Meeting Title: Uttam <> Troy Date: 2025-06-06 Meeting participants: read.ai meeting notes, Uttam Kumaran, Troy Ottmer
WEBVTT
1 00:00:15.740 ⇒ 00:00:20.789 Uttam Kumaran: Really no, I mean, since I like. Since I was like 16
2 00:00:21.900 ⇒ 00:00:23.982 Uttam Kumaran: we have always had a car.
3 00:00:25.240 ⇒ 00:00:27.669 Uttam Kumaran: I had a car growing up, but
4 00:00:28.010 ⇒ 00:00:38.669 Uttam Kumaran: I think in college I, my sister, gave us my family cars. My sister took it back, but she totaled the car. So that’s whatever. And then.
5 00:00:39.430 ⇒ 00:00:40.810 Troy Ottmer: Hey! Good afternoon.
6 00:00:40.810 ⇒ 00:00:42.560 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, Troy! How are you?
7 00:00:42.910 ⇒ 00:00:43.880 Troy Ottmer: Good.
8 00:00:43.880 ⇒ 00:00:44.480 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
9 00:00:45.920 ⇒ 00:00:50.230 Troy Ottmer: Well, Robert, good to meet you. So you guys are in the same place the same time today.
10 00:00:50.230 ⇒ 00:01:05.410 Uttam Kumaran: So this is actually, this is actually David David with us on our workshop product. Actually, Robert Robert is traveling. He was in. He’s in Amsterdam right now with his family, I was like, but it’s Friday night in Amsterdam, and I’m like.
11 00:01:05.410 ⇒ 00:01:06.160 Troy Ottmer: Oh, yeah.
12 00:01:06.160 ⇒ 00:01:17.989 Uttam Kumaran: I see if you can join. But but I actually David is working with us here on this workshop sort of product that I wanted to sort of run you through today. We sort of took
13 00:01:18.060 ⇒ 00:01:40.039 Uttam Kumaran: took everything you sent about the 360 review. I thought you’d find this kind of neat where one of the things that we’re thinking about for our clients is, we’re, you know, we’re getting some good traction around people that have an interest in in AI automation and data. But there’s even a class of people that are like, I know I need it. But I don’t know what? Exactly to go. Apply it. And there’s that gap
14 00:01:40.150 ⇒ 00:01:46.819 Uttam Kumaran: where they haven’t spent enough time in Chat. Gpt to like, connect the dots. And then, like, know, okay, I need help.
15 00:01:46.960 ⇒ 00:01:51.790 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s kind of what I wanted to walk you through a version of today.
16 00:01:52.450 ⇒ 00:01:52.920 Troy Ottmer: Nope.
17 00:01:52.920 ⇒ 00:01:57.120 Uttam Kumaran: If you’re game for that. On a Friday Friday afternoon.
18 00:01:57.540 ⇒ 00:02:00.689 Troy Ottmer: Hey? It’s you’re my last call. So.
19 00:02:00.690 ⇒ 00:02:02.617 Uttam Kumaran: Same, same, yeah.
20 00:02:03.260 ⇒ 00:02:07.329 Troy Ottmer: So, Dave, David, good to meet you. I I just assumed you were Robert.
21 00:02:07.620 ⇒ 00:02:12.389 Uttam Kumaran: No, I mean, yeah, I that’s totally understandable. And it’s a pleasure to meet you as well. So.
22 00:02:12.390 ⇒ 00:02:12.980 Troy Ottmer: Likewise.
23 00:02:12.980 ⇒ 00:02:20.649 Uttam Kumaran: Is actually in Houston. David is in Dallas, and he drove. He drove down here visiting a friend this weekend, and I’m here.
24 00:02:20.650 ⇒ 00:02:21.250 Troy Ottmer: Oh, cool!
25 00:02:21.250 ⇒ 00:02:24.630 Uttam Kumaran: I’m here in Austin. So what what part of Houston do you live in? Trey.
26 00:02:24.800 ⇒ 00:02:31.563 Troy Ottmer: I live on the northwest side. So I’m kinda in the nexus of Tomball Spring and Cyprus and Klein.
27 00:02:32.160 ⇒ 00:02:39.690 Troy Ottmer: you know, right there, if familiar with this part of town, the Willowbrook 2, 2 49 area. That’s that’s where I’m at. Yeah.
28 00:02:39.690 ⇒ 00:02:42.219 Uttam Kumaran: Well I grew up in Katy is why I ask.
