism?” What do you tell them?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:01:07] Well, if it’s a short elevator ride then I’ll tell them, we taught a machine how to understand the nuance of dental conversations, so that we could understand what prevents a new patient from moving forward to schedule an appointment on the phone. And we help dental practices basically improve their sales ability to convert more of those leads into scheduled appointments. That’s a short elevator ride, depending what floor I’m coming from.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:01:37] All right. So, now, we’re stuck on an elevator, our metaphorical elevator, and I go, “That is interesting. Tell me a little bit more.”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:01:44] Yeah. I mean, what’s happening in dentistry is this, right? Over the last 10 to 15 years, dentistry has shifted from how dentists acquire new patients. In the past, in the 70s and 80s, even early 90s, patients used to show up from some referral source. There’s not a lot of advertising and marketing going on. In clear choice. dental implant centers came about in the early 2000s and they really changed the game, where, now, you are starting to advertise actively or became a B2C model where you’re actually actively advertising to get new patients.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:02:20] Now, when you’re actively advertising to get new patients, one of the fundamental things that needs to happen, you get the phone to ring. You have to make sure that every time a phone rings, number one, you answer it – super important. You’re open for business.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:02:37] Answering phone is important.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:02:40] Answering the phone is important.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:02:41] Okay. Hold on. I’m writing this down.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:02:42] That’s right. Answer the damn phone. Number two, you’ve spent money driving that lead in, spending Google, Facebook, whatever, what not. You want to make sure that lead, that new patient – we call it prospect. They’re not a customer yet. They are prospect.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:02:57] Sure. They’re thinking about it.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:02:58] And they’re a pretty hot lead because they’ve called you. They’re not a warm lead or a cold lead. They’re a hot lead, because they called you. You want to make sure that patient feels comfortable booking that appointment on that first attempt. What was happening across dentistry since the 70s is that, that booking rate was around 60, 65 percent. So, we were missing so much of the opportunities right there on the phone because what happened in dentistry – we’re still in the elevator, probably in the 15th floor – was that, we hired people to work in dentistry, especially at the front office who are answering phones, to be order takers. We didn’t tell them to be salespeople. And sales, somehow, is considered a bad word. But it’s not as long as you’re moving people from a bad spot to a good spot. In most instances in dentistry, what we’re doing in dentistry is we’re taking patients with bad health, a suboptimal health and moving them to good health.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:03:57] So, we have to really train our people to be salespeople at the front. And that is why Patient Prism was developed, is to enable better sales conversations between prospects that are coming from marketing – I mean, from all these different sources – and getting them scheduled by leveraging AI. AI, you know, is a buzzword these days.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:04:20] Artificial intelligence is what that stands for, right?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:04:24] It is. And so, we use this subset of our AI called Natural Language Processing, where we took spoken words and we analyze them really quickly. And if the patient decided not to move forward in that journey, on that phone call to schedule an appointment with you, we analyze that conversation really quickly and notify the office within 20 minutes now or 20 or 25 minutes saying that, “Hey, this is what went wrong.” You didn’t have to actually listen to the whole conversation. “This is what went wrong, you didn’t offer them financing.” Or, “You didn’t discuss the insurance options properly.” Or, “You diagnosed what the patient needed when you couldn’t have diagnosed it in the first place.” And so, here’s the information 20 minutes after a patient decides to hang up with you.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:05:07] And, now, you have that second chance to make that first impression. You call the patient back and saying, “Sir, you called us earlier, you need a dental implant. You know what? I understand you had no insurance and we figured out to give you some important information about financing options we have available. So, come on back in. We’ll get you on our schedule. We have an appointment available for 9:30 tomorrow and we’ll get you free examine X-rays. Come on in. We love new patients. Our doctor is one of the best in the country, has placed over 5,000 implants.” Now, you’ve turned the conversation around. You’ve given that patient the ability to come back in your office. And what we’ve seen with Patient Prism is 25 percent of those patients actually come back on the second try.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:05:53] So, Patient Prism basically leverages AI to understand the problem that occurred on the phone that prevented the patient from moving forward. Once you understand the problem, we communicate that problem within 20 minutes to the dental office. So, they can actually have that second chance of getting the patient back. And sometimes, you know, it’s one or two patients extra per month could make or break your office. Or it could make your office, right? I mean, you know after a certain point, you can make a big impact.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:06:23] And it’s about the right kind of patients too. You know, anybody who’s a student of sales – which I think, you know, I would consider myself to be a student – follow up in sales is key. So, you have to follow up, follow up, follow up. One of the things that, frankly, my organization, I don’t have any sales people so we don’t do any follow up and we probably missed out on a lot of stuff. But we’re a little bit different type of business, we’re referral based. It’s 100 percent referral based. So, you’re only calling us if somebody said certain nice things.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:07:02] And when you state, “Hey, this is sales and prospects,” I get that. But, to me, what you just described is an education process. And it’s a training process of helping the front lines or the face of these dental practices be more welcoming, use active listening techniques, and clearing the pathway making people comfortable and educating them, assuming that they are the best solution or they have the best solution, kind of like the implants we just described for that specific patient. Versus, being, “We don’t take Blue Cross.”

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:07:45] And then, you’re doing it – and I’m going to try to get into the numbers because I was kind of doing them in my head – in a way that’s quantifiable. And the dentist/ owners are not having to listen to phone calls or train people. It’s all done. It’s proven. And so, if, let’s say, we’re converting on a 65 percent ratio, that means we’re not converting on 35 percent. And so, you’re then able to get one quarter of that 35 percent back. I think that that’s really important to track, because in my conversations, still to this day, it seems to me that what’s tracked is how many new patients am I getting a month. Does that make sense?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:08:36] And, you know, it’s easy to say, “I need to spend more money on marketing to drive new patients.” But sometimes, let’s understand, we might be getting enough leads in our offices. We just need to convert them. So, why spend more? The easy button to press is, let’s spend more money on marketing.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:08:57] Well, I can tell you that outside of the larger groups, spending money on marketing is not something that’s high on the priority list of most dental practices and specialty practices. Let’s include in that category, you know, sometimes you talk to folks and you’re like, “Well, how much money do you spend on marketing?” They’re like, “Marketing? Nah. We did some mailers, like, back in 1994. It didn’t work.”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:09:22] You know, as professional management comes into dental practices and private equity comes into DSOs, one of the things – and they’re super analytical, right? – that we talk about in our business, as well as any business you talk about, is, what does it cost to acquire a customer? It’s called a CAC, acquisition cost.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:09:47] Client acquisition cost.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:09:47] So, client acquisition cost or customer acquisition cost, whatever that is. And we have to really understand that concept really well if you want to run the practice of dentistry as a business – as we’re in Business Radio right now – we want to understand what does it cost to acquire a customer.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:10:04] Now, you’re spending, let’s say, $2,000 in a Google Adwords campaign, let’s say, to attract Invisalign patients, and you want to do Invisalign. And, let’s say, from that Google AdWords, ten people actually call us. Now, if ten people call us and we only schedule five, that’s $400 cost of acquisition. But if we schedule all ten, that’s only $200 cost of acquisition. And that’s what Patient Prism really helps you understand and then compress that cost. Because if your $2,000 can get you, you know, five patients worth $4,000 a piece, that’s $20,000. Or if we can get you eight patients, that’s $32,000. That’s what we see the lift happen, right? Because we’re already spending the money to drive the leads in. We’re spending money upwards of a $100 a lead sometimes, some of them are $200 a lead – Google is expensive, Adwords are expensive – to drive those type of high value customers into your office.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:11:07] And somehow our receptionist says, “By the way, we have nothing available for the next three weeks,” and the patient goes away. Or the receptionist says, “You know, it’s really going to cost you $5,000. But you might need a root canal before that, it’s going to cost you six grand.” And we’re driving people away from the offices to come in. Because at the end of the day – Patrick, you’ve been in dentistry for a very long time. And we’re not dentists. Both of us are not – but one thing we know for sure, nobody knows what you need inside your mouth unless you open your mouth and the dentist looks at it with their loops or whatever it is and examines the teeth. You can’t really diagnose that over the phone and tell the patient, “Oh, you might need this, that’s going to cost you a $1,000.” There’s two barriers – main barriers –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:11:52] Does that happen a lot?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:11:53] It happens a lot. It happens a lot. People start talking about, “Hey, what’s it going to cost me?” “Oh, well, the crown is $1,200 but the build up is going to be another $300. And then, we don’t know whether you might need a root canal, that can be another $1,000.” So, the patients here are looking at some special thinking that, you know, it’s maybe about a $1,000 and the insurance is going to cover whatever percentages is. And, now, they have this idea that, “Oh, my God. I have to spend another $1,500 on this?” You have no idea. How do you know the patient might need a build up or a root canal? But, somehow, our folks, they create all these barriers. Barriers for patients to make an appointment.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:12:32] Right. And they think they’re trying to be helpful, probably, right? So, it’s sort of like you just said, we’re business folks. I’m from the insurance business, but I know more about – you know, I started in dental and the Lord knows this is where I’m still making my hay. So, I know more about it than I care to brag about. I know what an apicoectomy is and I know how to spell it. But can I do it? Now, sometimes, because people know that I do something in dentistry but they don’t know exactly what, then, they’re like, “Hey, Pat. Blah, blah, blah.” I’m like, “Look, I’m not a dentist. I don’t know. Don’t open your mouth over your dragon breath.”

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:13:13] And even though I probably do know more than, you know, most folks, well, I would never try to get out of my [indiscernible] much to diagnose. And it’s the same thing for the front desk, they know a lot about it. But you’re still not licensed to diagnose, right?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:13:30] And it’s not physically possible to diagnose unless somebody opened their mouth and you’ve looked inside. Because somebody thinks they need a crown. How do you know they need a crown? And then, you’re quoting prices on that. And then, you’re not even – then on top of that, so there’s two barriers that patients face when they call a dental office. And nobody likes to call the dental office, we know that, right? There’s 40 percent of people actually only go to the dentist, 60 percent of America doesn’t even go to a dentist.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:13:59] I like going to the dentist.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:14:00] So, somebody who calls a dentist, they have overcome significant inertia to actually call the dental office. And they have called us. Now, they have two concerns, “How much is it going to hurt me physically?” Because there’s fear of dentistry, how much pain and all that stuff. And, “How much is it going to cost me?” So, fear and cost are two big barriers. And then, the third barrier also is that, “Have I called the right place? Are these the good people? Are they competent?”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:14:30] And all we’ve got to do on the phone is, make them feel safe, make them feel that they have called the right place, make them feel that this is going to be an affordable treatment for them, and make them feel that it’s going to improve their life. And if we can communicate that, we don’t need to communicate a lot more. We have to actively listen, empathy. That’s just a couple of things we do at Patient Prism, we analyze things like active listening. Did you ask about discomfort? Did you mention financing? Did you discuss insurance options correctly? What if somebody was out of network? We look at that. How do you have the conversations around that?

