2025-12-11_brainforge_x_les_discovery_233b6da8

Meeting Title: Brainforge x Les: Discovery Date: 2025-12-11 Meeting participants: read.ai meeting notes, Uttam Kumaran, Amber Lin, Les Stobart

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1 00:01:53.520 ⇒ 00:01:54.530 Amber Lin: Hello!

2 00:01:54.970 ⇒ 00:01:56.060 Uttam Kumaran: Hello!

3 00:01:58.040 ⇒ 00:01:59.540 Amber Lin: That meeting went well.

4 00:02:00.130 ⇒ 00:02:07.510 Uttam Kumaran: That was great, yeah, I just, like, it’s been sort of slow to get access to everything, and I know, like, you’ve been busy, so…

5 00:02:07.840 ⇒ 00:02:14.280 Uttam Kumaran: But I… I… it’s… they have just so… they’re… there’s just so much, like, you’re gonna be shocked.

6 00:02:14.560 ⇒ 00:02:24.140 Uttam Kumaran: I, like, they’re… They’re one of the biggest companies that we work with, and…

7 00:02:24.310 ⇒ 00:02:32.480 Uttam Kumaran: you’re gonna see that, like, there’s just so many strategies that they can employ that, you know, we can help them with, so… I think it’s gonna be awesome.

8 00:02:33.400 ⇒ 00:02:34.260 Amber Lin: Exciting.

9 00:02:34.820 ⇒ 00:02:35.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

10 00:02:38.660 ⇒ 00:02:39.730 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, Lewis!

11 00:02:40.100 ⇒ 00:02:40.790 Les Stobart: Morning.

12 00:02:40.790 ⇒ 00:02:42.460 Uttam Kumaran: Afternoon, whatever it is.

13 00:02:42.860 ⇒ 00:02:45.120 Uttam Kumaran: Afternoon. How’s everything?

14 00:02:45.940 ⇒ 00:02:47.320 Les Stobart: Busy, very busy.

15 00:02:47.890 ⇒ 00:02:51.359 Uttam Kumaran: Busy. How did, how did the rest of, yesterday go?

16 00:02:52.230 ⇒ 00:03:01.800 Les Stobart: I don’t know, man, you’d have to query them a little bit. It’s a weird bunch, because the different levels of understanding, different hot buttons, different cities, different…

17 00:03:02.310 ⇒ 00:03:08.469 Les Stobart: It’s, you know, it’s like herding cats, man. We do that once a year, and it’s like herding cats.

18 00:03:08.920 ⇒ 00:03:09.510 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

19 00:03:10.330 ⇒ 00:03:17.969 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, well, today, I think yesterday was great. I don’t think we’re gonna need the full, you know, hour and a half today, but one, you know.

20 00:03:17.970 ⇒ 00:03:22.509 Les Stobart: I have no idea what you’re doing. I have no idea what you’re doing.

21 00:03:22.650 ⇒ 00:03:28.800 Les Stobart: So the best place to start with me is, hey, here’s who I am, here’s what I’m…

22 00:03:29.640 ⇒ 00:03:40.119 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect. Let’s go through that. Give me one sec, I just have a good visual for… for what we’re doing, and also would love to share, sort of, how we’ve been working with ABC for, you know.

23 00:03:40.300 ⇒ 00:03:44.400 Uttam Kumaran: almost the past year here, so, give me one second.

24 00:03:56.590 ⇒ 00:04:05.200 Uttam Kumaran: So… To give you a sense of, of, us.

25 00:04:05.650 ⇒ 00:04:06.790 Les Stobart: I don’t know who else?

26 00:04:08.030 ⇒ 00:04:10.479 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, give me one second, sorry.

27 00:04:16.399 ⇒ 00:04:17.370 Uttam Kumaran: So…

28 00:04:17.680 ⇒ 00:04:32.030 Uttam Kumaran: On the call today, you have, Amber and I. My name is Utam. I, I run Brainforge. We’re a data and AI consultancy. My background is in data engineering, and business intelligence.

29 00:04:32.030 ⇒ 00:04:39.989 Uttam Kumaran: For a number of companies. I worked in industry, as a data engineer and leading data teams, and then led

30 00:04:40.040 ⇒ 00:04:58.960 Uttam Kumaran: led product development at a data company in New York before moving here to Austin about 3 years ago. You know, I started Brainforge as a way for us to scale up a lot of what I was learning and running data teams and improving reporting capabilities at companies to

31 00:04:58.960 ⇒ 00:05:15.659 Uttam Kumaran: you know, to clients, and sort of, built this company sort of from the ground up over the last, 3 years. The company is primarily data folks, so a mix of data engineers, data modeling people, and data, you know, analysts.

32 00:05:15.660 ⇒ 00:05:19.130 Uttam Kumaran: Amber is one of the analysts on our team.

33 00:05:19.160 ⇒ 00:05:37.750 Uttam Kumaran: But in addition, as I mentioned, we are also an AI company, and so the way we actually got introduced to ABC was through a friend of leadership, his name is Scott Harmon, and he was just, you know, an advisor of ours, and informed us that, you know, ABC was interested in

34 00:05:37.750 ⇒ 00:05:46.220 Uttam Kumaran: finding a way to help improve their customer service department, through AI. And so we actually, over the last, 7 or 8 months, helped them develop

35 00:05:46.220 ⇒ 00:05:53.980 Uttam Kumaran: this product that we call Andy, which you may or may not have heard of, that’s helping the CSRs,

36 00:05:54.010 ⇒ 00:06:05.369 Uttam Kumaran: directly in Google Chat, answer questions about policies, procedures, and really helping reduce the stress that they have when they’re on the phone with clients, helping them

37 00:06:05.370 ⇒ 00:06:22.500 Uttam Kumaran: you know, keep clients, off hold, and also, ideally, upsell them on, on, additional services instead of purely just being a phone call where it’s a bad experience. So, we’ve been working with ABC for about 6-7 months now, and

38 00:06:22.610 ⇒ 00:06:36.449 Uttam Kumaran: we were coming up on sort of a renewal of our, you know, existing scope with the Andy product, and I, you know, I mentioned to Matt and Bobby that, hey, we are also, you know, we do a lot of data and analytics work.

39 00:06:36.470 ⇒ 00:06:48.969 Uttam Kumaran: Would love to hear a little bit about the company and the goals, and if there’s any way else that y’all can leverage us. And we always like to tell the folks that we support to

40 00:06:48.970 ⇒ 00:06:59.839 Uttam Kumaran: to throw us into the fire, meaning tell us, you know, where the biggest pain points are in the business, and we use data and AI to solve… to try to solve those.

41 00:07:00.050 ⇒ 00:07:12.970 Uttam Kumaran: And so they mentioned, you know, two key pieces of information for us. One is that pest and home and commercial services is a growing industry, but ABC is not growing.

42 00:07:12.970 ⇒ 00:07:24.990 Uttam Kumaran: And so, with that sort of no star in mind, it was clear that Matt and Bobby mentioned, you know, that that’s where they wanted us to sort of start the conversation. And so, for us, we…

43 00:07:25.020 ⇒ 00:07:31.260 Uttam Kumaran: We spend a little bit of time thinking about the business, and really starting from thinking about, like.

44 00:07:31.480 ⇒ 00:07:34.770 Uttam Kumaran: what is the current state? And so…

45 00:07:35.010 ⇒ 00:07:51.159 Uttam Kumaran: we understood that, you know, we understand the wealth of services, the scale. You know, I live here in Austin, just down the road from the office, and I knew about ABC before, you know, since my first day in town.

46 00:07:51.160 ⇒ 00:07:56.679 Uttam Kumaran: And so we understood that, like, we just have some simple questions that we go through, which is.

47 00:07:56.680 ⇒ 00:08:02.749 Uttam Kumaran: You know, how do people know about the company? Where do they come from? How hard is it to buy?

48 00:08:02.800 ⇒ 00:08:19.140 Uttam Kumaran: the… the… a service. Is there a leaky bucket problem? Meaning, are we acquiring customers, and they’re churning, and so we’re spending money trying to get more? Are people able to answer some of these questions, you know, in a timely manner? And then also, of course, they’re…

49 00:08:19.140 ⇒ 00:08:31.000 Uttam Kumaran: Their big priority was that, like, you’re leaving, you know, and sort of how, what does that, you know, what are the implications of that for a business… for the business, and…

50 00:08:31.060 ⇒ 00:08:40.859 Uttam Kumaran: You know, how can a team like us, you know, start to bridge the gap between all the things that you do, and give them a little bit of a path on, like, what needs to happen here?

51 00:08:41.179 ⇒ 00:08:43.950 Uttam Kumaran: So I’ll just… Pause there. That’s like…

52 00:08:44.540 ⇒ 00:08:52.330 Uttam Kumaran: That is us. I’m here in Austin, Amber is in Los Angeles. We… our company is about 16 people,

53 00:08:53.180 ⇒ 00:08:57.730 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think that’s, like, that’s generally the… the… where I’d like to start.

54 00:08:58.310 ⇒ 00:09:02.770 Les Stobart: Okay. So, ask questions, and I’ll give you answers.

55 00:09:04.300 ⇒ 00:09:12.589 Uttam Kumaran: I would like to know… first, I would… I sent a list of the, the things we need access to,

56 00:09:12.590 ⇒ 00:09:23.939 Les Stobart: Yeah, I hadn’t seen email in 2 days. I saw that it was there, I’ll get to it at some point. Some of the stuff I’m sure will be fine, some of it may not be, but yeah, I saw that I had a couple of 3 emails from you.

57 00:09:24.860 ⇒ 00:09:29.149 Uttam Kumaran: I guess my first question to you is, hearing that,

58 00:09:30.330 ⇒ 00:09:44.159 Uttam Kumaran: what is your… what is your, opinion? Like, what is that… how does that make you feel? And, like, what is your perspective on, you know, the challenges that… that I mentioned? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you feel like it’s… there are other things that aren’t encompassed there?

59 00:09:45.600 ⇒ 00:09:52.450 Les Stobart: Well, it wasn’t one question, and it wasn’t even a lot of questions, it was a lot of, kind of, statements and suppositions, but…

60 00:09:52.450 ⇒ 00:09:52.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

61 00:09:52.840 ⇒ 00:09:54.729 Les Stobart: You want to kind of start there.

62 00:09:55.010 ⇒ 00:10:05.109 Les Stobart: Abc is an interesting beast. There is definitely a leaky bucket problem.

63 00:10:05.370 ⇒ 00:10:17.359 Les Stobart: And it’s probably no one cause of it. And it’s interesting that you used the phrase, leaky bucket, because that’s what I’ve used for 3 decades.

64 00:10:17.470 ⇒ 00:10:23.999 Les Stobart: The company I was at prior to ABC was a similar company called Fox.

65 00:10:24.330 ⇒ 00:10:38.470 Les Stobart: And it did multiple services, just like ABC did, and it was really a forerunner of ABC before ABC, and that’s where I met Bobby, because that company and ABC and Mr. Appliance and Steam Team did some collaborative things.

66 00:10:38.730 ⇒ 00:10:41.479 Les Stobart: 20-plus years ago.

67 00:10:41.670 ⇒ 00:10:52.920 Les Stobart: So, my phrase with… with ABC and with Fox both was always, leaky bucket man, phones ringing, And…

68 00:10:53.010 ⇒ 00:11:11.930 Les Stobart: for… I don’t know how much you know about the service business, I’m gonna guess not a lot, because most people don’t, but the service business is way different than the typical retail bricks-and-mortar kind of thing that so many people lean into or have background in. But the… the service business is so much driven by the fact

69 00:11:13.060 ⇒ 00:11:16.140 Les Stobart: People call because they have a problem.

70 00:11:16.250 ⇒ 00:11:34.669 Les Stobart: I use the analogy that a service business is like a hospital, okay? Outside the birth of a child, outside the birth of a child, there is nothing good about going to a hospital. Name me one thing, other than the birth of a child, where someone is pleased to go to a hospital.

71 00:11:34.880 ⇒ 00:11:52.869 Les Stobart: Somebody broke an arm, somebody’s got cancer, somebody’s got a brain aneurysm, somebody fell off a building, somebody got hit by a truck, somebody broke a toe. There’s nothing good outside the birth of a child about going to a… for that matter, a doctor, probably. I don’t know, I guess maybe you’re getting…

72 00:11:53.110 ⇒ 00:12:00.299 Les Stobart: a boob job, or a nose job, or whatever you’re getting, that’s good. But, I mean, again, none of that’s good. Well, a service company’s the same, man.

73 00:12:00.650 ⇒ 00:12:16.729 Les Stobart: You may say that remodeling a bathroom’s kind of fun, or remodeling a kitchen, or painting a wall a different color, that’s kind of fun, that’s cool. But man, anything else, my air conditioner’s broken, it’s July, it’s 103 outside, my mother’s gonna… mother-in-law’s gonna be here in 4 hours.

74 00:12:16.890 ⇒ 00:12:19.520 Les Stobart: That ain’t good.

75 00:12:19.860 ⇒ 00:12:34.750 Les Stobart: Air-conditioned plumbing, electrical, pest control, I got bed bugs, you know, that’s $2,000,$3,000, $4,000. Who wants to spend next week’s vacation money to get rid of a big bed bug problem right now?

76 00:12:35.100 ⇒ 00:12:51.359 Les Stobart: So, it’s one of those businesses, and that’s a long preamble to say, it’s one of those businesses that people don’t want to call, and it’s not a pleasant purchase, and it’s not like a restaurant that at 10.30 a.m, I can show you a buy one, get one free.

77 00:12:51.400 ⇒ 00:12:57.800 Les Stobart: chicken dinner, and have you go, shit, man, I wasn’t thinking chicken, but chicken sounds really good right now.