29 00:02:42.220 ⇒ 00:02:43.559 Troy Ottmer: Oh, okay. Yeah.
30 00:02:43.560 ⇒ 00:02:47.290 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, my parents live out in the like Montrose area. So.
31 00:02:47.290 ⇒ 00:02:55.190 Troy Ottmer: Oh, cool, hey? That’s that’s a really happening place a lot. It’s kind of got the Austin Vibe with the restaurants now. And, man, it’s.
32 00:02:55.360 ⇒ 00:02:57.039 Uttam Kumaran: It’s a cool place.
33 00:02:57.383 ⇒ 00:03:03.569 Uttam Kumaran: They actually don’t love the amount of activity around there like they’re like place sometimes. But anyway.
34 00:03:03.570 ⇒ 00:03:13.101 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, it’s usually fairly quiet, and you know, but now over over time, it’s it’s it’s where the center of the universe seems to be moving so
35 00:03:13.580 ⇒ 00:03:17.540 Troy Ottmer: well, good to good to meet you as well. So yeah, let’s let’s kick it off.
36 00:03:17.540 ⇒ 00:03:20.460 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So I just sent you this thing in zoom.
37 00:03:21.116 ⇒ 00:03:24.709 Uttam Kumaran: It’s this Miro board. If you want to open it on your end.
38 00:03:25.030 ⇒ 00:03:25.800 Troy Ottmer: Got it.
39 00:03:27.350 ⇒ 00:03:32.409 Uttam Kumaran: It should let you just go in without having to do anything just as a guest. It let you in. Right? Yeah, yeah.
40 00:03:36.920 ⇒ 00:03:40.156 Troy Ottmer: Well. And and while it’s it’s opening on my end.
41 00:03:41.200 ⇒ 00:03:46.020 Troy Ottmer: you know that 3 60 review is kind of the traditional way
42 00:03:46.560 ⇒ 00:04:01.940 Troy Ottmer: automotive commercial truck, commercial equipment, and ag etc. Dealers have always done things over. The years hang on. It’s verifying my who I am. There we go, I mean? I think almost
43 00:04:02.490 ⇒ 00:04:09.609 Troy Ottmer: it’s yeah. Now it’s doing something. It’s got the little yellow and black thing going
44 00:04:10.670 ⇒ 00:04:16.850 Troy Ottmer: Oh, it for some reason, is trying to get me to answer some questions. Did I click a button? I shouldn’t have.
45 00:04:17.430 ⇒ 00:04:21.819 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe it should let you go in as a guest, but let me, without having to do all that.
46 00:04:21.829 ⇒ 00:04:29.189 Troy Ottmer: Well, hey? No, I think asked me to. I wanted to log in with my Google Id. Which I said yes, and I probably shouldn’t have done that.
47 00:04:29.190 ⇒ 00:04:33.860 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, you don’t. You don’t necessarily have to do that, but if you want to do it, it’ll just ask you a few questions.
48 00:04:33.860 ⇒ 00:04:40.849 Troy Ottmer: Yeah. So here, I just clicked it again, just to start over. Okay, I see something as a visiting painter.
49 00:04:40.960 ⇒ 00:04:43.090 Troy Ottmer: I see David right there. There you go.
50 00:04:43.090 ⇒ 00:04:54.950 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect. Yeah. And Troy, I I even even about the 3 60, is, you know, because I’ve I’m familiar with I’ve heard of the dealer 3 60 before. But I’ve also heard of 3, 60, and a couple of other
51 00:04:55.480 ⇒ 00:05:08.599 Uttam Kumaran: areas. Is this something that like? Talk to me about how that how to give us at the stage for like, how long that review takes? And then what are the who’s involved in that? And what are the typical
52 00:05:08.730 ⇒ 00:05:10.609 Uttam Kumaran: outcomes. Is it just a, you know.
53 00:05:11.240 ⇒ 00:05:21.579 Troy Ottmer: Well, no, to my knowledge, nobody has been calling it a 3 60 dealer review. I pull. I pulled that from the the human 3 60.
54 00:05:21.580 ⇒ 00:05:24.169 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay, maybe that’s probably what I’m thinking about.
55 00:05:24.170 ⇒ 00:05:26.440 Troy Ottmer: Yeah. So I’ve gone through
56 00:05:26.840 ⇒ 00:05:36.460 Troy Ottmer: with the publicly traded companies I’ve worked for over the years, and and one large private one we were bringing in like consultants from Mckinsey and others.
