2025-12-17_brainforge_x_abc_discovery_regroup_0256dd4a

Meeting Title: Brainforge x ABC: Discovery Regroup Date: 2025-12-17 Meeting participants: Steven, bojenkins, Uttam Kumaran, Amber Lin

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WEBVTT

1 00:00:08.920 ⇒ 00:00:12.310 Uttam Kumaran: Hey guys, sorry about that, just running out of another meeting.

2 00:00:12.820 ⇒ 00:00:13.910 bojenkins: You’re good.

3 00:00:14.640 ⇒ 00:00:16.020 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, how’s everything?

4 00:00:16.290 ⇒ 00:00:21.359 bojenkins: It’s always fun jumping on a Zoom, and, like, everyone’s screens are black, but it’s, like, the reveal of everybody.

5 00:00:21.360 ⇒ 00:00:37.940 Uttam Kumaran: I’m usually the reveal, like, I come in, like, and I’m always leading the meetings, I come on, there’s, like, all people, no video, I turn mine on, and I have no shame, and then people are like, okay, well, if he’s on, then I’m gonna turn mine on, and I, I burst the bubble, I feel like, so…

6 00:00:38.100 ⇒ 00:00:40.490 bojenkins: Yeah, I’ve always just… it’s just awkward when, like.

7 00:00:41.100 ⇒ 00:00:45.359 bojenkins: two to three people on, like, a 10-person call have their screens on, everybody’s off. It’s like…

8 00:00:45.560 ⇒ 00:00:47.010 Steven: No, I don’t understand, yeah.

9 00:00:47.010 ⇒ 00:01:01.549 Uttam Kumaran: It definitely… it definitely is awkward, usually because I’m leading them, and of course, like, we’re working for clients, I’m like, guys, go video on, no, there’s no excuse, like, unless you’re, like, doing something else, like, go video on, and I don’t care if…

10 00:01:01.720 ⇒ 00:01:04.349 Uttam Kumaran: Because it’s worth people to see us, and I think…

11 00:01:04.349 ⇒ 00:01:09.340 Steven: it’s hard, because we’re… that’s why I think we’re lucky to have met you guys in person, but many of our clients, we…

12 00:01:09.340 ⇒ 00:01:14.000 Uttam Kumaran: Never… we’ve never met, or maybe would never get to met… get to me, and so…

13 00:01:14.130 ⇒ 00:01:18.469 Uttam Kumaran: that’s tough. Like, it’s tough to sort of share that we’re, like, we’re humans, you know, so…

14 00:01:20.350 ⇒ 00:01:21.919 bojenkins: Yeah, we, we…

15 00:01:21.940 ⇒ 00:01:24.270 Steven: We did, like, an all-sales call.

16 00:01:24.270 ⇒ 00:01:26.059 bojenkins: Was it last Friday or the Friday before?

17 00:01:26.490 ⇒ 00:01:38.829 bojenkins: And it’s, like, a hybrid one, we’re all in a conference room, and everyone’s on the screen. And one person had their camera off, and we were like, show us your screen! And we’re like, he’s definitely still in his PJs, or in his hotel room.

18 00:01:38.830 ⇒ 00:01:39.270 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

19 00:01:39.270 ⇒ 00:01:39.800 bojenkins: Straight on.

20 00:01:39.800 ⇒ 00:01:41.480 Steven: Wouldn’t do it.

21 00:01:41.850 ⇒ 00:01:44.619 Steven: You’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be, yeah.

22 00:01:44.870 ⇒ 00:01:45.639 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but also…

23 00:01:45.640 ⇒ 00:01:46.560 Steven: meeting.

24 00:01:46.560 ⇒ 00:02:03.399 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and that kind of thing gets really tough, but, like, even if you were just 5 minutes before, like, hey guys, I’m, like, run into something, or something happened, you could just figure out an excuse, but if you show up, and everybody’s on, your boss is on video, like, I feel like it’s like, dude, get it together.

25 00:02:03.400 ⇒ 00:02:06.870 bojenkins: There’s a little bit of common sense out there that sometimes is lacking.

26 00:02:08.000 ⇒ 00:02:22.670 Uttam Kumaran: Awesome. So let me just pull some stuff together, but I’ll kind of give you guys a breakdown of, like, where we’ve sort of ventured into, into the company, and sort of, like, what… a little bit of what we learned. I think today I want to kind of do a check on

27 00:02:22.670 ⇒ 00:02:29.610 Uttam Kumaran: Getting your feedback on a couple of, like, directions, you know, we want to,

28 00:02:29.660 ⇒ 00:02:33.620 Uttam Kumaran: like, we want to head, we want to go ahead and, like, explore. I think…

29 00:02:33.820 ⇒ 00:02:39.960 Uttam Kumaran: of course, the one thing that we found out is there is a lot going on, but I do think that there is a lot of,

30 00:02:40.000 ⇒ 00:02:43.179 Uttam Kumaran: You know, items that we have found from working

31 00:02:43.190 ⇒ 00:02:52.580 Uttam Kumaran: I’m meeting with each of the key people that have been really congruent, every person we’ve talked to, you know? So, those are kind of the things I want to share. I think it was…

32 00:02:52.580 ⇒ 00:03:04.120 Uttam Kumaran: you know, it has been, like, I think so far we’ve talked to David, we talked to Julie, we talked to Les, of course we talked to y’all, we’ve seen the marketing meeting we spend… talk to Yvette almost every day.

33 00:03:04.160 ⇒ 00:03:08.769 Uttam Kumaran: And so I have a good sense of, like, those core parts of it. Still, still think that

34 00:03:08.900 ⇒ 00:03:18.220 Uttam Kumaran: in terms of a regional basis, I still really just have a good understanding on the big regions, which I feel like is… is okay, and I… and of course, I think one of the

35 00:03:18.390 ⇒ 00:03:33.929 Uttam Kumaran: things that we’ve heard from everybody is, like, pest is the most mature, pest is the most mature, everything starts with pest, you know? And so I think, like, those are some of the things that we found. The other thing that we found, is that everybody’s, like, super, super motivated.

36 00:03:34.010 ⇒ 00:03:42.210 Uttam Kumaran: like, and this is, like, you know, of course, when we started working with ABC, it’s one of the reasons where sometimes we work with companies that, you know.

37 00:03:42.300 ⇒ 00:04:01.260 Uttam Kumaran: are having this to go through this, like, digital transformation, but they’re also pushing back, like, internally. You know, they’re also making it harder for themselves, and I don’t think that’s the case at ABC at all. Everybody we’ve met, has in some way tried to solve the problem themselves, and is very receptive to, like.

38 00:04:01.430 ⇒ 00:04:04.890 Uttam Kumaran: when I describe, you know, we sometimes come in as, like.

39 00:04:05.020 ⇒ 00:04:21.050 Uttam Kumaran: sort of like the doctor, where I’m like, describe the pain, and then I’m like, okay, well, here are some ways that we’ve solved this. People are like, oh my god, that would be perfect. And so everybody’s been very, very open, from people that are at its highest level to, you know, folks like David and people we’ve met. So that’s also been…

40 00:04:21.870 ⇒ 00:04:24.340 Steven: Not with the, HVAC department yet.

41 00:04:24.630 ⇒ 00:04:35.420 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, alright, yeah. I think we… I mean, but I guess we haven’t gone… Let you go be the bad man over there. Les is probably the only person that would, like…

42 00:04:35.580 ⇒ 00:04:49.400 Uttam Kumaran: he’s like, there are some departments that are just gonna be tough to crack into, which is… which is fair. I actually wasn’t expecting it to be all, like, roses, and I think he was the one that was like, there are some departments that aren’t as…

43 00:04:49.710 ⇒ 00:04:55.000 Uttam Kumaran: open to this, or they’re just like, it’s gonna be hard to get people to change. It’s just fine.

44 00:04:55.000 ⇒ 00:04:59.920 Steven: They will, yeah, there are, they will eventually, it’s just, you’ll hear a lot more complaining, and.

45 00:04:59.920 ⇒ 00:05:03.190 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, and that’s okay, and that’s… that’s on the… yeah.

46 00:05:03.190 ⇒ 00:05:12.249 bojenkins: I think a big thing with that one, too, is a lot of those, they’re, like, new managers, right? And they’re just, like, inheriting something from somebody else, and they’re… they’re struggling with

47 00:05:12.350 ⇒ 00:05:18.119 bojenkins: taking the risk of change, I think, is a big piece of it, and so they just want to leave it all the same.

48 00:05:18.950 ⇒ 00:05:36.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and also, like, a lot of… if a lot of the folks don’t come from a management background, or coming from working on the field, like, we shouldn’t… it’s not fair to have an expectation that they use data to run their business line, things like that, so we will work by showing first, you know? We will always start with caret.

49 00:05:36.020 ⇒ 00:05:44.499 Uttam Kumaran: And we’ll show in the departments that are mature enough and can show the benefits of this, it will then attract, you know, everybody else, versus

50 00:05:44.630 ⇒ 00:05:47.240 Uttam Kumaran: In data, you never want to work, like.

51 00:05:47.700 ⇒ 00:05:56.449 Uttam Kumaran: have to report on this now, like, go report, don’t worry about it, like, print out the sheet and just say the number, like, we want to show people the benefits. And so, like, that’s sort of, like, what…

52 00:05:56.450 ⇒ 00:06:07.949 Uttam Kumaran: what kind of, you know, I feel like, really, that I learned from speaking with everybody, in terms of, like, things we’ve gotten access to, so we got access to Evolve, still waiting on some access from Les.

53 00:06:08.140 ⇒ 00:06:12.409 Uttam Kumaran: I’m still waiting on access to Dream from Nitesh.

54 00:06:12.580 ⇒ 00:06:13.730 Uttam Kumaran: So…

55 00:06:13.730 ⇒ 00:06:17.230 bojenkins: Has the test responded? Because I know I can send you another contact.

56 00:06:17.610 ⇒ 00:06:24.070 Uttam Kumaran: That would be great if you could send me another contact. I feel like he wasn’t… I don’t think he… I think he maybe isn’t seeing the email, or…

57 00:06:24.070 ⇒ 00:06:24.590 bojenkins: I mean?

58 00:06:24.590 ⇒ 00:06:28.069 Steven: He’s… he’s the one, he’ll be very easy, I think he.

59 00:06:28.070 ⇒ 00:06:32.479 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, he was actually… he actually called me, like, literally as his flight was taking off.

60 00:06:32.640 ⇒ 00:06:40.479 Uttam Kumaran: A week or two ago to talk, so I’m not worried about him not giving. I think he… I think I’m just missing his inbox for his… yeah.