78 00:12:57.800 ⇒ 00:12:58.240 Uttam Kumaran: Excellent.

79 00:12:58.240 ⇒ 00:13:08.350 Les Stobart: let’s go do that. Same with shoes, same with a movie, same with the coffee shop, same with a bar, same with a whatever, right? So, it’s very much driven by

80 00:13:10.310 ⇒ 00:13:17.190 Les Stobart: I’ve got a problem, and the recognition of, I’ve got a problem. And then it is, hey, who am I gonna call?

81 00:13:17.540 ⇒ 00:13:30.730 Les Stobart: So, that’s where constant branding and constant presence and constant brand building and constant credibility of mission and message come in.

82 00:13:30.730 ⇒ 00:13:40.629 Les Stobart: for a company like ABC, because A I need to be in your decision set when you go home and your wife tells you, hey, the thermostat’s not working, that air conditioner hadn’t come on all afternoon.

83 00:13:40.920 ⇒ 00:13:50.970 Les Stobart: So, I gotta be in your decision set. And then, once I’m in your decision set, I’ve gotta be a, you know what, I think they’re pretty good, or I think they’re a pretty good company, so I’m gonna call them.

84 00:13:51.420 ⇒ 00:13:53.700 Les Stobart: So, that’s what we do.

85 00:13:54.010 ⇒ 00:14:03.549 Les Stobart: So, we’re a real different animal than stimulating demand, creating demand, and I don’t always know that that’s really

86 00:14:03.690 ⇒ 00:14:19.250 Les Stobart: front and center in people’s minds internally as well as it is. We’re not a good company at coming up with specials, or showing an item and saying, get this item. There’s a few things like that we can do that with.

87 00:14:19.480 ⇒ 00:14:41.720 Les Stobart: We can say, get this item, and here’s a flat price. But so much of what we have to do, we have to come to your house, and we have to measure it, and we have to count it, and we have to estimate hours, and we have to estimate materials, and we have to estimate how long are we going to be there. We have to estimate warranty. That’s why we can’t give, you know, capitated prices too easily.

88 00:14:41.720 ⇒ 00:14:44.630 Les Stobart: All that to say somebody calls in.

89 00:14:44.850 ⇒ 00:14:49.650 Les Stobart: and the level of expertise required for a CSR to

90 00:14:49.970 ⇒ 00:14:55.649 Les Stobart: answer in and everything that Les and Utom may ask? Man, that’s a big ask.

91 00:14:55.680 ⇒ 00:15:10.649 Les Stobart: To have somebody be that skilled, and the more you get into technical things, like air conditioning, or plumbing, or electrical, or appliance repair, it gets even more complicated. So, it’s a tall order for the CSRs to do well.

92 00:15:11.390 ⇒ 00:15:23.969 Les Stobart: I think the other side of just training a CSR is hiring the right person to begin with. Do they have a customer service mindset? Do they have a pleasant voice? Do they have good nonverbals?

93 00:15:23.970 ⇒ 00:15:36.839 Les Stobart: Do they have a good vocabulary? Do they listen well so that they really understood what the hell UTOM is really kind of saying or asking? And that has nothing to do with whether or not they know the product suite, man.

94 00:15:36.870 ⇒ 00:15:49.330 Les Stobart: That’s a… that’s a people thing, that’s a personality thing, that’s a customer service thing. And I think we’ve got some CSRs that do a really good job of making you feel like,

95 00:15:49.330 ⇒ 00:16:03.850 Les Stobart: they’re hearing you, and they’re empathetic. Not sympathetic, but they’re empathetic to the pain you’re feeling. But I’ve got others that just go through the motions, man. They’re just reading off the chart, and they’re saying, yeah, I hear ya.

96 00:16:04.000 ⇒ 00:16:12.280 Les Stobart: You got, water on the floor, and it’s 100 degrees in your house. Okay. Yeah.

97 00:16:12.490 ⇒ 00:16:14.129 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay, hold on a minute.

98 00:16:14.630 ⇒ 00:16:24.099 Les Stobart: So, I just communicated to you that I really don’t give a shit, okay? So, the non-verbal set for a CSR is huge, and most people

99 00:16:24.100 ⇒ 00:16:38.770 Les Stobart: either have it or they don’t, okay? We’re… I mean, essentially hiring, because we don’t hire for it well. We know it when we see it, I think, but we don’t… we don’t really seek it out. We’re so desperate a lot of times just to get a body. Hey, ma’am, they can pass the background check.

100 00:16:38.850 ⇒ 00:16:51.600 Les Stobart: Hey man, they seem to be able to learn the computer system pretty well. Hey man, they said that they did customer service at a blue-collar place before, so we don’t really worry about the non-verbal stuff too well.

101 00:16:51.890 ⇒ 00:17:03.640 Les Stobart: But, yeah, it’s a tough job for CSRs. I think that in the building, the different division managers and sub-managers under the division guys.

102 00:17:03.800 ⇒ 00:17:09.569 Les Stobart: Don’t have a lot of empathy for the role and the difficulty that a CSR faces.

103 00:17:10.020 ⇒ 00:17:12.520 Les Stobart: They…

104 00:17:13.650 ⇒ 00:17:22.879 Les Stobart: They tend to want to think that the less information sometimes that a CSR has, the better, because they don’t want a CSR saying the wrong thing.

105 00:17:23.510 ⇒ 00:17:35.009 Les Stobart: They don’t want the CSR going, well, gosh, Tom, that doesn’t sound like that’s going to be that big a problem. Or they don’t want to say, hey, you know what? That doesn’t sound like that’s going to be very expensive.

106 00:17:35.300 ⇒ 00:17:43.499 Les Stobart: They don’t want anything to happen like that, because they’re afraid it’s the alternative, and then, you know, the customer pitches a fiddle a little bit.

107 00:17:43.590 ⇒ 00:17:51.540 Les Stobart: So the job that the CSRs have to do is tough, man, but that’s any customer service job, that’s any phone job. Throw into the fact

108 00:17:51.580 ⇒ 00:18:11.519 Les Stobart: that more often than… not… I won’t say more often, I’ll say a lot of the time, people are under emotional distress. If you’ve got water on your floor, or coming through your attic, or you just saw a rat in your baby’s room, or the AC isn’t working, or the heater isn’t working, or all those things that are kind of emergent kind of services.

109 00:18:11.520 ⇒ 00:18:15.179 Les Stobart: then yeah, you’re already elevated, man. Your blood pressure’s already up.

110 00:18:15.400 ⇒ 00:18:24.759 Les Stobart: And if we don’t… if the CSRs aren’t pretty good at reading that, and understanding those nonverbals, and then having been taught some skills to de-escalate.

111 00:18:24.980 ⇒ 00:18:29.170 Les Stobart: Then, yeah, it can go from bad to worse.

112 00:18:29.460 ⇒ 00:18:30.500 Les Stobart: But it’s a tough year.

113 00:18:31.110 ⇒ 00:18:41.939 Uttam Kumaran: Do you feel like, in that same lane, though, that the fact that you’ve invested so much into customer service, like, that is what everybody mentions as the superpower as well?

114 00:18:42.060 ⇒ 00:18:43.629 Uttam Kumaran: You know, and that is the reason why…

115 00:18:43.630 ⇒ 00:18:44.710 Les Stobart: What are you asking?

116 00:18:45.130 ⇒ 00:18:50.980 Uttam Kumaran: like, that is one of the strengths of ABC is… The customer service department.

117 00:18:51.690 ⇒ 00:18:53.579 Les Stobart: It’s okay, yeah, it’s okay.

118 00:18:54.540 ⇒ 00:19:01.789 Les Stobart: You called it a superpower, I sure wouldn’t say that, man. See, I’m… I’m an outlier a lot of times, dude, and I’m gonna piss a lot of people off.

119 00:19:02.130 ⇒ 00:19:16.349 Les Stobart: Because, you know, I’m gonna… I’m gonna… I’m gonna give you straight-up answers, and there are people in that building that don’t necessarily want to consider that. They want to go, no, no, no, no, no, no, everything’s fine. That’s not what I want to focus on.

120 00:19:18.840 ⇒ 00:19:24.160 Uttam Kumaran: Do you feel like, in the way that you mentioned, you know, the leaky bucket problem, do you feel like

121 00:19:24.370 ⇒ 00:19:30.869 Uttam Kumaran: The company overall focuses much more on acquisition than retention, than…

122 00:19:31.150 ⇒ 00:19:37.560 Uttam Kumaran: trying to win back a, you know, a canceled or an unhappy customer? Do you think that’s, like, a fair…

123 00:19:38.580 ⇒ 00:19:40.540 Uttam Kumaran: You know, thing to say.

124 00:19:41.460 ⇒ 00:19:58.239 Les Stobart: That’s a compound question, brother. Break it down into simpler… simpler… I mean, do we focus on acquisition? Yes. Do we have some CSRs that sound really good when you call? And depending on the mood of the person, and depending on what

125 00:19:58.480 ⇒ 00:20:07.420 Les Stobart: the 17 items are that could be calling in for. A lot of the time, and here’s where I’m going to generalize.

126 00:20:07.590 ⇒ 00:20:22.310 Les Stobart: And I’ll point it out to you if you didn’t catch it. I think a lot of the time, I don’t know if it’s the majority, I don’t know if it’s the minority, I don’t know if I’d put it in the 90% or the 20%, but I would say a lot of the time, the calls go…

127 00:20:22.420 ⇒ 00:20:31.759 Les Stobart: you know, pretty well, okay? But it’s… it’s usually when it’s usually kind of cursory, like,

128 00:20:32.010 ⇒ 00:20:44.899 Les Stobart: hey, I need this. Yes, sir, we can get somebody out to you. And then they’ll say a time frame, and then the person will go, okay, yeah, that sounds good, that’s reasonable. And they come to that. It’s like doing a doctor’s appointment. Hey, what day, what time?

129 00:20:45.150 ⇒ 00:20:49.839 Les Stobart: And if that goes pretty smoothly, then yeah, that goes pretty smoothly. But…

130 00:20:50.640 ⇒ 00:21:03.350 Les Stobart: the CSRs are… their hands are tied, dude. So if you call in at 3 o’clock, or 2 o’clock, or 1 o’clock, say, here’s something about the service business. Here’s something about the service business. If you don’t know this, learn this.

131 00:21:03.880 ⇒ 00:21:04.850 Uttam Kumaran: you know.

132 00:21:04.930 ⇒ 00:21:15.679 Les Stobart: You, as a customer, if you call in early in the morning, we’re… we’ve got more ability to make you happy by getting you an appointment, because there’s a whole day in front, even some of the evening.

133 00:21:15.900 ⇒ 00:21:30.740 Les Stobart: If you call in early in the week, we might even have more ability to make you happy, because there’s a whole 4 or 5 days before the weekend where we can maybe fit you in in a way that you’re pleased with.

134 00:21:30.880 ⇒ 00:21:36.190 Les Stobart: So… There’s so many variables that come into it.

135 00:21:36.540 ⇒ 00:21:48.400 Les Stobart: that call can go really well, or that call can be problematic. Are you having an emergency, or are you just needing some routine, perfunctory function carried out?

136 00:21:48.750 ⇒ 00:22:01.849 Les Stobart: And that’s where it gets real problematic. And if you have a CSR that cares, and really try… and I’m… and there are some, okay? I’m not implying that there’s not some, but if… I mean, there… I’d say a lot.

137 00:22:01.850 ⇒ 00:22:10.029 Les Stobart: Tom, in the mechanical department has a lot that are really empathetic, I think. I hear them. So, they’re trying, but man, their hands are tied.

138 00:22:10.110 ⇒ 00:22:19.009 Les Stobart: You know, it’s like, I’ve got 10 gallons of water I need to carry, but I got a 5-gallon bucket, how are you gonna do it?

139 00:22:19.180 ⇒ 00:22:33.819 Les Stobart: Well, that’s the way a CSR and a dispatcher’s life is. I got 100 customers, I got 600 hours of work, but I’ve only got the bandwidth to do 400 of those hours. They don’t know it in those frames, but that.

140 00:22:33.820 ⇒ 00:22:34.300 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.

141 00:22:34.300 ⇒ 00:22:40.920 Les Stobart: You know, that’s what it is. So, yeah, it’s… it is a very, very difficult thing. If you want

142 00:22:41.100 ⇒ 00:22:46.260 Les Stobart: If you… I mean, how many calls have you listened to? How many ABC calls have you listened to?

143 00:22:47.080 ⇒ 00:22:49.770 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve listened to probably 20 or 30 calls, I know.

144 00:22:49.770 ⇒ 00:23:02.640 Les Stobart: Oh, dude, you hadn’t even scratched the tip of the tip of the tip. Listen to a shit ton of phone calls, listen to mornings, listen to evenings, listen to every cue. Make sure that you listen

145 00:23:02.640 ⇒ 00:23:14.210 Les Stobart: To pest, air conditioning, plumbing, window cleaning, trash bin, appliance repair, water quality, tree trimming, landscaping, lawn mowing, fertilization.

146 00:23:14.380 ⇒ 00:23:16.190 Les Stobart: Listen to every one of them, man.

147 00:23:16.630 ⇒ 00:23:17.290 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

148 00:23:19.490 ⇒ 00:23:20.140 Les Stobart: They’ve all…

149 00:23:20.140 ⇒ 00:23:20.670 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like…

150 00:23:20.670 ⇒ 00:23:29.620 Les Stobart: unique rhythms. They’ve all got their own unique pricing structures. In the lawn department alone… oh, let’s do this. In the mechanical department alone.

151 00:23:29.950 ⇒ 00:23:36.109 Les Stobart: We give free estimates for some things, and we charge you to give you an estimate for other things.