57 00:05:36.600 ⇒ 00:05:44.749 Troy Ottmer: and they would talk a lot about doing these 360 reviews. So we would do predictive index. And it would. You know we would look at how we.
58 00:05:44.970 ⇒ 00:06:12.469 Troy Ottmer: how our brains work, and where we’re strong and and all, you know, and where we’re weak, too, because that week doesn’t mean bad, right? It means that it’s just something we need to work with, and so on. So as as I started my consulting business, or even right before that. I it was rattling around in my head. Why aren’t we calling these 360 dealer reviews? Because that’s exactly what they do. So in in a short version.
59 00:06:13.188 ⇒ 00:06:41.590 Troy Ottmer: typically a consultant like myself. And I used to work with consultants that would come in and do these dealer reviews. For the dealer principles, the owners of the dealer group. And you know, if you’re an executive like I was, for example, you’re gonna work with these people directly, so they’ll come in and and depending on what you want to do, they’ll look at a a sales department new or used, or both combined. They’ll look at a parts department.
60 00:06:41.770 ⇒ 00:06:46.809 Troy Ottmer: They’ll look at a service department, and in some cases you may have rental or leasing.
61 00:06:47.370 ⇒ 00:06:55.200 Troy Ottmer: So typically and when I say, look at this, they the way it typically works for parts and service. You would have
62 00:06:55.570 ⇒ 00:07:02.469 Troy Ottmer: a consultant come in week one they would come in to 40 h of onsite review
63 00:07:02.730 ⇒ 00:07:27.910 Troy Ottmer: that includes interviewing the people doing their questionnaires. That includes looking at some of the raw data. You know what challenges. They’re having a lot of observation. And then week 2, you go back and they would work from their office, taking all that information, they pulled together and crunching it. So now you’re dealing with these different spreadsheets of, you know, parts, turns parts, inventory, old inventory.
64 00:07:28.660 ⇒ 00:07:47.179 Troy Ottmer: very, much, very manual, and the same for service. So you you would do essentially the same. So a dealer review a let’s call it a parts and service only could take about a month. By the time you compile it and you complete it, and then you give
65 00:07:47.780 ⇒ 00:07:59.410 Troy Ottmer: the dealer principles and the leadership team your synopsis of what you think they need to do what you found, what the pros are, what the cons are, the negatives, the positives, etc.
66 00:07:59.870 ⇒ 00:08:09.229 Troy Ottmer: If you do a more comprehensive one where you’re doing all departments that one could take 2, 2 plus months, maybe 3 months. And
67 00:08:09.640 ⇒ 00:08:26.329 Troy Ottmer: dealers typically will do one to 2 dealer review per year, because they’re kind of pricey. Yeah, because High End consultants, you know, that have been doing this. When I say high end, I mean, you’re you’re probably talking 15 to $30,000 a week when they’re on site
68 00:08:27.064 ⇒ 00:08:39.759 Troy Ottmer: and I’d love to be paid like that. Who wouldn’t? Right, that’s you know. But the reality of it is when I was on the other side of the equation as an executive representing the dealership owner group.
69 00:08:42.210 ⇒ 00:08:54.700 Troy Ottmer: I was like man. That’s it’s hard for me to spend a hundred 1,000 or 200,000 a year on things that is is pure overhead, you know. And so how can we work? Smarter, not harder, and technologies have improved.
70 00:08:54.830 ⇒ 00:09:03.920 Troy Ottmer: but dealer dealerships, whether it’s automotive or the others I mentioned, they all suffer from the same thing. Their own legacy business systems to some degree.
71 00:09:04.140 ⇒ 00:09:07.919 Troy Ottmer: Cdk, global is probably the most preeminent and most
72 00:09:08.170 ⇒ 00:09:18.909 Troy Ottmer: forward looking. One. Carmack with a K is another one that you know used to be just horribly ancient now is coming into the New World, and there’s others. But
73 00:09:19.150 ⇒ 00:09:20.010 Troy Ottmer: so
74 00:09:20.270 ⇒ 00:09:46.010 Troy Ottmer: with the advent of AI, I’ve been using the various versions of Chat Gpt for the last 2 plus years. And I’m kind of you know, David, I I make these references. I’m 58 years old, but I like to think I’m 28, right? I want to stay fresh. So your generation with, or is actually willing to engage with me because I’m open to that right? And so I’ve been using this in my prior role.