61 00:06:40.480 ⇒ 00:06:46.650 bojenkins: Yeah, he’s dealing with family stuff over in India right now, so he had to jump on a plane and fly there last week.

62 00:06:46.650 ⇒ 00:06:47.429 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah.

63 00:06:47.430 ⇒ 00:06:50.150 Steven: So, Udita… we can give Udita’s contact?

64 00:06:50.150 ⇒ 00:06:56.000 bojenkins: I’m typing up an email to you, Dita, and I’ll copy and attach, so that way he can say, yeah, go ahead and get him everything he needs.

65 00:06:56.360 ⇒ 00:06:57.370 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect, okay.

66 00:06:59.730 ⇒ 00:07:10.710 Uttam Kumaran: And so I… I mean, really where we’re gonna start, you know, because I’m still waiting on some of the marketing, we’re just gonna start everything on the conversion and retention side of the house, so I…

67 00:07:10.820 ⇒ 00:07:25.619 Uttam Kumaran: I, I got a flash drive from… from Julie on Monday, where is this? That she left on her desk with… with, like, the last 5, 10 years of, like, of, like, historical, you know, sales reports that she’s put together.

68 00:07:25.660 ⇒ 00:07:34.270 Uttam Kumaran: we… I also… maybe we’ll talk to you guys a little bit about, like, Evolve. Like, one, they’re running a really tight ship there, like, they’re doing a really, really great job.

69 00:07:34.320 ⇒ 00:07:39.479 Uttam Kumaran: When I come into a team and I hear things like naming conventions, taxonomy, like…

70 00:07:39.630 ⇒ 00:07:55.019 Uttam Kumaran: that’s, like, amazing. That’s, like, the first thing we come in and work on, which is, like, are all your drop-downs labeled? Things like that. Where I think, there is a lot of… so to start just on Evolve, I think the system is set up in a perfect way. I think you have great administrative support.

71 00:07:55.100 ⇒ 00:08:08.639 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna be a little bit of the bridge between Julie and probably the Evolve team on, like, how do we get more features and data? I can tell that, like, there’s something there, and I’m like, just throw me into it, and I’m sort of naive, so, like, I’ll ask a lot of questions.

72 00:08:08.640 ⇒ 00:08:18.919 Uttam Kumaran: I know she said in the past, people have tried to get data and do stuff, and I told her, like, I’m not… I’m not, like, I don’t need to input anything, we just need to read stuff. So, I think that everybody…

73 00:08:19.010 ⇒ 00:08:25.209 Uttam Kumaran: will be more receptive to them. We kind of hope as the data team, right? We’re the glue between all these parties.

74 00:08:25.350 ⇒ 00:08:34.390 Uttam Kumaran: kind of regardless of how each of them feel about each other, right? Because I don’t feel about anything, I only feel about, we need data to drive results. And so.

75 00:08:34.390 ⇒ 00:08:46.070 Uttam Kumaran: I think we’re gonna have success, you know, of being able to get data out of there. The data in there is super, super rich. Everything from, you know, the customer’s entire history, all the emails that we’ve done with them.

76 00:08:46.070 ⇒ 00:09:00.700 Uttam Kumaran: the services that they bought from us, the total revenue they’ve driven, of course, like, other information, like addresses and things like that, coupons they use, we have in there. We also have all the, you know, as I mentioned, we have all the emails that we sent to folks,

77 00:09:00.720 ⇒ 00:09:01.949 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s great.

78 00:09:01.990 ⇒ 00:09:13.129 Uttam Kumaran: I did get the sort of sad news about the rewards program, that it’s kind of just, like, sitting there. We went through and looked at customers that are sitting on, like, I think it was… I think it was, like, 300,000 or…

79 00:09:13.620 ⇒ 00:09:21.089 Uttam Kumaran: some amount of zeros of rewards points, and I think there will be something, Beau, for us to think about, like, how…

80 00:09:21.210 ⇒ 00:09:24.979 Uttam Kumaran: The sales team can start to look at those in order to

81 00:09:25.120 ⇒ 00:09:31.769 Uttam Kumaran: prevent churn, or be… sell additional services, be like, you have these roller points, you should buy this, and then get them on a thing.

82 00:09:31.770 ⇒ 00:09:32.320 bojenkins: Hmm.

83 00:09:32.320 ⇒ 00:09:51.419 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like we’re probably, like, one report and one monthly meeting away from, like, looking at that and being like, oh, I didn’t know that, like… and there’s some people who are sitting on a lot, and if some of those people are canceling, totally use it as a retention maneuver, and also, proactively, you should go to them and be like, you have been sitting on all these, you should cash…

84 00:09:51.480 ⇒ 00:09:53.570 Uttam Kumaran: To cash these, you know?

85 00:09:54.110 ⇒ 00:10:05.689 bojenkins: Yeah, and that’s where, you know, the good thing is, we knew we’d come out of this, like, we’ve got the people in place, we just need the ideas to really move it and see the return.

86 00:10:06.200 ⇒ 00:10:10.519 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, so, like, let’s, let’s even take that example,

87 00:10:10.680 ⇒ 00:10:24.999 Uttam Kumaran: And I think, you know, I also want Amber to give her perspective as she’s been digging, but that’s a… that’s an opportunity, right? Like, let’s say we take the opportunity of, hey, if we were to go to our customers and

88 00:10:25.020 ⇒ 00:10:34.610 Uttam Kumaran: build a campaign around driving additional service adoption by leveraging this. What is the… what is the oper… like, what revenue can we expect?

89 00:10:35.140 ⇒ 00:10:48.910 Uttam Kumaran: and sort of, like, what revenue can we expect? What is the complexity of doing that? Like, what is the time frame? And that is, like, the opportunity sizing exercise here. The lovely thing is, like, we don’t have to do any of that, we just need to, like, wrap it in a bow and be like.

90 00:10:48.920 ⇒ 00:11:03.690 Uttam Kumaran: okay, here’s, like, one option. So, I think the challenge here, and this is what I expressed to Amber and my team, is that there are a lot of those, and so the biggest thing for us is to leverage your guys’ expertise to find out

91 00:11:03.690 ⇒ 00:11:16.469 Uttam Kumaran: whether we’re going down a dead end, or whether we’re going down somewhere where it’s super, super fruitful. It’s gonna be a big exercise in, like, prioritization in order for us to come to a final meeting with y’all and share

92 00:11:16.500 ⇒ 00:11:17.740 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, like…

93 00:11:18.390 ⇒ 00:11:25.059 Uttam Kumaran: Do or die, you have to do these things, this is, like, a complete, like, no-brainer, here’s the second tier, and then here are also things that

94 00:11:25.350 ⇒ 00:11:28.339 Uttam Kumaran: I know we’ve talked about, or maybe we’ve considered doing that.

95 00:11:28.700 ⇒ 00:11:35.620 Uttam Kumaran: the complexity is way too high, or the ROI is not really clear. Like, that’s what we want to drive, and I think that’s gonna be, like, our…

96 00:11:35.860 ⇒ 00:11:37.830 Uttam Kumaran: Our challenge in this exercise.

97 00:11:38.670 ⇒ 00:11:40.880 Uttam Kumaran: Does that sort of, like, make sense?

98 00:11:41.630 ⇒ 00:11:49.530 Steven: Yeah. Yeah, because we know we can’t attack everything. It’s the same with marketing, you know, you gotta make sure… decide how do you use your time best, how do you use your dollars best, we know we can’t…

99 00:11:49.770 ⇒ 00:11:51.439 Steven: Go after it all at once, so…

100 00:11:51.950 ⇒ 00:11:53.780 Steven: But we do want to go after it all.

101 00:11:54.510 ⇒ 00:12:07.719 Uttam Kumaran: We do want to go after… we do have to go after it all, period. Once AI is the key thing. And then the last piece, and then maybe, Amber, I can let you sort of talk about any discovery that you’ve done.

102 00:12:08.020 ⇒ 00:12:20.899 Uttam Kumaran: this is where I think in David and Brian, you have really, really great data people. You know, I asked the David story about, you know, he mentioned he was, like, in CrossFit before, and then came in as sort of a…

103 00:12:21.180 ⇒ 00:12:36.460 Uttam Kumaran: I think he was managing, like, real-time, planning on the phone side, and then he sort of got into data, and he’s been here for 3 years, and then now him and Brian work really closely, and hearing that he is one, like.

104 00:12:36.760 ⇒ 00:12:47.000 Uttam Kumaran: supported the CSR team very well, and, you know, has some directive or self-directive to, like, expand across teams is great. But of course, the first thing I told them, like.

105 00:12:47.340 ⇒ 00:12:57.030 Uttam Kumaran: dude, with what time are you gonna do that? Like, you know, where’s the… how are you gonna do that? Where is that gonna… it’s like, you and… you… and he’s like, I don’t know, but he’s like… and then…

106 00:12:57.140 ⇒ 00:13:05.879 Uttam Kumaran: I think everybody also we’ve talked to feels it up to here with, like, the amount of stuff they’re handling, right? But the nice thing is nobody ever… nobody said that and was like.

107 00:13:06.210 ⇒ 00:13:12.839 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I hate this place, like, they put way too much on me. There’s, like, there’s just so much opportunity, right? They’re all, like, kind of, like…

108 00:13:12.930 ⇒ 00:13:31.600 Uttam Kumaran: there’s… they’re sharing that, like, look, we need some structure, and so that’s… that’s really helpful. The lovely thing is this, we’re… and our company’s filled with, like, David’s and Brian’s. We’re all data people, so what we do best is help architect those types of teams, and what I told David is our job is, while we go through this, is to do this with you.

109 00:13:31.600 ⇒ 00:13:39.269 Uttam Kumaran: because you are gonna be a core person to make a lot of these things happen. But even more so is, like, helping David understand, like.

110 00:13:39.290 ⇒ 00:13:42.819 Uttam Kumaran: Him, and with his resources, how to prioritize

111 00:13:43.110 ⇒ 00:13:55.629 Uttam Kumaran: he’s spending a lot of manual time on, like, data, you know, cleaning and sort of preparing, versus you want someone like David to be flipped. You want him to be doing the stuff that we’re doing, which is, like.

112 00:13:55.740 ⇒ 00:14:01.109 Uttam Kumaran: go look, you know, and come back, right? And so, how do we think about

113 00:14:01.360 ⇒ 00:14:20.200 Uttam Kumaran: pushing that to automated systems, or our team, as a way to free up someone like David, who is a real… has a real great understanding of the landscape in the company, and is also extremely motivated to start to bring his reporting capabilities to other teams, right? So.