152 00:23:37.660 ⇒ 00:23:43.560 Les Stobart: I’m not saying that’s unreasonable. I’m saying that, to a large degree, that’s in the,

153 00:23:43.800 ⇒ 00:24:02.540 Les Stobart: DNA of an industry, depending on which vertical in a home service industry you’re in, but look at it holistically. If you’re an ABC client, customer, and you have been for a few years, and you’ve gotten a free estimate for lawn mowing, a free estimate for pest control, a free estimate for,

154 00:24:02.680 ⇒ 00:24:05.069 Les Stobart: What else, man?

155 00:24:05.400 ⇒ 00:24:22.340 Les Stobart: pick some things, painting, and then all of a sudden, I’m going to charge you to give you an estimate for, repairing your dryer, or for repairing your air conditioner. Oh, and keep in mind, sometimes I give you free air conditioning estimates also, if it’s for a replacement system as opposed to a repair.

156 00:24:22.410 ⇒ 00:24:29.430 Les Stobart: It’s tough to be an ABC customer sometimes, because every vertical has its own set of rules and mores.

157 00:24:31.210 ⇒ 00:24:32.960 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, given those…

158 00:24:33.160 ⇒ 00:24:45.739 Uttam Kumaran: given, you know, the reality of the CSR department, yes, you kind of have to maybe get a warm body in sometimes. Yes, it’s a really tough job, so churn is very high. Like, what do you think is…

159 00:24:45.790 ⇒ 00:24:57.289 Uttam Kumaran: like, possible. I mean, you’ve been with the company for a long time, I know the company has grown, not only in the services, in the divisions, the internal culture, like, what do you think is…

160 00:24:57.600 ⇒ 00:25:06.730 Uttam Kumaran: you know, how do you guys… how do you think the business continues to just be, you know, the leading player in the market? Like, what do you think

161 00:25:07.110 ⇒ 00:25:09.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess maybe we could start there.

162 00:25:10.020 ⇒ 00:25:13.019 Les Stobart: Oh, yeah, that’s a simple question.

163 00:25:13.400 ⇒ 00:25:18.080 Les Stobart: It’s a bunch of different things, dude. Are you confining it to the customer service environment?

164 00:25:18.850 ⇒ 00:25:19.610 Uttam Kumaran: No.

165 00:25:21.780 ⇒ 00:25:22.970 Les Stobart: Oh, firing?

166 00:25:23.460 ⇒ 00:25:24.080 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

167 00:25:25.310 ⇒ 00:25:28.669 Les Stobart: So, average age of a plumber in the United States is what?

168 00:25:32.080 ⇒ 00:25:34.710 Uttam Kumaran: Good question. I don’t know, say 35?

169 00:25:34.860 ⇒ 00:25:40.850 Les Stobart: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It’s somewhere in the mid-50s. Average age of a plumber in the United States is 55.

170 00:25:41.120 ⇒ 00:25:48.090 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Why is that? Well, kids don’t want to be plumbers, man. They want to be drone pilots, electronic technicians.

171 00:25:48.100 ⇒ 00:25:55.340 Les Stobart: Video game builders, electronic specialists, AI enthusiasts, I mean…

172 00:25:55.450 ⇒ 00:26:07.959 Les Stobart: getting somebody… and I’m sure it’s similar for auto mechanics and woodworking and stuff like that, but recruiting and hiring is going to continue to be

173 00:26:08.050 ⇒ 00:26:26.410 Les Stobart: problematic for anybody in the service space. Go and… go and talk to Tom, and go to one of his plumbing meetings, and just look around the room and kind of get a feel for what the average age is of the plumbers in there. Do you have some younger guys? Yeah, they might be apprentices and not actually licensed

174 00:26:26.410 ⇒ 00:26:28.940 Les Stobart: Journeymen or master plumbers, but…

175 00:26:28.940 ⇒ 00:26:41.700 Les Stobart: There’s some in the stream, in other words, but you’ve got… so, hiring’s always going to be problematic, and it’s extremely expensive, because any… like, any commodity that there’s fewer of than,

176 00:26:42.110 ⇒ 00:26:49.089 Les Stobart: It’s problematic. And we… and we do a decent job of it, but we struggle with it. We struggle with it.

177 00:26:51.900 ⇒ 00:26:55.460 Uttam Kumaran: Do you think that, there is a service

178 00:26:55.770 ⇒ 00:27:04.730 Uttam Kumaran: you know, that’s new, do you think there’s a region that ABC’s entered in in the last, you know, 5 years that, you know, has a lot of potential?

179 00:27:06.440 ⇒ 00:27:16.229 Les Stobart: I think all of them have a lot of potential, and I’ll… I’ll… again, if you… I don’t know how long you stayed in the room yesterday, but…

180 00:27:16.360 ⇒ 00:27:20.789 Les Stobart: I can get pretty granular, and

181 00:27:21.110 ⇒ 00:27:24.460 Les Stobart: So, I think all of them have some potential.

182 00:27:24.830 ⇒ 00:27:30.790 Les Stobart: Some things are seasonal, so you have to make sure that depending on the product you’re talking about.

183 00:27:30.920 ⇒ 00:27:41.059 Les Stobart: You’re trying to grow it, if that’s what you’re asking about or curious about, then, you know, it’s kind of a no-brainer to go, okay, we need to make sure we’re growing it in the right season.

184 00:27:41.620 ⇒ 00:27:52.009 Les Stobart: Do I think… All of the services… have… The equal potential

185 00:27:52.540 ⇒ 00:28:05.279 Les Stobart: Probably not. I think you’d have to… I mean, here’s some stats that I think are pretty accurate or pretty true. I know I’ve picked them up from industry people over the years, but, like, at any given time.

186 00:28:05.730 ⇒ 00:28:11.149 Les Stobart: There’s 3% of the populace that is having an air conditioning problem.

187 00:28:12.090 ⇒ 00:28:19.470 Les Stobart: So… again, yeah, find that 3%. If you could find that 3% every day or every week.

188 00:28:20.730 ⇒ 00:28:23.230 Les Stobart: you’d be a rich man, okay?

189 00:28:23.820 ⇒ 00:28:29.790 Les Stobart: As it is, you just gotta sort through the whole population, try to communicate to a lot of the population.

190 00:28:29.940 ⇒ 00:28:39.560 Les Stobart: You can weed out a few things, like, do they own a home? Are there some certain income levels that somebody could advertise to, or certain neighborhoods, whatever?

191 00:28:39.750 ⇒ 00:28:50.300 Les Stobart: But, you know, certain things are gonna have a demand, certain things aren’t. Bugs, you know? Man, I can go really deep there.

192 00:28:50.460 ⇒ 00:28:53.220 Les Stobart: Pest control.

193 00:28:53.550 ⇒ 00:28:59.040 Les Stobart: Is one of those items that, as an economy tightens, it’s one of the first things that gets cut.

194 00:28:59.240 ⇒ 00:29:02.229 Les Stobart: You, I don’t know if you have… do we do pest control for you?

195 00:29:02.910 ⇒ 00:29:09.479 Uttam Kumaran: No, but I am ordering, ABC services this week, actually, to walk through. I’m renting this house, so…

196 00:29:09.480 ⇒ 00:29:12.410 Les Stobart: Yeah. You’re secret safe with me, I’m not gonna tell Matt and Bobby.

197 00:29:12.410 ⇒ 00:29:25.109 Uttam Kumaran: I would like to, I couldn’t have… but now, yeah, I mean, we’re… well, I talked to Julie yesterday, and I was like, yeah, I’m gonna be ordering lawn. She’s like, oh, actually, also order two, so you can see the…

198 00:29:25.350 ⇒ 00:29:31.320 Uttam Kumaran: Because I was like, I want to hear the bundling, and I want to kind of see what the customer journey is, so…

199 00:29:31.320 ⇒ 00:29:37.910 Les Stobart: Yeah, so… and do it as a normal, full-fledged customer. Call in, and do them two.

200 00:29:37.910 ⇒ 00:29:38.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

201 00:29:38.310 ⇒ 00:29:39.809 Les Stobart: times, maybe, and then see.

202 00:29:39.810 ⇒ 00:29:40.140 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

203 00:29:40.140 ⇒ 00:29:42.869 Les Stobart: See what you think the experience is.

204 00:29:45.750 ⇒ 00:29:53.250 Les Stobart: I’m sorry, I kind of lost my train of thought. Oh, pest control. So, clearly very driven by seasonality.

205 00:29:53.580 ⇒ 00:29:59.129 Les Stobart: Usually insects are kind of more of a spring and summer thing, and…

206 00:29:59.360 ⇒ 00:30:06.859 Les Stobart: Animals as opposed to insects that wear fur are typically more colder weather kind of things, mice, rats.

207 00:30:06.990 ⇒ 00:30:09.290 Les Stobart: Raccoons, possums, etc.

208 00:30:11.320 ⇒ 00:30:20.480 Les Stobart: they are very driven by the environment. Is it a hot summer? Is it a cold summer? Is it a wet summer? Was it a wet spring? So, some of that stuff…

209 00:30:20.830 ⇒ 00:30:25.360 Les Stobart: isn’t controlled, right? I mean, are you… are you at the mercy of?

210 00:30:25.710 ⇒ 00:30:28.530 Les Stobart: So, I don’t think anybody…

211 00:30:28.930 ⇒ 00:30:38.649 Les Stobart: unless you’re super right-wing leaning, would think that there’s no such thing as climate change, or environmental change, or environmental impact, but I do think

212 00:30:39.170 ⇒ 00:30:44.599 Les Stobart: You know, that’s coming, that’s gonna impact the pest control industry.

213 00:30:44.950 ⇒ 00:30:51.269 Les Stobart: that kind of thing is coming. Younger people have different views of pest control than older people do.

214 00:30:51.630 ⇒ 00:31:08.329 Les Stobart: So, you get into that, you know, those kind of variables. That’s why targeting gets to be so important, and messaging with the targeting gets to be so important. But I… I guess all of your services have certainly a lot of potential

215 00:31:10.770 ⇒ 00:31:22.239 Les Stobart: And I think the main overlay I’d look at would be, you know, as a percentage of the population, how many… how much of the population typically is having that service, and the ones that have…

216 00:31:22.240 ⇒ 00:31:36.119 Les Stobart: the trades that have the highest penetration in terms of population density of having that service, whatever the delta is between what we have and what’s out there would be a good weight or a decent way to measure ceiling.

217 00:31:36.490 ⇒ 00:31:39.219 Les Stobart: But, you know, that’s a possibility.

218 00:31:40.800 ⇒ 00:32:00.529 Uttam Kumaran: Can you talk to me about, like, what the, you know, step changes were in the business as it relates to the marketing side? Like, you know, I know, I’m sure that when you started, there was a state, you know, of how marketing went. Like, were there any, like, inflection points, whether it was budget, or a new channel?

219 00:32:00.530 ⇒ 00:32:05.840 Uttam Kumaran: Or… something in the market, like, that you remember, like, really…

220 00:32:05.990 ⇒ 00:32:11.170 Uttam Kumaran: you know, move the company in a new direction? Like, are there any that stand out?

221 00:32:12.390 ⇒ 00:32:22.260 Les Stobart: New direction, that’s an interesting phrase. Don’t know that I would use those words, but I think, I think inflection… inflection point is… is the decent words.

222 00:32:24.980 ⇒ 00:32:35.809 Les Stobart: We’ve added cities in the 17 years, almost 18 years I’ve been there. When I went there, there was only College Station and only Austin and San Antonio.

223 00:32:36.430 ⇒ 00:32:43.919 Les Stobart: And so, anything else since then… Is literally a new office.

224 00:32:44.830 ⇒ 00:32:47.960 Les Stobart: So, there’s… there’s some inflection points.

225 00:32:48.570 ⇒ 00:32:58.470 Les Stobart: Anytime we’ve added a service, In any market, and then every time you add it again to another market.

226 00:32:58.870 ⇒ 00:33:01.880 Les Stobart: Then those are inflection points.

227 00:33:02.600 ⇒ 00:33:06.419 Les Stobart: I think there’s been 2, maybe…

228 00:33:07.230 ⇒ 00:33:12.879 Les Stobart: economic inflection points. There was kind of a period in about…

229 00:33:13.230 ⇒ 00:33:25.890 Les Stobart: I guess the early 2000s, maybe? I’d have to try to go back and… the only time I’ve… that Bobby’s ever come to me and said, hey man, I need you to cut budget and cut… we’re… we’re so far behind that we need to cut budget.

230 00:33:26.010 ⇒ 00:33:32.950 Les Stobart: That was sometime… 2000, 2001, 2002, I don’t remember exactly.

231 00:33:33.300 ⇒ 00:33:38.300 Les Stobart: But that was… that was an external economic thing going on. The other one’s right now.

232 00:33:38.480 ⇒ 00:33:44.459 Les Stobart: I think anybody that thinks the economy right now is good, It was fucking nuts.

233 00:33:45.300 ⇒ 00:33:47.500 Les Stobart: I get shopper data.

234 00:33:48.220 ⇒ 00:33:58.369 Les Stobart: I look at Walmart, Target. Last 3 years, the number of items in a buggy at Target has gone down every quarter, every year, practically.

235 00:33:58.540 ⇒ 00:34:03.980 Les Stobart: Walmart on the grocery side, number of items have gone down.

236 00:34:04.250 ⇒ 00:34:13.870 Les Stobart: As well as whomever’s doing the shopping is buying more generic brands, more store brands, and less name brands.

237 00:34:14.409 ⇒ 00:34:18.099 Les Stobart: Highest credit card… hey, you got a dog back there behind you.

238 00:34:19.139 ⇒ 00:34:20.109 Uttam Kumaran: Me too, yeah.