75 00:09:46.360 ⇒ 00:09:56.639 Troy Ottmer: As like, okay, how can I process a lot of data quickly? And I use the various different tools that are out there I pay for. I don’t just use the free.
76 00:10:03.500 ⇒ 00:10:06.839 Uttam Kumaran: Blossom a little bit. I think it was him, because I’m still on
77 00:10:11.740 ⇒ 00:10:15.800 Uttam Kumaran: my majority, Troy, we lost you.
78 00:10:20.150 ⇒ 00:10:20.870 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
79 00:10:23.250 ⇒ 00:10:24.370 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm.
80 00:10:26.490 ⇒ 00:10:31.450 Uttam Kumaran: He’s on the board, but even his curse when the board is stuck.
81 00:10:36.420 ⇒ 00:10:37.650 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, he just moved.
82 00:10:38.300 ⇒ 00:10:40.477 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, that’s me! Oh, never mind.
83 00:10:41.990 ⇒ 00:10:43.350 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s me.
84 00:10:48.890 ⇒ 00:10:57.959 Uttam Kumaran: Where’d you get this thing that came came with the house. Yeah, it’s very nice. I don’t know if I can afford that.
85 00:11:04.270 ⇒ 00:11:05.499 Uttam Kumaran: So hold on.
86 00:11:06.060 ⇒ 00:11:20.790 Uttam Kumaran: art in our house is photos that I’ve taken like, I’m like very annoying about like the art that we can put up in our place because only my photos, basically so like my house, that is nice and photos that I’ve taken over the years. See for me, I’ve done all the plants.
87 00:11:21.730 ⇒ 00:11:23.240 Uttam Kumaran: Are you that person
88 00:11:23.590 ⇒ 00:11:27.840 Uttam Kumaran: I’m getting into more into it just like, cause this place gets a lot of light.
89 00:11:28.110 ⇒ 00:11:32.349 Uttam Kumaran: It looks nice. Yeah, all these yeah, everything here.
90 00:11:34.260 ⇒ 00:11:35.260 Uttam Kumaran: Hey? Hey? That.
91 00:11:35.260 ⇒ 00:11:39.369 Troy Ottmer: Okay. Yeah, I don’t know what happened. It just
92 00:11:39.840 ⇒ 00:11:43.390 Troy Ottmer: you guys froze and I kept talking. So where did you lose me?
93 00:11:43.635 ⇒ 00:11:55.150 Uttam Kumaran: You were talking about that, you you have all the tools and that you’re you’re like, Yeah, I’m paying for all the tools so mainly just like, yeah, yeah, like, how up to speed you are on that. And I, I gave David some of that context.
94 00:11:56.270 ⇒ 00:12:07.260 Troy Ottmer: Okay. So so in closing the what I’m trying to offer, and I’ve been, I’ve been consulting David. Now this is going into my 7th month, and
95 00:12:07.540 ⇒ 00:12:18.479 Troy Ottmer: I’ve been doing private equity consulting where I do free due diligence and or due diligence reviews. And I’ve also done quite a bit of an
96 00:12:18.810 ⇒ 00:12:20.960 Troy Ottmer: I guess, investment banking
97 00:12:21.560 ⇒ 00:12:28.849 Troy Ottmer: commentary on what the current market is in the dealer world transportation, logistics, etc, operational challenges.
98 00:12:29.040 ⇒ 00:12:37.740 Troy Ottmer: And so that that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing, but that I don’t really want to set on those calls back to back 6 times a week. They pay decent.
99 00:12:37.880 ⇒ 00:12:55.179 Troy Ottmer: but I really want to work with dealer groups. And I and I, you know I didn’t really to. Tom and I met kind of by chance at the fireside chat. And that’s kind of how we’re here today. And so I want to help dealers
100 00:12:55.750 ⇒ 00:13:06.849 Troy Ottmer: do this more virtually. Now I can do a whole lot on the back end of this, and I use the different tools to look at different data set. But each department within a dealer group
101 00:13:06.890 ⇒ 00:13:33.630 Troy Ottmer: will have similar information. But the way legacy business systems were made. 1 1 programmer wrote it this way, and they’re collecting similar data with another. Another person did this module. And it’s similar data, and they don’t talk, or the file names are different. And you, you know, bring it all together, and there’s old school ways to do that, but it can take time, and it’s costly. So with what you guys do.
