Unlocking Business Potential: How Ciobo Connects Owners with Experts for Operational Success

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program. The accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor KSU Executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories today on the show. We have Robert Burke, who is the founder and CEO with Sobo. Welcome.

Sobo: Appreciate you having me, Lee.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Sobo.

Sobo: Look, most small and midsize businesses are flying blind. More than they’d like to admit. They’ve got financial data, operational data, people issues, but no clear way to turn those into decisions. And hiring full time executives to fix it just isn’t realistic. That’s the gap that Sobo has built to solve.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea?

Sobo: So Sobo really started 17 years ago when I was. I had started my IT MSP core 12. Core 12 is now a managed intelligence provider here in Atlanta, Georgia, and we’ve been serving small to midsize companies for almost two decades. And what we found is that every business owner that we’ve ever come in contact has two big needs. The first is they have a lack of clarity and what’s holding their business back. And the second is they have a lack of resources internally to execute the owner’s vision. So that’s the gap that was built to solve. And Sobo is an AI powered platform that helps businesses quickly identify what’s actually holding them back, whether that’s profitability leaks or operational inefficiencies or maybe even leadership gaps. And then we connect them with vetted experts who can fix those problems.

Lee Kantor: So it combines kind of the way that AI can synthesize the data, but you also add a human to the mix to kind of guide it to the solution.

Sobo: That is correct. We’re using AI for for good. We’re using AI to get really quality people in front of those businesses that are struggling with specific issues. So instead of spending months and tens of thousands of dollars on traditional consulting just to figure out what’s going wrong, we can get a we can get a business from confusion to clarity in a matter of minutes. And that’s the big shift speed and precision.

Lee Kantor: But once they have the data, you’re still going to deploy a human to help them execute and deliver on kind of the opportunity that the AI uncovers.

Sobo: That’s exactly right. Right now, a business owner comes into solo, they answer a few targeted questions about their company. And our system generates insights that pinpoint where those issues are. And then from there, we match them with a vetted expert who’s done it before, someone who knows their industry, understands their problem and can step in quickly to to resolve it. That could be a fractional operator, someone helping drive strategy part time, or it could also be a targeted project. The key here is structured accountability. And it’s built around outcomes, not just advice.

Lee Kantor: So is this a two sided marketplace where you have the entrepreneur with the challenges on one hand, and then you have the other, the consultants or the fractional folks that can help solve it?

Sobo: That is correct. It’s an AI powered, SaaS enabled marketplace that pulls in all that data that business owners do not have the time, energy or effort to dedicate to sifting through. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. And if you’ve been a business owner, you know what I’m talking about.

Lee Kantor: So what is kind of so. Okay, let’s start at the beginning. So you have a marketplace. So you have to have the consultants. Are you vetting the consultants or is this kind of just a free for all?

Sobo: Absolutely. These consultants are all vetted experts in their domains. So whether that is in operations, finance, technology, strategy, leadership, you know, we’re vetting experts and we’re bringing in high quality people that have spent at least a decade serving small to mid-sized companies. We’re focused on small to midsize businesses, typically doing anywhere from a couple of million up to $100 million in revenue. These are companies that are growing. They’ve got real complexity, but they don’t have a full executive bench. They’re the ones really feeling the pressure. Things are breaking, margins tightening. Teams are stretched and they need experienced leadership without taking on full time overhead.

Lee Kantor: So what are some of the symptoms or signals to an entrepreneur that, hey, maybe I should check out Sobo. What kind of pain are they having right now that Sobo might be able to help them?

Sobo: So that’s going to be one out of a thousand things at any given time. There’s always going to be a need, regardless of who the business owner is, where he or she is located. They’re all going to lack clarity in one or more areas of their business. They’re going to have challenges in one or more areas of business. So we we do two things. And the first thing is the most important. It’s giving them that clarity up front. You know, most marketplaces or platforms, they just throw you into a marketplace and say, good luck. We actually help you understand the problem before you engage with anyone.

Lee Kantor: So is this something that once I kind of plug into the Sobo ecosystem that I just stay plugged in because like you said, I’m always going. To have issues.

Sobo: 100%. It’s like you get an Apple Watch, you slap it on your wrist. It tells you when your heart rate’s down, tells you when your blood pressure’s up. This is the same thing. We have a diagnostic engine that is looking at your business 24 over seven. It’s also giving you a score on your operations IQ. And there’s just so, so many things that we’re able to look at in real time thanks to the benefit of AI and, and quality structure. That’s what we’re all about is we’re about helping business owners figure out what’s wrong and then giving them a structured process to getting to getting those results, to getting to the, to the success on the other side of that issue, because there always is a, there’s a way to get there and there’s a way to pay for to pay for results and not just pay for advice. So that’s what we’re doing here.

Lee Kantor: All right. So I’m in. I’m an entrepreneur. I got a business. I want to do this. So what do I have? What are the steps to onboard me?

Sobo: Very simple. Just go to Sobo dot AI. You’re going to click the option for free trial. You’re going to go through a 3 to 5 minute what we call the ops IQ. It’s going to give you a scorecard. It’s going to give you an approximation of your of your operational maturity and your business lifecycle. It’s also going to start generating insights for you from there. If you have specific areas that you want to get clarity in, say finance or HR or operations, you can go into our diagnostic engine and you can start requesting those insights. You know, whether it’s 1:00 in the afternoon or as most business owners are familiar, 2:00 in the morning, waking up, you can’t sleep. What’s going on with my business? And so we’re giving them that business analyst 24 over seven 365. And they don’t have to pay an arm and a leg to get there. The second thing we do with clarity after clarity is that we’re also providing that quality and structure around the engagement itself. You’re engaging with vetted experts, not freelancers with real operating experience. And the engagements are structured in a way so that there are clear deliverables and accountability at the end of the day. Business owners don’t want more noise. They want results. And that’s what we’re built around.