239 00:34:20.110 ⇒ 00:34:27.129 Les Stobart: Yeah, mine’s wandering around. Credit cards. We are right back where we were pre-COVID.

240 00:34:27.540 ⇒ 00:34:32.260 Les Stobart: If you look at what years ABC was super successful.

241 00:34:32.550 ⇒ 00:34:36.769 Les Stobart: Super good years, buddy, during COVID, okay?

242 00:34:36.900 ⇒ 00:34:46.640 Les Stobart: Some of that was credit cards, some of that was not credit card debt. But now we’re back again in highest credit card debt we have had

243 00:34:46.920 ⇒ 00:34:50.019 Les Stobart: since prior to the COVID pandemic.

244 00:34:50.409 ⇒ 00:34:54.639 Les Stobart: So, I think that’s a place where…

245 00:34:55.170 ⇒ 00:35:06.389 Les Stobart: ABC has not owned up nearly as much as they ought to spend time on what’s going on economically in the market, and everyone likes to think

246 00:35:06.750 ⇒ 00:35:14.319 Les Stobart: that Austin is in a bubble, or somewhat insulated, and it probably is. Austin’s still a really affluent community.

247 00:35:14.620 ⇒ 00:35:17.080 Les Stobart: But… carpous hidden.

248 00:35:17.670 ⇒ 00:35:25.699 Les Stobart: I don’t know that Waco is, don’t know that Marble Falls is, don’t know that, I don’t know, Bastrop might be, just because of its growth rate.

249 00:35:26.070 ⇒ 00:35:33.530 Les Stobart: But I think the economy that we’re in right now, until there’s some light at the end of the tunnel.

250 00:35:34.160 ⇒ 00:35:50.729 Les Stobart: I… I think this is the… that… it is the second economic inflection point that… that I think’s existed. Prior to ABC, and I don’t even know where you were or what kind of diaper you were wearing, but it was,

251 00:35:51.180 ⇒ 00:35:53.860 Les Stobart: Shit, man, 1999.

252 00:35:54.120 ⇒ 00:35:59.970 Les Stobart: When, The dot-com bubble burst.

253 00:36:00.530 ⇒ 00:36:14.599 Les Stobart: So, man, that was monstrous in Austin, Texas. So that would have been 3, but if you’re just talking about ABC, it was… yeah, and I think I might have said 2001, 2002 earlier. It was really probably more like…

254 00:36:15.020 ⇒ 00:36:18.369 Les Stobart: 2010, I’m sorry, it was more like 2010.

255 00:36:18.560 ⇒ 00:36:19.620 Les Stobart: And then now.

256 00:36:19.990 ⇒ 00:36:20.660 Les Stobart: Now.

257 00:36:27.190 ⇒ 00:36:35.620 Uttam Kumaran: And then, another question I had is, how you think about… Your budget.

258 00:36:37.080 ⇒ 00:36:44.949 Uttam Kumaran: How is the… how does it, like, how did it evolve, and are you doing it as a function of this…

259 00:36:45.030 ⇒ 00:37:01.899 Uttam Kumaran: you know, budget… yeah, I guess, like, how do you… how do you think about budgeting for marketing? I… I guess I… from yesterday, it was really clear how you were thinking channel by channel, brand versus service. I… I think that’s, you know, that makes a lot of sense, but how do you think about the overall.

260 00:37:01.900 ⇒ 00:37:09.679 Uttam Kumaran: budgeting process from the perspective of Bobby, from the perspective of Matt, maybe I could just get some insight into that.

261 00:37:12.300 ⇒ 00:37:13.330 Les Stobart: It’s interesting.

262 00:37:17.210 ⇒ 00:37:18.870 Uttam Kumaran: Do you think,

263 00:37:19.050 ⇒ 00:37:26.739 Uttam Kumaran: like, has that grown over time? Has it always been a fixed percentage of revenue? Do you feel like you have the flexibility

264 00:37:26.860 ⇒ 00:37:29.110 Uttam Kumaran: to take bets? Like, how do you… yeah.

265 00:37:30.510 ⇒ 00:37:31.690 Les Stobart: That’s a better question.

266 00:37:32.300 ⇒ 00:37:40.600 Les Stobart: Yes, it’s grown over time. It’s… it’s been… you know, Bobby is… Truly is, in a way.

267 00:37:40.940 ⇒ 00:37:43.430 Les Stobart: a marketing person.

268 00:37:43.670 ⇒ 00:37:47.210 Les Stobart: In that, he deeply believes in marketing.

269 00:37:47.690 ⇒ 00:37:52.639 Les Stobart: And he… he would… he would… he would very much probably…

270 00:37:52.760 ⇒ 00:37:57.690 Les Stobart: smile and hug you if you called him a salesman, okay? He really…

271 00:37:57.820 ⇒ 00:38:09.320 Les Stobart: looks favorably, and still probably, at his heart of hearts, knows and believes he’s a good salesman. But he’s also very marketing-aware, meaning

272 00:38:09.320 ⇒ 00:38:21.370 Les Stobart: He knows how important marketing is. There’s tons of anecdotal stuff, stories you hear, stories you read, where, you know, an economy turns down, or a business slows.

273 00:38:21.390 ⇒ 00:38:34.939 Les Stobart: And the first thing the CEO does is cut advertising. Oh my god, we gotta… we gotta save money, we gotta cut marketing, gotta cut advertising. That’s not Bobby. Bobby knows better. So he’s very much wired that way. Matt isn’t… Matt…

274 00:38:34.940 ⇒ 00:38:42.169 Les Stobart: I love Matt to death. Matt’s one of my good friends in the building, but Matt is very much a CFO, bean counter.

275 00:38:42.170 ⇒ 00:38:57.889 Les Stobart: Look at the margins, look at the profit, look at the overhead, look at the… he’s very much head down in the spreadsheet, and that influences… influences his thinking. And in a good way, in a good way.

276 00:38:57.890 ⇒ 00:39:10.180 Les Stobart: they spar a little bit, or they use one another as a sounding board. Bobby uses him as a sounding board. Matt tries to pull him in, and it makes Bobby think a little more about

277 00:39:10.490 ⇒ 00:39:15.900 Les Stobart: let me refine that thought process, because I am trying to spend more money, let’s… let me refine that.

278 00:39:16.080 ⇒ 00:39:23.250 Les Stobart: So, Bobby would spend more, Matt would spend less. It’s always been a fixed amount.

279 00:39:24.140 ⇒ 00:39:39.309 Les Stobart: there’s argument, and I don’t know if you were sitting in there yesterday, but there was disagreement among them, good-natured disagreement among them about, well, is it 4%, or is it 4.5%? Is it 5%? Is it 6%? There’s always been that, but it’s always been right in that realm.

280 00:39:39.440 ⇒ 00:39:44.789 Les Stobart: And it has gone up, essentially, every year because ABC has grown every year.

281 00:39:45.630 ⇒ 00:39:46.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

282 00:39:48.510 ⇒ 00:39:56.240 Uttam Kumaran: I would love to ask about how partnerships has impacted the business. In particular, I learned a lot about the Costco, partnership.

283 00:39:56.370 ⇒ 00:40:01.680 Uttam Kumaran: How has partnership changed over time? Are there partners that are more valuable?

284 00:40:02.490 ⇒ 00:40:08.520 Les Stobart: Yeah, I’m not a good one to ask about that. I’ve not been particularly involved on the partnership side. I’ve got…

285 00:40:08.690 ⇒ 00:40:15.450 Les Stobart: impressions and not particularly well-informed thoughts, but I’m not a good person to ask about that.

286 00:40:16.040 ⇒ 00:40:16.610 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

287 00:40:17.640 ⇒ 00:40:30.229 Uttam Kumaran: And I guess going back to the budget, given that ABC has been growing and your budget, you know, given that, you know, even as a fixed percent of a larger pie is growing, how do you feel about your, like, operational capacity to…

288 00:40:30.250 ⇒ 00:40:31.470 Les Stobart: As you…

289 00:40:31.740 ⇒ 00:40:32.940 Uttam Kumaran: Maxed, okay.

290 00:40:33.470 ⇒ 00:40:35.129 Uttam Kumaran: Has that been the case?

291 00:40:35.490 ⇒ 00:40:38.719 Uttam Kumaran: Like, consistently over the last, like, 5-10 years.

292 00:40:39.880 ⇒ 00:40:40.670 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

293 00:40:42.060 ⇒ 00:40:47.510 Les Stobart: Do you feel that… Get you a timeline. Put a timeline together, and look at how cities have been added.

294 00:40:47.870 ⇒ 00:40:48.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

295 00:40:48.230 ⇒ 00:40:50.890 Les Stobart: Look at how services have been added.

296 00:40:51.310 ⇒ 00:40:55.889 Les Stobart: And then examine, maybe, Just the additional…

297 00:40:56.460 ⇒ 00:41:04.140 Les Stobart: Dollars that have to be kind of shepherded, and then look at how digital marketing has grown.

298 00:41:04.390 ⇒ 00:41:08.730 Les Stobart: The different channels that are employable in the digital marketing world.

299 00:41:09.160 ⇒ 00:41:13.590 Les Stobart: And just know that That job has gotten…

300 00:41:13.750 ⇒ 00:41:32.430 Les Stobart: more complicated, and I’m really good with a budget. I… I’m a good steward of… of, the ABC budget that I’m given. I don’t… I don’t color outside the lines very much. I… I’m… I do my best to stay inside the lines. I’m a rule follower.

301 00:41:32.720 ⇒ 00:41:36.400 Les Stobart: And I like Matt, and he and I communicate really well together.

302 00:41:36.630 ⇒ 00:41:42.229 Les Stobart: But, it’s tough, because in the digital space alone.

303 00:41:42.600 ⇒ 00:41:49.970 Les Stobart: And I don’t know how much you know, you threw out a few things that you’ve done, I don’t know, but, you know, a digital

304 00:41:50.360 ⇒ 00:41:52.659 Les Stobart: 20 years ago, was I’ve got a website.

305 00:41:53.410 ⇒ 00:42:04.269 Les Stobart: And people didn’t really know what to do with that website. It was essentially a brochure on the web, right? Instead of a… instead of a… instead of handing you a brochure, I’d go, hey, go to the website, man.

306 00:42:05.310 ⇒ 00:42:13.560 Les Stobart: But there wasn’t any… there wasn’t any way to really do much commerce or much business, and there was certainly, like, not any appointment scheduling or anything like that going.

307 00:42:13.830 ⇒ 00:42:19.719 Les Stobart: But that was it, that was digital. And then somebody else had a website, and they were like, hey, you want to buy an ad on my website?

308 00:42:20.030 ⇒ 00:42:26.490 Les Stobart: And back in these… those days, they called them tile ads. When you talked about, essentially, a display ad.

309 00:42:26.490 ⇒ 00:42:41.400 Les Stobart: It was a tile ad back then, and that was… that was maybe one of the first products that was available in the digital world for somebody to buy. And then all of a sudden, PPC ads, and back then they were so-called Google AdWords. Hey, I want to buy some Google AdWords ads.

310 00:42:42.000 ⇒ 00:43:00.800 Les Stobart: So that popped up. And then, you know, maybe somewhere in there, all of a sudden, Facebook popped up, and there’s a new category called social media. And then somewhere in there, you know what, next door popped up, or Yelp, I guess Yelp. Yelp came out of San Francisco in the restaurant space, and they were essentially reputation management for,

311 00:43:01.040 ⇒ 00:43:11.249 Les Stobart: restaurant business in that part of the world, and then somebody like you goes, hey man, you know what? We can do this for a lot more…

312 00:43:11.590 ⇒ 00:43:18.690 Les Stobart: businesses all across the country, and then there comes Yelp. So, that was just a part of the reputation management stuff.

313 00:43:19.080 ⇒ 00:43:24.100 Les Stobart: and then GBPs, and then LSAs, and then…

314 00:43:25.340 ⇒ 00:43:34.329 Les Stobart: video pre-rolls, and re… and then… and then tactics, right? Retargeting as a tactic.

315 00:43:34.660 ⇒ 00:43:38.990 Les Stobart: Conquest as a tactic. Acquisition as a tactic.

316 00:43:40.030 ⇒ 00:43:48.470 Les Stobart: So, in terms of all of the mediums, then you had all these different, tactics beginning to pop up.

317 00:43:48.570 ⇒ 00:43:57.530 Les Stobart: So, the digital world that was once this, seriously, if you’re thinking website and buying tile ads, now it’s…

318 00:43:58.650 ⇒ 00:43:59.290 Les Stobart: this.

319 00:43:59.290 ⇒ 00:43:59.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

320 00:44:00.850 ⇒ 00:44:04.690 Les Stobart: So, yeah, absolutely, man. Things have gotten busier.

321 00:44:06.020 ⇒ 00:44:09.880 Uttam Kumaran: How has… like, how have you adapted? Like, how has the team adapted?

322 00:44:09.880 ⇒ 00:44:11.720 Les Stobart: I’m really fucking good.

323 00:44:14.920 ⇒ 00:44:18.370 Les Stobart: I like the digital world, there’s certain pieces of it I like a lot.

324 00:44:18.720 ⇒ 00:44:27.809 Les Stobart: I’m curious by nature, so in the 25 years I’ve done air conditioning, 25 years I’ve done plumbing, all those things.

325 00:44:27.840 ⇒ 00:44:32.309 Les Stobart: I have a natural curiosity, so I’ll ask a lot of questions.

326 00:44:32.340 ⇒ 00:44:50.209 Les Stobart: People will go, what are you asking that for? And it’s usually a technician or a manager, but the ones that know me, and we’ve settled into a really, really good relationship, but it helps me understand nuance. It helps me message, right? I use the right nomenclature, I use the right familiar terms.

327 00:44:50.430 ⇒ 00:44:53.639 Les Stobart: I know what the hot buttons are.