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:15:05] So, have you ever seen the study? There’s multiple of them, actually, that said the number one reason why people don’t go to the dentist is because they don’t have dental insurance. Number two reason is, because they don’t know how much it’s going to cost, whether they have dental insurance or not. Because dental insurance is kind of a funky financial instrument, if you will.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:15:26] Right. It is.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:15:26] Right. Funky is a nice word.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:15:28] But you’re right. Absolutely. And that all derives from the idea, how much is it going to cost? Can I afford it? And how much is it going to hurt me? And it’s simple things. It’s the soft skills. People do business with people, especially with doctors. And, obviously, we’re in health care. First and foremost, you’ve got to feel safe, that you’ve called the right play.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:15:51] Especially these days.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:15:52] Obviously. More so in COVID environment than ever before. But all of us desire safety. Any place we are in, we’re always looking for safety. And safety is a big part of what we need to impart to a prospective patient that, “Yes, you’re safe. You’ve called the right place. We care. We have empathy. We can make this affordable. It can change your life. We have an appointment available. You’re special.” So, those are some of the things.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:16:24] Right now we’re so busy, right? Most dental offices you’ve been to, the front is super busy. They’re doing all sorts of things. They’re checking out patients. They’re doing insurance verifications. And sometimes they’re cleaning things. They’re doing all sorts of things. And sometimes what happens in that busy environment, we forget to talk. We forget to have time for the most important function, talking to our customer or our client, our patient. And if we forget that, no matter whether it’s an existing patient or new patient, you know, people don’t want to do business with you if you appear to be too busy and not caring about their concerns. Because people care what they care about. And you’ve got to care about what the patient’s care about. Your stuff can wait. Right. You’ve got to do stuff. I understand you got to do paperwork, you got to call the companies, all that stuff. That’s great. But the most important person in that dental office is the patient. And we’ve got to respect that, whether it’s on the phone, whether it’s in person, whether it’s anywhere else. Because that is what drives revenue, it’s the patient.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:17:26] Right. It’s in my head. I like analogies and to use other things, it’s like walking into Macy’s or Nordstrom’s and you’re like, “I’m trying to buy a suit and, you know, I like to have help.” But when I buy a suit, I like to wear nice stuff. And then, somebody is like, “I’m too busy. I’m too busy folding the clothes over here. I can’t help you.” And I’m like, “Well, fine. I’ll find somebody who can help me then.”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:17:50] That’s a great analogy. Actually, I’ve had situations, just two weeks ago, a patient called one of her clients – and sometimes we get these crazy alerts because if things go crazy wrong – and the patient called at 4:55 p.m. Eastern Time and said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I really need a full mouth extraction and get those implants aborted dentures.” Pretty penny, $30,000 to 50,000 depending on where you go to. And at 4:55, the person at the front sounded very hurried and like, “Sir, we’re about to close in five minutes. Could you call back tomorrow?”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:18:37] So, how do you do that? Like, how do you do that? And that call got elevated to my attention because, you know, it’s so egregious, right? You’re literally telling a patient who could potentially spend $40,000 in your office telling them, “Could you call me tomorrow because it’s 4:55?”

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:18:55] So, that brings an alarm on your phone?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:18:59] It does brings the alarm on our side, we call it escalation call. Or somebody is really rude or racist or something like that, it escalates that because our AI listens too. Because we don’t think every human being needs to be treated with the utmost kindness and respect and compassion, regardless of what they sound like, regardless of how much money you think they have, or whatever their circumstance might be. But this was egregious because, obviously, $40,000 opportunity, 4:55, it’s not even 5:00. Even if it was 5:00 –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:19:28] Is this almost like a drowning kid – though metaphorically, you know, not that serious – but this is where you go and save this drowning prospect that’s lost. It’s about to wash away with the tide. And you’re going to go in there and pull it right out. And this makes Patient Prism the hero that Patient Prism is.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:19:49] And we got back. We sent that to the CEO of this group. They called the patient the next morning, offered them a free set of a CT scan and a free whitening kit. They just come in. And, you know, I’ve had situations where we have recommended to our DSO customers and dental customers that, “You know, if you have a case like that, send a Uber. Let them in. Let them in.” You know, there’s Uber Corporate, as long as you can figure out the insurance stuff.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:20:21] We’ve got to figure out – and telling them, “We’re closed. Call tomorrow,” that’s not acceptable. And we had to have a conversation with the receptionist. I’m like, your number one job in dentistry is to improve people’s health. This procedure, yes, it would make us a lot of money. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to think about that patient has finally taken the step to call a dental office to get all their teeth removed and put nice shiny pearly whites in them. So, not only they will have a great smile, but they will have great health. And you’ve got to remember that’s a responsibility that we have in dentistry to improve, not only people’s oral health, but overall health, as we know that the connections obviously are established very well now.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:21:09] Did you listen to the show with Marc Cooper, the dental business rating?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:21:13] Marc’s amazing. It’s on my list to listen to. But the oral systemic connection is absolutely established. And so, one of the things we educate, as part of Patient Prism – and we’re a software company and people think, “Oh, my God. They just do AI and everything else.” But at the end of the day, we’re in the people business. We want to inspire our teams to be better. We want to inspire our teams in the front office to feel that they are making an impact on health care in America. We’re changing the lives of people by getting them in the office. It’s not about revenues. Revenues are a side effect of us treating people right. And so, our values are going to create value in our organization. Our value are, we care for patients. We know dentistry is going to change their life. We know dentistry, giving them the right teeth or whatever, fixing their stuff, a regular cleaning.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:22:05] Today, there was a study done that I read that periodontal cleaning, periodontal disease, obviously, has a direct impact. But it has a direct impact, apparently, on people who got sick with COVID. People with high amounts of periodontal disease had a higher chance of dying from COVID-19.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:22:27] Yeah. That’s true.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:22:28] And so, we are in the business of changing and saving lives. And I think once we get that into the minds of the team members, whether they’re at the front or the middle of the back, it doesn’t matter, and once they believe that it’s a calling, dentistry as a calling. It’s a business, great. We’re in Business Radio, that’s great. At the end of the day –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:22:47] Right. You serve their purpose. You know, I have to roll out of bed every day thinking I’m helping people. If I don’t think I’m actually helping people, I’m going to go fishing.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:22:56] Correct. Correct. Or, you know, I’m going to do something else that I love to do. But I get up every morning and think about why I’m here working like a maniac and talking to people in dentistry. Because this is such a beautiful profession. It literally changes people’s lives in so many ways. And if we can improve access to care using this AI technology by allowing more patients to book an appointment, then we are getting America healthier. We’re getting more people to have this function and the aesthetics. It changes relationships too.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:23:39] More confidence. At least, were more aesthetically pleasing. Please don’t tell me you’re trying to bring smiles to the universe though. That’s an insurance cover. They already got the trade. They already got that slogan, like, trademarked. And then, they told me that one time with a straight face. And I was like, “Really?”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:23:57] Smiles to the universe.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:23:57] “So, you want to bring golden small smiles to the entire country, is what you’re doing?” “Okay. Well, how about this? How about instead of dental insurance, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll have all the docs. We’ll work for free.” They’ll just go out there and they’ll do all the work and they’ll handle it and they’ll bring smiles to the whole country and the whole universe for free. And so, guess what we don’t need if that’s the case? A financial vehicle to pay for it. So, we don’t need insurance, so then you don’t have a job buddy. Is that going to make you happy? It’s not going to make you smile, is it? True story.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:24:31] That comment sounds like one of those social media memes. They sound interesting, they sound funny, but they’re so simplistic. They don’t reflect reality. It sounds funny. You laugh at them, right?

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:24:46] Oh, yeah. You must never even ever worked in an insurance company before.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:24:50] Yeah. I have not. I have not. I have not.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:24:53] Yeah. The marketing department is very creative. They come up with all kinds of stuff and I’m like, “Listen guys, you can call it apple or bicycle all day long, but it’s still apple, you know.” You know, with all due respect to you guys, you have to get creative with the products that are not so creative. But, anyway, I digress into the insurance. But trust me, I bet you somebody has the copyright on, “We’re bringing smiles to the universe.”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:25:18] Right. Bring smiles to the universe. Right.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:20] If not trademarked.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:25:22] We’re bringing smiles to Baby Yoda over there on – I don’t know what island he’s on right now. Tatooine? I don’t know. I’m not sure what planet is on. But Mandalorian, Star Wars –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:34] I haven’t started that yet.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:25:35] Mandalorian is good.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:36] Yes?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:25:36] You got to watch both.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:38] So, are you Star Trek or Star Wars guy?

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:40] I’m a Star Wars guy. Star Wars guy. But Mandalorian is great. My son, who’s ten, got me into it.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:47] My son’s ten.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:25:48] And I’ve learned a lot about all the different galaxies and systems.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:25:54] It seems like it’s gotten a lot more complicated than the first three.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:25:59] Yeah. Absolutely, the side stories are interesting. This is right in between when Yoda is dead and, you know, it’s right in between before the other episodes that come out. But, anyway, that’s the –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:26:13] Yeah. My son’s in Florida where it’s warm.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:26:18] Mandalorian is excellent. But they’re bringing smiles to the –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:26:23] So, Mandalorian, they’re not bringing smiles to the universe. But Amol and Patient Prism are bringing smiles to the universe. I’m not going to mention any names, I know you guys are listening to the show, so you know who you are. Hugs and kisses.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:26:40] So, now, artificial intelligence, my wife says I have artificial intelligence because I think I’m smart, but I’m not. That’s what she says. But AI is a real thing that Patient Prism is moving. Now, how easy is it to plug this thing? The first time I met you, by the way, you were telling me about this, I’m like, “I’ve never heard of that. That sound pretty awesome. This sounds like it’s going to be hard to do. You got to do a bunch of stuff and plug in computers and, you know -” Walk me through the process.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:27:11] It’s a simple thing. The process is, you’re a patient, you’re driving on I85.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:27:17] No, no, I’m a doc. Let’s say, I’m a doc, you know, and I’m like, “Oh, that sounds interesting. All right. Go. Put that stuff in my system.”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:27:27] Right. So, the process is simple. We insert ourselves directly in your phone system so that we are monitoring your phone calls. We record the phone calls, so what the AI does, it really understands who this person is. Is this a new patient?

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:27:46] So, like, if John Ray over here calls, it’s going to be like, John Ray, North Fulton. And it’s going to say everything about John. It’s going to have his age, his background. The fact that he likes purple Corvettes.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:28:03] No. Not really. It’s not that creepy. It’s not that creepy. But John Ray, if John Ray calls and says, “You know, I’ve been thinking about getting some veneers and I’ve not been to a dentist in a long time, do you guys do veneers?” And they say, “Yes. We do the veneers and stuff.” So, the AI will actually listen to a transcript of John Ray’s recording and says, “You know, I think John Ray, the probability of him being a new patient in this office is about 95 percent.” Because John Ray said that, you know, I’m looking to get some veneers. He didn’t say I’m a brand new patient.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:28:38] So, what AI does, really, is, it takes the audio conversation, transcribes it into text, and it looks at patterns in text. Not just in John Ray’s conversation, but it looks at millions of patterns and puts them together to understand, first, who John Ray is. John Ray worked for Henry Shine and says, “Hey, when can I deliver the cotton gauze or cotton balls?” And the AI is going to say, “You know what? John Ray, it looks like this is just a general call. This is not a patient.” And to be able to figure that out quickly, AI can do because it recognizes patterns. And it takes unstructured data, makes it structured data, and analyzes it. The first step is figuring out who John Ray is. And now we’ve determined he’s a new patient. Now, the conversation goes on and everything else. And if John reaches the end of the conversation, “I’m going to think about it. I’ll call you guys back.”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:29:36] Based on those patterns, the AI has figured out that John Ray did not book that appointment. Now, we have identified very quickly, within ten minutes of him hanging up the phone, we’ve identified that John Ray wanted some veeners worth. $5,000, has decided not to schedule an appointment, and here’s what happens. That piece, AI sends it back to our Tampa call center, which they look, they confirm, where a human in the loop AI, which means the humans are there. And then, that information gets curated. Our human being sitting in Tampa says, “Okay. Let’s put some of the things in perspective of all the things that didn’t happen in that conversation.” And that information is packaged in a bow that, “Hey, maybe our receptionist did not give John Ray financing options to clear credit that could have made it cheaper for him. And they didn’t discuss that.”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:30:32] And all that information goes to somebody’s phone and email within 20, 25 minutes to say that, “We just lost John Ray worth $5,000 of veneers or $10,000 of veneers. And let’s hear some training videos around it. Here’s how you talk when somebody calls and thinks it’s very expensive, and when somebody is really price shopping,” let’s say he was price shopping. So, AI has figured out that John Ray was a price shopper and he was concerned about cost. And there is a training video around that. So, all that goes back to the office, you look at it like, “Okay. Well, I should call John Ray back.” Now, the doctor’s office manager says, “All right. Well, let’s do this. So, we’ve understood Patient Prism has told us we’ve lost a $9,000 opportunity with John Ray. Let’s call them back and tell him, ‘John Ray, you called us earlier but we forgot to give you some important information. One, that we have an appointment available to see you tomorrow or the day after. We’ve got really creative financing available that can make this into, like, a couple hundred dollars a month.'”

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:31:40] You got to get creative with his finances, that’s for sure.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:31:42] Exactly. “And why don’t you come in? We would love new patients. And, you know, we want to make sure that we’re treating this correctly and we want you to get the smile you deserve. Because our doctor is amazing at smile makeovers.”