114 00:14:20.200 ⇒ 00:14:26.500 bojenkins: And that’s in line with what we’ve been saying. I mean, when we hear from Dave that he’s spending all this time building KPIs, and we’re like.

115 00:14:26.820 ⇒ 00:14:28.160 bojenkins: David, you’re…

116 00:14:28.290 ⇒ 00:14:40.920 bojenkins: you know, you’re too talented to be doing that, right? To be doing the repetitive, minute tasks every week, it’s like, we need to use some type of automation and tools out there to take the repetitive tasks, and then David can be spending

117 00:14:40.920 ⇒ 00:14:52.590 bojenkins: the week, if something’s off, you know, say our revenue’s off in one area, well, then David’s digging into it. It’s like what we talked about in the first meeting. You’re asking a question on Monday, and you’re getting the answer by Friday, right? Like, that’s where…

118 00:14:52.600 ⇒ 00:15:07.549 bojenkins: David is diving in. If we need help making the decision, David is that tool between, you know, the decision-making and the data to really help, you know, kind of be that funnel for it. I mean, that… because I love David. David and Brian, awesome guys. We love them.

119 00:15:07.550 ⇒ 00:15:15.779 bojenkins: And it’s one of those… and again, it’s… for them, it was like the blind leading the good guys, right? Like, we were like, yeah, go be a David… a data team.

120 00:15:15.780 ⇒ 00:15:24.849 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s also how it starts, like, yeah. That’s always how it starts. Yeah. And I’m happy that, like, we go to companies where there’s no David, and it’s like…

121 00:15:25.110 ⇒ 00:15:28.269 Uttam Kumaran: It’s almost so hard. We have to sell, like…

122 00:15:28.440 ⇒ 00:15:35.509 Uttam Kumaran: We not only have to sell that thing that these are possible, and we are like, and here’s the way you do it, and nobody internally

123 00:15:35.690 ⇒ 00:15:45.430 Uttam Kumaran: can be like, yeah, they’re right or wrong, you know? So for David’s case, it’s great that he’s gotten this far. There’s such a clear path towards reducing

124 00:15:45.540 ⇒ 00:15:51.800 Uttam Kumaran: 80% of his manual data collection, and moving his time to

125 00:15:52.070 ⇒ 00:16:05.099 Uttam Kumaran: running, like, business reviews with different parts of the org, and spending time on proactive, like, analysis, right? You know, so that’s, like, what I talked to him about, and I think he was really, really receptive. So a lot of our job is also

126 00:16:05.100 ⇒ 00:16:13.590 Uttam Kumaran: not to come in and move people out. It’s actually, like, without him, we can’t do these things, and I actually prefer… he is a much better…

127 00:16:13.730 ⇒ 00:16:22.470 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, much better use of time and energy, because he will be with the company forever, you know? And also, he’s someone that you don’t want to leave.

128 00:16:22.570 ⇒ 00:16:23.330 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so for…

129 00:16:23.330 ⇒ 00:16:23.770 bojenkins: Yeah.

130 00:16:23.770 ⇒ 00:16:40.090 Uttam Kumaran: executive team for you guys, and this is what, you know, I used to be a David in many companies, you really don’t want them to start to think that, like, this company’s not investing in, like, a team, but also they may not know, like, what’s asked from you guys, right? And there’s… part of this is managing up.

131 00:16:40.100 ⇒ 00:16:53.080 Uttam Kumaran: And just like you said, you’re like, David is the best, like, go do whatever you want. And there’s a disconnect, which is like, what do I want? And then this comes from you guys, which is like, well, if you don’t tell us what you want, like, how can I help you?

132 00:16:53.080 ⇒ 00:16:54.449 bojenkins: A staring contest, yeah.

133 00:16:54.450 ⇒ 00:17:00.389 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a staring contest, but, you know, the thing is, for David and these guys, and for a lot of folks, like.

134 00:17:00.670 ⇒ 00:17:19.729 Uttam Kumaran: they’re just… they’re still swimming and, like, you know, staying above water, and so we want to move them out of that world where a lot of their reporting gets automated. They focus on what they know, which is, like, they know every service line, they know all the quirks, and they know the people, right? They know how to, like, go in, bring data to a meeting, and drive the fact that, okay.

135 00:17:19.950 ⇒ 00:17:22.349 Uttam Kumaran: managers are now starting to use data, so…

136 00:17:22.450 ⇒ 00:17:35.619 Uttam Kumaran: that’s, like, I think a super great relationship. So, really, it’s, like, I think Julie and Dave… Julie really holds the keys to everything involved, which is, like, one of the primary data sources, and then David is really going to be our partner in, like.

137 00:17:35.820 ⇒ 00:17:42.599 Uttam Kumaran: starting to do some of the process changes and, like, reporting that… that we wanted, and are there gonna be…

138 00:17:42.940 ⇒ 00:17:46.950 Uttam Kumaran: David, in particular, is going to be one of the core stakeholders.

139 00:17:47.240 ⇒ 00:18:05.289 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe Amber, I don’t know if you want to sort of chime in on any notes you had, or even share anything that you’ve… you’ve found so far. I know you haven’t been in the office like me, but I actually think it’s sort of by design. I wanted Amber to, like, look through notes and see kind of some of her conclusions, so for both of us to sort of…

140 00:18:05.580 ⇒ 00:18:09.969 Uttam Kumaran: argue over where the opportunities are, but yeah, I don’t know, Amber, if you want to go.

141 00:18:12.370 ⇒ 00:18:19.270 Amber Lin: Hi there. So… Hi! Nice to meet you, Bo. I don’t think we’ve met yet.

142 00:18:19.270 ⇒ 00:18:19.770 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah.

143 00:18:19.770 ⇒ 00:18:21.680 bojenkins: Me too. Yeah. I’m Bo.

144 00:18:21.680 ⇒ 00:18:22.639 Uttam Kumaran: This is Amber.

145 00:18:22.640 ⇒ 00:18:24.830 Amber Lin: Yeah, I guess Amber is.

146 00:18:24.830 ⇒ 00:18:28.779 Uttam Kumaran: Awesome part of our team. She works really, really closely with the event, Janiece.

147 00:18:28.880 ⇒ 00:18:31.520 Uttam Kumaran: Everybody on PEST is always on our…

148 00:18:31.770 ⇒ 00:18:39.580 Uttam Kumaran: weekly meetings has, like, basically driven our Andy project, so no better person to help with this… with this phase as well.

149 00:18:39.580 ⇒ 00:18:42.120 bojenkins: I’ve seen the inside workings of ABC then. There we go.

150 00:18:42.120 ⇒ 00:18:46.960 Amber Lin: Yeah, I’ve also went into the Austin office, this May, so…

151 00:18:47.370 ⇒ 00:18:50.060 bojenkins: Nice. I’ve seen the people there as well.

152 00:18:51.120 ⇒ 00:18:52.279 bojenkins: Nice to meet you.

153 00:18:52.450 ⇒ 00:18:56.509 Amber Lin: Nice to meet you. Yeah, I’ve been taking a look at…

154 00:18:56.880 ⇒ 00:19:12.259 Amber Lin: what we have so far, we’re still putting the data into our system so we can do some analysis there, but so far, I’ve been in all the meetings that Utam has had, with the stakeholders here, and…

155 00:19:13.090 ⇒ 00:19:21.350 Amber Lin: I think the one that I remember the most is the one with, with Les. He has a lot of insight, and I think…

156 00:19:21.380 ⇒ 00:19:38.439 Amber Lin: especially as he is leaving, and he’s mentioning he’s planning out the marketing budget for, early next year, and he mentioned that you guys just started hiring for someone to replace him. I think a lot of my effort is going to go in there to

157 00:19:38.950 ⇒ 00:19:49.119 Amber Lin: Make sure if someone comes in, that he will… he or she will know, what to get, and fortunately, our company has

158 00:19:49.120 ⇒ 00:20:00.780 Amber Lin: assisted a lot of, marketing teams, not specifically on the creative side, but a lot of the data analysis, looking at the spend, looking at the returns. So, at least…

159 00:20:00.890 ⇒ 00:20:16.050 Amber Lin: My goal is to make sure, hey, if a person comes in, they know what to do with the budget, they know, what Les has been thinking, his philosophy that supported ABC for so long, I want to make sure that is transferred, at the bare minimum.

160 00:20:19.500 ⇒ 00:20:28.009 Uttam Kumaran: I guess maybe we can start there, like, how do you guys thinking about the last transition in terms of recruiting? I mean.

161 00:20:29.920 ⇒ 00:20:38.030 Uttam Kumaran: So the things we’ve found is, one, he’s managing, you know, like, almost, like, 100 different channels, which is really, really difficult.

162 00:20:38.030 ⇒ 00:20:51.069 Uttam Kumaran: to give you a sense of, like, how this typically runs, in a lot of companies, you will have a single manager for a channel. You’ll have a channel manager, right? Very similar to sales. So you’ll have a Facebook one that just owns… they own a Facebook, all they own is a Google relationship.

163 00:20:51.200 ⇒ 00:20:56.390 Uttam Kumaran: And I could tell that he’s architected in a way where he does some stuff, and there are…

164 00:20:56.400 ⇒ 00:21:07.099 Uttam Kumaran: people around him. But also, I think he is a… like, I think he is a victim to just the growth. Like, so much has changed, and more…

165 00:21:07.100 ⇒ 00:21:17.480 Uttam Kumaran: services have been added, more customers have come in, more people have come in, more demands have come in, and I think his fundamental understanding of the digital marketing world

166 00:21:17.540 ⇒ 00:21:36.610 Uttam Kumaran: it’s just tough, I think, at his age, to sort of understand how we buy, and how the world has shifted, and I think he’s done a really good job at keeping up. Like, I think he does know, but also he’s very clear in what he doesn’t know, and so I think that he made that point in our chat, like, last week, in that

167 00:21:36.760 ⇒ 00:21:44.670 Uttam Kumaran: he’s… he… he’s like, I did what I could do with the purview that I had. You know, I… but I also… I also think that

168 00:21:44.780 ⇒ 00:21:52.299 Uttam Kumaran: In just seeing that meeting, and seeing the way people think about marketing, there is a lot of room for… for innovation, and for you guys to…

169 00:21:52.500 ⇒ 00:21:56.770 Uttam Kumaran: put that budget outlay out there and really see the ROI that’s coming out.