328 00:44:53.920 ⇒ 00:45:00.119 Les Stobart: or… and how to use language around those hot buttons. There’s been some independent stuff to look at how…

329 00:45:00.230 ⇒ 00:45:03.639 Les Stobart: consumers make decisions. I did some…

330 00:45:03.750 ⇒ 00:45:15.020 Les Stobart: research work when I was at the other company, honestly, that I still use to this day about how UTAM makes decisions about calling a home service company.

331 00:45:15.160 ⇒ 00:45:20.930 Les Stobart: So, I just adapt all that stuff in, and then I look at the tactics that roll out from different

332 00:45:21.100 ⇒ 00:45:37.289 Les Stobart: providers of digital service, or radio, or television, or outdoor, or whatever it might be, and pick and choose the things that make the most sense for the messaging I need to do, or the audience that I need to attack, or the goal that I need to try to achieve.

333 00:45:37.560 ⇒ 00:45:40.659 Les Stobart: So, I just do it.

334 00:45:43.720 ⇒ 00:45:51.290 Uttam Kumaran: Are there… on the competitive side, are there competitors that you… Take any inspiration from.

335 00:45:51.880 ⇒ 00:45:54.310 Uttam Kumaran: Or watch their tactics, or take a look at…

336 00:45:54.310 ⇒ 00:45:55.050 Les Stobart: Not a lot.

337 00:45:55.050 ⇒ 00:45:59.379 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I’ll be honest… It could be outside… it could even be even compete… it could be outside of the…

338 00:45:59.610 ⇒ 00:46:01.500 Uttam Kumaran: Home services as well, but…

339 00:46:01.970 ⇒ 00:46:20.120 Les Stobart: Well, I don’t… I don’t know what you mean by… again, do I look at competitive advertising? Yeah. I mean, all I gotta do is turn on the news, open up a website, go to a social media platform, turn on the radio station, listen to a streaming channel.

340 00:46:20.120 ⇒ 00:46:30.189 Les Stobart: open up Spotify… yeah, I mean, I… like everyone, like everyone, like everyone.

341 00:46:31.140 ⇒ 00:46:34.510 Les Stobart: I consume media, and I am…

342 00:46:34.890 ⇒ 00:46:41.790 Les Stobart: Just like everybody that consumes media, think I’m an expert.

343 00:46:42.930 ⇒ 00:46:51.290 Les Stobart: Everybody that sat in that room yesterday believes themselves to be a media expert, because they consume so much of it.

344 00:46:51.700 ⇒ 00:46:55.320 Les Stobart: Now… That’s problematic sometimes.

345 00:46:55.610 ⇒ 00:47:03.920 Les Stobart: Because they don’t begin to know things at a depth that maybe they really ought to, to understand the way certain things work.

346 00:47:04.080 ⇒ 00:47:14.040 Les Stobart: Television buying, radio buying, outdoor buying, Retargeting, video production, audio production.

347 00:47:14.120 ⇒ 00:47:29.649 Les Stobart: But all those things that come into play. But people in their very nature, I’m not saying it’s unique to ABC by any stretch, but people, by their very nature, because they consume so much advertising and marketing content, they begin to think, hey, you know what, man?

348 00:47:29.800 ⇒ 00:47:39.520 Les Stobart: You know what would make that ad better? You know what? If you had said this, you know what, if this was blue, you know what? If you’d have put a picture of a puppy in there.

349 00:47:39.640 ⇒ 00:47:46.680 Les Stobart: Everybody is kind of an expert on marketing and advertising because they consume so much of it.

350 00:47:47.090 ⇒ 00:47:52.580 Les Stobart: There’s not a whole lot of other roles that… Have that issue.

351 00:47:55.180 ⇒ 00:48:04.329 Uttam Kumaran: And then, another question I had is on the commercial side of the business. You know, we didn’t spend much time, at least during my portion, speaking about, you know.

352 00:48:04.330 ⇒ 00:48:19.179 Les Stobart: I don’t do anything on the commercial side to speak of. Every now and then, somebody’s asked, hey, can you do a brochure? Hey, can you put this ad in the business journal? But, you know, B2B stuff is really not… is not really the way

353 00:48:19.620 ⇒ 00:48:25.520 Les Stobart: What my position is for, other than the odd job here and there, like, hey, can you help me with this?

354 00:48:25.770 ⇒ 00:48:32.410 Les Stobart: No, that’s more or less handled, and I don’t even have a whole lot of visibility into it, but it’s handled by…

355 00:48:32.510 ⇒ 00:48:35.500 Les Stobart: You know, kind of an outside sales force.

356 00:48:36.120 ⇒ 00:48:37.999 Uttam Kumaran: Do you think that’s a missed opportunity?

357 00:48:39.950 ⇒ 00:48:44.749 Les Stobart: ask me a better question. I don’t know what you’re… I don’t know what… do I think… Do you think that… I mean…

358 00:48:44.750 ⇒ 00:48:55.719 Uttam Kumaran: that for you to not own, or for you to not, you know, also bundle B2B marketing with the similar tactics that you’re using on the residential side, to have… to not have purview over that.

359 00:48:55.720 ⇒ 00:49:07.730 Les Stobart: Well, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t claim to be a B2B expert. I’ll tell you I’m a B2C expert. But, I… I… I’m… I’m not gonna try to wear the mantle of being

360 00:49:08.180 ⇒ 00:49:13.389 Les Stobart: nearly as much of a B2B person as I am a B2C person.

361 00:49:13.990 ⇒ 00:49:14.530 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

362 00:49:16.100 ⇒ 00:49:22.059 Les Stobart: You know, I can do some real base-level stuff, again, general communications, general…

363 00:49:22.330 ⇒ 00:49:25.970 Les Stobart: Sales etiquette and sales, you know, type…

364 00:49:26.100 ⇒ 00:49:32.300 Les Stobart: scheduling and performance. I could do some real basic things on the B2… on the B2B side.

365 00:49:32.430 ⇒ 00:49:37.239 Les Stobart: But… I mean… It is so different.

366 00:49:37.720 ⇒ 00:49:41.239 Les Stobart: At least in our organization, and in a lot of

367 00:49:41.600 ⇒ 00:49:45.539 Les Stobart: service organizations, when you talk about B2B or B2C,

368 00:49:45.650 ⇒ 00:49:48.789 Les Stobart: And there’s some things there that come into play, like.

369 00:49:49.100 ⇒ 00:49:54.689 Les Stobart: air conditioning is a huge one. Are we… are we in the,

370 00:49:55.020 ⇒ 00:49:57.209 Les Stobart: Do we do commercial air conditioning?

371 00:49:57.590 ⇒ 00:50:00.969 Les Stobart: Go and get an answer on that question.

372 00:50:01.350 ⇒ 00:50:03.780 Les Stobart: Because… here’s the answer.

373 00:50:04.310 ⇒ 00:50:14.129 Les Stobart: If you had an office, and it was, like, used to be a house, but now you run your, accounting office out of that house.

374 00:50:14.430 ⇒ 00:50:17.639 Les Stobart: But it’s still set up like a house. It has a…

375 00:50:17.770 ⇒ 00:50:33.720 Les Stobart: a household sink and a household toilet and a household air conditioner, then yeah, man, we’ll come out and work on that. But if you have any kind of commercial property where there’s package units and roof units and chillers and stuff like that, we don’t want to be anywhere near that.

376 00:50:34.150 ⇒ 00:50:44.600 Les Stobart: And, that can be confusing for all of the existence of ABC to try to answer that question sometimes.

377 00:50:47.190 ⇒ 00:50:47.860 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

378 00:50:48.520 ⇒ 00:50:50.530 Uttam Kumaran: Another question is…

379 00:50:52.340 ⇒ 00:51:00.520 Uttam Kumaran: you mentioned listening to phone calls, you mentioned, you know, sitting in the meetings, like the plumbing meeting. Are there any other, you know, really high…

380 00:51:00.690 ⇒ 00:51:10.809 Uttam Kumaran: If we were to, you know, take the time to do where the density of things we would learn would be very high. Any other meetings or activities you think that would be… that you’d recommend?

381 00:51:12.620 ⇒ 00:51:13.370 Les Stobart: Yes.

382 00:51:17.560 ⇒ 00:51:19.789 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, would love to hear a couple of those.

383 00:51:22.750 ⇒ 00:51:24.889 Les Stobart: Get out of Matt and Bobby’s office.

384 00:51:25.500 ⇒ 00:51:27.259 Les Stobart: get out of Bo’s office.

385 00:51:27.690 ⇒ 00:51:29.990 Les Stobart: And sit with the managers.

386 00:51:30.220 ⇒ 00:51:34.009 Les Stobart: And understand every division, and every…

387 00:51:34.400 ⇒ 00:51:39.989 Les Stobart: first of all, understand the structure of ABC, and you may already, I… again, I have no idea what you’ve been doing.

388 00:51:40.300 ⇒ 00:51:44.140 Les Stobart: But, mechanical, for example.

389 00:51:44.610 ⇒ 00:51:47.920 Les Stobart: Do you know the… do you know the departments in the mechanical division?

390 00:51:48.960 ⇒ 00:51:54.559 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t have it in front of me, but yes, we do have the sort of org structure mapped out, but…

391 00:51:54.560 ⇒ 00:51:59.700 Les Stobart: Not a trick question, man. I… I don’t… I just am looking for, kind of, what level to speak.

392 00:51:59.700 ⇒ 00:52:13.120 Uttam Kumaran: We are familiar with the services, we are familiar with, sort of, the regional, you know, branch managers, and then we do closely work, Amber in particular, works closely with mechanical and past and lawn on the CSR side.

393 00:52:13.340 ⇒ 00:52:15.650 Les Stobart: So, mechanical is probably the… is…

394 00:52:15.850 ⇒ 00:52:18.429 Les Stobart: Mechanical and lawn are probably good

395 00:52:18.570 ⇒ 00:52:32.650 Les Stobart: best examples. Probably pest is the worst example, but in mechanical, appliance, water quality, plumbing, electrical, AC,

396 00:52:32.820 ⇒ 00:52:38.190 Les Stobart: if I already said appliance, then I don’t need a sixth finger. So…

397 00:52:38.640 ⇒ 00:52:50.090 Les Stobart: each one of those has a manager under it, and each one of those has technicians under it. So you’ve got multiple levels from Tom.

398 00:52:50.470 ⇒ 00:52:51.680 Les Stobart: down…

399 00:52:52.010 ⇒ 00:53:05.150 Les Stobart: to the field staff that some other areas and departments don’t have. In other words, you’ve got more room for disconnect or miscommunication in some departments than others, so be real… so here’s the advice, I guess.

400 00:53:05.230 ⇒ 00:53:15.530 Les Stobart: make sure you kind of understand how the departments are set up, because… and don’t make the mistake of assuming that because PEST does it this way, then everybody else must do it that way, because they don’t.

401 00:53:16.110 ⇒ 00:53:24.650 Les Stobart: So, yeah, do that, and talk to some of those people. And I don’t know, and I didn’t ask, and I don’t care.

402 00:53:25.070 ⇒ 00:53:36.750 Les Stobart: But make sure you’re comfortable either telling them up front, or telling them at some point, hey, this isn’t leaving this room, or I’m gonna be talking to Matt and Bobby about what you said 5 minutes from now.

403 00:53:37.330 ⇒ 00:53:40.520 Les Stobart: And then, you know, get that.

404 00:53:42.060 ⇒ 00:53:43.070 Les Stobart: Then chat with them.

405 00:53:43.410 ⇒ 00:53:46.900 Les Stobart: And you’ll hear… if you want to hear challenges, you’ll hear challenges.

406 00:53:47.200 ⇒ 00:53:50.630 Les Stobart: If you want to hear what works well, you’ll hear what works well.

407 00:53:51.020 ⇒ 00:53:54.680 Les Stobart: So, just, you know, do some of that, but…

408 00:53:54.860 ⇒ 00:54:02.600 Les Stobart: the volume of phone calls alone, and you may know better than I do, so I’m asking you, do you know how many phone calls we get a week?

409 00:54:04.550 ⇒ 00:54:07.969 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Amber, what is it? We just saw it was $80,000 a month, so…

410 00:54:07.970 ⇒ 00:54:09.790 Les Stobart: Yeah, that’s a lot of phone calls.

411 00:54:09.790 ⇒ 00:54:11.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Yeah.

412 00:54:11.080 ⇒ 00:54:14.570 Les Stobart: So… In that 80,000?

413 00:54:15.880 ⇒ 00:54:21.170 Les Stobart: You’ve got salespeople prospecting. Like, hey, I sell copiers. You guys need copiers?

414 00:54:22.160 ⇒ 00:54:24.190 Les Stobart: You get that.

415 00:54:24.820 ⇒ 00:54:28.810 Les Stobart: you get… Somebody that’s a new customer.

416 00:54:29.180 ⇒ 00:54:48.010 Les Stobart: to ABC. Well, let’s define this a minute. This is the… one of the bigger things that we, as a company, don’t come to terms with nearly as well as we… some people would like to think we come to terms with. But I’ll ask you, define a new customer at ABC. You define it. You tell me what a new customer is.

417 00:54:48.810 ⇒ 00:54:56.190 Uttam Kumaran: My definition would be… The… after a payment comes in.

418 00:54:56.480 ⇒ 00:54:58.209 Uttam Kumaran: For the services rendered.

419 00:54:59.690 ⇒ 00:55:01.170 Les Stobart: Okay, fair enough.

420 00:55:01.520 ⇒ 00:55:09.179 Uttam Kumaran: I agree that, you know, even hearing you say, yes, some people will say the moment gets involved, the moment they get someone out there.