102 00:13:33.860 ⇒ 00:13:45.160 Troy Ottmer: I think there’s a synergistic thing we have going that we can figure out. I don’t know what it looks like yet, and but I I’m pretty excited. At some point
103 00:13:45.970 ⇒ 00:13:58.230 Troy Ottmer: we could. We could wrap this up to where we go into the dealer group world. And and we say, Hey, look! We, we’re not here to upend your systems. We’re here to give you better data in real time.
104 00:13:58.340 ⇒ 00:14:01.060 Troy Ottmer: And you have an operational expert.
105 00:14:01.300 ⇒ 00:14:10.540 Troy Ottmer: And I’m not a programmer. But I would call myself a a power user. And that can help you guys navigate. How do we build the
106 00:14:10.800 ⇒ 00:14:25.919 Troy Ottmer: for lack of a term of bolt on augmentation using AI and other tools? And you, you know, you got you guys are really to know some really cool things the way you’re looking at the business market. And you you’re repost about hiring some people.
107 00:14:26.501 ⇒ 00:14:36.700 Troy Ottmer: The project manager, and how you’re scaling people, hey? You harm to be X. But next thing you know, they can do other things in the alphabet right and
108 00:14:36.930 ⇒ 00:14:38.370 Troy Ottmer: instant
109 00:14:38.630 ⇒ 00:15:00.910 Troy Ottmer: instant gratification for your clients, and that’s what I want to offer. So that’s why I put the document together, which is basically the old school way. And I took that one section, I turned it red to show you that’s where the data comes from. And if and I use red because it is code red, it is ugly, and it depends on the business.
110 00:15:00.910 ⇒ 00:15:01.860 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I was gonna say.
111 00:15:01.860 ⇒ 00:15:05.160 Troy Ottmer: I’m sorry some of those questions are very specific.
112 00:15:05.340 ⇒ 00:15:07.980 Uttam Kumaran: And I’d be surprised if folks
113 00:15:08.520 ⇒ 00:15:13.749 Uttam Kumaran: ever get there, and David was like they never. They’ll never gonna get there, you know.
114 00:15:13.930 ⇒ 00:15:21.490 Troy Ottmer: No. And and it’s it’s hard, because, as a as a former executive of being in this world for so long.
115 00:15:22.370 ⇒ 00:15:47.426 Troy Ottmer: I use a lot of different tools and techniques to get their crystal reports back in the day. You know, Microsoft, or, excuse me, Microsoft dynamics. Later, tableau, even later power bi to some extent. But wait before that as 400. Query, 400, you know. I mean, that’s ancient where you’re writing an old school green screen. And you’re building these different queries,
116 00:15:48.350 ⇒ 00:15:55.589 Troy Ottmer: and and then you use all these other tools to bring it together and and and trying to make sense. And how do you?
117 00:15:55.780 ⇒ 00:15:58.780 Troy Ottmer: How do you give that dealer principle
118 00:15:59.200 ⇒ 00:16:27.200 Troy Ottmer: a high roi, or, more importantly, a high return on asset that Roa, that’s really the thing that dealer groups don’t talk about. Enough is their roa is typically low. It should be 35 to 45% plus. But they’re on the other side of that equation. So you know, you 1st you got to sell them on the Roi, so they understand that and then show them, hey? A 3 gain. 3 percentage point gain is significant
119 00:16:27.310 ⇒ 00:16:45.040 Troy Ottmer: if you can help them achieve that. But if their overhead carrying costs and any other inefficiencies are dragging them down. That’s ultimately what a dealer review would would reveal. But you’re right. There’s some that never get there. And so there’s different different ways to approach it. But so I’m still.
120 00:16:45.200 ⇒ 00:16:56.830 Troy Ottmer: I’ve made a lot of progress in 6 months. I I my dad, asked me how things are going, and I say, hey? I’ve I’ve come in second place a lot. But being that, I’ve been doing this professionally for 6 months.
121 00:16:56.830 ⇒ 00:17:19.189 Uttam Kumaran: 6 months very long. Yeah, we’re we’re still coming second place on a lot, but we’re able to take more at bats. And we got a squad of people and like it’s, I mean, it’s a numbers game. It’s a it’s a numbers game. And also you believe the product. Right? So for me. I knew we were. We’re better. We’re more honest and like I’m not a consultant. So
122 00:17:19.450 ⇒ 00:17:35.239 Uttam Kumaran: honestly I give a lot away, and we’ve we’ve under charge. So I knew that that would. That would turn out. It’s just how long can you stick with it, you know. So. And I mean having been in this space for a while. So my background. Troy is in consulting. I’ve been in consulting my whole career, and, like like he was saying.