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:31:59] At veneers.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:32:00] Smile makeovers.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:32:00] He is the Picasso of veneers. And so, if you want to veneer, you need to get in here.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:32:07] Correct. Correct. And John Ray is like, “You know what? I am really pleasantly surprised that a health care practitioner provider cares enough to call me back.” And then, he’s like, “All right. I’m going to come in.” And that’s the process.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:32:23] That’s it. That’s what I love about this. For the first time you explain it, because this is Dental Business Radio, I’m a numbers guy and you’re a numbers guy.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:32:31] I’m a numbers guy.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:32:32] I like numbers guys and girls. I like numbers people, data people. Because I’m always like, “All right. Well, how do you quantify that? Like, what does that mean and how much money?” And so, this seems like it’s very easy for you to go to any client and go, “Here’s what we just did. We just found you these – what? – ten, I don’t know, 20 different opportunities and they can easily run a report. Well, it’s $100,000 a year.”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:33:01] At the minimum. At the minimum.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:33:03] So, this is why you’re very popular.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:33:06] We’re popular because we care, I think. We really believe that –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:33:11] You can care all day, but if you don’t make me money –

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:33:14] Correct. Correct. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you don’t have to wait. That’s another reason, right? You don’t have to wait to find out. Within 30 days, you’re going to find out. We saved two patients and three patients, and those patients ended up spending 20 grand with us directly as a result of what Patient Prism did. If we had not found out, this patient, John Ray called and he needed $9,000 veneers, we had not known by the time – imagine we had to call a recording service and we had deployed people to listen to calls. Number one, who’s got the time? Number two, how do you figure out which calls to listen to? Let’s say you figured this out, it would take you hours and hours and hours of listening to find out. By that time, John Ray, his nimble fingers on the keyboard have already found five other doctors that he can call upon, so he’s already gone. The prospect is gone to one of your competitors who is going to, basically, treat them –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:34:13] Right. Roll out the red carpet, right.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:34:15] Correct. And that’s what we want to prevent, right? We want to prevent – you, you’ve driven that lead in. We want to make sure that that prospect, that patient, comes into your office and spends money with you guys and you get to impact his health.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:34:29] Right. And you want to welcome them. You want to make them feel warm. And you want to give them the path of least resistance into the treatment that they are looking for and need. That’s pretty easy.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:34:40] Correct. Absolutely.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:34:42] The other cool thing about the platform is the education component. The education component in which, you know, as somebody who’s talked to – I don’t know – thousands of different owner doctors across this country, they don’t have the time and, certainly, they’ve never trained on a high level like Nordstrom training on how to answer calls appropriately. Maybe they took a weekend course or something, but maybe you know how to do it even. Maybe you know how to do it but how are you going to train it? I know I do a lot of stuff, but, you know, training, like, do I have time to train, I mean, personally? The answer is no.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:35:24] It’s tough, right? It’s tough.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:35:25] And so, the cool thing about it is that, you have this whole library of things that then pinpoint and go, “You need to do X.” And then, it’s like, what’s the average video?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:35:37] Submitted? Two minutes long. It’s quick.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:35:38] Right. Boom. Here you go. And so, it’s on the spot training. So, it’s like having a training team. And that’s how I got started my career in operations management, I’ve trained a lot of people in my time. It’s hard.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:35:52] It is very hard. And you know what? Sometimes we’ve seen people learn better in chunks. You tell somebody who calls in – and let’s take an insurance example – and they’re like, “Well, we don’t take Blue Cross.” Well, you’re out of network. What kind of conversation do you need to have with the patient who’s out of network? We’ve got a video on that. And what happens to a patient who’s a price shopper? We have a video on that. What happens to somebody who is anxious, afraid, somebody who is really wanting all the details, somebody who wants all the information about what dental implants are like?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:36:36] There’s all sorts of videos. We have almost 350 of them that relate to what questions patients may have in the phone that you can answer. And those are a minute or two minutes long recorded by some of the industry experts in the industry that we know of. And then, they get attached specifically to every problem that occurs. If a patient calls and doesn’t schedule an appointment because he was a price shopper, that alert that goes out will have the price shopper video right there, which is beautiful, right? Because now you’ve not only told these guys what they did wrong, but you’ve given them the tools to listen to that video before they called the patient back. And that’s powerful.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:37:15] Now, You do that enough times over a period of 42 days – Charles Duhigg wrote the book The Power of Habit – what we’re doing is we’re changing habits one call at a time. And when you encounter these things and when you’re nudged in the right direction, we’re not Big Brother watching here. We’re not Big Brother watching. What we call ourselves are we’re coaches. Front office is a position. Hygienist is a position. Doctor is a position. The doctor is, let’s say, the quarterback. But there’s a position if you have the sports analogy. For an office position, every position has a coach. We are the front office coach, we want to make sure that we are going to facilitate your greatness by allowing you to understand the things that you’re doing that could make the patient experience better or the things that you’re doing that are making the patient experience worse. And we’re optimizing that journey for you.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:38:08] I love that, actually. So, the front office coach –

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:38:12] It is a front office coach.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:38:14] And as that they are the face of the franchise, so to speak. It’s pretty important. But I think that going back to our elevator thing, that’s what you guys do. You’re the front office coach, you know, if it’s a dental conference radio, right?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:38:31] Although, we are accelerating your new patient acquisition rate. We’re accelerating your new patient growth. It’s important, right? It’s important. We’re accelerating a new patient growth without spending more money on marketing. It’s not about spending more money. It’s about really understanding, making sure that everybody who calls can get scheduled now after that happens. Sorry.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:38:50] Yeah. You’re preserving your marketing investment.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:38:54] Absolutely. We’re reducing your cost of customer acquisition. Your cost of customer acquisition and reducing that. And, obviously, by providing exceptional customer service on the phone. You know what happens, Patrick? It translates into the entire journey of the patient. If you feel good about somebody, when you go in, and that optimal Ritz-Carlton experience continues throughout the process. The front office gives you coffee, like John Ray offered me today. And then, the hygienist comes in, the system comes in, and everybody is delivering this exceptional care and compassionate service through communication. That, eventually, leads to higher case acceptance rates and then leads to higher referrals.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:39:46] That’s what we want in dentistry to happen. We want that entire customer journey from the time they find you – when they have the need, they find you, they Google you, they find you on Google Maps, ads, whatever it is. The entire experience, we want to map that and make sure that every handoff that happens, every time a patient encounters your website or your people, the communication is so optimal that they feel that this is the right place. This is where I want to get my treatment done. This is who I want to refer my friends and family to. And we are just one of the pieces, which is on the phone, which is the first interaction with the doctor’s office is the phone.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:40:28] And, now, people do it through chat and everything else, but on the phone. And if you can make them feel welcome, if you can make them feel safe, if you can empathize with them, you can alleviate their concerns about cost and fear, they are going to come in and you’re going to do, obviously –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:40:48] So, it’s kind of a no brainer to me. So, you know, just frankly, I’m puzzled when people would say, “Why would somebody not do this?”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:40:57] Well, for a variety of reasons. And I’ll tell you, I’m very open and candid about our failures as much as our successes.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:41:05] I like candor.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:41:06] And who does it fail with? If you’ve got a small office that just doesn’t receive any phone calls from new patients, it’s not going to work for you because you ain’t got nothing to analyze. Number two, if you have a reluctant team that, “Son, I have been doing dentistry since you’re wearing diapers. I don’t need any training.” Well, if you’ve got those kind of people, well, that’s not going to work for them. But, now more and more so, if you are a growth minded dentist who is actively looking for new patients, advertising, marketing through whatever means you’re doing, digital, non-digital, you’re driving leads in, it’s going to work for you. Or unless you have like Dale Carnegie’s at your front office that know exactly how to say everything perfectly, they never have a bad day, and every time they’re booking 100 percent, I haven’t seen yet. There are people who are great. So, it does work for those type of practices.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:42:01] I don’t know if you remember what I told you the first time you told me about this, I was like, “Can I get that for my company?”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:42:06] I wish we could.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:42:07] Why would I not do that? That doesn’t make any sense. Because even me, even myself, I guess I’m the face of the franchise. I don’t know. I certainly talk to a lot of people. But, yeah, could I use coaching? Probably. My staff certainly won’t tell me anything. John Ray is over there chuckling. What are you chuckling about, Chucklehead?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:42:29] You know, the new industry in Silicon Valley today is sales enablement. And sales enablement is, are we having the right conversation with our customers? And there’s lots of companies out there in other verticals that look at conversational intelligence. It’s what we’re talking about, conversational intelligence, right? At the end of the day, people don’t care about what you’re selling. People don’t care about how you’re selling it. People care about why you’re doing what you’re doing, as Simon Sinek says. People will buy stuff from you as long as they can trust you. And trust can be only established with optimal communication.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:43:10] Right. You have to build rapport and you have to do so in a very short amount of time.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:43:14] A very short amount of time. And you have, like, on the website, Google says you’ve got – what? – eight seconds to sometimes 12 seconds to impress somebody to make the next step, which is call you. And on the phone, a patient can tell if you’re having a bad day when you answer the phone. A patient can tell if you don’t care. One of the things, you know, a lot of these coaches advice, like, keep a mirror in front of you when you’re talking on the phone and make sure you’re smiling, because somebody can tell you’re smiling.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:43:49] This is true actually. This is not just dentistry. This is corporate America. I tell my staff that and they’re like, “Why are you so corny?” And I’m like, “Look, I’m telling you, you can say, ‘Listen, you’re an effing a-hole.’ As long as you’re smiling, you know, then people are like, ‘Ah.'”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:44:10] As human beings, we have an inherent tendency to relate. And you’ve got to be able to relate to the patient. Relating to the patient means you are putting yourself in their shoes. That’s the beautiful word in the English language, empathy. You’re putting yourself in their shoes and asking about, “Hey, did you watch the Super Bowl?” I don’t know if you’re in Tampa.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:44:30] I did watch the Super Bowl, Tampa won. And you know what? Tampa, where your call center is, where they are doing the curating, Tampa, I’ve heard is a tiny little town, the championship city. Shoutout to everybody in Tampa.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:44:43] That is correct. I mean, it’s been a wonderful year, a wonderful season, football, baseball, hockey. And even soccer, they went to the finals, the Rowdies. So, go, Tampa Bay.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:44:55] That’s right. I recognized I might have to go down there, it’s a lot warmer right now. But I couldn’t walk out of this episode without giving a shoutout there. Now, going back, maybe I need more empathy. Maybe I need an empathy coach, because as you’re describing this and I’m like, well, if we have this filter, if we’re understanding that John Ray is a price shopper, and if we’re understanding that John Ray is maybe very fearful, he’s an anxious guy, he’s not comfortable with people putting fingers in his mouth, or John Ray wants to follow his insurance. We have all of this stuff. Is there something that can tell us that John Ray is an a-hole and we don’t want him in our office?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:45:38] Well, in our view, every customer, regardless if they’re a-holes, you can unbook every single one of them. But 90 percent of people or 95 percent of people, you can absolutely. Even if they’re a-holes, it’s because it’s something going on in their life that’s making them be that way. You can absolutely get John Ray to calm down a little bit by talking about what’s important to John Ray.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:46:04] I’ll just slap the bejesus out of them. That’s what I do.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:46:07] Well, you cannot do that over the phone. You cannot do that over the phone. But you can. I mean, the thing is, there is situations where we have seen that very angry patient. We’ve seen the discourses that are really, really provocative. And you want to make sure that at the end of the day, we are a dental office, we’re a health care provider, we are doing everything in our power to make that patient feel welcome. If they disrespect us, obviously, it’s on them, it’s not on us. But to tell you the truth –

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:46:44] I’m only half kidding here, by the way.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:46:47] I know you are. I know are.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:46:49] Because the thing is, is that, my business a little bit different, but if you’re going to be difficult and challenging for me to deal with, and if I think you’re rude to me – and I think I’m fairly polite. You know, I’m a nice guy most of the time – then I know you’re going to be rude to my staff. And that’s not something I’m going to tolerate. And so, I’m half kidding. But because you probably don’t have something on there, because that’s really not what it’s geared to do. And then, internally, like, everybody has their own a-hole filter or they’re like, “Yeah. We don’t need that person in our office very likely.”