421 00:55:09.650 ⇒ 00:55:12.859 Les Stobart: I’m gonna go slightly different. I’m gonna go, honestly, slightly different.

422 00:55:12.860 ⇒ 00:55:13.210 Uttam Kumaran: Please.

423 00:55:13.210 ⇒ 00:55:20.240 Les Stobart: And this is where, if you don’t know the service industry well, and that’s not a shot, that’s not me being impight or rude.

424 00:55:20.240 ⇒ 00:55:20.800 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no.

425 00:55:20.800 ⇒ 00:55:26.760 Les Stobart: Really look at all the different rhythms that exist across all those 17 verticals? Because here it is.

426 00:55:27.030 ⇒ 00:55:29.489 Les Stobart: If you’re a lawn mowing customer.

427 00:55:29.870 ⇒ 00:55:36.149 Les Stobart: We see you. There is an ABC person in your yard roughly every two weeks.

428 00:55:37.310 ⇒ 00:55:41.250 Les Stobart: If you’re… a lawn care person

429 00:55:41.530 ⇒ 00:55:45.950 Les Stobart: And care means fertilization, that’s all it means. In our world.

430 00:55:47.470 ⇒ 00:55:52.920 Les Stobart: This is… and we confuse people with nomenclature. We use a lot of industry speak, which I hate.

431 00:55:53.380 ⇒ 00:56:05.320 Les Stobart: I’m always a proponent for how people refer to it, nomenclature-wise, in the public, but care just means fertilization. So if you’re a fertilization client, you see us about every 2 or 3 months. I don’t remember now.

432 00:56:05.790 ⇒ 00:56:07.590 Les Stobart: Which one of those it is.

433 00:56:07.720 ⇒ 00:56:11.260 Les Stobart: If you’re an air-conditioned customer, you may go years, man.

434 00:56:11.580 ⇒ 00:56:18.210 Les Stobart: You may go years. If you’re a plumbing customer, you may go years. If you’re an appliance repair customer, you may go years.

435 00:56:18.250 ⇒ 00:56:21.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. There’s this huge separation, I think.

436 00:56:21.740 ⇒ 00:56:28.130 Les Stobart: Between what a customer A, how we define it. I typically will say.

437 00:56:28.270 ⇒ 00:56:36.559 Les Stobart: The customer is anyone that has done business with us in any vertical In the last 12 months.

438 00:56:37.410 ⇒ 00:56:40.910 Les Stobart: When I asked that question 15 years ago.

439 00:56:43.030 ⇒ 00:56:50.610 Les Stobart: God knows what the answer was. I think Bobby would say now, I think he’s kind of evolved into saying 18 months, or something like that.

440 00:56:50.610 ⇒ 00:56:52.860 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what Julie… that’s what Julie mentioned to us as well.

441 00:56:52.860 ⇒ 00:57:01.540 Les Stobart: Yeah, so that’s a relatively newish kind of evolution, but… and not in a bad way, again, that doesn’t mean anything. I’m just saying…

442 00:57:02.020 ⇒ 00:57:03.050 Les Stobart: there’s that.

443 00:57:03.820 ⇒ 00:57:09.720 Les Stobart: But… That’s fine if it’s an ongoing or willing kind of service.

444 00:57:09.890 ⇒ 00:57:19.299 Les Stobart: But, man, you could be an air conditioning customer and go years and not call us again, but that doesn’t mean that you’re really a good, viable customer.

445 00:57:19.420 ⇒ 00:57:24.990 Les Stobart: for something, I think the real test is if I ran into you at HEB,

446 00:57:25.500 ⇒ 00:57:40.779 Les Stobart: And we shot the breeze for a second, and then I said, hey man, I said… and I asked you, hey, are you a… are you a… are you a customer? Do you have an ABC… do you have an air conditioning company that you belong to, that you’re a customer of?

447 00:57:42.360 ⇒ 00:57:49.870 Les Stobart: I don’t know what you’re gonna say. If I was at your house last week, if ABC was at your house last week, you’d probably go, you know what?

448 00:57:50.150 ⇒ 00:57:52.210 Les Stobart: ABC was at my house last week.

449 00:57:52.600 ⇒ 00:57:55.899 Les Stobart: But if it’s been 3 years, you’re probably gonna,

450 00:57:57.940 ⇒ 00:57:59.630 Les Stobart: So there’s a huge…

451 00:57:59.840 ⇒ 00:58:10.790 Les Stobart: variance in kind of what is a customer. And I think if that can really be well-defined and well-rounded, and really kind of beat into, like, shape.

452 00:58:11.180 ⇒ 00:58:14.060 Les Stobart: then I think a lot of things could happen from that.

453 00:58:14.410 ⇒ 00:58:20.680 Les Stobart: We know what a customer is, because right now, if you ask 10 people what a customer is… yeah, man.

454 00:58:22.910 ⇒ 00:58:27.670 Les Stobart: There probably would give you an answer that reflects their department or their division, honestly.

455 00:58:27.810 ⇒ 00:58:28.370 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

456 00:58:28.860 ⇒ 00:58:35.060 Les Stobart: And Bobby comes from pest control, so everything for Bobby is rooted in pest control.

457 00:58:39.500 ⇒ 00:58:44.799 Uttam Kumaran: Another, I guess, question we’re kind of coming up, you know, on time is, what do you, like.

458 00:58:44.990 ⇒ 00:58:50.059 Uttam Kumaran: How do you… what do you… what would make you confident that, you know, the team, after you’re gone, can…

459 00:58:50.210 ⇒ 00:58:53.919 Uttam Kumaran: you know, continue to… to handle this? Like, what would you…

460 00:58:54.640 ⇒ 00:58:55.050 Les Stobart: handle it.

461 00:58:55.050 ⇒ 00:58:55.790 Uttam Kumaran: would… what…

462 00:58:56.000 ⇒ 00:59:02.930 Uttam Kumaran: Handle the scope of activities and operations and… and sort of leadership that you’re… that you own today.

463 00:59:05.230 ⇒ 00:59:10.119 Les Stobart: I don’t… I mean, I don’t… A, it’s… I don’t… it’s not important for me to…

464 00:59:10.800 ⇒ 00:59:14.360 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not important for you to do that.

465 00:59:14.360 ⇒ 00:59:15.470 Les Stobart: But I guess… and…

466 00:59:15.470 ⇒ 00:59:20.040 Uttam Kumaran: If I were to say what would give you the confidence, it’s not like you have to have the confidence.

467 00:59:20.040 ⇒ 00:59:27.079 Les Stobart: I… so, okay, let’s talk through that a minute. So, there’s no… I don’t know if you consider yourself, like.

468 00:59:27.860 ⇒ 00:59:31.510 Les Stobart: a marketing advertising person or not. I can’t really tell what you think.

469 00:59:31.510 ⇒ 00:59:44.830 Uttam Kumaran: I… we work with a lot of companies on tons of marketing omnichannel analytics on the marketing side, so I’m familiar, worked in marketing the day. I am not a creative, I am not… do not do

470 00:59:44.830 ⇒ 00:59:51.870 Uttam Kumaran: You know, ad creation, do not run marketing campaigns, but we are on the consumption of the data from a lot of that, so…

471 00:59:52.160 ⇒ 00:59:56.660 Les Stobart: Good enough. So there’s an old joke, kind of a… or an old truism, if you will.

472 00:59:56.940 ⇒ 01:00:07.150 Les Stobart: That if you get a hundred, or a thousand, pick a number, media buyers into a room, or campaign

473 01:00:07.720 ⇒ 01:00:19.320 Les Stobart: developers in a room, and you give them the exact same assignment on a written piece of paper. Here’s the goal, here’s the objective, here’s the budget, here’s the message.

474 01:00:20.420 ⇒ 01:00:21.719 Les Stobart: go create…

475 01:00:23.200 ⇒ 01:00:30.850 Les Stobart: Campaign, R with an S, Campaigns, go create. If there’s 100 in the room, guess how many you get back?

476 01:00:33.440 ⇒ 01:00:34.800 Les Stobart: A hundred different ones.

477 01:00:34.830 ⇒ 01:00:35.840 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

478 01:00:36.240 ⇒ 01:00:42.209 Les Stobart: So… I’m a big believer In the way I’ve done things.

479 01:00:42.360 ⇒ 01:00:59.219 Les Stobart: I very much believe that it’s worked. ABC has grown massively. Some of that growth has been because… has been through acquisition. We’ve added a city, we’ve added a service that wasn’t there a year ago, but otherwise, it’s grown.

480 01:01:01.890 ⇒ 01:01:14.110 Les Stobart: Bobby, I think, will tell you the main thing that I was… the reason I was attracted to him 18 years ago, 17 and a half years ago, was because I knew air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, that space, coming from Fox.

481 01:01:14.940 ⇒ 01:01:22.290 Les Stobart: But I do expect… so… so I do things that I believe in, I’m a creative by background.

482 01:01:22.850 ⇒ 01:01:27.439 Les Stobart: And then the third kind of leg of that is, it has to be manageable.

483 01:01:27.830 ⇒ 01:01:42.559 Les Stobart: If you, you know, if you go and create a shit ton of campaigns, a shit ton of digital stuff, a shit ton of TV stuff, a shit ton of billboards, whatever you want to do, but you can’t manage it in media, that’s called traffic. I need to change out

484 01:01:42.760 ⇒ 01:01:52.239 Les Stobart: commercials, I need to change out creative, I need to change out videos, I need to change out spots, I need to change out door hangers, whatever it is.

485 01:01:52.270 ⇒ 01:02:05.660 Les Stobart: If I can’t get that done, if the field is always waiting, like, shit, when is that gonna change out? Or, shit, it’s December, why am I seeing a summer commercial running? Or if I can’t manage it, then I shouldn’t do it.

486 01:02:06.050 ⇒ 01:02:15.829 Les Stobart: But because I’ve built so many things for so long, and I’ve got such deep resources in it, in just about anything.

487 01:02:16.030 ⇒ 01:02:22.660 Les Stobart: then I’ve got a whole team that’s not an employee of ABC. Okay, I got 2 employees at ABC.

488 01:02:22.870 ⇒ 01:02:24.239 Les Stobart: really won and…

489 01:02:24.610 ⇒ 01:02:31.800 Les Stobart: one and a third… one and a half, one and a quarter, because that quarter is Bobby’s daughter, Chelsea, that is…

490 01:02:31.970 ⇒ 01:02:38.080 Les Stobart: Paid to be a full-time employee for me, but… there’s… There’s not a lot.

491 01:02:38.960 ⇒ 01:02:40.559 Les Stobart: She didn’t come to the office.

492 01:02:41.100 ⇒ 01:02:47.029 Les Stobart: And then Ian, the social media person, that’s really now just kind of more of a video content person.

493 01:02:47.190 ⇒ 01:02:48.260 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. But…

494 01:02:48.740 ⇒ 01:03:05.239 Les Stobart: But I’ve got another 25 people that are my freelancers, agencies, compadres, that whatever. That’s where I was this morning. I was with one of my digital people at a WeWork space up in the domain plant.

495 01:03:05.240 ⇒ 01:03:06.979 Uttam Kumaran: Great, yeah, go there all the time.

496 01:03:06.980 ⇒ 01:03:13.049 Les Stobart: Yeah, so I was there from 9 to 2 today, just about, or 1.45. I thought.

497 01:03:13.050 ⇒ 01:03:20.030 Uttam Kumaran: So, that was the… that was the first company I worked for, actually, WeWork. I was on their data team there back in 2018.

498 01:03:20.030 ⇒ 01:03:29.070 Les Stobart: I met… I met somebody over there today, and his segment is really CTV, OTT, display.

499 01:03:29.190 ⇒ 01:03:31.040 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. And we were…

500 01:03:31.040 ⇒ 01:03:46.870 Les Stobart: working through next year, and brainstorming and thinking tactics and strategies. So I’ve got really good people, but that’s… so that’s how I’m able to do as much as I do, and do it really well, is because I’ve,

501 01:03:46.930 ⇒ 01:03:54.109 Les Stobart: developed over 25 years in Austin of doing this, like, key people, and some of my people are even out of market.

502 01:03:54.330 ⇒ 01:03:57.319 Les Stobart: My graphic designer is out of market.

503 01:03:57.530 ⇒ 01:03:59.650 Les Stobart: So,

504 01:04:00.020 ⇒ 01:04:09.359 Les Stobart: I know how to manipulate all that in a good way. I don’t mean manipulate like manipulative, I just mean I know how to push the buttons and levers, and I can get a lot of stuff done.

505 01:04:09.650 ⇒ 01:04:13.690 Les Stobart: So, if someone comes in, and they don’t have a network like that.

506 01:04:13.950 ⇒ 01:04:30.529 Les Stobart: I don’t know how it’s gonna happen. If someone comes in and has a whole different set of philosophical beliefs in the way marketing needs to be done, and I can tell you there’s some real different philosophical beliefs there. Totally. I don’t know how they’re gonna get it done.

507 01:04:30.860 ⇒ 01:04:38.909 Les Stobart: I don’t, you know, as much as I would love to think that people need to keep doing exactly what I’ve been doing, the reality is they’re not.

508 01:04:39.390 ⇒ 01:04:42.260 Les Stobart: So… I don’t know, dude.

509 01:04:44.230 ⇒ 01:04:47.350 Uttam Kumaran: Who in that, you know, last question, who in that room

510 01:04:47.540 ⇒ 01:04:53.340 Uttam Kumaran: Do you think would be most interesting, or is the most enterprising to sort of…

511 01:04:53.530 ⇒ 01:05:07.949 Uttam Kumaran: who wants to work with data, who is interested in looking at metrics and sort of taking that and driving decision making. I know that’s not often everybody, but who do you think is the most excited that would be a good partner, you know, for a…

512 01:05:08.090 ⇒ 01:05:16.169 Uttam Kumaran: Like, a company like ours that, you know, our goal is to make things more clear and more apparent and show the narrative of a…

513 01:05:16.340 ⇒ 01:05:27.420 Uttam Kumaran: allow you to show the narrative of why you make a decision through data. Is there anyone there that you think, like, this person is really someone that would take advantage of this and that needs that support?