123 00:17:35.240 ⇒ 00:17:35.630 Troy Ottmer: Okay.
124 00:17:35.630 ⇒ 00:17:41.359 Uttam Kumaran: It takes forever it like it. It takes time to to build that ability to like
125 00:17:41.560 ⇒ 00:17:47.489 Uttam Kumaran: use the the wins as like motivators, or like, you know, builders for other wins. So it just takes time.
126 00:17:47.790 ⇒ 00:17:48.710 Troy Ottmer: Well.
127 00:17:48.960 ⇒ 00:17:54.359 Troy Ottmer: while I’m a known quantity, I could get a job back in this field if I chose to do that.
128 00:17:54.777 ⇒ 00:17:58.462 Troy Ottmer: I get I get offers at least once a week right? And
129 00:17:59.110 ⇒ 00:18:26.290 Troy Ottmer: but I I want to pursue this part of as a passion, and I’ve delayed it for about 5 or so years, and and I just like, now’s the time. Let’s get it. And I. And as I was saying about AI, I was using that to help me drive my business unit at Rush, and I know they were baffled, and I’m talking with them, and I I hope to do some consulting for them, and as we do some different things, and
130 00:18:27.310 ⇒ 00:18:31.750 Troy Ottmer: actually working with the coo of the rush enterprises to help
131 00:18:32.150 ⇒ 00:18:40.449 Troy Ottmer: fix some market problems in what we call the freight recession economy that the trucking industry is going through right now. And
132 00:18:40.480 ⇒ 00:19:00.399 Troy Ottmer: so again, I’m using AI to help cover that quickly as possible. Then I can. I can go. Say, here are the clients we need to call on. Here’s here’s where they need us the most, and you know. Look, there’s a there’s a educated guess involved. And AI, you just can’t take everything it says and go with it. You gotta proof it out.
133 00:19:00.400 ⇒ 00:19:24.783 Troy Ottmer: But I do spend a lot of time doing that. So, David, you you having been in the consulting side, you you kind of get where I come from because I was trained in the operations side of the business to think more like a consultant than having worked with the likes of Mckenzie and and Boston Consulting Group and others, and Glg, which has presence in Austin now, and I work with them a lot.
134 00:19:25.330 ⇒ 00:19:33.438 Troy Ottmer: you know it. It really changes your mindset. So that’s my go to market strategy. So second place, a lot in 6 months isn’t too bad.
135 00:19:33.750 ⇒ 00:19:36.519 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, yeah, maybe they are.
136 00:19:36.520 ⇒ 00:19:37.330 Troy Ottmer: So what? What?
137 00:19:38.120 ⇒ 00:19:39.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, no. Yeah. Let’s.
138 00:19:39.650 ⇒ 00:19:40.950 Troy Ottmer: Me through what you guys.
139 00:19:41.510 ⇒ 00:19:43.650 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. So are you on the Mirror Board, Troy.
140 00:19:44.870 ⇒ 00:19:46.559 Troy Ottmer: I am. I see you moving around.
141 00:19:46.560 ⇒ 00:20:10.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect. So I’m gonna someone you here to like the the wide view. So you can kind of get a sense for what we’re talking about. So as you think through the challenges that was kind of hitting on like for implementing AI more broadly right, the idea is that from a strategy perspective. We want to have a structured approach for how we get somebody that doesn’t necessarily understand the context of this.
142 00:20:10.230 ⇒ 00:20:21.659 Uttam Kumaran: From what real business problem? Are we solving to what is the actual meaningful plan to make that business problem solved, or to solve it? In the 1st place, does that make sense.
143 00:20:22.230 ⇒ 00:20:22.730 Troy Ottmer: Okay.
144 00:20:22.730 ⇒ 00:20:40.359 Uttam Kumaran: What you’re seeing on the screen is like the the gamification, or like the the reality of structuring that into something that others can go through. So like, basically, the the Mirror board is really just like a a structuring of a set of activities and frameworks
145 00:20:40.360 ⇒ 00:20:58.790 Uttam Kumaran: for going from, I have a problem that I’m going to solve to. I have a plan to build it. And so in in our case, it’s how do we go from understanding the con, the context of, for example, the 360 review, and, like all the things that go into it, to, then understanding what to do and build next from there.