170 00:21:56.850 ⇒ 00:22:07.040 Uttam Kumaran: But my recommendation is not to shop for one less, you know, most likely, is to think about this, like, a little bit more fragmented,

171 00:22:07.110 ⇒ 00:22:18.529 Uttam Kumaran: you will still have the same exercises of, like, planning a budget, understanding channel spend. That never stops. Like, this is… we talk to folks every day who are doing this.

172 00:22:18.630 ⇒ 00:22:34.290 Uttam Kumaran: But you’d be surprised that for a company your size, $5 million is not that much. You know, and so that was also a surprise to me in that, like, that’s… that is great. That may or may not be good, you know, but this is where you need a thought partner in that exercise to tell you, okay, but, like.

173 00:22:34.740 ⇒ 00:22:45.089 Uttam Kumaran: if… would 10 drive 50? Like, what are we even talking about here, right? Like, to give you a sense, we work with some companies that are spending, $2 million a month.

174 00:22:45.640 ⇒ 00:22:50.989 Uttam Kumaran: And they are half… they are, like, maybe $30 million in revenue.

175 00:22:51.400 ⇒ 00:22:58.189 Uttam Kumaran: But they are growth. They are trying to grow. These are CPG, they are, let’s say, consumer packaged goods business. All of their…

176 00:22:58.640 ⇒ 00:23:17.539 Uttam Kumaran: competition, and all of their eyeballs comes from… tons of it comes from paid marketing, right? You guys aren’t that type of business, but I do want to give you guys a little bit of sense of the scale of what’s possible with digital marketing to achieve growth. Now, whether the team is ready to handle that growth, whether that’s sustainable, these are all the questions that you need, like.

177 00:23:17.650 ⇒ 00:23:19.980 Uttam Kumaran: For a marketing leader to suggest, but…

178 00:23:20.250 ⇒ 00:23:34.440 Uttam Kumaran: that’s where, when I asked the question about, like, how are budgets determined, it’s like, oh, it’s… I think it was 6%, 3% of total. I’m like, that’s one way… that is one way of doing it. But when you’re thinking of it in a budget-based way versus, like, what are we trying to get?

179 00:23:34.680 ⇒ 00:23:53.680 bojenkins: You know, like, what are we trying to achieve? It’s, like, more driver-based, you know? And we’ve been, you know, probably the easy way to say it, we’ve been lazy with it, right? So, like, we get the, you know, because we benchmark ourselves with a bunch of other pest control companies. We’re part of a group called Associated, and everyone does benchmarking as far as, like, how much did you spend on, as far as, like…

180 00:23:53.680 ⇒ 00:23:57.370 Uttam Kumaran: Is there a report, by the way, Bo? Like, that you can associated.

181 00:23:57.860 ⇒ 00:24:01.219 bojenkins: I could… it’s just somewhere in my email. Yeah, I can…

182 00:24:01.220 ⇒ 00:24:09.490 Uttam Kumaran: I would love that, because we were… we are going to do that, we were gonna do a bunch of competitive stuff, which may save us a little bit of time if we can just go direct and see what they have, yeah.

183 00:24:09.490 ⇒ 00:24:26.410 bojenkins: I can probably find a couple years, but yeah, it’s pretty much… yeah, everyone submits their numbers, how much their revenue, how much their ad spend, how much their profit, you know, cost per employee. And then it’s really cool, like, part of the meeting is… it’s a lot of open sharing, so it’ll be, like, a whole session on benchmarking, how everyone compares, and yeah, pretty much…

184 00:24:26.540 ⇒ 00:24:32.179 bojenkins: The industry spends, you know, between about 4% and 6% on advertising, or marketing budget.

185 00:24:32.180 ⇒ 00:24:34.649 Steven: Primarily just pest companies, so…

186 00:24:34.650 ⇒ 00:24:35.880 bojenkins: just passed.

187 00:24:36.340 ⇒ 00:24:37.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

188 00:24:37.490 ⇒ 00:24:38.549 bojenkins: Now, I’d imagine.

189 00:24:38.550 ⇒ 00:24:43.930 Steven: I guarantee you mechanical spins… mechanical spins, I would think, 10-12%.

190 00:24:44.630 ⇒ 00:24:47.040 Steven: Kind of just guessing, but yeah.

191 00:24:48.240 ⇒ 00:24:52.139 bojenkins: But, so yeah, so that’s kind of how we got that, but yeah, I mean, and, you know.

192 00:24:52.360 ⇒ 00:25:00.349 bojenkins: with Les, Les is all… and he… and I think you missed this part, because he opened it with… he’s always been very good about managing the budget, right?

193 00:25:00.350 ⇒ 00:25:04.829 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, totally. And that is a big part of the job, by the way, like, a lot of these companies…

194 00:25:05.010 ⇒ 00:25:11.570 Uttam Kumaran: you’ll be surprised, it is not easy to spend $2 million a month. Like, that’s… that is a huge…

195 00:25:11.570 ⇒ 00:25:13.020 bojenkins: 12 months, yeah.

196 00:25:13.020 ⇒ 00:25:25.299 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, over 12 months, and it’s incredibly hard, because you think about how much you have to spend a day, and so you have to find the channels, you have to find the ones, you have to turn them… it’s like, it is a lot to manage. And so, part of that is, like, maybe…

197 00:25:25.370 ⇒ 00:25:36.249 Uttam Kumaran: 5 million is what he had a capacity to across these channels, and so what do we have to play there? The other thing is, like, to understand, like, what is Matt’s, like, and Bobby’s purview on marketing spend? Like.

198 00:25:36.290 ⇒ 00:25:46.030 Uttam Kumaran: were… are they very conservative in that, like, this is all you have, or they just haven’t even heard this, like, the growth story? Like, that’s also the more of the mechanics of the company that I’m also interested in.

199 00:25:46.030 ⇒ 00:25:47.349 bojenkins: And learning, you know?

200 00:25:47.560 ⇒ 00:25:57.800 bojenkins: Yeah, they’ve just said, you know, they’re comfortable giving… just from their perspective, we’re good with giving 4%, you know. And historically, up until about 2022,

201 00:25:58.060 ⇒ 00:26:16.370 bojenkins: you know, 4% for us, that just kept the engine going, and it just… it worked for us, and yeah, then all of a sudden, the last 3 years, 3-4 years, it’s just the growth has slowed down, the call volume, and and so I… we’re just at the point where we’re not outselling what we’re losing at the rate that we were before.

202 00:26:16.370 ⇒ 00:26:17.070 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

203 00:26:17.070 ⇒ 00:26:33.179 bojenkins: And so that’s… that’s kind of my… that’s been a… Steve and I have been, like, saying this in 2022, we’re like, what’s going on? You know, we’re not hitting double-digit growth, from 7% to 5% to 3% to 2%. And so, yeah, that’s… that’s kind of a scary, but yeah, I mean, with less…

204 00:26:33.610 ⇒ 00:26:41.710 bojenkins: We always joke, he is the professor, right? Like, he is very… he likes to learn, but he likes to learn what he wants to learn.

205 00:26:41.790 ⇒ 00:26:58.239 bojenkins: Yes. So yeah, it’s… it’s been… but we’ve… we… we have, and I’ll send you, this feedback we got. My dad reached out to another friend that owns a PR firm that does a lot with the national industry. Even she recommended, she’s like, you can’t replace less with one person, and that’s what we’ve said.

206 00:26:58.850 ⇒ 00:27:09.319 bojenkins: I mean, what we were thinking, and we probably want to run this by… like, we think, like, 3 people could probably do the job of really what we need, at least, and one person over, you know.

207 00:27:09.350 ⇒ 00:27:20.539 bojenkins: TV, radio, billboards, one person managing the Google, someone managing social media and internal, because like you said, like, owning those different avenues, that’s probably the structure that we need.

208 00:27:20.660 ⇒ 00:27:38.739 bojenkins: And, you know, one of those three is your head marketing that kind of manages the budget and manages the team. But yeah, and even she said, she was like, she was kind of critiquing, like, certain times that we do our budgets. She’s like, I… you know, if something’s working really, really well, you, like, cap it. And she’s like, if it’s working really well, funnel more money to it when it’s…

209 00:27:38.740 ⇒ 00:27:48.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I also was like… yeah, I mean, that’s… this is where, when you talk to marketers, they’re like, you find the ROI, and you max it.

210 00:27:48.440 ⇒ 00:27:51.000 Uttam Kumaran: That’s why, that’s why, like, yeah.

211 00:27:51.000 ⇒ 00:27:52.190 bojenkins: Their job is to make the phone to ring.

212 00:27:52.190 ⇒ 00:28:04.420 Uttam Kumaran: on digital, it’s the easiest to do that, because you can’t get more TV spots. You can always run more digital ads, and so the first thing these companies that we work with do is they max

213 00:28:04.610 ⇒ 00:28:18.250 Uttam Kumaran: they max Facebook, and they just try to get it to the point where they’re seeing diminishing returns for their dollar before moving to other channels, right? So, that’s what, like, for example, let’s say you’re selling, like, a health product.

214 00:28:18.260 ⇒ 00:28:28.110 Uttam Kumaran: It is… and there may not be, like… you may… you may only get to be able to spend $5 million effectively before you see diminishing returns. Then you have to find other channels.

215 00:28:28.110 ⇒ 00:28:38.979 Uttam Kumaran: But my feedback and what you hear from marketers is the same thing. You find the thing where the ROI is positive, you go, but just, like, again, if you don’t have clear reporting on, like, customer acquisition costs by channel.

216 00:28:39.040 ⇒ 00:28:42.970 Uttam Kumaran: hard to know, you know, what that is.

217 00:28:42.970 ⇒ 00:28:56.069 Steven: Yeah, I agree. I think right now, we have, like I said, it’s budget-based. He has a budget, you know, 90% of that budget is already spent for all, and there’s no room to make changes when something really does work. It’s like, oh, well, we’ve already got our budget spent for the year, sorry, it doesn’t matter that

218 00:28:56.070 ⇒ 00:29:03.080 Steven: digital’s working, TV’s not working, we’re already spending half a million dollars on TV, and we can’t change that, so there’s no room for flexibility or…

219 00:29:03.100 ⇒ 00:29:04.490 Steven: Or anything like that.

220 00:29:04.990 ⇒ 00:29:05.610 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

221 00:29:07.480 ⇒ 00:29:24.080 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I agree, I think it’s gonna be helpful for us, like, as we’ve kind of put together, like, our memo on the left transition, like, what is also, like, I’ve noted down who’s all supporting him as well, but I do think that thinking about this as more channel managers is gonna give, and…

222 00:29:24.370 ⇒ 00:29:25.920 Uttam Kumaran: Like, again, you should…

223 00:29:26.470 ⇒ 00:29:43.990 Uttam Kumaran: the channel managers aren’t… their goal is not to get the channel to work. Their goal is to find, as a team, like, where marketing dollars should get spent by ABC. And so, they may even find that, look, like, we need to cut a bunch of this TV and radio because they’re not… we’re not able to see clear returns.