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:47:34] Absolutely not. I mean, but you know what? For the most part, people are nice. For the most part, people just are anxious. In our job, our job is to make sure that the patient who calls in is able to just come in. Come into the office and see the beautiful staff, and the hygienist, and assistants, and the doctor, and get the treatment they deserve. That’s it. We’re not trying to be anybody else.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:48:02] Right. No, I get it. Why does speed matter?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:48:06] Yeah.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:48:07] Ricky Bobby.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:48:08] Speed matters because, imagine knowing in real time what you did wrong and to be able to fix it, it’s like having the ability. And the quicker you know what you did wrong – and nobody wants to suck at anything. Nobody wants to suck at their job.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:48:25] I agree with that. Right.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:48:27] And imagine, like, you had a coach. Imagine some guy hovering over your head and watching everything you do, and kind of letting you know quickly that, “Hey, Patrick. That little proposal that you gave earlier, that presentation, I think you forgot to mention, like, two or three things that could have really sealed the deal.” And knowing that in 15 minutes, before you’ve even left that building, going back to the customer and saying, “By the way, I did forget to mention three other things that make me better than everybody else in the planet in the world of dental insurance. I forgot to give you about this. We’ve got a special deal with this. And we can negotiate this.” Imagine having that. Imagine how many deals could you close if you knew immediately. And somebody was actually looking at the stuff and figuring out what the best practices are.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:49:19] So, speed matters, because now you have a second chance to make a first impression. You have a second chance. AI is giving you a second chance to revisit the customer, fix your mistakes, and try to get the deal back before it’s dead, before somebody else gets it who is less competent than you are. And you know what? You are one of the best and maybe the best in this business. So, that’s what it is. Speed matters because it allows us to fix what we just broke and do it again.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:49:48] That’s critical.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:49:49] And that’s what AI allows you to do. That’s why Patient Prism is the most innovative and powerful tool in dentistry, because the speed at which we get the information in an accurate way to the dental office, to be able to fix that problem that occurred 20 minutes ago or 25 minutes ago, allows us to bring back that customer and revive somebody that leave. They’ve already gone. And 25 percent of those people come back because of speed. All my competitors, I love them. I would never say anything bad about any of them. But they haven’t approached this as a sales problem. They’ve approached this as a marketing attribution problem. They just want where did their customer came from and let’s record the calls.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:50:33] But at the end of the day, we have to know quickly why that patient didn’t move forward. And if we can know it and say, “Oh, my God. We forgot to offer them the financing option or we didn’t offer them the discount plan that we have.” And just quickly knowing that, “Yes, we should have offered that.” And that allows us to really, really optimize everything that we’re doing. That’s why speed matters. Speed matters. And the only thing, if AI didn’t exist, the way you would do this is, you would have a group of people listening to all these phone calls, it would take forever.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:51:07] And they have to become subject matter experts and then they would have to do training sessions at least once a week over and over and over and over again with these folks.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:51:17] By the time they get to it, they have listened to the calls, it’s too late.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:51:21] Right. John Ray is in his purple Corvette, getting veneers in Mexico.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:51:26] And gotten a speeding ticket already. He got a speeding ticket. He’s already driven past and he’s gone to San Diego and he’s gone into a Baha. And he’s getting the veneers right there on the corner – on the corner strip right there.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:51:42] He just puts the top down or maybe his T-top. So, I like that. I think that it’s one of the coolest things I’ve heard about. And, you know, I get around. I know you get around too. You get around more than I do, actually. And I admire that about you. And you’re a numbers guy and you’re genuine. You know, I think people should use speed and call you guys up and, you know, access Patient Prism, assuming that you are open, to having your front office get new patients.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:52:20] So, if somebody who’s listening to the show wanted to get a hold of Patient Prism and ask some questions, I’m sure that your front office is warm and welcoming and will guide them along the path that they need should this solution be in their interests. How would our listeners do that?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:52:38] Well, all they would have to do is visit our website, www.patientprism.com. Go there and schedule a demo. There’s an orange button on the top right hand corner, it says Schedule a Demo. And somebody will call you that will give you a demo. And the one thing that I can guarantee you that they will do for you is, they will do an honest assessment whether you actually need us or not. If you don’t need us, we will tell you that maybe you need to fix something else. For example, “So, I get only three new patients a month.” “Well, Patient Prism is not the right solution for you. And we will be honest enough. One of the things I talk about is “people before profits”. I mean, you’ve seen my shirts everywhere. You’ve seen my hats and jacket.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:53:15] Yeah. That’s why I like you.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:53:17] We do believe that we’re not going to force the solution down your throat, but we can help most dental practices. Contact us, follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, follow us on YouTube. We have lots of amazing content we’ve created with some of the best minds in dentistry. And schedule a demo. Our sales team will connect with you, schedule a demo. And diagnose, do you really need this? If you need it, then we can get you in and give you really immediate results within the first 30 days, sometimes within the first day.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:53:53] We had a pediatric group last week came on board, first day on Patient Prism ,booked a family of four. First day, we recovered four patients day number one.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:54:03] It feels good, doesn’t it?

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:54:05] It feels amazing. Amazing. And that guy sent us a video testimonial like, “Oh, my God. I got Patient Prism starting Monday, a family of four called. They couldn’t in the first time. We got the RELO alert.” We call it RELO, Reengage Lost Opportunity alerts. “We got the letter from Patient Prism. We called them back and got the whole family booked.”

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:54:22] That’s awesome.

Amol Nirgudkar: [00:54:23] And that was beautiful. And we have these stories, Patrick, every single day of the week. Every single day we found out, “Oh, this practice got this patient back. This practice got this all four case back. These practice got a whole family coming into this office because what of we did.” And it’s tremendously fulfilling to know that we’re adding patients to all our clients offices. New patients every single day by just by training people in how to become better communicators, and AI is helping us in that process.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:54:57] That’s awesome. That’s fantastic. Amol, I want to thank you for being on the show. It’s always a pleasure to see you. I’m glad you came up here. We are broadcasting live out of Atlanta, more specifically, Innovation in downtown Woodstock, where all the cool kids are. With the producer, the unofficial mayor of North Fulton, John Ray, who I’d also like to thank. And I want to give a special thank you to the show’s sponsor, Practice Quotient, PPO analysis and negotiation. It’s a top tier compensation, top tier representation for top tier providers. And so, if you are a top tier provider and are not being compensated as such, you may want to speak with Practice Quotient. And you can reach them at www.practicequotient.com. Not to be confused with Patient Prism. It’s Patient Prism and Practice Quotient. It’s not Practice Prism and Patient Quotient. That would be wrong.

Amol Nirgudkar, Patient Prism: [00:55:56] That is correct.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:55:58] Practice Quotient. You know, everybody calls it PQ. I thought the name was very clever. My wife thinks it’s silly. But whatever.

Amol Nirgudkar, Patient Prism: [00:56:07] I like the name a lot. And you’re doing great work in this business. You’re super analytical. And, you know, people are leaving money on the table. And just like we are in the business of like, “Oh, my God. Don’t leave all this money on the table.” And you’re doing the same exact thing, you’re not leaving money on the table.

Patrick O’Rourke: [00:56:23] I have to say I’m a little jealous, because you’re able to do it in 30 days. Ours takes a little longer. But thank you to Practice Quotient and all the people at Practice Quotient who makes the organization as stellar as it is. So, from Florida all the way to Georgia, thanks to Practice Quotient. Thank you to Amol. Thank you to John Ray. And thank you to you, dear listener. If you like the show, please be sure to give it a five star rating and thumbs up, nice Google review, all of that stuff. I promise you good karma will come from it. All right. That’s a guarantee from your friend and host, Patrick O’Rourke. Until next time.

 

About Dental Business Radio

“Dental Business Radio” covers the business side of dentistry. Host Patrick O’Rourke and his guests cover industry trends, insights, success stories, and more in this wide-ranging show. The show’s guests will include successful doctors across the spectrum of dental practice providers, as well as trusted advisors and noted industry participants. “Dental Business Radio” is underwritten and presented by Practice Quotient and produced by John Ray and the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Practice Quotient

“Dental Business Radio” is sponsored by Practice Quotient. Practice Quotient, Inc. serves as a bridge between the payor and provider communities. Their clients include general dentist and dental specialty practices across the nation of all sizes, from completely fee-for-service-only to active network participation with every dental plan possible. They work with independent practices, emerging multi-practice entities, and various large ownership entities in the dental space. Their PPO negotiations and analysis projects evaluate the merits of the various in-network participation contract options specific to your Practice’s patient acquisition strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Connect with Practice Quotient:

Website

LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

Tagged With: AI, Amol Nirgudkar, dental offices, dental practices, Pat O'Rourke, Patient Prism, Patrick O'Rourke, PPO Negotiations & Analysis, Practice Quotient, Sales, sales enablement, sales opportunities

The “5 C’s” a Business Must Pass to Get a Loan Approved, with Bill McDermott, The Profitability Coach

February 22, 2021 by John Ray

Profitability Coach
North Fulton Studio
The "5 C's" a Business Must Pass to Get a Loan Approved, with Bill McDermott, The Profitability Coach
Loading
00:00 /
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file

Profitability Coach

The “5 C’s” a Business Must Pass to Get a Loan Approved, with Bill McDermott, The Profitability Coach

Bill McDermott: [00:00:00] The first thing is a business owner has to put together a loan package. That loan package is generally going to have three years’ worth of historical financial information. It may have the most recent interim financials. We just finished January, so a January balance sheet and an income statement. It will include a personal financial statement of any owner that has more than 20% ownership because a bank looks at the people that make up the ownership of the business. Yes, they are loaning to the business but, generally, that business is a reflection of the people that are running it.

Bill McDermott: [00:00:45] So, first part is the loan package. The second part, generally, a credit interview. Again, as I mentioned, banks are looking at everything in terms of risk. So, they will have analyzed those financials. They’re going to have some underwriting questions, what’s going on in the business. But yeah, to your point about the Cs, there are five Cs that as they’re going through that interview. They’re going to be evaluating the character of the borrowers. They’re going to be looking at the cash flow. Does the business have the ability to pay it back? They’re going to be looking at credit score. Generally, the business owner’s personal credit score is the proxy for the business. They’re going to be looking at collateral. Do they have the ability to secure the loan? And then, the last thing has nothing to do with the business or the business owner, but they’re looking at conditions – specifically, economic conditions.

Bill McDermott: [00:01:41] So, we just are, hopefully, on the tail end of a pandemic, but the economic conditions and the economic uncertainty have played a big role in banks’ willingness to loan money in the current economic environment. And so, credit has tightened because conditions of economic uncertainty have tightened. But that’s generally the process, one package, credit interview, evaluating the five Cs. It’s really important for the business owner to have a clear request, and it’s also very important for the business owner to have a compelling case. Why should the bank loan them money? How does the company present itself in terms of risk? And if there are any risks, can those risks be mitigated to help the bank approve the loan?

Bill McDermott, The Profitability Coach

Bill McDermott is the Founder and CEO of McDermott Financial Solutions, serving as a profitability coach to his clients. When business owners want to increase their profitability, they don’t have the expertise to know where to start or what to do. Bill leverages his knowledge and relationships from 32 years as a banker to identify the hurdles getting in the way and create a plan to deliver profitability they never thought possible.

Bill currently serves as Treasurer for the Atlanta Executive Forum and has held previous positions as a board member for the Kennesaw State University Entrepreneurship Center and Gwinnett Habitat for Humanity and Treasurer for CEO NetWeavers. Bill is a graduate of Wake Forest University and he and his wife, Martha have called Atlanta home for over 40 years. Outside of work, Bill enjoys golf, traveling, and gardening.

Connect with Bill on LinkedIn and Twitter and follow McDermott Financial Solutions on LinkedIn.

Listen to Bill’s full interview on Decision Vision here. 


The “One Minute Interview” series is produced by John Ray and in the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Thomas Smith, Emory University & TMS Consulting (The Exit Exchange, Episode 2)

February 18, 2021 by John Ray

TMS Consulting
North Fulton Studio
Thomas Smith, Emory University & TMS Consulting (The Exit Exchange, Episode 2)
Loading
00:00 /
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file

TMS Consulting

Thomas Smith, Emory University & TMS Consulting (The Exit Exchange, Episode 2)

Nationally recognized expert on economic trends Thomas Smith, professor at Emory University and founder of TMS Consulting, joined this edition of “The Exit Exchange” to discuss macroeconomic trends he’s watching which will influence conditions in 2021, specific issues affecting the metro Atlanta region, and how the professional advisory community could be affected. This edition of “The Exit Exchange” is co-hosted by David Shavzin and Bob Tankesley and is produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.