514 01:05:28.670 ⇒ 01:05:29.660 Les Stobart: In that room.

515 01:05:30.590 ⇒ 01:05:38.880 Uttam Kumaran: in that room, or… we could start with that room, but, you know, even… of course, I’m gonna ask broader and ABC, we’re not just working with the folks in that room, but…

516 01:05:38.880 ⇒ 01:05:43.810 Les Stobart: That’s fine, I’m just really good at pinning you down on your questions, so…

517 01:05:44.230 ⇒ 01:05:44.740 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

518 01:05:44.740 ⇒ 01:05:46.050 Les Stobart: In that room, nobody.

519 01:05:46.160 ⇒ 01:05:51.599 Les Stobart: I mean, look at it this way, brother. Everybody in that room has a full-time plus job.

520 01:05:52.050 ⇒ 01:05:52.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

521 01:05:53.470 ⇒ 01:05:57.080 Les Stobart: So, unless you were going to give them

522 01:05:57.620 ⇒ 01:06:01.800 Les Stobart: Essentially, a summary that’s, like, one paragraph?

523 01:06:02.280 ⇒ 01:06:02.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

524 01:06:02.980 ⇒ 01:06:04.740 Les Stobart: Maybe 2 paragraphs?

525 01:06:05.490 ⇒ 01:06:09.830 Les Stobart: And then you’re gonna go over there and stand there while they read it, and make sure they read it.

526 01:06:10.530 ⇒ 01:06:11.989 Les Stobart: Nobody in that room.

527 01:06:13.740 ⇒ 01:06:33.050 Uttam Kumaran: Do you feel outside of that room, or within their teams, is there a layer at ABC do you think that we should focus on in terms of enabling? Of course, part of our job here is to answer some questions. A lot of our job, though, is to allow… teach people how to fish, and make sure that they have

528 01:06:33.170 ⇒ 01:06:40.479 Uttam Kumaran: the right… I don’t know what the analogy, the right rod, the right lure, whatever. And you think there is a rung, or there is a division.

529 01:06:40.530 ⇒ 01:06:50.390 Uttam Kumaran: you know, we have found that the customer service team has eaten up all of the data, and they’re a very metrics-driven group. You know, Yvette, Janiece, David.

530 01:06:50.390 ⇒ 01:07:01.110 Uttam Kumaran: And so we found a lot of success there in, you know, in showing how we analyze metrics. Do you feel like there’s another area of the company that, you know, would be worth

531 01:07:01.130 ⇒ 01:07:02.189 Uttam Kumaran: thinking about.

532 01:07:03.760 ⇒ 01:07:04.340 Les Stobart: No.

533 01:07:05.340 ⇒ 01:07:10.780 Les Stobart: I mean, so, you’re asking some pretty good stuff, I think, and this is, of course.

534 01:07:11.290 ⇒ 01:07:19.230 Les Stobart: you know, my opinion’s worth what you’re paying me for, in your case, zero. That’s a joke.

535 01:07:24.180 ⇒ 01:07:39.129 Les Stobart: there’s nobody at a… that has… that’s never been a need. That’s never been a… rarely has that been a stated desire. There’s never been that job description, if you will, before. There’s never been…

536 01:07:40.030 ⇒ 01:07:46.919 Les Stobart: That’s just… it’s… it’s not intrinsic to any of… of… the 17 verticals.

537 01:07:47.980 ⇒ 01:07:48.980 Les Stobart: Really.

538 01:07:49.420 ⇒ 01:07:56.469 Les Stobart: So, it doesn’t exist. Could it exist? Yes. If you absolutely had to pick

539 01:07:56.770 ⇒ 01:08:03.529 Les Stobart: One area to drop it into, then probably the one that’s the closest

540 01:08:03.710 ⇒ 01:08:12.089 Les Stobart: would be David and, you know, Yvette’s team, but be aware of the problem here, man. There’s a lot of,

541 01:08:13.230 ⇒ 01:08:15.879 Les Stobart: It’s gonna vary, it’s gonna be on a spectrum.

542 01:08:16.640 ⇒ 01:08:27.540 Les Stobart: of division managers, and Yvette… and the CSRs, There’s some acrimony between…

543 01:08:27.880 ⇒ 01:08:31.640 Les Stobart: How good a job, and how credible, and how much…

544 01:08:32.420 ⇒ 01:08:37.059 Les Stobart: Belief, anything that comes out of that… that area, that…

545 01:08:37.899 ⇒ 01:08:42.460 Les Stobart: the CSR area, the CSR leadership, There’s gonna be some…

546 01:08:42.910 ⇒ 01:08:47.100 Les Stobart: Acrimony about how good it is or how good it may not be.

547 01:08:47.859 ⇒ 01:08:48.520 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

548 01:08:51.590 ⇒ 01:08:52.410 Uttam Kumaran: And then…

549 01:08:52.410 ⇒ 01:08:57.460 Les Stobart: What’s your most logical place as the company exists right now?

550 01:08:57.460 ⇒ 01:08:58.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

551 01:08:58.609 ⇒ 01:09:04.729 Les Stobart: Now, take somebody like… So, Julie would love to have.

552 01:09:04.839 ⇒ 01:09:06.929 Les Stobart: Julie would beg you to have it.

553 01:09:07.249 ⇒ 01:09:08.579 Les Stobart: But Jamie is…

554 01:09:08.580 ⇒ 01:09:11.459 Uttam Kumaran: Two hours with her yesterday, actually, me, personally.

555 01:09:11.460 ⇒ 01:09:26.089 Les Stobart: Julie likes to own information and keep information, and then only parse it when she wants to parse it out, okay? But she would do well with it. She’s detail-oriented, she likes reports, she runs reports.

556 01:09:26.410 ⇒ 01:09:29.619 Les Stobart: But it’s very much kind of like…

557 01:09:30.100 ⇒ 01:09:33.410 Les Stobart: She likes to hold on to that data and make it

558 01:09:33.590 ⇒ 01:09:36.510 Les Stobart: Serve her for… to whatever end.

559 01:09:36.710 ⇒ 01:09:43.469 Les Stobart: But she has the natural ability to maybe want to do that. I think.

560 01:09:43.580 ⇒ 01:09:51.479 Les Stobart: Yvette’s team, I think there’s a couple of folks there, David being one of them, that have that ability, that desire.

561 01:09:51.850 ⇒ 01:09:55.569 Les Stobart: Michelle in HR.

562 01:09:55.850 ⇒ 01:09:57.370 Les Stobart: It feels pretty sharp.

563 01:09:58.200 ⇒ 01:10:06.379 Les Stobart: She’s very much a dedicated HR person, so it’s not like she’d really want to own that.

564 01:10:06.700 ⇒ 01:10:08.749 Les Stobart: Yeah. But she’s capable.

565 01:10:09.480 ⇒ 01:10:11.340 Les Stobart: So, it’s a spectrum.

566 01:10:12.640 ⇒ 01:10:18.569 Uttam Kumaran: Part of it is for my team to not go into a place where the body immediately rejects. And so, sometimes.

567 01:10:18.640 ⇒ 01:10:37.349 Uttam Kumaran: for us to make a recommendation on, like, okay, where can we be successful, is we’re… we… we’re not in ABC. We… we can only work with ABC and partner with, and so we’re just trying to make sure, okay, if… this is all part of our equation on what are the things that we can support with, you know?

568 01:10:38.090 ⇒ 01:10:40.240 Les Stobart: I think if you’re,

569 01:10:41.520 ⇒ 01:10:48.730 Les Stobart: So I think here’s the question you ask yourself, and that is, hey, does it feel pretty good about putting it here?

570 01:10:48.940 ⇒ 01:10:59.939 Les Stobart: then odds are, you’re at least pretty darn close. But if your gut’s telling you, you know what, man, I don’t think I found the person or the department, then I’d say trust your gut.

571 01:10:59.940 ⇒ 01:11:01.990 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Because it’s a pretty limited…

572 01:11:01.990 ⇒ 01:11:04.090 Les Stobart: It’s a pretty limited place.

573 01:11:04.320 ⇒ 01:11:04.870 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

574 01:11:06.750 ⇒ 01:11:20.880 Uttam Kumaran: Last thing is, how can I be helpful? Is there anything else, is there anything I can help with, or anything our team… I know we just met, you know, yesterday, but if there’s anything we can be helpful with, you know, more than happy to.

575 01:11:21.990 ⇒ 01:11:28.560 Les Stobart: No, my mission, and the reason that, I will be hard to catch for you.

576 01:11:28.680 ⇒ 01:11:32.520 Les Stobart: is… I… the… the thing that…

577 01:11:33.040 ⇒ 01:11:37.640 Les Stobart: So I told Matt and Bobby back in September that I was retiring.

578 01:11:38.280 ⇒ 01:11:44.469 Les Stobart: I don’t think until yesterday they even posted my… my… my job position.

579 01:11:44.680 ⇒ 01:11:47.380 Les Stobart: The whole reason in telling them that far back

580 01:11:48.010 ⇒ 01:11:59.290 Les Stobart: was so that, you know, they could get somebody on board, and I could spend some time with them, I could show them everything, and again, take what you want to take, you know, do what you want to do.

581 01:11:59.880 ⇒ 01:12:07.360 Les Stobart: Well, when we got as far along as we’ve gotten now, I went back to both of them a couple of weeks ago, and I said, look, man.

582 01:12:07.550 ⇒ 01:12:21.050 Les Stobart: I’ve already started buying next year, so to speak, scheduling next year. That budget that you were seeing some of yesterday is… is last year’s budget being reworked, and I’m probably…

583 01:12:24.330 ⇒ 01:12:26.580 Les Stobart: I’m maybe a third of the way through.

584 01:12:26.780 ⇒ 01:12:29.910 Les Stobart: If I’m optimistic, I’m a third of the way through.

585 01:12:30.260 ⇒ 01:12:33.240 Les Stobart: Because it’s light. It’s light to be doing what I’m doing.

586 01:12:34.050 ⇒ 01:12:45.479 Les Stobart: But what I’m… my focus is to put as much of that in place as I can, and traffic as much of the instructions as I can, meaning the creative elements that

587 01:12:45.570 ⇒ 01:13:00.939 Les Stobart: are required to run in January, February, March, April, May. Certain things are pretty easy to traffic, because they’ll be proximal to my departure, but I would prefer not to traffic stuff for August or September or October, because

588 01:13:01.190 ⇒ 01:13:08.449 Les Stobart: the environment changes. I could assume that it’s going to be hot, and I could assume that an AC commercial needs to run, but.

589 01:13:08.450 ⇒ 01:13:15.369 Uttam Kumaran: a lot to forecast. Like, more than, I mean, more than 3 months, it’s hard to buy out, and no. Like, if it just.

590 01:13:15.370 ⇒ 01:13:20.250 Les Stobart: I do buy a full year, and that’s just because we’re too big…

591 01:13:20.250 ⇒ 01:13:20.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

592 01:13:20.660 ⇒ 01:13:25.029 Les Stobart: It’s too cumbersome to… to not buy a full year.

593 01:13:25.350 ⇒ 01:13:32.669 Les Stobart: just because I don’t… I mean, it’s $5 million, and it’s a half-dozen cities, and it’s probably…

594 01:13:33.060 ⇒ 01:13:35.780 Les Stobart: I don’t know, depending on how you count things.

595 01:13:36.390 ⇒ 01:13:54.859 Les Stobart: 50 channels, and I don’t mean just radio and TV, I mean all the different things, and then it’s the different divisions and departments. So, no, I do do a year, and essentially, I’m gonna buy the media for a year, and then whenever my replacement comes in.

596 01:13:55.070 ⇒ 01:14:00.810 Les Stobart: And they feel like, you know what, he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, I’m gonna tear this up. Well, they can do it on day one.

597 01:14:00.850 ⇒ 01:14:03.519 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. But at least I’m leaving.

598 01:14:03.670 ⇒ 01:14:05.819 Les Stobart: everything in place.

599 01:14:06.150 ⇒ 01:14:08.439 Les Stobart: and I can traffic some of it.

600 01:14:08.940 ⇒ 01:14:13.860 Les Stobart: And it can run for a while until somebody gets their feet on the ground.

601 01:14:15.340 ⇒ 01:14:22.619 Uttam Kumaran: What’s the… what is the timeline, Les? Like, when are you… when are you officially laptop or computer closed and off to…

602 01:14:22.620 ⇒ 01:14:23.769 Les Stobart: March the 4th.

603 01:14:24.080 ⇒ 01:14:24.630 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

604 01:14:28.120 ⇒ 01:14:31.060 Les Stobart: I turned 65 on March the 5th.

605 01:14:31.540 ⇒ 01:14:40.629 Les Stobart: And my joke that I’ve been telling people is, I’ll retire on March the 4th, and on March the 5th, when the clock goes off.

606 01:14:40.750 ⇒ 01:14:44.320 Les Stobart: I’m just gonna turn it off and roll over and sleep in for a couple hours.

607 01:14:45.890 ⇒ 01:14:50.059 Uttam Kumaran: Great. Well, Fort Collins is amazing. I spent about a month and a half there a few years ago.

608 01:14:50.060 ⇒ 01:14:51.240 Les Stobart: What were you doing up there?

609 01:14:51.560 ⇒ 01:15:01.799 Uttam Kumaran: I, I… during COVID, I was still living in New York, and it was very difficult, so I… I bought a truck, and I drove around the country for a while, so…

610 01:15:01.800 ⇒ 01:15:03.799 Les Stobart: You, dude, that is fantastic.