146 00:20:58.790 ⇒ 00:21:03.339 Uttam Kumaran: And the point of the activities is to kind of tell that story
147 00:21:03.340 ⇒ 00:21:22.720 Uttam Kumaran: firsthand, and for the people doing it, or in this case for you to see the the output of it firsthand versus us, telling you what it is in the traditional consultative setting which you’re describing, which is like we show up places, and we tell people what to do. Instead of that, this is that you get to live and be part of building it with us.
148 00:21:24.268 ⇒ 00:21:25.180 Uttam Kumaran: So what we do.
149 00:21:25.180 ⇒ 00:21:26.060 Troy Ottmer: I like that.
150 00:21:26.060 ⇒ 00:21:51.930 Uttam Kumaran: Is is. Obviously this is like a mini version of the of the like. You know, more in depth, activity. But to give you a sense given that we have what 45 min or an hour was to go through the activities in a very short form. So you get a sense of how we do it together and and what it looks like. And then, obviously, you know, we can go from there. But I know, did we wanna for him specifically, or yeah, Troy, I guess, like I was gonna ask you, like, I was wondering, maybe if you wanted to
151 00:21:52.130 ⇒ 00:22:12.830 Uttam Kumaran: either do this, we could do this as bomber consulting, or you do this as your as your previous role and sort of because I kind of wanted to do more showing of like what it is like. If you were in your past role to have walked through this exercise to articulate the problems, and how we would have arrived at the set of, you know, automation or data opportunities.
152 00:22:14.270 ⇒ 00:22:21.050 Troy Ottmer: Well, I I think the previous role would be more applicable to what we’re trying to do, because ultimately.
153 00:22:21.980 ⇒ 00:22:24.560 Troy Ottmer: in some form or fashion, we want to
154 00:22:24.690 ⇒ 00:22:47.189 Troy Ottmer: find a target and go to that target that was or is in the same or similar role, and say, Hey, look! Here’s what we can do for you. We’re not gonna try to fix all your departments, all your problems all at once. But we know this probably is one of your 3 hot buttons. Okay, so let’s talk about the sales department.
155 00:22:47.400 ⇒ 00:22:53.300 Troy Ottmer: So I would say, as a general manager, that’s what I was. You could just call it Troy
156 00:22:53.700 ⇒ 00:22:56.140 Troy Ottmer: dealership, right as a GM.
157 00:22:57.250 ⇒ 00:23:00.939 Troy Ottmer: You know, and and on the sales the biggest challenge is.
158 00:23:01.090 ⇒ 00:23:03.639 Troy Ottmer: it’s the same on all sides. But
159 00:23:04.220 ⇒ 00:23:24.490 Troy Ottmer: you finding clients one. What does that look like? And while you can’t go out on the general Internet and say, Hey, I want to see who who all registered and or license, commercial vehicles in a given timeframe in a given market. You have to be part of a dealer group, you know. That’s information is semi.
160 00:23:24.690 ⇒ 00:23:26.929 Troy Ottmer: But if you’re part of an oem
161 00:23:27.710 ⇒ 00:23:39.409 Troy Ottmer: consortium. If you will, then you can get access to that information, and then dealers would have to provide that to you or me, or whoever right? And then so that’s where
162 00:23:39.690 ⇒ 00:23:50.620 Troy Ottmer: automation comes in, because you could populate that in real time, your custom, your Crm activity. Who are your customers. Who are you selling to
163 00:23:51.170 ⇒ 00:24:03.039 Troy Ottmer: 5 years ago? Who are you not sell to today? So who’s fallen off that list? Who’s gone business a simple way to look and see. Have any of them fall bankruptcy
164 00:24:03.180 ⇒ 00:24:15.160 Troy Ottmer: recently? Why waste time on people like that? Well, that information is in the public forum. You can find it. It’s difficult. Well, AI makes that here to chase that down
165 00:24:15.310 ⇒ 00:24:27.170 Troy Ottmer: right. And you can look people up through the state sites and see if there’s any liens. That’s another thing. So I just hit us right there with 3 different problems right out of the box where automation
166 00:24:27.350 ⇒ 00:24:34.029 Troy Ottmer: simplifies the entire process. Because now I’m not having sales. People chase clients that
167 00:24:34.680 ⇒ 00:24:51.050 Troy Ottmer: not saying they can’t buy, but they may not be able to be qualified to buy. So why waste a whole lot of time on the front end. Let’s go chase people that at least get qualified. So you build the AI around qualifying the candidates, and then you go target that market.