Thomas Smith, Associate Professor in the Practice of Finance, Emory University

Thomas More Smith holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is considered an expert in the areas of labor economics, pricing, sports economics and finance, the economics of the entertainment industry, the economics of the health care industry, and film finance. He is an Associate Professor in the Practice of Finance at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. He regularly appears as an expert on national television and radio programming (CNN, NPR, Huffington Post) and is frequently quoted in popular press regarding trends in unemployment, inflation, trade, and other macroeconomic trends.

LinkedIn

TMS Consulting, Inc.

TMS Consulting Inc. is a small company with a big view. The company has helped small, medium, and very large companies identify how trends in markets translate into more profitable offerings and policies. TMS has been hired by municipalities and countries in order to estimate the economic impact of hosting events (sporting events or major entertainment events) on their economies. Additionally, TMS has provided analysis and reports on how new legislation and legislative agendas (new taxes, for example) will impact the macroeconomy of cities, states, and countries.

Questions and Topics in this Interview

  •  2020 was an interesting year, what are the big economic issues that you see as we come into 2021?
  • What specifically is happening from an economic standpoint in Atlanta / Georgia?
  • What will be the impact on the professional advisory community?
  • What specifically will affect business owners in the lower middle market that our XPX members can take into account when advising their clients?
  • What else would you like to share with us about what you see coming for the rest of 2021?

The Exit Planning Exchange Atlanta (XPX) is a diverse group of professionals with a common goal: working collaboratively to assist business owners with a sale or business transition. XPX Atlanta is an association of advisors who provide professionalism, principles and education to the heart of the middle market. Our members work with business owners through all stages of the private company life cycle: business value growth, business value transfer, and owner life and legacy. Our Vision: To fundamentally changing the trajectory of exit planning services in the Southeast United States. XPX Atlanta delivers a collaborative-based networking exchange with broad representation of exit planning competencies. Learn more about XPX Atlanta and why you should consider joining our community: https://exitplanningexchange.com/atlanta.

“The Exit Exchange” is produced by John Ray in the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. The show archive can be found at xpxatlantaradio.com. John Ray and Business RadioX are Platinum Sponsors of XPX Atlanta.

Tagged With: Bob Tankesley, David Shavzin, Economic impact analysis, economics, Emory University, Exit Planning Exchange, Goizueta Business School, macroeconomic trends, sports economic impact, Thomas Smith, TMS Consulting, XPX Atlanta

Rick Murphy, Cogent Growth Partners

February 18, 2021 by John Ray

Cogent Growth Partners
Alpharetta Tech Talk
Rick Murphy, Cogent Growth Partners
Loading
00:00 /
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file

Cogent Growth Partners

Rick Murphy, Cogent Growth Partners (“Alpharetta Tech Talk”, Episode 22)

Rick Murphy, CEO of Cogent Growth Partners, joins host John Ray to discuss his firm’s work with IT services companies seeking to expand through acquisition, why acquisitions are vital for acquiring talent, not just customers and revenue, why he calls his work “transaction therapy,” and much more. “Alpharetta Tech Talk” is produced virtually by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.

Cogent Growth Partners

The Cogent team combines IT industry-specific acquisition transaction experience with deep IT operations know-how to help their clients and acquisition candidates in the IT Services sector discover the Opportunity-Delta© that will allow them to join forces and swiftly grow into a more successful company that can produce significantly improved financial results and greater equity value.

They have custom-tailored their due diligence workflows to the IT Services industry, so no time is wasted on generic requests, and all the information is loaded into their proprietary Transaction Analysis Modeling System (“TAMS©”) that allows them to assemble an in-depth breakdown of a Candidate company and not only understand their history and recent performance (like a Quality of Earnings report would) but go even further to look at current and future personnel, customers, operational needs, culture fit, consolidation opportunities, sales objectives, and more; uncovering the potential synergies that make the Opportunity-Delta© a reality.

Company website

Rick Murphy, CEO, Cogent Growth Partners

Rick Murphy is an innovative entrepreneur with deep merger & acquisition experience in the technology space and is the founding CEO and Managing Partner of Cogent Growth Partners, LLC. Since the company’s inception in 2010, Cogent has closed 130+ acquisition transactions for the firm’s buy-side clients in the Information Technology sector across the USA.

Expert at conceiving, planning, and leading comprehensive acquisition strategies to transform and enrich IT Service businesses, Murphy leads the Cogent team throughout the transaction life-cycle, from initial candidate recruiting, through due diligence, financial modeling, valuation, deal negotiation, and transaction structuring, to the creation and negotiation of all transaction documentation and the thoughtful consultation with all parties that is always needed to see a deal through to a successful closing.

LinkedIn

Question/Topics Covered in this Interview

  • Tell me about your company and what it does in its sector. Who are your clients?
  • In the current remote work climate, how have IT Service Providers adapted and are those changes permanent?
  • How have IT Service businesses fared economically over the last year and how has that affected your business?
  • From your perspective, have their valuations changed in terms of acquisitions or mergers?
  • What sets your company apart from other M&A advisories?

About “Alpharetta Tech Talk”

“Alpharetta Tech Talk” is the radio show/podcast home of the burgeoning technology sector in Alpharetta and the surrounding GA 400 and North Fulton area. We feature key technology players from a dynamic region of over 900 technology companies. “Alpharetta Tech Talk” comes to you from from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and is hosted by John Ray.

Past episodes of “Alpharetta Tech Talk” can be found at alpharettatechtalk.com.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with approximately $12.9 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you.

Sending a Truly Authentic “Thank You” to Clients, with Cathy Hogan-Smith, Cachet Corporate Gift Services

February 18, 2021 by John Ray

Cathy-Hogan-Smith
North Fulton Studio
Sending a Truly Authentic "Thank You" to Clients, with Cathy Hogan-Smith, Cachet Corporate Gift Services
Loading
00:00 /
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file

Sending a Truly Authentic “Thank You” to Clients, with Cathy Hogan-Smith, Cachet Corporate Gift Services

John Ray: [00:00:00] And hello again, everyone. This is John Ray with Business RadioX. And I’m here with Cathy Hogan-Smith. And Cathy is the president and owner of Cachet Corporate Gift Services. Cathy, you have some thoughts on sending a truly authentic thank you to clients?

Cathy Hogan-Smith: [00:00:19] Yes, John, we do. All of our designs are custom designed. We don’t have anything sitting on the shelves. For example, a new client contacted us and wanted us to do a gift for a fireman and a police officer. And we went out and searched throughout our 2500 plus vendors around the world, and we’re able to pull off a really unique container, very manly, had a fireman hot sauce, anything fire-themed or police-themed. And we even put yellow caution tape and did bows with that and made it just really manly looking. And we had them delivered and they loved it because it was personalized. It was addressed to them. It focused on what their interests were.

Cathy Hogan-Smith: [00:01:08] And it’s like I tell my clients, I said, “You know, if you’re giving a gift, you don’t want to put all your literature, and your pens, and your mugs, and all that kind of stuff. And if it’s a gift, a true gift, you want to be authentic. And so, you want to focus it towards what they like. If you’re doing marketing pieces, then by all means, we can incorporate all of that into it. We’ll put your pins, and we’ll put your mugs in. We’ll even have a logo ribbon made for you if that’s what you want, but you need to separate those two versus personal gifts makes it a very customized and a very personal way to thank them or to let them know that they’re important to them. And we teach them how to express gratitude, authentic gratitude towards the people that help them in their business.

Cathy Hogan-Smith, Cachet Corporate Gift Services

Cachet Corporate Gift Services has been the go-to gift service for major corporations in Atlanta and nationally since Cathy Hogan-Smith started her business in 1997. Cathy is an expert in design and marketing. She has won numerous awards as a gift designer, writer and  instructor/trainer in the gift industry. Her clients have included CNN, Cox Media Group, Turner Broadcasting System, Auto Trader, the Atlanta Braves, the Atlanta Falcons, Williams Sonoma and the Marriott Corporation.

Cachet’s award-winning design team specializes in unique creations that feature delectable gourmet food and specialty gift items from around the world. Gifts are tailored to specific occasions or events and can include business logos. Cachet has provided gifts that fit with conventions, hotel room amenities, marketing, promotion and branding, grand openings, swag bags, celebrity or professional sporting events and much more. For more information visit the Cachet Corporate Gift Services website.

Cathy Hogan-Smith can be reached by email or text at 678-438-4486.

View Cathy’s full interview on Family Business Radio here. 


The “One Minute Interview” series is produced by John Ray and in the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

 

Tagged With: cachet corporate gift services

Decision Vision Episode 104: Should I Layoff Employees? – An Interview with David Frame, HB NEXT

February 18, 2021 by John Ray

David Frame
Decision Vision
Decision Vision Episode 104: Should I Layoff Employees? - An Interview with David Frame, HB NEXT
Loading
00:00 /
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file

David Frame

Decision Vision Episode 104:  Should I Layoff Employees? – An Interview with David Frame, HB NEXT

Reflecting on an earlier career experience at Allconnect, David Frame, now CFO of HB NEXT, joined host Mike Blake to discuss decisions on layoffs he and his management colleagues had to confront during the 2007-2008 recession. “Decision Vision” is presented by Brady Ware & Company.

David Frame, HB NEXT

David Frame is Chief Financial Officer of HB NEXT. David’s focus has been on growing and scaling private equity-backed technology-enabled services companies in the $25 to 50 million range, and has held both financial and operational leadership roles. David’s passion is developing people and building high functioning teams to effectively execute growth strategies. Outside of work, he volunteers in the Boy Scouts of America, stays active with golf, basketball, and skiing when he can.

He has an MBA in Finance and Electronic Commerce from Vanderbilt.

HB NEXT is a technology-enabled services company servicing construction, industrial, and energy companies with a range of safety and environmental compliance and training solutions.  In business since 1999, the company constantly evolved with technology and now provides several SaaS platforms for clients including SafetyCloud and StormCloud for safety and environmental compliance.

HB NEXT is also proud to be a part of the Construction Ready program, providing training for individuals looking for careers in the commercial construction industry.  To date, the program has successfully placed over 1000 students in high-paying construction jobs in Georgia.

LinkedIn

Mike Blake, Brady Ware & Company

Mike Blake, Host of the “Decision Vision” podcast series

Michael Blake is the host of the “Decision Vision” podcast series and a Director of Brady Ware & Company. Mike specializes in the valuation of intellectual property-driven firms, such as software firms, aerospace firms, and professional services firms, most frequently in the capacity as a transaction advisor, helping clients obtain great outcomes from complex transaction opportunities. He is also a specialist in the appraisal of intellectual properties as stand-alone assets, such as software, trade secrets, and patents.

Mike has been a full-time business appraiser for 13 years with public accounting firms, boutique business appraisal firms, and an owner of his own firm. Prior to that, he spent 8 years in venture capital and investment banking, including transactions in the U.S., Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Brady Ware & Company

Brady Ware & Company is a regional full-service accounting and advisory firm which helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality. Brady Ware services clients nationally from its offices in Alpharetta, GA; Columbus and Dayton, OH; and Richmond, IN. The firm is growth-minded, committed to the regions in which they operate, and most importantly, they make significant investments in their people and service offerings to meet the changing financial needs of those they are privileged to serve. The firm is dedicated to providing results that make a difference for its clients.

Decision Vision Podcast Series

“Decision Vision” is a podcast covering topics and issues facing small business owners and connecting them with solutions from leading experts. This series is presented by Brady Ware & Company. If you are a decision-maker for a small business, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at decisionvision@bradyware.com and make sure to listen to every Thursday to the “Decision Vision” podcast.

Past episodes of “Decision Vision” can be found at decisionvisionpodcast.com. “Decision Vision” is produced and broadcast by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Visit Brady Ware & Company on social media:

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/brady-ware/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bradywareCPAs/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BradyWare

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradywarecompany/

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:01] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast series focusing on critical business decisions. Brought to you by Brady Ware & Company. Brady Ware is a regional, full service accounting and advisory firm that helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality.

Mike Blake: [00:00:20] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast giving you, the listener, clear vision to make great decisions. In each episode, we discuss the process of decision making on a different topic from the business owners’ or executives’ perspective. We aren’t necessarily telling you what to do, but we can put you in a position to make an informed decision on your own and understand when you might need help along the way.

Mike Blake: [00:00:41] My name is Mike Blake, and I’m your host for today’s program. I’m a director at Brady Ware & Company, a full service accounting firm based in Dayton, Ohio, with offices in Dayton; Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Indiana; and Alpharetta, Georgia. Brady Ware is sponsoring this podcast, which is being recorded in Atlanta per social distancing protocols. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast aggregator, and please consider leaving a review of the podcast as well.