224 00:29:43.990 ⇒ 00:29:48.150 Uttam Kumaran: And we have to drive towards digital, and so that’s… that’s some of the stuff that we’ll end up…

225 00:29:48.410 ⇒ 00:29:51.920 Uttam Kumaran: You know, discussing more about,

226 00:29:54.560 ⇒ 00:29:58.389 Uttam Kumaran: I guess my… one of my other questions was kind of gonna be about,

227 00:29:58.770 ⇒ 00:30:10.639 Uttam Kumaran: both the service lines to focus on, and the branches to focus on. You know, I would say every… everyone’s advice has been, like.

228 00:30:10.780 ⇒ 00:30:26.129 Uttam Kumaran: start… look… all the data’s cleanest, or whatever, and past Austin. For me, I’m not so interested in where the data’s cleanest, I’m interested in where the opportunity is, right? And so, I know, Steven, we’ve heard a lot about San Antonio as well. I feel like…

229 00:30:26.540 ⇒ 00:30:35.319 Uttam Kumaran: We want to… we want to… part of this exercise is to hold, like, one opportunity, an example for, like, what would it take for us to…

230 00:30:35.850 ⇒ 00:30:40.949 Uttam Kumaran: like, drive data-driven reporting through the San Antonio branch, or some sort of, like.

231 00:30:41.200 ⇒ 00:30:46.370 Uttam Kumaran: isolated thing. So, those are the kind of two things I’m juggling, too, is, like, where should our team

232 00:30:46.880 ⇒ 00:31:06.139 Uttam Kumaran: like, we are obviously… a lot of the data is going to come out of Pest Austin. It’s also very clean. I have no problem saying that we’re going to end up reporting on that and stuff, but is the… is the opportunity also there? Should we focus on, you know, a couple service lines, just San Antonio? Like, I’m kind of curious, like, we can have a discussion a little bit on that.

233 00:31:08.290 ⇒ 00:31:18.620 Steven: Yeah, that’s interesting. I mean, again, obviously, like, Bo’s answer at the end of the day, Bobby would be the same thing as everything, grow everything, but yeah, I mean, on one hand, I think there’s more potential in San Antonio. On the other hand, I think Bobby would…

234 00:31:18.660 ⇒ 00:31:35.179 Steven: I don’t know, Bo, you might know a little more. Austin is down this year, it’s never happened in their life, and so… so when Austin is down, it impacts the whole business so much that I could see Bobby saying, oh man, I gotta get Austin going again, even… but… but like you said, that’s where… that’s where the…

235 00:31:35.360 ⇒ 00:31:49.639 Steven: you know, the data-driven decisions matter, that, well, if you spend $10inSanAntonio,youget$100 return, you spend $10inAustin,yougeta$5 return. Like, you gotta see where the opportunity is, but yeah, I don’t know, Bo, I would… I would guess Bobby’s gonna be pretty…

236 00:31:49.790 ⇒ 00:31:53.360 Steven: adamant on, we gotta get Austin going. Now, is that Austin Pass? Is it Austin…

237 00:31:53.460 ⇒ 00:31:55.660 Steven: I don’t know where to go.

238 00:31:55.660 ⇒ 00:32:09.530 bojenkins: Yeah, and that’s where we just need to slice, because his biggest panic, when you hear from him, he goes, I’m not growing in a growing market, and that’s, like, been the biggest concern for him, and he’s like, the last few years, the growth’s just been stagnant. And so, yeah, I don’t know…

239 00:32:10.240 ⇒ 00:32:13.099 bojenkins: I guess it’s also, again, it’s… where can we make the most?

240 00:32:13.100 ⇒ 00:32:14.390 Uttam Kumaran: Based on what we found. Okay.

241 00:32:14.390 ⇒ 00:32:21.939 bojenkins: Right. You know, because otherwise we’d be like, well, you know, if you really spent more money on, you know, College Station, you could grow. I’d be like, yeah, that’s not going to move the needle.

242 00:32:21.940 ⇒ 00:32:26.949 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s why I don’t want to come in and say, like, let’s move Corpus up, like, you know?

243 00:32:26.950 ⇒ 00:32:28.470 bojenkins: Reiko is the key.

244 00:32:28.470 ⇒ 00:32:31.679 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, you know, I don’t… that’s… that’s, like, we’ve…

245 00:32:31.920 ⇒ 00:32:35.159 Uttam Kumaran: This is where it’s, like, for me to just think about, like, what…

246 00:32:35.380 ⇒ 00:32:40.299 Uttam Kumaran: opportunities there are, but also, like, I guess, Beau, like, talk to me about, like, commercial. Throughout.

247 00:32:40.300 ⇒ 00:32:42.419 Steven: I was gonna say, commercial, I think, is a big…

248 00:32:42.420 ⇒ 00:32:49.040 Uttam Kumaran: throughout every conversation, I’ve asked the same thing about everybody, is like, tell me about, like, your interaction on the commercial side, and I…

249 00:32:49.150 ⇒ 00:33:06.159 Uttam Kumaran: I still feel like, until I hear otherwise, like, that is just, like, completely open. Les was right in that B2B marketing, he said he’s non-B2B marketing, someone else is handling… I don’t know what… I don’t remember exactly what he said, but that’s sort of, for me, like, what’s,

250 00:33:06.290 ⇒ 00:33:10.769 Uttam Kumaran: like, a huge opening for us. Like, I don’t know if you would agree, or if you could talk about…

251 00:33:11.060 ⇒ 00:33:12.080 bojenkins: Okay, like…

252 00:33:12.080 ⇒ 00:33:12.660 Uttam Kumaran: Like…

253 00:33:12.920 ⇒ 00:33:21.659 bojenkins: you just said so many things that I hadn’t even thought about when you brought that up, we were in the conference room, of the B2B marketing, the buying the list, and the marketing to those lists, and I was just like.

254 00:33:22.280 ⇒ 00:33:28.009 bojenkins: shoot, I hadn’t even thought about doing all that, and I 100% agree, and I’m like, yeah, there’s opportunity there.

255 00:33:28.750 ⇒ 00:33:39.599 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and so that’s where also, when you’re thinking about your marketing team structure, consider the customer that they’re selling to as well. Like, you may have a B2B person that does digital just B2B.

256 00:33:39.680 ⇒ 00:33:58.560 Uttam Kumaran: And so I think… I feel like you want to hold in your head the fact that there are… there are some… there are potentially geographic channels, there are the service line channels, there are also the type of contract, and then there are… there is, of course, the actual channel you’re spending money on, so…

257 00:33:58.760 ⇒ 00:34:03.740 Uttam Kumaran: Out of those levers, we’re gonna try to, like, figure out a little bit of…

258 00:34:04.130 ⇒ 00:34:20.809 Uttam Kumaran: you know, what we can, like, how we can divvy up that team. But if there hasn’t been much done commercial, I guess… but, like, can you talk to me about, like, how the commercial part of the business, like, came to be? And, like, how we ended up at this size, and, like…

259 00:34:21.409 ⇒ 00:34:23.109 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and just the origination.

260 00:34:23.600 ⇒ 00:34:36.170 bojenkins: I mean, back in the day, I mean, commercial for us is heavy pests. I mean, that’s just, like, the… for… on the commercial side. Because, you know, we don’t offer all services in commercial, but pest control, that’s kind of…

261 00:34:36.590 ⇒ 00:34:45.179 bojenkins: Steven, I’d say it’s probably 80% of our commercial revenue is probably commercial pests. And a lot of that has… I think…

262 00:34:45.280 ⇒ 00:34:50.260 bojenkins: A lot of its benefit is the heavy advertising that we’ve done as far as branding.

263 00:34:50.380 ⇒ 00:35:04.790 bojenkins: In residential. I think people have seen our commercials, I think they’ve seen our trucks, so I think we’ve… a lot of the commercial success has been a benefit of that, of just people knowing about us. And then we’ve got our sales team, which…

264 00:35:05.010 ⇒ 00:35:14.070 bojenkins: I hate to say it, yeah, there’s a lot of really good lead runners, and so a lot of their sales is just on the backs of people calling us.

265 00:35:14.160 ⇒ 00:35:30.579 bojenkins: Just from seeing the residential. You know, we have good recommendations. I think we’ve got a really good product, so we also get some referrals. I can’t quantify how many of those. And you know, in the commercial world, people move around different roles at different places.

266 00:35:30.630 ⇒ 00:35:46.250 bojenkins: So we’ve kind of maintained good POC relationships, and that helps. I mean, we’re very good… this is what I would say about a commercial team. We’re very good at responding. We’re not very good at the proactive side, as far as account management or new sales. Now, we get…

267 00:35:46.610 ⇒ 00:36:03.559 bojenkins: it’s not that we get zero, it’s just not like other B2B organizations. That’s been, a big, you know, long-term goal for us to want to accomplish, is… I wonder where we got guys out there cold calling, knocking on doors, and I got other guys handling managing accounts internal.

268 00:36:04.200 ⇒ 00:36:08.139 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. What is the team structure on the… on the commercial side right now?

269 00:36:08.460 ⇒ 00:36:09.079 Uttam Kumaran: In terms of…

270 00:36:09.080 ⇒ 00:36:21.160 bojenkins: Yeah, we have a commercial sales manager named John Arnold, and he’s first-time sales manager, because before, it was under an operations manager, he managed sales and operations, and…

271 00:36:21.300 ⇒ 00:36:39.639 bojenkins: I just looked at it, I was like, there’s no way you can do both at this size. Yeah. So we promoted somebody from within, a commercial sales manager. He’s done a good job managing the people, making small incremental changes, but it’s… it’s nowhere near the goal to get it, but, but yeah, once I…

272 00:36:39.640 ⇒ 00:36:43.619 Uttam Kumaran: operating out of dream, like, in order to look at, like, opportunities and stuff? Okay.

273 00:36:43.620 ⇒ 00:36:49.920 bojenkins: Yeah, I mean, again, we don’t canvas, we don’t work lists, and that’s the thought that I’ve been to, is like.

274 00:36:50.150 ⇒ 00:36:55.089 bojenkins: I gotta give these guys something to go work on instead of just saying, go out and go be creative.