Lee Kantor: So now, um, how much stuff am I going to have to download? And what’s kind of the protection I’m having that I’m just not giving this up to the world to see.

Sobo: Absolutely. That’s a great question. So if you go to like, uh, you know, pick your AI model, ChatGPT, Claude, whatever, you know, they have this option where you can add in connectors and you can add in your HubSpot, uh, or you can add in your QuickBooks. Do not I do not advise anyone to do that with their business data, because these LMS are in the business of not just taking your data, but also taking your business model. What we’ve built is a proprietary diagnostic engine that injects your company data, whether that’s from QuickBooks or Salesforce or what other, what other cloud applications that you run on a day to day basis within your company? We are taking ingesting that data and our diagnostic engine. We are we are sanitizing it, rinsing it, making sure that the, as we as we’re engaging these LMS that they do not know who you are, what your business is, or any other sensitive information.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Sobo: Yeah. You know, we’re just looking for business owners in and around Atlanta that are interested in learning more about how they can engage Sobo as really, truly an operating system for their company. It’s going to give them clarity. It’s going to give them access to experts on demand. And you’re going to be able to pay for, uh, for results and not just promises.

Lee Kantor: And do you have a story you can share about somebody maybe who, um, came to you and started using Sobo and got good results? Uh, don’t name the name of the organization, but maybe share the challenge that they had and how Sobo was able to help.

Sobo: Absolutely. You know, we had a, we had a $15 million fire protection business that over the last two decades has has spent over $500,000 in failed consulting engagements. And a lot of that had to do with, you know, lack of proper vetting of the expert and also lack of holding that expert accountable. And that is an area that there’s a lot of weakness in when it comes to owners and operators of companies. You know, we project, you know, we’re, we’re really good at what we do and we just project and we, we take people for their word. Um, we created a system designed to take the lift off of business owners holding the expert accountable. You’re when you engage with an expert through Sobo, we are escrowing those engagement fees and we’re not releasing those fees to the expert until you’ve signed off on their work product. We keep it really simple.

Lee Kantor: So is it possible just to use Sobo as that dashboard and not engage with an expert? Or is it kind of if you’re going to go and start using Sobo, you have to assume at some point you’re going to have to hire some somebody to help.

Sobo: Absolutely. Use Sobo as a clarity engine to help your potentially your internal team get get insight into what’s going wrong. And if you have resources internally that can execute in that area. Great. Give them, give them the insight, share it with them and create a project internal project to address that issue. In the situations where you know you have an issue, you have a challenge, and you don’t have anyone in the inside of your organization that’s competent enough to to deal with that effectively, simply engage with an expert on the platform and we’ll take it from there.

Lee Kantor: Now, when it comes to working with Sobo and installing it and using it, is it something that it’s going to replace, something I’m already paying for separately, or is this just another one of these subscriptions now I have to deal with?

Sobo: It’s another it’s another subscription that is going to layer on top of all the other applications that you use, and it’s going to give you a financial health visibility dashboard for your company. So you’re able to see where your operations IQ is currently, how you’re tracking, you’re able to get clarity on any area of your business. And you know, and you take it from there, it’s ultimately up to the operator, the business owner to decide if and when and how he engages or what he does next with the clarity that he gets, because we can give you clarity all day long, 24 over seven. It’s, it’s and you’re, you know, you, you’re deciding you’re in the driver’s seat with regards to, you know, how you want to take action on that.

Lee Kantor: But it’s not replacing any of the I already have.

Sobo: Uh, it, it will become the, the brain for the owner. Operator. You’re going to go to Sobo to get clarity. You’re not going to, you know, want to use the, the open LM models anymore because they don’t have, they don’t have your business persona. They don’t really understand, you know, what is, is ailing your company. But we do because we have secure secure connectors with, you know, the cloud applications that you’re using on a day to day.

Lee Kantor: So what was it like to launch this startup here in Atlanta? What, um, what have you gotten from the ecosystem?

Sobo: Yeah. You know, um, Fortunately, I had the benefit of having ran a successful it MIP for the last 17 years, so I have, I’ve had a strong network of other business owners and friends that have been able to kind of guide this product. And we want to, we want to build this product to be the go to for any business owner in that small to mid size range that needs clarity and they need help.

Lee Kantor: Is there any niche that you’re going after or it sounds like it’s industry agnostic, but have you found that certain niches are gravitating towards it? When you’re launching?

Sobo: Absolutely. So we, you know, it is, it is, uh, pretty much purpose built for any, uh, type of business. But we do have specific verticals that we’re going after, uh, on the initial phase. So we’re looking for architecture, engineering, construction firms, professional services firms, manufacturing firms, as well as industrial services.

Lee Kantor: And all between that two and $100 million range.

Sobo: That is correct. And honestly, we have some subscribers on the platform that are only doing a million in revenue, but they’re in growth mode. They want to solve their problems. They want to move forward. They don’t want to keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Sobo: Yeah, website is sobo dot ai. And you can connect with me directly at Robert at Sobo AI.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, congratulations on all the momentum Robert. And you’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Sobo: Appreciate it Lee. Thank you for your time.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.