Mike Blake: [00:01:08] Today’s topic is, Should I conduct layoffs? And we’ve touched on this topic before, mostly about alternatives to layoffs. But, you know, as I said in Episode 100 that I wasn’t going to be afraid to revisit topics that we have covered before because everybody’s experience is different. And we’re also focusing more on getting people from industry as opposed to advisors on the program. And, again, we’re not going to stop having advisors. We just had one from the previous episode. But, you know, there is a difference from somebody who’s actually had to go through it versus somebody who’s tried to help somebody go through it. You know, there’s empathy and there’s actually feeling the pain.

Mike Blake: [00:01:59] And I think you’re really going to enjoy the podcast that we have for you today or at least find it helpful. Layoffs are not a pleasant topic. Certainly, very few people have enjoyed being laid off. One time I did, because the job I hated and I sucked at and they laid me off. So, they gave me a severance before I quit. So, that was good.

Mike Blake: [00:02:21] But bosses, business owners, business executives, you know, it’s very unpleasant for them to conduct layoffs for many reasons. And I’m not saying that to try to get people to feel sorry for them. But I am trying to say that, you know, if you’re an executive and you’re in a position of either considering layoffs or you’ve had to pull the trigger on that, and if you’re wondering what it says about you, if it bothered you that you had to do that, the answer is that it says good things about you. I think where it says bad things about you, if you can sort of do that cavalierly and then, you know, 30 minutes later, you’re kind of going right back to what you’re doing without a thought. That I would find, frankly, far more disturbing than somebody who had find the topic self-disturbing.

Mike Blake: [00:03:16] And, you know, I’m not sure there’s a more traumatic experience in business than layoffs. You know, if it’s a large company, then the decision to execute a series of layoffs or a layoff program could very well impact the livelihoods of thousands of people. And in a smaller company, it may impact the livelihoods of hundreds or dozens of people. But that’s painful enough. And you probably know a lot of the people that you’re laying off, which just makes it all the more difficult. But at the end of the day, you do have a company to run. You have value that you have to protect for your shareholders. And, you know, one of the reasons that executives are paid as much as they’re paid, besides what they bring to the table in terms of intelligence, capability, willingness to work long hours, weekends, missing birthdays and so forth, but it’s also because they’re the ones who have to make that extremely hard decision.

Mike Blake: [00:04:24] And I’ve had to do it. And our next guest has had to do it more than once, unhappily I know. And I think you’re going to get a lot out of kind of getting inside his head, getting inside what was the mindset, what worked well, what has he learned over the years about doing it better. And so, if you’re an executive that is facing the decision of whether or not that you’re going to have to have layoffs at your company, then my hope is that some of the information we’re going to talk about today is going to help you make a better decision and execute that decision better than you otherwise might have.

Mike Blake: [00:05:08] Joining us today is David Frame, who is the Chief Financial Officer of HB Next, a software and services company providing safety and environmental compliance solutions to construction and industrial companies in the Southeast. David’s focus has been on growing and scaling private equity backed technology enabled services companies in the $25 to 50 million range, and has held both financial and operational leadership roles. David’s passion is developing people and building high functioning teams to effectively execute growth strategies. Outside of work, he volunteers in the Boy Scouts of America, stays active with golf, basketball, and skiing when he can. I think one of his sons is actually an Eagle Scout, if I’m not mistaken.

Mike Blake: [00:05:50] HB Next is a technology enabled services company, servicing construction, industrial, and energy companies with a range of safety and environmental compliance and training solutions. In business since 1999, the company constantly evolved with technology and now provides several software as a service platform for clients including Safety Cloud and Storm Cloud for safety and environmental compliance. HB Next is also proud to be a part of the construction ready program, providing training for individuals looking for careers in the commercial construction industry. To date, the program has successfully placed over 1,000 students in high paying construction jobs in Georgia. Dave Frame, welcome to the program.

David Frame: [00:06:30] Thank you. It’s nice to be here. And, yes, my oldest son did make Eagle and made it the third straight generation of Eagle Scout.

Mike Blake: [00:06:38] Well, good for you. And I assume you’re the second generation. And, you know, thank you all for your service to our community. My son is in scouts. My wife is actually the leader of the Cub Scout troop. And, you know, we’re big fans of the scouting program and what it provides, not just to the individuals, but to the country in terms of building good citizens. So, thank you for that dedication.

David Frame: [00:07:08] I enjoy it.

Mike Blake: [00:07:08] So, let’s dig in. I mean, everybody knows what layoff is. I don’t need to do what I often do in a podcast. You know, what is a layoff? We know what that is. So, what I like you to do is, think about a layoff that you’ve had to do. And I know, unfortunately, you’ve had to kind of go through that – you had to see that movie more than once. But talk about a time that you had to do layoffs. And how did that decision come about? What was involved in making that decision? What was it like to be in the conference room talking through that decision and arriving at the decision that that was the thing that was appropriate to do?

David Frame: [00:07:51] Yeah. Yeah. There’s one that comes to mind, and as you said, unfortunately, I’ve been through it a few times. And oftentimes, it’s really precipitated by a very drastic event. COVID, lots of people had to go through it most recently with the pandemic. But the time I’m going to talk to in this podcast or this moment is one where – and we’ll get into it – it wasn’t necessarily event driven. And I think sometimes these are the hardest ones because there’s not necessarily an excuse, if you will.

Mike Blake: [00:08:25] Yeah. There’s no external blame.

David Frame: [00:08:27] That’s right. There are no external blame. There’s no shock to the system per se. And so, it’s a little like boiling a frog, right? You just slowly end up in a position, and that’s where we were. So, this is a number of years ago – actually, it was 2008 – and we’ll get into that in a second. I’ve been working at Allconnect, which was a technology enabled services company in the digital marketing lead gen space, and venture back, we were growing. As we continue to grow, as you do, you’re adding headcount.

David Frame: [00:09:01] And, frankly, we got to the end of 2007 and we were looking at our results and realizing that we were not on path to be meeting the financial threshold that we need to do towards profitability, which our investors were looking for. And so, we really took the time in early 2008 to sit down and go through the organization, because we felt like we were doing well. We felt like we were on the trajectory. But that wasn’t turning into the bottom line results we were looking for. And we were cash flow positive at that point. And so, we were still – you know, cash burn was an issue. And the last thing you want to do is go back to your investors.

David Frame: [00:09:44] And so, we really sat down with the senior leadership team and took a hard look at our entire organization. We, at the time, had a sales team – like a call center sales team – that was operating pretty well. That was not the issue. We started to look at kind of the overhead, if you will, account management, technology, finance, all of the kind of fixed overhead costs that we had, and we started to really pick it apart and try to look at who is adding value, where are we spending more money than we should. And we went through that process and we realized that we had a lot of people well-intentioned and probably brought on at some point for the right reason. As we’ve evolved, we’ve created a lot of overlap and a lot of redundancy in what people were doing. And it got to the point where we’re just, quite frankly, bloated. Let’s call it a $35 million company is bloated. It shouldn’t be part of the $35 million company. That’s what billion dollar international companies do.

David Frame: [00:10:58] So, we really sat down and we went through kind of a full reorganization of how we aligned resources, how we aligned resources against our customers, against our vendors, and against our goals. And realized that we needed to layoff about 20 percent of our corporate staff. And it was a hard decision because, again, in a small growth company, these are people that many of them started with us early in the process, have been with the company for a while. It’s a small, closely-knit group and so you know all these people really well. And so, it was a hard decision and you really had to fall back to kind of objective measures of what needs to happen, how many people really need to be doing this function to do it the way we want to, and who’s the best suited to do it.

David Frame: [00:11:48] The other thing you find in growth companies like this is, sometimes there’s the saying, “The people that get you here won’t necessarily get you there.” The skillsets you need when you’re a very small startup growth company tend to be people that are a lot of jack of all trades, can pick up a lot of different things, but they may not be the people that also know how to put in systems and structures and process to scale. And I think that’s really what we found we had gotten to.

David Frame: [00:12:18] So, we had to make some hard decisions and let some people go that had been with the company for a long time, were part of the success. But, quite frankly, as much as we tried, they weren’t the right fit going forward. And so, fortunately, we were not up against the wall with a major event that was causing financial stress so we could do it in as fair and equitable way as possible, given everyone’s longevity with the company. But we had to go ahead and do it and reorganize and restructure. And, you know, it’s never easy, particularly in that. But I think we tried to be as honest and upfront about it as possible, and give the context, and go from there.

David Frame: [00:13:07] You know, I will say what’s interesting about the timing of that is, as we know, by the time we fast forward to the fall of 2008, all hell had broken loose. And we were very fortunate to have gotten ahead of this because of a culling process, rather than waiting for the event, that when that happened, we were not in a panic. We were able to do this by being proactive. We were able to do it in a much more rational, logical, and methodical way, which, frankly, is better for the entire organization.

David Frame: [00:13:44] And in that particular case – I’m familiar with the company of which you speak – you know, there’s a dynamic that is somewhat distinctive. You’re venture-backed, correct?

David Frame: [00:13:57] Yes.

Mike Blake: [00:13:57] And you are not yet profitable. So, you know, to a certain extent, you expect venture-backed companies to not be profitable for a period of time. But on the other hand, not everybody is an Uber or an Amazon and can carry unprofitability seemingly indefinitely, if they feel like it. You didn’t have that kind of venture capital, basically. And so, you know, that slow boiling frog is really an interesting and apt description. So, before you reached that point or as you’re reaching that point that layoffs were the right decision to make, even if it was a tough decision, did you consider other vehicles? Maybe some kind of compensation adjustment, work sharing, maybe dumping more money into growth to try to grow your way out of the problem, and trying to cover the costs, or something else. Were there other alternatives that you considered? Or was it very clear just right from the get-go, you just had too much overhead and had to go?

David Frame: [00:15:03] No. I mean, it was clear that our financials were not doing what they needed to do. But, again, I think what we started with in this situation – and this is why it’s nice and something I’ve carried forward in constantly testing this – but we started with aligning an organization that would best accomplish the goals we needed. And then, we started to fill the required boxes in there. And then, what you had was kind of a remainder. And so, it was not done – the goal was not to do layoffs when we started the exercise. The goal is to understand our profitability and really make sure that we’ve aligned the organization for future success.

David Frame: [00:15:50] Had we come to that conclusion and said, “Hey, look. We really need all of these resources because here’s the new structure, here’s what we need to accomplish in 2008, and here are the resources we need and those aligned.” Then, I think we would have been willing to, you know, keep toeing the line, continue on that course, because we did still have funding. We were not going to run out of money right away. But by the same token, what we did was, we had to align the organization. And then, when there were remainders and there were potentially people who didn’t fit the new organization from a skillset perspective or something else, then we realized we had to make those hard decisions and knew that they were right for the company because then we had a fresh start to build from.

Mike Blake: [00:16:38] So, in the process of then implementing the layoffs, what was that like? For example, were you able to give people notice that their jobs are going to end in a week or two weeks? Did you have to basically kind of inform and walk them out the door? Were you able to give them severance? Was there anything else you’re able to sort of do to try to ease the impact or help with the transition?

David Frame: [00:17:04] Yeah. I mean, we were fortunate to be able to give severance, not a lot of golden parachutes, but there was a fair severance for everybody. We were in a situation we felt like we walk people out the door. So, we gave them notice. And in fact, some of that, we needed to do transitions and so on. And so, again, while it was difficult -and you don’t prolong if you don’t have to kind of the people in the building, because at some point that becomes counterproductive. But it was able to be done, like I said, in kind of a methodical as far away as possible, again, partly because we didn’t have our back against the wall.

Mike Blake: [00:17:48] So, what risks were you looking at as you decided to move forward with the layoffs? What are the risks of doing that that concerned you the most?

David Frame: [00:17:59] So, in the company, we had a lot of relationships. We relied on relationships with some large companies on both investor-owned utilities as well as telecommunication companies, and those relationships were critical. And so, one of the things where we really had to focus was how do we maintain those relationships and support those relationships but in a way that doesn’t risk diminishing them or hurting those. But at the same token, doesn’t take as many resources to do so. And so, I think the handoff of those relationships was probably the biggest risk we had because people had formed some good personal relationships amidst the business relationships. And so, we really had to plan around that. We took a lot of time with the executives to make sure the executives were able to step in with some of those changes and kind of support those relationships as needed. And so, we really did have kind of a leadership led process to make sure that all of those remained stable and in good condition. We didn’t lose any business as a result.