611 01:15:03.980 ⇒ 01:15:22.349 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I grew up in the Bay Area in California, and so I went back home, so I couldn’t stay in my shoebox in New York, couldn’t stay at home either, and then I just went out. My parents didn’t think I was serious, went and rented a… leased a truck, and just, like, hit the road for about 7, 8 months.

612 01:15:22.350 ⇒ 01:15:25.480 Les Stobart: Like a camper, or RV, or what? What do you call it?

613 01:15:25.480 ⇒ 01:15:35.190 Uttam Kumaran: Ford Ranger, and I was Airbnb-ing or staying with friends wherever I could, and I was working remote, and people would come visit me at whatever city I was in.

614 01:15:35.190 ⇒ 01:15:36.210 Les Stobart: That’s cool.

615 01:15:36.210 ⇒ 01:15:52.200 Uttam Kumaran: the reason I found… I mean, I say I found Austin, but growing up in the Bay Area, then going to school in the East Coast, I never… I know Austin in Texas, but I never thought I would ever live in Texas, and so I… on my way down from… I stayed in Utah, outside of St. George.

616 01:15:52.200 ⇒ 01:15:59.120 Uttam Kumaran: in St. George for a while, right outside Zion, which was a dream for me to just, after work, go to Zion.

617 01:15:59.150 ⇒ 01:15:59.780 Uttam Kumaran: Are you a higher.

618 01:15:59.780 ⇒ 01:16:00.340 Les Stobart: record?

619 01:16:00.520 ⇒ 01:16:11.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so we do… we do a lot of camping growing up, almost every few weeks. My dad is a huge camping, backpacking, in Northern California, so whenever I go back…

620 01:16:11.910 ⇒ 01:16:12.640 Les Stobart: brother.

621 01:16:12.640 ⇒ 01:16:13.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

622 01:16:13.660 ⇒ 01:16:20.699 Les Stobart: Now, I’m a Texas native. We grew up, essentially, my wife and I, near Houston. We’ve been in Austin 25 years.

623 01:16:21.130 ⇒ 01:16:32.750 Les Stobart: the main driver for both of us is just the heat. It’s as… as the globe has warmed, so to speak, the summers here can be brutal. How many summers have you been here for?

624 01:16:32.750 ⇒ 01:16:36.480 Uttam Kumaran: This is the third summer, but this one went pretty long.

625 01:16:37.190 ⇒ 01:16:44.139 Les Stobart: So, it… you will… it… it really will vary. I mean, there’s… I mean, there was, let’s see, 2,000 and…

626 01:16:46.140 ⇒ 01:16:48.850 Les Stobart: I won’t get it. 2013, maybe.

627 01:16:49.200 ⇒ 01:16:54.090 Les Stobart: But, it was not that old. But anyway, yeah, man, like…

628 01:16:54.430 ⇒ 01:17:07.160 Les Stobart: over 100 days over 100, or, you know, and then some years, it’s, I don’t know, 30, 40 days, 50 days over 100. I think that’s about what it was this year. But it’s definitely trending up.

629 01:17:07.570 ⇒ 01:17:26.659 Les Stobart: And, it just beats me and my wife to death. She’s a year younger than me, and we do like to go out and do, and, summers are just brutal. So, that’s really the main thing about Colorado, is just to get into a little milder climate. Now, the question will be.

630 01:17:26.830 ⇒ 01:17:34.270 Les Stobart: you know, the winters aren’t… they’re not like Minnesota, but they’re definitely more winter than we’re used to here.

631 01:17:34.270 ⇒ 01:17:34.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

632 01:17:34.660 ⇒ 01:17:38.859 Les Stobart: So, am I just trading one evil for another evil? I don’t know.

633 01:17:39.550 ⇒ 01:17:44.190 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you know, it’s always grass is greener. It’s beautiful in Fort Collins. I,

634 01:17:44.720 ⇒ 01:17:51.339 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like I just picked it on a map and decided to stay there, but sleepy college town, just, like, really, really nice.

635 01:17:51.340 ⇒ 01:17:52.350 Les Stobart: Love it.

636 01:17:52.350 ⇒ 01:17:53.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

637 01:17:53.080 ⇒ 01:17:58.720 Les Stobart: Love it. Covid was interesting, and again, it was a moon…

638 01:17:59.120 ⇒ 01:18:02.670 Les Stobart: I don’t know how much of this you know, or how much of this, you know.

639 01:18:03.500 ⇒ 01:18:08.359 Les Stobart: You disagree with, but… You know, COVID was that thing that came in

640 01:18:08.460 ⇒ 01:18:17.170 Les Stobart: And most every business, except maybe a hospital or a doctor’s office, thought, oh, I don’t know what this is going to mean for my business.

641 01:18:17.540 ⇒ 01:18:24.890 Les Stobart: And… and we were… we were that. I mean, this… the… our service industry and our 17 verticals were that.

642 01:18:25.200 ⇒ 01:18:25.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

643 01:18:26.010 ⇒ 01:18:27.809 Les Stobart: And it was really spooky.

644 01:18:28.260 ⇒ 01:18:33.829 Les Stobart: But a few months in, business was booming.

645 01:18:34.180 ⇒ 01:18:37.629 Les Stobart: And then in hindsight, I think…

646 01:18:37.780 ⇒ 01:18:48.140 Les Stobart: I’ve not… I’ve not improved it… I’ve not proved it empirically. I’ve not proved it with a spreadsheet. But I think it makes pretty clear sense that people couldn’t go…

647 01:18:48.390 ⇒ 01:18:56.080 Les Stobart: spend money in a restaurant, or go to a concert, or go to ACL, or go on that jet to…

648 01:18:56.540 ⇒ 01:18:57.560 Les Stobart: Paris.

649 01:18:57.680 ⇒ 01:19:09.119 Les Stobart: you know, all of those things got curtailed. Shit, they couldn’t even go down the street to the restaurant hardly. Yeah. So, they weren’t spending much money, they were spending more time in their houses.

650 01:19:09.120 ⇒ 01:19:10.690 Uttam Kumaran: The house, yes.

651 01:19:10.830 ⇒ 01:19:15.519 Les Stobart: And consequently, not only were you spending more time in your house.

652 01:19:15.650 ⇒ 01:19:26.989 Les Stobart: But what were you doing? You were wearing and tearing on your house. That light switch got flipped more, that toilet got flushed more, that air conditioning got run more.

653 01:19:26.990 ⇒ 01:19:27.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

654 01:19:27.490 ⇒ 01:19:30.339 Les Stobart: That door got slammed more.

655 01:19:30.470 ⇒ 01:19:36.650 Les Stobart: all of those things, right? Yeah. And so, it turned out it was really good business for…

656 01:19:36.870 ⇒ 01:19:46.139 Les Stobart: The home… for the home service business because of wear and tear, and because of a consumer’s, fatter wallet at the time.

657 01:19:46.510 ⇒ 01:20:05.779 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. No, I think it… I think it changed… I mean, it led to a series of domino effects that brings me here with you on this meeting today. Without COVID, I may… I would… may still be in New York, still working for somebody, you know, like, it’s and I changed my life. I feel lucky that it changed my life in a very positive way.

658 01:20:05.860 ⇒ 01:20:19.419 Uttam Kumaran: could have easily went the other way. You’ll… you’ll find this funny. I joined a company whose primary product was QR codes one month before, March, 20… well, March 2020. And that was

659 01:20:19.920 ⇒ 01:20:21.020 Uttam Kumaran: fuck.

660 01:20:21.020 ⇒ 01:20:27.670 Les Stobart: Yeah, yeah, man, you… you… because QR codes were all but kind of a dead item, almost… not dead, but I mean.

661 01:20:27.670 ⇒ 01:20:29.080 Uttam Kumaran: They were just thinking about…

662 01:20:29.080 ⇒ 01:20:30.370 Les Stobart: comfortable home.

663 01:20:30.370 ⇒ 01:20:36.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, they were just thinking about it. They were an ad agency, but searching for… to build a product.

664 01:20:36.130 ⇒ 01:20:48.779 Uttam Kumaran: they were ideating on a bunch of things, landed on QR, some people found it interesting, especially because you could now get the data back on sources where Nielsen owns all the data. For example, you couldn’t get

665 01:20:48.860 ⇒ 01:20:58.609 Uttam Kumaran: like, how many scans were on, like, a billboard, or, you know, on the side of a display, and so they just were like, we’re gonna think about this QR code, I got hired.

666 01:20:58.650 ⇒ 01:21:12.790 Uttam Kumaran: And then COVID hit, and then that business just completely exploded. They’re the… they’re the… they’re one of the largest, you know, provider of QR codes, but in terms of volumes of QR scans, and they pioneered a lot of,

667 01:21:12.790 ⇒ 01:21:19.739 Uttam Kumaran: you know, going to Sinclair, we did a lot of work with Sinclair on getting QR codes on local news and things like that, but again, like.

668 01:21:20.250 ⇒ 01:21:26.120 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, that… I don’t know if that business would have gone anywhere had that not happened, but very.

669 01:21:26.120 ⇒ 01:21:28.899 Les Stobart: I think it… I mean, honestly, it taught…

670 01:21:29.070 ⇒ 01:21:29.480 Uttam Kumaran: It’s hot.

671 01:21:29.480 ⇒ 01:21:34.149 Les Stobart: whole generation of people how to use a QR code.

672 01:21:34.310 ⇒ 01:21:36.570 Uttam Kumaran: Because if you’d never really…

673 01:21:37.010 ⇒ 01:21:38.030 Les Stobart: Taking your phone out.

674 01:21:38.030 ⇒ 01:21:43.889 Uttam Kumaran: I was a nerd. I always knew that sort of stuff. I always had an Android and stuff like that.

675 01:21:43.890 ⇒ 01:21:45.690 Les Stobart: There were less people that knew.

676 01:21:45.690 ⇒ 01:21:49.889 Uttam Kumaran: Okay? Yeah, yeah. So, but pretty quickly, when they went to…

677 01:21:49.890 ⇒ 01:21:54.540 Les Stobart: One of the few restaurants that was letting you sit on the patio or whatever.

678 01:21:54.730 ⇒ 01:21:59.780 Les Stobart: And instead of getting handed a menu, the waiter or waitress who were wearing a mask

679 01:22:00.010 ⇒ 01:22:04.539 Les Stobart: Pointed at that little strange-looking thing on the table and said, point your phone at that.

680 01:22:04.960 ⇒ 01:22:08.679 Les Stobart: Then there was a whole group of people that was like, oh shit, okay.

681 01:22:08.860 ⇒ 01:22:09.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

682 01:22:10.860 ⇒ 01:22:12.160 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah.

683 01:22:12.500 ⇒ 01:22:17.170 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I appreciate it. This is, this is really, really wonderful. Thank you for the time.

684 01:22:17.400 ⇒ 01:22:17.920 Les Stobart: Yeah, brother.

685 01:22:17.920 ⇒ 01:22:35.650 Uttam Kumaran: You know, as we… as we make progress, you know, I’ll definitely try to share things, and I appreciate the wisdom. I think this is the… this is one of the calls where we’re talking to a lot of folks, but it’s really helpful to hear how the machine works and how to work well within the machine.

686 01:22:36.020 ⇒ 01:22:42.229 Les Stobart: The machine is… there’s so many parts, and my advice to you would be real careful

687 01:22:42.500 ⇒ 01:22:51.090 Les Stobart: to not be too focused on just one part, I mean, really explore the… the width or the breadth of it.

688 01:22:51.620 ⇒ 01:22:54.209 Les Stobart: Because there’s so much nuance.

689 01:22:54.550 ⇒ 01:22:55.690 Les Stobart: I mean, shit.

690 01:22:55.790 ⇒ 01:23:00.080 Les Stobart: in… in Jay’s area, in the lawn area.

691 01:23:00.480 ⇒ 01:23:05.929 Les Stobart: Again, some of the estimates are free, some of the estimates are not, some of the…

692 01:23:06.220 ⇒ 01:23:08.089 Les Stobart: People do it one way.

693 01:23:08.240 ⇒ 01:23:26.439 Les Stobart: one of the departments does it one way, they base… it’s like the number of square foot feet in the lawn, so to speak, and then something else is like in irrigation, which is also in that same department. It’s like, well, how many hours is it going to take to fix that, and how many sprinkler heads are there?

694 01:23:27.050 ⇒ 01:23:35.980 Les Stobart: artificial turf, it’s like, oh, well, how big is the area that you’re gonna put turf down, and what kind of turf? I mean, even when you think

695 01:23:36.170 ⇒ 01:23:42.220 Les Stobart: one division is… functions, like, in this button-down way. It’s like, oh shit, man.

696 01:23:42.730 ⇒ 01:23:52.569 Les Stobart: don’t make the mistake of thinking that every department, even in that division, not to mention the different divisions, how they function. So, explore that breadth.

697 01:23:52.730 ⇒ 01:23:53.450 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.

698 01:23:55.930 ⇒ 01:24:04.430 Les Stobart: get out of Matt and Bobby’s office. Yeah. Because their view of things is skewed because they sit in an ivory tower.

699 01:24:04.720 ⇒ 01:24:05.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.

700 01:24:05.320 ⇒ 01:24:11.580 Les Stobart: And, do a lot of… have a lot of conversations, and then assess people.

701 01:24:11.830 ⇒ 01:24:13.049 Uttam Kumaran: And see what you think.

702 01:24:13.840 ⇒ 01:24:14.980 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect.

703 01:24:15.530 ⇒ 01:24:17.460 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

704 01:24:18.680 ⇒ 01:24:20.290 Uttam Kumaran: Hope to see you in the office soon.