275 00:36:55.320 ⇒ 00:36:55.959 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

276 00:36:55.960 ⇒ 00:37:00.599 bojenkins: The tools and even the marketing side to it. It’s like, it’s just low-hanging fruit.

277 00:37:00.600 ⇒ 00:37:05.579 Uttam Kumaran: So you think John is a good person for us to, like, sort of… Partner with on that side.

278 00:37:05.580 ⇒ 00:37:06.479 bojenkins: Yeah. Like…

279 00:37:06.480 ⇒ 00:37:11.869 Uttam Kumaran: you know, as, like, someone who could actually execute on a strategy that we work on.

280 00:37:12.170 ⇒ 00:37:19.890 bojenkins: Yeah, yeah, and obviously, I’d love to be a part of those, because that… Totally, totally. John… John is… he’s the doer, and I’m the accountability…

281 00:37:19.890 ⇒ 00:37:24.019 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, more… that’s what I’m trying to find, because you guys, everything’s gonna go to you guys, but just.

282 00:37:24.020 ⇒ 00:37:24.460 bojenkins: Yeah.

283 00:37:24.460 ⇒ 00:37:32.259 Uttam Kumaran: like that, it’s, for me, it’s like, who’s the muscle? Also, so we can go talk to them and, like, hear the inside scoop on, like, what their day-to-day is, right? So…

284 00:37:32.260 ⇒ 00:37:35.990 bojenkins: That’s… that’s probably the best way to describe it. They’re the muscle, we’re the brains with it.

285 00:37:35.990 ⇒ 00:37:37.389 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Okay.

286 00:37:40.530 ⇒ 00:37:44.600 Uttam Kumaran: Amber, any thoughts on that, like, on the commercial side?

287 00:37:51.370 ⇒ 00:37:58.040 Amber Lin: Since I know you guys are wanting to hire someone or having an internal person step up.

288 00:37:58.040 ⇒ 00:38:13.560 Amber Lin: I think we can work with them to have a more robust approach towards commercial, because a lot of what I heard is that they’re just only doing small incremental steps, and what we need here is a big, sweeping change, and that might need some

289 00:38:13.560 ⇒ 00:38:31.560 Amber Lin: External insights, we might… we can see if we can connect you with anyone, or see if we can have a better roadmap mapped out for commercial, any experiments we want to run, and most importantly, the metrics we want to measure against. Because if someone’s starting out new, that’s very hard to see.

290 00:38:31.710 ⇒ 00:38:33.190 bojenkins: A whole new world for them.

291 00:38:33.190 ⇒ 00:38:43.219 Amber Lin: Yeah, so hopefully we can get some metrics, get some examples that we’ve seen our other clients do before, so that you guys can have something to start with.

292 00:38:43.610 ⇒ 00:38:44.659 bojenkins: Yeah, that’d be huge.

293 00:38:46.370 ⇒ 00:38:54.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, another, another piece that stood out from my conversations with Julie is just looking at, like, the inflow and outflow of, like, new customers’ outflow.

294 00:38:54.380 ⇒ 00:39:08.320 Uttam Kumaran: Like, there’s a lot of turnover in… in customers. And, you know, this is, like, commonly described… I may have already said this a hundred times, but it’s this, like, leaky bucket, right? It’s basically, like, water’s coming in, and there’s just a hole at the bottom.

295 00:39:08.320 ⇒ 00:39:17.320 Uttam Kumaran: And commonly in business, people focus on the water, and how much water’s coming in, and then it’s sort of secondary to think about retention.

296 00:39:17.400 ⇒ 00:39:36.239 Uttam Kumaran: and churn prevention. Looking at the month-over-month numbers, the business is losing a lot of active customers, right? And I don’t yet know. One of the first things we’ll do is look at the lifetime value… the lifetime value and the length of the average ABC customer.

297 00:39:36.410 ⇒ 00:39:45.699 Uttam Kumaran: But for me, it’s like, I… you know, we looked through Julie’s KPI list, and yeah, it’s just a lot… you’re… and the thing that I really know is that you’re paying

298 00:39:46.080 ⇒ 00:39:59.539 Uttam Kumaran: for those new customers, in one way or another, right? And then they’re immediately going out, meaning, like, you have to go buy new ones, right? So part of the equation to… typically when we talk to teams who are like, yeah, but

299 00:39:59.850 ⇒ 00:40:17.000 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, like, the sale is much more clear, it’s not sure what the… you… it’s like, you’re just throwing that money, that kind of money away, and ultimately, your equation should be, we’ve spent, like, $200 to acquire a customer, and that payback period is 6 months, after which it’s all

300 00:40:17.280 ⇒ 00:40:29.309 Uttam Kumaran: cash in the bank, right? And so, like, what is that, right? What is that, like, basically, it’s like, what is the CAC to the lifetime value? How fast does it take you to recoup that? That is ultimately what

301 00:40:29.510 ⇒ 00:40:48.459 Uttam Kumaran: companies used to inform the marketing, right? Because right now, if you take the 5 million, you divide it by all the customers that you get, you may go in and say, cool, yeah, we’re getting, like, 20 bucks a customer, like, we’re great. But then if you turn around and some of those customers churn very fast, or we’re doing nothing on the retention side, then it’s like.

302 00:40:48.540 ⇒ 00:40:59.880 Uttam Kumaran: we spent $5 million, and we only got 6, versus we spent 5 and got 15, but it takes, like, that entire strategy, right? And, like, that’s… that’s the thing to think about is, like.

303 00:40:59.990 ⇒ 00:41:09.809 Uttam Kumaran: just looking at the 5 divided by everything, let’s say, hey, actually, we do need to spend more, but when we spend more, that lets achieve a higher lifetime value.

304 00:41:10.050 ⇒ 00:41:25.759 Uttam Kumaran: that’s, like, the story that you’re trying to kind of hold in your head when you’re doing marketing budgets. And then there’s another metric, and I’ll sort of explain more of, like, sort of what are the common KPIs is, like, your efficiency ratio. It’s, like, called MER. It’s just basically, like, what channel do the most efficient spend for my dollar?

305 00:41:25.840 ⇒ 00:41:35.589 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s also what we’re looking, like, looking at channel by channel. I think also, as we go into Evolve and we find out where people are coming from, which is logged by the CSRs.

306 00:41:35.670 ⇒ 00:41:50.349 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna look to see, like, how much we’re spending on those channels, and I feel like we’re gonna be surprised that we’re probably getting a lot of leads from channels we’re not spending money on, probably getting not as much leads from channels that we are spending a lot of money on, and so then it’s gonna be okay, like, what is the…

307 00:41:50.510 ⇒ 00:42:01.399 Uttam Kumaran: what’s the thought, like, what’s the thought here? Either, one, are we not attributing people great? Second, like, did we just never see this before, and now we finally have a way to align?

308 00:42:03.520 ⇒ 00:42:21.609 Uttam Kumaran: But I am seeing that there’s a lot of inflow and a lot of outflow, and it’s just so tough because you’re paying for those leads. The beauty is, like, we totally are gonna talk about, like, how to reactivate some of those people, how to do some of the proactive, like, prevention, but that’s, like, one of the things that stood out for my…

309 00:42:21.800 ⇒ 00:42:23.309 Uttam Kumaran: conversation with Julie.

310 00:42:27.730 ⇒ 00:42:30.789 Steven: Yeah, we’ve tried the retention team, we’ve tried a few different things, but I know there’s…

311 00:42:30.790 ⇒ 00:42:31.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

312 00:42:31.490 ⇒ 00:42:41.280 Steven: We’ve focused on and lost focus. Anyways, I agree, there’s… there’s things there that can be… and again, all… so excited to see, it all comes down to the data.

313 00:42:41.350 ⇒ 00:42:57.169 Steven: does it cost you more to get a new customer or to lose a customer? And again, eventually the data should tell… it’s not going to be perfect, but should tell a pretty clear story of where is it worth putting that money towards, and whatever. So yeah, no, we’re excited to see. Did Les seem pretty…

314 00:42:57.710 ⇒ 00:43:02.500 Steven: open? Like, was he open… With everything, to help out.

315 00:43:02.500 ⇒ 00:43:07.779 Uttam Kumaran: As open as I feel like he usually is. I try my best to win people over, so I, like, kind of, like…

316 00:43:07.890 ⇒ 00:43:18.980 Uttam Kumaran: Amber knows this, I just try to, like, kind of chameleon into, like… I don’t get my emotions, sir, I just try to find out, like, hey, what does this person care about, and, like, how can we support them? And so, I think I did a good job.

317 00:43:18.980 ⇒ 00:43:21.199 bojenkins: Was that why y’all dressed the exact same that day?

318 00:43:21.200 ⇒ 00:43:23.400 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe, maybe, maybe, but .

319 00:43:23.400 ⇒ 00:43:24.789 bojenkins: Literally a chameleon.

320 00:43:24.790 ⇒ 00:43:28.379 Steven: Tom had 5 different jackets in his car, he went in and peeped in.

321 00:43:28.380 ⇒ 00:43:40.439 Uttam Kumaran: I walked in, I was like, I gotta be right back, I’ll be right back. No, no, although that is some weird psychological thing, maybe I did dress like him, and he found, like, I was more relatable, but no, not intentional, just luck.

322 00:43:40.450 ⇒ 00:43:48.869 Uttam Kumaran: But he was… I think he was just like, look, this is the situation, and I was able to ask him a lot of questions more about

323 00:43:48.880 ⇒ 00:44:00.609 Uttam Kumaran: how we got here, and where to go deeper to understand ABC more, and, like, what places maybe just to avoid. And so I think he was helpful in that way. I don’t think he… he…

324 00:44:00.720 ⇒ 00:44:05.690 Uttam Kumaran: had any pushback on us helping, or what we were… what we were here to do. I think…

325 00:44:05.840 ⇒ 00:44:15.960 Uttam Kumaran: I could tell he’s just, like, someone’s gonna have to figure this out, you know? And he’s just, like, it’s changed a lot, you know, they went from a few services. He also doesn’t come from a…

326 00:44:16.480 ⇒ 00:44:24.110 Uttam Kumaran: but, like, managing a $5 million budget for a huge company, they were just, like, the marketing guy at Fox, right? And so…

327 00:44:24.200 ⇒ 00:44:31.600 Uttam Kumaran: that’s… I see that, and so I feel like he was more stoic in that. He’s like, this is just wear, wear a hat.

328 00:44:31.670 ⇒ 00:44:46.140 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think he pushed back necessarily. I mean, I… we’ll see, I still have to get access to stuff, so I’m gonna be nice. I’m just gonna be being nice. But I’m not here to, like… yeah, I have no interest in saying, like… it was clear, I’m not here to say, like, why didn’t we do this? For me, I’m like.