Mike Blake: [00:19:11] So, where did the decision for layoffs initiated? You, at the time, I think you’re the senior vice-president of finance and you reported to a chief financial officer. Where did that decision come from? Did it come from you guys? Was it a mandate from the CEO? Is it from the board? Was it from investors who may have sat outside of the board? Where did the genesis of that decision sort of come from?

David Frame: [00:19:39] The genesis came from myself and the CFO. The impetus did, because, as I said, we kind of were looking at our financials and our profitability and understanding that, for lack of a better word, it wasn’t adding up. All right? It was not going on the path we needed to. And I don’t think we had a clear idea why per se. But we knew we were on that path. And the path we were on was not going to get us where we wanted to go. And so, kind of we started with that analysis and understanding and brought that up to the CEO.

David Frame: [00:20:16] It was not at the board level at this point. I mean, we were able to bring that to the board. And then, we sat down with the CEO and the finance team and really kind of went through the first pass of where we are. And then, we had to bring in other leaders, CIO, chief sales officer, those folks into the conversation to start fleshing out the new organization. But the fact that we were going to do it, the decision had been made before we brought in the broader executive team to actually start making the detailed decisions of who needed to go where.

Mike Blake: [00:20:53] You know, you’ve been talking about this in a certain way and it finally sort of hit me. There’s a subtle but very powerful point here in the way that you approached this from an intellectual level. And the way that you approached it was not, “Hey, we have too many people, let’s start swinging the ax.” But it rather was, “Here’s what the organization needs to look like. And of the pool of talent that we currently have within the boundaries of this company, here’s who has a role in that new organization. And here’s who doesn’t have a role in that organization.” Is that a fair way to characterize it? And do you agree that that’s a meaningful distinction?

David Frame: [00:21:34] Yeah. I do. I do for a couple of reasons. One, I think in any growth company – probably any company – as you’re growing, new things come up. It’s not clear where they land. So, it’s easy to start kind of building a Frankenstein’s monster, if you will, of different people. And until you have a comprehensive view now of all the new things that are going on and how to best handle those, you’re going to kind of naturally grow that way a little, you know, Frankenstein’s monster, if you will. And then, you get enough data and you can step back and say, “Hey, there’s a better way to do all of this stuff. Now, that we see all of the new things we’re doing, how are we going to do all those in a more efficient and better way?”

David Frame: [00:22:17] And so, I think that’s a process that needs to happen. In my experience, always has happened in growth companies because of the nature of the way growth comes. And so, on the one hand, it’s the necessity of reassessing what are we doing today that’s different and how are we handling that the best way. The other part, I’ll say, too, is a little bit selfish, which is, nobody wants to have to go through layoffs. It’s painful. I, as a manager, always feel somewhat responsible for having gotten the company into this situation. I know that’s maybe overexaggerating a little bit. But there is a personal responsibility as a manager to say, “Hey, look. If we had been perfect, we might have been able to avoid this.”

David Frame: [00:23:01] So, I think the other part that this does is it provides an objectivity that allows you to make decisions that are hard to make from an emotional perspective. And so, for me, it’s always better to drop back to kind of a process that is not about people and names, but about functions and business requirements, and then match those up with the other one. And then, it’s not personal. It’s about the needs of the business. And it’s a little blunt to cut off a part to save the whole. And that’s what this is all about, you’re saving a hundred jobs by eliminating 20 as opposed to going down this path where, suddenly, it is swinging an ax and it doesn’t matter who you hit. And no one wants to be part of that.

Mike Blake: [00:23:50] So, once the that decision was made, what were some of the key steps in preparing to then implement? And how long did it take you to do that?

David Frame: [00:24:05] So, I think number one, for me, is I believe you want to do it once. And even if you cut a little deeper than you need to, being decisive with a clear communication for the organization of what is happening and why. And this is easier for a small company, I mean, you get to big multinationals, it’s probably hard to manage that. But a mid company size, you have a very clear and honest conversation with your employees of where we are, why we’re doing this, and how we got here. Have that communication come out at once and then have a very clear execution plan of how you’re going to go about doing that, so that everything kind of as much as can be done happens in a very short timeframe. Because I think it makes it easier for the organization. Plus, it allows the remaining people to move forward confidently and not feel like they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Mike Blake: [00:25:10] Okay. So, you want to be prepared to do it quickly, so in order to be able to do that quickly, what’s involved in that?

David Frame: [00:25:19] You know, it’s nailing your talking points – not talking points, but nailing your message, really focusing on what you want to communicate to whom, and having that fully baked with a communication plan when, who, how. It also involves orchestrating all the individual conversations that need to go both for the people that are moving out, but also for the people that are moving in. And sometimes, you know, you want to really prepare the people that are staying before you necessarily let the people know that they’re going. It’s a tight window. But I would rather not surprise the person that’s stepping into a new role. I prefer to let them know what’s going on so they’re prepared. So, when the news is delivered to the person who’s leaving, there’s someone ready to step into that breach.

Mike Blake: [00:26:16] Okay. And that messaging, did you have legal counsel review it?

David Frame: [00:26:20] Yes. Yeah. We did. That was relatively – a smaller company, it’s a little easier. But, yeah, I mean, through the whole process, you’ve got to – and even more so nowadays – be really crisp on understanding and documenting. And another reason we do the process is from a legal perspective, too – I would say I’m more appreciated about now than maybe 15, 20 years ago – but going through that objective process we talked about also is very helpful from a legal standpoint as well as we’re in a world where you’ve got to have your I’s dotted and T’s crossed on those items as well.

Mike Blake: [00:27:00] You know, I’m assuming you agree with me that a layoff is a traumatic event, individually as well as collectively. What was the impact upon the people left behind and how did you manage kind of the after effects left in the wake of the layoffs?

David Frame: [00:27:24] I think that’s a great point, because as you were talking, it occurred to me, the other part of this that I found important is the honesty and the openness that you do this is critical for, (A) the relationships that you’re leaving as they leave the company. But more so, you’ve got an entire organization watching how you choose to execute something like this. And the more that you come at it with an honesty, and an empathy, and an openness, I think you can actually use these opportunities. These opportunities are either going to build or destroy trust in your organization. And the more that you demonstrate to the remaining organization that you are being honest, and open, and forthright, and empathetic, then that is critical to keeping that trust and the people that are still here and getting them to rally behind the new organization as opposed to buck against it or be distrustful of it.

David Frame: [00:28:28] And so, I have seen situations where, you know, it was not done in a way that felt right to people that, again, been long time employees. And I think that really starts to set the new organization on the wrong path in terms of trust, and buy in, and all the things you need to be successful.

Mike Blake: [00:28:49] And, you know, talk about, say, the 24 to 48 hours after announcing the layoffs. Could you feel a difference in the office? I mean, was there a different atmosphere, if you will, or were people able to kind of go back to business as usual?

David Frame: [00:29:09] I think there were two things. I mean, there was a brief period of, what we call, mourning, where people or friends left the building. But I think quickly, frankly, that turned not into business as usual, which was good. It turned into kind of an energy that says, “Okay. We’re refocused. We’ve got the right people on the bus.” I mean, the fact is, when you get to those situations, other employees have the same sense that, “Hey, this isn’t working quite right.” And so, I think if you do this right, you really get a reenergized group of people that see the vision, see the new organization, what it can accomplish. And if you pick the leaders right for that stay, then they’re energized with their new opportunity, probably taking on some different and new responsibilities. And you can actually kind of slingshot your way forward a little bit.

Mike Blake: [00:30:05] You know, that’s an interesting point and I wanted to ask you about that, and I still will because I like to probe. And that is, you know, employees are smart, right? They know what’s going on, on the ground. They often know better than we do in the C-suite, because, I mean, they’re just they’re living it day to day. And I do think on some level, they do know kind of who has a cushy job, who doesn’t have a cushy job, who seems to have a clear role, who doesn’t. And, you know, I do wonder if there’s some appreciation on some level that management at least is knowledgeable enough and has the courage to take action.

David Frame: [00:30:46] Yeah. I think that’s dead on. And I think that’s why people know those that aren’t pulling their weight, either on purpose or not, and the ones that are really motivated can get resentful of that, right? And so, it can be counterproductive. So, when they do see you taking action – and, again, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with that individual. It could be the position they were put in the role. But the fact that you get to the point where, you know, some group is carrying more than their weight, and there’s a group that’s not carrying their weight, and they see that. And so, the fact that, again, in their honest, open way, management is willing to acknowledge that and move forward is a motivator to those folks. And those are the folks you want to motivate too, right? I mean, those are the ones that are chomping at the bit to do more.

Mike Blake: [00:31:33] Well, yeah. And I think to my mind – and tell me if I’m wrong – one of the concerns that comes in right after that is okay. How do you motivate the people you want to stay to stay? Because it’s a natural reaction, I think, that if you’re in a firm that is having layoffs and is faltering at achieving its goals and there’s no more concrete admission of that than layoffs, some people are going to think, “Well, you know, maybe I should get off before my number comes up. Maybe I ought to get my resume out in the street. Or I have to flip a switch in the LinkedIn and say I’m open to job offers,” that sort of thing. And so, how did you manage trying to make sure, in particular the people you really wanted to keep, those high performers continue to have confidence in the company and to sell them? Did you feel like you had to sell them a new on, “We did this, this sucked. I’m not going to sugarcoat it this is a setback. But here’s why you ought to double down.”

David Frame: [00:32:44] Yeah. I mean, again, I’ll keep going back to it, I think honesty and transparency is the key there. And you can’t just wait to this side. That has to be a culture that you’re building anyway. People have to believe they trust you anyway. But I think if you go through a difficult situation, and sometimes that transparency involves risk. And I can share another story of that. But I think if you are honest and transparent, they have to start by trusting you to begin with. But if you continue that honesty and that transparency, and even as a business, take a little risk, then I think you’re likely to – maybe not everybody – retain that trust and gain that backing that you’re looking for. But it’s not going to come unless you’re willing to give a little bit as a company or as a management team.

David Frame: [00:33:34] I’ll share one story that I think embodies that a little bit. Not too long ago, I was working for a company and we had a sizable call center sales force. And we found out we lost a piece of business with one of our biggest clients. And so, in 60 days or 30 days, we were going to lose this business. So, we very quickly put together a plan and it would have been very easy for us, for business continuity reasons or for any business, to wait until a week before and then let everyone know that we lost this business and it’s no longer here. “Sorry. Here’s two weeks. Good luck.” But we didn’t think that was the right thing to do.

David Frame: [00:34:22] So, what we did is, we let about 75 people know right away this is coming and we also explained why. We, also, at the same time, had a plan where we set up a process by which people could apply for internal jobs in the other areas. We also had already reached out to a couple of companies in the area that did similar things and let them know we had high quality people that were being let go. So, we brought them in for job fairs. We set up a job fair internally. And I got to tell you, at the end of that conversation, the appreciation from a bunch of people just being told they’re going to be laid off was tremendous.

David Frame: [00:35:08] And what we found was, most of them stayed around. Some of them looked for other jobs. But they didn’t feel like we were going to cut their legs out. And so, you know, they went through the process and we were able to have a very orderly transition. And we bought a lot of credibility with the rest of the organization because they saw how we treated those people. And so, they’re going to be more trusting going forward. So, I think in the long term, while we took some risk – because half of those people could have walked out the door the next day and we have been struggling and we missed – we chose to take the risk of honesty and transparency because we felt like that was the culture we wanted. Plus, the benefit for us is, we continued to build the trust with our employee base, which is what we really needed for the remaining 350 people versus that. And so, that is the type of thing you got to make some decisions on how you’re going to handle these things. And sometimes they go beyond X’s and O’s, if you will.

Mike Blake: [00:36:03] Well, I mean, that’s when you find out what a company’s integrity and what a company’s dedication to its workforce is. It’s easy to have integrity and dedicated when you’re not in crisis. And there’s sort of plenty of money for everybody. But when things get tight and you’ve got to take something off the table, and you really have constraints, that’s where you find out what price are you willing to pay or even potentially willing to pay in order to pursue that path of integrity. And, you know, you showed it. I’ve never heard of that before where you proactively, you know, invite your competitors to come in and start recruiting, I think that’s awesome. That was very vulnerable. And I can see why people were appreciative of it.