329 00:44:46.280 ⇒ 00:44:58.300 Uttam Kumaran: I’m asking why… how we got here as an exchange for that question like that. And then it’s saying, okay, here’s what are possible. Have we tried any of this? That way we can learn to not go down the same…

330 00:44:58.690 ⇒ 00:45:02.290 Uttam Kumaran: you know, place, so that’s… yeah. Does that answer the question?

331 00:45:02.630 ⇒ 00:45:03.190 Steven: Yep.

332 00:45:03.550 ⇒ 00:45:04.170 bojenkins: Yeah.

333 00:45:05.430 ⇒ 00:45:22.849 Uttam Kumaran: And then another, you know, another question I had is sort of just about, like, your guys’, like, cadence with, like, the whole executive team to, like, look at data. Julie mentioned there is, like, a weekly exec meeting. She mentioned that, like, there’s some readouts, but, like, what do you think is the appetite for that? Like, how do we…

334 00:45:22.970 ⇒ 00:45:26.800 Uttam Kumaran: does it start with you both? And, like, I mean, for us, like.

335 00:45:27.040 ⇒ 00:45:29.410 Uttam Kumaran: If you just talk about data.

336 00:45:29.850 ⇒ 00:45:48.180 Uttam Kumaran: you will find, if you talk about a metric, it will move. It’s just some psychological thing that happens. And so, part of our thing is gonna be, I’m gonna try to understand, like, what process changes I can propose, but the last thing I want to do is be like, oh, there’s 10 meetings now, everybody come in and sit and listen. It’s like, I have to do some of these incrementally, so… yeah.

337 00:45:48.460 ⇒ 00:46:03.319 bojenkins: I’ll take this one, Steven. It’s a lot of feelings, is probably the way… I mean, even Steven and I were joking, you know, last week, you know, revenue’s not great, profit’s not great, and we spent a lot of time talking about

338 00:46:03.480 ⇒ 00:46:07.100 bojenkins: Like a buddy system at ABC. What do we… what do we… yeah, club.

339 00:46:07.100 ⇒ 00:46:07.830 Steven: I love Columbia.

340 00:46:07.830 ⇒ 00:46:08.760 bojenkins: at ABC.

341 00:46:08.870 ⇒ 00:46:20.279 bojenkins: You know, really, you know, thinking that that’s gonna solve all of our issues. But, and again, it… there’s just a lot of that. We’re not… and I love it. I mean, my dad’s very emotionally, he’s very all about the feeling.

342 00:46:20.280 ⇒ 00:46:21.150 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.

343 00:46:21.150 ⇒ 00:46:32.919 bojenkins: But… which is great, and I think it’s… it’s all about the balance of that, right? And so, you know, we’ve even been talking about, putting in the EOS system, reading the book Traction, and being like, we need something.

344 00:46:32.920 ⇒ 00:46:36.319 Uttam Kumaran: I have the book traction right, I have the book traction right here.

345 00:46:36.320 ⇒ 00:46:37.170 bojenkins: We can ask Amber…

346 00:46:37.170 ⇒ 00:46:43.280 Uttam Kumaran: about putting in… we did AORs, DRIs, we did OKRs, yeah.

347 00:46:43.280 ⇒ 00:46:44.579 bojenkins: And so, yeah, we’ve been.

348 00:46:44.580 ⇒ 00:46:50.400 Steven: some business KPI. All we talk about is revenue. I mean, Julie sends out the monthly reports.

349 00:46:50.400 ⇒ 00:46:50.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

350 00:46:50.800 ⇒ 00:46:57.130 Steven: But we talk about revenue and profits sometimes. We don’t really even have a meeting set to talk about them together, honestly.

351 00:46:57.130 ⇒ 00:47:13.320 bojenkins: And we ask everyone, how are things going in the pest department, right? How are things going in San Antonio, right? But, you know, but again, that whole structure, and we never go back on a topic. And, you know, that’s where my dad… and even my dad and I brought up the idea where, like, you know, we need the… I think we’re looking at traction and then the map system.

352 00:47:13.390 ⇒ 00:47:29.459 bojenkins: Right. We’ve heard of other service companies using map systems, but we’ve heard a lot of pest companies, like, at Associated, where a lot of people are on EOS, and so that’s where we’re saying, alright, you know, when we, you know, when’s the best time to transition into that? My dad was like, you know, because he’s going to retire in a few years.

353 00:47:29.550 ⇒ 00:47:41.509 bojenkins: So he said, he’s like, you know, it would be really good to get that system in as, you know, the executive team starts to transition people out, people are retiring. He’s like, at least we can have a system to fall back on to keep things organized, so…

354 00:47:41.510 ⇒ 00:47:44.829 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. That’s a big thing. So, it’s nice to hear that you kind of…

355 00:47:44.830 ⇒ 00:47:47.159 bojenkins: Have some good, glowing remarks for it.

356 00:47:47.730 ⇒ 00:47:55.809 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but everything starts from, like, what can be adopted, right? Yeah. You can just pick out a framework and sort of put it on everybody, but…

357 00:47:55.820 ⇒ 00:48:10.040 Uttam Kumaran: I think part of, like, what I’m hopeful for is that, whether it’s part of the existing exec meeting or something, we carve out a time to just talk about data, and we’ll show you, like, how… like, this is where also… this is where I want David to come alongside us to show, like, how to present

358 00:48:10.100 ⇒ 00:48:15.180 Uttam Kumaran: How to, like, deal with the, like, emotion… how to deal with someone that’s like, that doesn’t look right.

359 00:48:15.520 ⇒ 00:48:18.239 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think that’s accurate. Like, those types of things, right?

360 00:48:18.240 ⇒ 00:48:19.930 bojenkins: Those numbers ain’t right.

361 00:48:19.930 ⇒ 00:48:29.770 Uttam Kumaran: No, that’s… I’m telling you, that’s just… and so how do you deal with that as a data person? And… and also, like, how do you take feedback and then come back the next week and drive towards decision making?

362 00:48:29.770 ⇒ 00:48:41.760 Uttam Kumaran: So whether that is part of the existing exec meeting or another one, starting with the crew of people that matter most to define the KPIs, to report on it, and then starting to choose, okay, how does this ladder down towards

363 00:48:41.760 ⇒ 00:48:46.350 Uttam Kumaran: The rest of the org is something that… that we’ll end up doing, so…

364 00:48:46.560 ⇒ 00:48:48.330 Uttam Kumaran: That makes a lot of sense.

365 00:48:50.020 ⇒ 00:48:59.680 Uttam Kumaran: So, in terms of, like, the next, I think, you know, we basically have, like, around, like, probably 4 or 5 weeks still. I think, one, the biggest thing is we’re gonna start looking through all the…

366 00:48:59.700 ⇒ 00:49:15.199 Uttam Kumaran: sales data in Evolve, and so that is going to be our primary, like, first exercise. What is coming out of that is, like, real good understanding of, like, where customers are coming from, segmentation, like, hopefully we’ll start to see some curves about, like.

367 00:49:15.320 ⇒ 00:49:25.970 Uttam Kumaran: where all the service is going, and, like, who’s driving the money, and, like, looking at a lot of that. So that’ll be a lot of, I think, Amber, what you’ll own, which is just, like, canvassing what’s in our sales

368 00:49:26.100 ⇒ 00:49:35.369 Uttam Kumaran: org. I think the second piece we’ll… we’ll look at is talking about opportunities on the commercial side. So, as soon as I can get,

369 00:49:35.620 ⇒ 00:49:54.829 Uttam Kumaran: you know, dream, and start looking at, like, some of this… some of the open sales-related data, that will be really helpful. Those two will give us plenty of meat to look at. Today, we didn’t talk about much on the, sort of, traffic acquisition side. As soon as we get access to Google Analytics, we’ll do a big canvas of, like, what we found there.

370 00:49:56.520 ⇒ 00:50:06.380 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I mean, I think prob… that’s… that’s really gonna be our… our next path. I think we’re still… I still feel pretty good from this conversation about hearing, like, what to focus on.

371 00:50:06.500 ⇒ 00:50:07.170 Uttam Kumaran: In that direction.

372 00:50:07.170 ⇒ 00:50:24.629 bojenkins: Real quick, how much historical data is there in… within Google Analytics? Because, I don’t know if you were there for this part, Les was showing how many clicks and how many calls that our Google page had gotten the last 6 months. Yes. And again, when we look at a number, and this is one thing that we kind of pushed on Les, say, like, alright, is that… is, you know.

373 00:50:24.960 ⇒ 00:50:30.640 bojenkins: 6,000 good or 6,000 bad? We’re like, how does that at least compare to last year? And…

374 00:50:30.640 ⇒ 00:50:44.980 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna get access to all the Google My Businesses and as much of GA as possible to basically show the… to at least show 5 years, if not 10 years, of data. Because COVID, in your business, I know, is just, like, a big blip.

375 00:50:45.140 ⇒ 00:50:52.340 Uttam Kumaran: So, I need to see before that. Julie gave us 10 or 15 years worth of sales stuff, and then on the.

376 00:50:52.340 ⇒ 00:50:56.229 bojenkins: Nice to look, alright, from 2018-19, are we back on trend?

377 00:50:56.230 ⇒ 00:50:57.430 Uttam Kumaran: are back on trend.

378 00:50:57.620 ⇒ 00:51:08.360 bojenkins: Yeah, that’s kind of the way that I look at it. But yeah, Les didn’t even give us much info, and that’s what, you know, he says he sends us all of our, you know, our page performance every month, and…

379 00:51:08.590 ⇒ 00:51:13.000 bojenkins: Steve and I look at it, we’re like, I don’t… is this a good number, or is this a bad number?

380 00:51:13.000 ⇒ 00:51:23.130 Uttam Kumaran: This is the thing, this is even where, for the data team, every line should come with, so what. We talk about this a lot, and I think Amber, I know Robert probably does as well, it’s like.

381 00:51:23.410 ⇒ 00:51:26.709 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll read something from our team, and I’m like, guys.

382 00:51:26.930 ⇒ 00:51:34.020 Uttam Kumaran: so what? Like, put yourself… we’re gonna go talk to the CEO of this company, they’re taking 30 minutes to talk to us.

383 00:51:34.190 ⇒ 00:51:42.919 Uttam Kumaran: so what? Like, what is, like, put the… what’s the fear? What is the reason, and then what do we want them to do? And so everything has to come with the…

384 00:51:42.920 ⇒ 00:51:57.269 Uttam Kumaran: so what? Or it’s not worth putting there, right? Like, looking at numbers that are not moving slightly should… we should be like, that’s all in the appendix, don’t worry about that. Or, like, go look at it when you have time. Here are the three things to care about. And so that’s… you’ll kind of see a little bit of the…

385 00:51:57.270 ⇒ 00:52:02.460 Uttam Kumaran: the reporting and, like, the presentations we put together. We make it very, very clear

386 00:52:02.670 ⇒ 00:52:05.409 Uttam Kumaran: What the question we asked, what we found.

387 00:52:05.530 ⇒ 00:52:23.489 Uttam Kumaran: how we can go deeper and, like, what our recommendation is. And, like, I’m really hopeful that that template of not only how we run the meeting and the presentations and the reporting is something that David and Brian can take and start to emulate across the organization. So, yeah, we’ll make that super, super clear.

388 00:52:23.900 ⇒ 00:52:39.270 Uttam Kumaran: it’s tough, because that team, again, someone will ask for one metric one day, and it starts getting bigger and bigger, and then, as a manager, you have to read a huge, sort of, write-up, and you’re like, well, what matters? Do we care about this? Do we care about this? And, like, what is the context? And so.

389 00:52:39.690 ⇒ 00:52:48.089 Uttam Kumaran: like, the data team should be able to provide that. That should float up to the executive team to be able to give some guidance, and then that’s… that’s how it should… it should flow out, you know.

390 00:52:51.380 ⇒ 00:52:52.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

391 00:52:52.120 ⇒ 00:52:52.630 bojenkins: Love it.

392 00:52:52.630 ⇒ 00:52:52.950 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.

393 00:52:53.070 ⇒ 00:52:58.920 Steven: Like I said, we get the data, but yeah, part of your job as the marketing manager is to give that data and then

394 00:52:59.350 ⇒ 00:53:00.870 Steven: You have to give us what it means.

395 00:53:01.190 ⇒ 00:53:01.580 Steven: Automation.

396 00:53:02.140 ⇒ 00:53:03.820 Steven: Yeah, what are we doing with it?

397 00:53:03.820 ⇒ 00:53:20.279 Uttam Kumaran: Because it reduces their ownership of it. If you don’t allow the people to say, so what should we do, they’re just, like, thrown over the fence. And I don’t… sometimes, I don’t think it’s sort of, like, malicious, but again, like, without giving people the fact that, like, actually, I want… like, I want… I go to Dave, and I’m like.

398 00:53:20.480 ⇒ 00:53:27.499 Uttam Kumaran: I need you to tell me if you… I told him, I said, let’s say you were in Bobby Bo Stevens’ shoes, what would you do?

399 00:53:27.500 ⇒ 00:53:45.199 Uttam Kumaran: I said, that’s what I want you to be thinking about, and I need you to be confident in the answers that you give, you need to be able to defend those, you need to go deeper, but, like, you haven’t… you play a huge role in this happening, but a lot of data people, again, they’re just like, give me this report, and then someone gets a report, like, I got this report in a meeting.

400 00:53:45.620 ⇒ 00:53:56.170 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, we want to move away… we want to move away from that. We want to move to… David pulls the data, and he’s also, like, given what I know, here’s what I think we should do, and here’s why I think that.

401 00:53:57.070 ⇒ 00:54:03.080 Uttam Kumaran: Discuss. Let’s discuss, right? But never… I think even in our company, I’m always pushing towards

402 00:54:03.240 ⇒ 00:54:13.429 Uttam Kumaran: don’t… you can’t just come with a problem, like, tell me what you think we should do, based on what you know, and then we’re gonna all… I’m happy to give feedback at that point, you know?

403 00:54:13.600 ⇒ 00:54:24.150 Uttam Kumaran: But just to throw numbers over the… over the line, it’s… it’s tough, so… These are all, like, I think some of the cultural changes that we’re gonna promote. I mean, but again, some of the stuff David currently just can’t do because of

404 00:54:24.320 ⇒ 00:54:35.319 Uttam Kumaran: time and capacity, so… but I can tell he’s really, really energized, and so I want to lean on him to support… I mean, the other thing is, like, David and Brian, I know they’re both rolling up to the CSR team.

405 00:54:35.480 ⇒ 00:54:37.210 Uttam Kumaran: So I wonder, like, I mean.

406 00:54:37.380 ⇒ 00:54:41.430 Uttam Kumaran: again, I think this is just by nature of that’s just the way it’s going, but…

407 00:54:41.750 ⇒ 00:54:45.870 Uttam Kumaran: one thing that we can talk about when everyone’s back in January is just, like.

408 00:54:45.980 ⇒ 00:54:48.909 Uttam Kumaran: Do you feel like there should be a more centralized data team? Like.

409 00:54:49.570 ⇒ 00:54:55.879 Uttam Kumaran: how should that roll, like, and, you know, is David getting guidance to do that, and, like, how we should think about that?

410 00:54:56.030 ⇒ 00:55:02.640 Uttam Kumaran: Because I think he’s… I think with some of the changes we’ll propose, he can totally start reporting on the entirety of the company.

411 00:55:02.640 ⇒ 00:55:21.010 Steven: Yeah, we were… I mean, it was just 6 months to a year ago that he wasn’t doing any of the case, you know, he was only doing CSR stuff, just the past few months, we’ve started giving him, I mean, literally, probably 3, 4 months ago, started giving him access to other cases, so yeah, we see that transition too, but yeah, he needs to be involved in company-wide stuff, not just CSR stuff, for sure.

412 00:55:21.790 ⇒ 00:55:22.840 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

413 00:55:23.030 ⇒ 00:55:30.300 Uttam Kumaran: So, when are… when are you guys back in town? Can I grab time to, like, come in first week of January or something, or…

414 00:55:30.770 ⇒ 00:55:33.280 Uttam Kumaran: Would love to just get something on calendars.

415 00:55:33.990 ⇒ 00:55:38.480 bojenkins: So my problem is, I’m out till about January 4th, is when we fly back.

416 00:55:38.670 ⇒ 00:55:39.430 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

417 00:55:39.580 ⇒ 00:55:47.459 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I know, but I know even January last… last week of Jan may be tough for everybody. We could even do the week of the 5th.

418 00:55:47.930 ⇒ 00:55:48.550 bojenkins: Yeah, we have a…

419 00:55:48.550 ⇒ 00:55:49.160 Steven: That’d be good.

420 00:55:49.430 ⇒ 00:55:50.280 bojenkins: I’m good.

421 00:55:51.040 ⇒ 00:55:59.300 Steven: Monday or Tuesday would be best for me, Bo. I’ve got that A&M Pest conference, although I’m kind of debating, is that worth my time to go sit in College Station for… are you going to it?

422 00:56:00.970 ⇒ 00:56:05.649 Uttam Kumaran: I’m going because I’ve been going to it since I was in high school, so I kind of, like… What is it? Obligated.

423 00:56:05.970 ⇒ 00:56:20.059 bojenkins: It’s a… it’s a urban entomology workshop that the A&M, to all pest control companies, and the A&M, you know, team, you know, shows their research over the last year. And everybody gets their CUs, but we always…

424 00:56:20.260 ⇒ 00:56:26.950 bojenkins: my dad’s always been like, I’ve been going since I was in high school, and you’re gonna go since you’re in high school, and, you know, we’re gonna keep this tradition going of…

425 00:56:27.100 ⇒ 00:56:30.819 bojenkins: Jenkins and ABC being here, so.

426 00:56:30.820 ⇒ 00:56:31.850 Steven: I, I…

427 00:56:31.850 ⇒ 00:56:33.800 bojenkins: I at least feel obligated to go.

428 00:56:33.800 ⇒ 00:56:39.979 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I’m happy to go, too. I don’t know if this is, like, we just do the meeting there if there’s, like, a place to meet.

429 00:56:40.240 ⇒ 00:56:42.410 bojenkins: It’s boring as hell there.

430 00:56:43.560 ⇒ 00:56:45.879 bojenkins: But Steven, what data are those? That’s on…

431 00:56:45.880 ⇒ 00:56:51.530 Steven: Wednesday, Thursdays? Wednesday, Thursdays. Yeah, I’m totally free right now, that Monday or Tuesday.

432 00:56:54.240 ⇒ 00:56:56.570 bojenkins: I could do… I could do that Monday afternoon.

433 00:56:56.810 ⇒ 00:56:58.109 bojenkins: On the 5th. Okay.

434 00:56:59.670 ⇒ 00:57:00.380 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not good.

435 00:57:01.810 ⇒ 00:57:08.040 Steven: 12 to… I don’t know how much time you’re thinking, but yeah, like I said, as long as I can get out of there by 3, 3.30, then it gets…

436 00:57:08.040 ⇒ 00:57:09.899 Uttam Kumaran: Can we just blocked off, like, noon to 3.

437 00:57:10.770 ⇒ 00:57:11.320 bojenkins: Yeah.

438 00:57:13.690 ⇒ 00:57:14.339 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and that gives.

439 00:57:14.340 ⇒ 00:57:18.939 bojenkins: We’ll just move the sales meeting to another day, or have Mark Johnson meet with them.

440 00:57:19.620 ⇒ 00:57:21.029 Steven: Yeah. Cool.

441 00:57:24.360 ⇒ 00:57:26.210 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, anything else?

442 00:57:27.100 ⇒ 00:57:43.289 Uttam Kumaran: I can be helpful with. I’m hopeful that by… like, I… I… I’m… by next… the next time we meet, but probably the next time we email, I’ll have some charts and stuff. I think by that Monday, I can start… you know, I want to start sharing a little bit of, like, what we’re gonna…

443 00:57:43.390 ⇒ 00:57:47.290 Uttam Kumaran: propose and start to get your feedback on that, and then I’ll probably end up…

444 00:57:47.290 ⇒ 00:57:54.940 Steven: I mean, I’ll be around next weekend, so if you have any questions, email, text, call. In the meantime, obviously, we’ll be available to help out with whatever.

445 00:57:55.630 ⇒ 00:57:58.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. But I do, I gotta jump off, I got another meeting. Okay, okay.

446 00:57:58.190 ⇒ 00:58:00.690 Steven: someone I gotta jump on, but… Alright, thanks for Tom.

447 00:58:00.690 ⇒ 00:58:02.259 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, thank you guys. Talk to you soon.

448 00:58:02.260 ⇒ 00:58:03.030 bojenkins: Thanks, guys.

449 00:58:03.240 ⇒ 00:58:03.710 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.