Mike Blake: [00:36:55] And, you know, the thing also is, there are a lot of things that make Americans different from other societies. And one of them, I think, frankly, is that Americans know the name of the game, right? Americans, for the most part, we know that we are at will employees and we generally do not have a culture of job entitlement. We certainly have not had that since the 1980s, because of the economic realities just don’t match that. And part of this, too, I think is kind of giving people some credit. I mean, there are cases, obviously, there are disastrous cases where an employee is really upset and then it becomes a crisis of a different kind. And we had a guest come on and talk about that in the first couple of months of the show, Bruce Blythe. But for the most part, we benefit from a culture where, you know, Americans kind of know the score that nothing is guaranteed to them. And I think because of that case, honesty and transparency and integrity, I actually think, worked better in that case.

David Frame: [00:38:08] I think so, too. And I’ll be honest with you, you don’t learn that right away. One of the interesting things about potentially being on the finance side is, in my history, even as a junior person, when these things happen and you’re not in the management side, you tend to get pulled in early. Because they’re running the models, you’re trying to see that. And so, I guess I was fortunate – or unfortunate – but fortunate to watch other people in management seats have to go through this and took my own personal learnings from that about watching it when it was done in a way that felt a little sneakier or whatever. And so, I think that gave me a little bit of opportunity to learn before I was actually responsible for it. But, yeah, I just made a personal decision, again, because it’s a personal thing that, for me, I just always err towards transparency and openness. And I found that from an ROI perspective, I would argue you almost always get paid back on that.

Mike Blake: [00:39:11] You know, from a personal perspective, one of the best lessons I got as a young analyst was, I had to do one of those analysis to help somebody run three numbers for potential layoffs. And as I handed in my first draft – this was back in the days when bosses still wanted things in paper and wanted them stapled – he said, “Before you give that to me -” he looked me right in the eye and said, “- you need to know that those numbers represent people and families. So, what I want you to do is I want you to go away for an hour and then look at that from that context. And then, if you still believe this is the right thing to do, then I’ll take a look at it. But if you want, putting that in your head, if you want to take some more time to look at this, you can go ahead and do that.” And I thought that was a great lesson. That’s one I’ve never forgotten. And when this comes up with my clients, it’s one that I teach my analysts as well.

David Frame: [00:40:08] Yeah. I mean, you can’t get away from personal connection. Again, particularly at small and mid-sized companies where you really know everybody so closely and so well.

Mike Blake: [00:40:19] But it is easy. I mean, you haven’t done it. I hope that I haven’t done it. But it is easy. And I certainly believe I know people who have. It’s easy to dehumanize these things when they’re numbers in a spreadsheet. A change of a formula here, two people are fired. A change from an assumption there, six people are fired. Or they’re not getting their bonus or whatever. And one of the reasons I want to have you specifically to talk about that on this program is because I know you don’t think that way. I know that when you’re looking at that spreadsheet, behind that, there’s a realization of the human cost of what you’re contemplating.

David Frame: [00:41:02] And I’m going tell you the other big lesson that I learned from that is, I am much more reticent to hire the next body until there’s a very proven need with a long term proven need with a very defined role. Because until you’ve been through it and have to lay those people off, and you realize that potentially you’ve got to make sure it’s not a zero sum game. Because I don’t want to go through that. And so, sometimes that means we’re a little late on hiring. I’d much rather do that and work with the team I’ve got, and suck it up for a little bit, and prove that we have the need, then you don’t have to go through a layoff. We could avoid it. And I think it really does make you a much more discerning hirer.

Mike Blake: [00:41:49] Yeah. I agree with that. And I’ve been in cases where I’ve been pushed to hire. And I’m like, “No. We can handle it.” But I mean, the nightmare scenario is that you hire somebody and then three months later, things don’t pan out. And then, you got tell them, “Look, I don’t have the money to pay anymore.” And, you know, that’s just not a responsibility I’m interested in taking.

David Frame: [00:42:13] So, just as a note, right in that same time, this happened in that time, and I probably blocked it from my side. We hired a guy and came to this whole realization I talked about in the period of which we hired him to when he showed up, and we had to tell him there’s no job for him. I mean, it was horrible. And we made it right. Like, we worked very hard – similar to what we did – to give him a soft landing and all that stuff because that was unfair to him. And I felt horrible because the CFO and I looked at each other and said, “We need this role.” And then, it was a long transition. When we got the end of it, we can’t lay these people off and bring this new person on. And I think that event, probably more than anything, exactly highlighted what you said in no uncertain terms. And I think that probably as much as anything has shaped my hiring and layoff decisions from there going forward.

Mike Blake: [00:43:15] We’re talking to Dave Frame, who is Chief Financial Officer of HB Next. And the topic is, Should my company conduct layoffs? We’re running up against time here, and I’m not surprised. But a couple more questions before we let you go. And one of them is that, you know, how do you handle the emotional impact of having to make that decision? First, in one role, I know that you are reporting to the CFO, so you’re supporting that decision. But the last two, you’ve been the CFO, you have been that person who the buck stop with you, period. I’m curious how you emotionally make peace with those decisions and the aftermath, and find a way to kind of heal yourself on that, and move on.

David Frame: [00:44:06] And I think some of it, for me, is through the process. I’m an empirical person. And so, going through the right process and feeling like we’ve done everything we could to turn over every stone to make sure this is the right decision is the first step. The second step, to me, is honesty and transparency. It’s a hard time for everybody. And we owe it to that person and the rest of the organization to be as honest and transparent as we can. And then, doing it personally. I think that, you know, lots of times there are people that defer this to other people in the organization. And I just feel like, when appropriate, as the executive, it’s my responsibility. As I said, part of my responsibility that we got here and so it’s my responsibility to look it through. And so, I try to, you know, without sugarcoating it, be involved in delivering the message, and the empathy, and transparency, and try to support them as best I can. And I guess that’s about all I can do to make myself feel like I understand that inevitability in business at some level. But at least I’ve handled it in the most fair, transparent, and empathetic way.

Mike Blake: [00:45:29] Dave, this is great. There’s lots of ground we could cover. And, of course, every situation is different. If somebody would like to reach out to you to maybe ask you a question or some advice about a similar situation they’re facing, can they do that? And if so, what’s the best way to connect with you?

David Frame: [00:45:45] Yeah. Probably the easiest way is just to email me at my work email address. It’s dframe, like a picture frame, D-F-R-A-M-E@hbnext.com. And I’m happy to – if I can help anyone through this, I’m happy to do it. Or bounce any ideas, I’m happy to do that as well.

Mike Blake: [00:46:03] Thank you. That’s going to wrap it up for today’s program. I’d like to thank Dave Frame so much for joining us and sharing his expertise with us.

Mike Blake: [00:46:11] We’ll be exploring a new topic each week, so please tune in so that when you’re faced with your next business decision, you have clear vision when making it. If you enjoy these podcasts, please consider leaving a review with your favorite podcast aggregator. It helps people find us that we can help them. Once again, this is Mike Blake. Our sponsor is Brady Ware & Company. And this has been the Decision Vision podcast.

Tagged With: Allconnect, Brady Ware, Brady Ware & Company, CFO, David Frame, employee layoffs, HB NEXT, layoffs, Michael Blake, Mike Blake, recession

Erica Ramsey-Bowen, Peach E PawTraits and Little Bayou Fairy Factory

February 16, 2021 by John Ray

Erica Ramsey-Bowen
North Fulton Business Radio
Erica Ramsey-Bowen, Peach E PawTraits and Little Bayou Fairy Factory
Loading
00:00 /
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed

Download file

Erica Ramsey-Bowen

Erica Ramsey-Bowen, Peach E PawTraits and Little Bayou Fairy Factory (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 329)

Book illustrator and artist Erica Ramsey-Bowen joins host John Ray to discuss her journey from Corporate America to her own creative business, why she’s passionate about work with children’s books, how the pandemic has affected her work, and much more. “North Fulton Business Radio” is produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.

Erica Ramsey-Bowen, Owner and Illustrator, Peach E PawTraits and Little Bayou Fairy Factory

Erica Ramsey-Bowen is a professional children’s book author and illustrator and pet portrait artist who resides in Smyrna, Georgia with her “long-suffering husband, Scott, and opinionated Maltie dog, Boomer”. After working in various professional corporate roles for almost twenty years, Ramsey-Bowen began her own tiny company exactly two years and one month ago with the hopes of bringing “wacky, fun, and inspiring beautiful art into the world”. Since that time, she has participated in Zoo Atlanta’s “Art Gone Wild”, has created almost 500 pet portraits (which she cheekily refers to as “PawTraits”), has donated her goods and services to many local charitable organizations including but not limited to Ahimsa House, Cobb Library Foundation, LifeLine Animal Services, Mostly Mutts, and the Humane Society of Cobb County.

She is a proud member of the Rotary Club of East Cobb and you may have recently seen some of her work within the walls of the newest addition to the Humane Society of Cobb County’s Campus as Ramsey-Bowen created the murals that now grace its hallways. Ramsey-Bowen believes that the heart of all you do in this world matters – good, bad or indifferent. That’s why her passion keeps her busy as she is currently on pace to have 8 new books illustrated by various authors in publication by the end of 2021, including her own addition to children’s literature: “The Little Bayou Fairy”.

Peach E PawTraits and The Little Bayou Fairy Factory are subsidiaries of Peach E Holdings, LLC, the company Erica Ramsey-Bowen created in 2019.

The primary product of these two companies is unbridled joy and wonderment through art and illustrated books.

Since opening her doors, Erica Ramsey-Bowen has produced over 500 pet portraits and has created beautiful, vibrant illustrations for 6 different children’s books (“A No Don’t Day” by Carla Wright-Jukes, “ommYoga Kids” by Jessica Manfredi-Carter, “Flora” by Lissette Perry, “The Mash-up Man” by Pamela Saunders and Charlie, “Mr. Fix-it Tackles the To-Do List” (coming by end of Feb 2021) by Micaela Benn, and her own first published book, “The Little Bayou Fairy”.

Clients interested in commissions can reach Erica Ramsey-Bowen by calling or directly messaging her on Facebook, Instagram, and or Twitter.

Company website, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

  • You began your company – an art company – at the end of 2019 after almost 20 years working in Corporate America – why the sudden shift?
  • How were you able to do so much during such an incredibly strange and emotionally tumultuous time in our history?
  • What have been some of the challenges doing what you do that were intensified during the pandemic?
  • Who is your inspiration? How have they inspired what you do, every day?
  • What have been your favorite moments, doing what you do?
  • There is such a diversity within the books you illustrate/design/and write and I hear even more is coming… could you share why this is personally important to you?

North Fulton Business Radio” is hosted by John Ray and produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Tagged With: artist, children's book, children's book illustrator, Erica-Ramsey Bowen, illustrator, Little Bayou Fairy Factor, Peach E PawTraits, pet portraits, pets

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 206
  • 207
  • 208
  • 209
  • 210
  • …
  • 276
  • Next Page »

Business RadioX ® Network


 

Our Most Recent Episode

CONNECT WITH US

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Our Mission

We help local business leaders get the word out about the important work they’re doing to serve their market, their community, and their profession.

We support and celebrate business by sharing positive business stories that traditional media ignores. Some media leans left. Some media leans right. We lean business.

Sponsor a Show

Build Relationships and Grow Your Business. Click here for more details.

Partner With Us

Discover More Here

Terms and Conditions
Privacy Policy

Connect with us

Want to keep up with the latest in pro-business news across the network? Follow us on social media for the latest stories!
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Business RadioX® Headquarters
1000 Abernathy Rd. NE
Building 400, Suite L-10
Sandy Springs, GA 30328

© 2025 Business RadioX ® · Rainmaker Platform

BRXStudioCoversLA

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of LA Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversDENVER

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Denver Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversPENSACOLA

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Pensacola Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversBIRMINGHAM

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Birmingham Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversTALLAHASSEE

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Tallahassee Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversRALEIGH

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Raleigh Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversRICHMONDNoWhite

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Richmond Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversNASHVILLENoWhite

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Nashville Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversDETROIT

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Detroit Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversSTLOUIS

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of St. Louis Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversCOLUMBUS-small

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Columbus Business Radio

Coachthecoach-08-08

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Coach the Coach

BRXStudioCoversBAYAREA

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Bay Area Business Radio

BRXStudioCoversCHICAGO

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Chicago Business Radio

Wait! Don’t Miss an Episode of Atlanta Business Radio