168 00:24:51.580 ⇒ 00:24:52.510 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so what I.
169 00:24:52.510 ⇒ 00:24:53.169 Troy Ottmer: Does that make sense.
170 00:24:53.170 ⇒ 00:25:15.720 Uttam Kumaran: It does, and what I’d like to do is to use those as a starting point for that 1st activity that we have there at the top. So you basically already answered some of the question right? So if you think about the setting that we would use this, for it would be a group of people, so it wouldn’t just be Troy. It would be several different people across different departments to have a conversation around the challenges that they face
171 00:25:15.720 ⇒ 00:25:24.479 Uttam Kumaran: collectively, but in their own, like, you know, particular verticals as well. So like from an AI application perspective, it would also be.
172 00:25:24.540 ⇒ 00:25:37.820 Uttam Kumaran: what does each person have from a problem perspective. How does AI serve each of them individually? But how do their problems come together into like a problem set that we can solve collectively across all of them. Does that make sense
173 00:25:38.130 ⇒ 00:25:39.820 Uttam Kumaran: correct? So so
174 00:25:39.820 ⇒ 00:25:46.290 Uttam Kumaran: for this 1st activity, what I want you to do is essentially, you see, the red stickies here on the on the bottom or the top. Activity.
175 00:25:47.590 ⇒ 00:25:48.260 Troy Ottmer: Yes.
176 00:25:48.260 ⇒ 00:26:09.940 Uttam Kumaran: So thinking about sort of like that play acting as the person that we would target. What are the biggest challenges that they face today you hit on 3 right, but you feel free to put in as many as you can think of. What are the challenges that they face that we would expect to see from them, and just you can feel free to free form as much as possible. You described a few of them, so feel free to put those down. But what I’ll do is.
177 00:26:09.940 ⇒ 00:26:11.449 Troy Ottmer: So I can just click.
178 00:26:11.680 ⇒ 00:26:12.290 Uttam Kumaran: Go ahead!
179 00:26:12.760 ⇒ 00:26:14.510 Troy Ottmer: Ha! So I click on one.
180 00:26:14.510 ⇒ 00:26:17.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, just double click on the sticky and write whatever the problem is.
181 00:26:20.720 ⇒ 00:26:27.000 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, so what I’ll do is I’ll just set a quick timer and give you like 2 min to download as many as you can. And then I’ll explain something from there
182 00:26:30.970 ⇒ 00:26:40.566 Uttam Kumaran: to a brief side note what I can do typically do is play some music while this is happening. So that, like, you know, if we’re both in it, it’ll play some like nice elevator music while this he’s downloading the stuff. But
183 00:26:41.690 ⇒ 00:26:44.255 Troy Ottmer: Oh, that’s it! There you go! I like that!
184 00:26:44.540 ⇒ 00:26:47.420 Uttam Kumaran: So let me let me redo that so you’ll you’ll listen to it. Hold on.
185 00:26:48.050 ⇒ 00:26:53.038 Uttam Kumaran: we’ll make them on my end, and hopefully there’s no.
186 00:26:53.970 ⇒ 00:26:55.156 Troy Ottmer: And there
187 00:27:02.160 ⇒ 00:27:03.680 Troy Ottmer: registration.
188 00:27:04.030 ⇒ 00:27:04.800 Troy Ottmer: Okay.
189 00:27:15.500 ⇒ 00:27:20.259 Troy Ottmer: oops. I made an extra. Oh, I gotta be careful clicking because I start adding stuff. Sorry?
190 00:27:20.260 ⇒ 00:27:29.587 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, no, that’s fine. So what will happen is that this happens a lot while we’re doing these. So I’ll basically just be cleaning stuff up while you’re, you know, going through them.
191 00:27:34.280 ⇒ 00:27:44.040 Uttam Kumaran: And as you’re putting them down, I would ask that you be as specific as possible, right? So instead of credit, like what specifically within like the credit aspect. Would you call out as a problem.
192 00:27:44.300 ⇒ 00:27:45.130 Uttam Kumaran: okay.
193 00:27:52.330 ⇒ 00:28:20.080 Uttam Kumaran: at the end of these, like, do you do much synthesis like at the end, like a lot of synthesis. Yeah. So if we have time baked in, what happens is that we will do synthesis as part of the workshop. Sometimes, if we don’t have the time. Then I’ll do it after the fact. And is it you could leave them with a document usually is the board itself okay? And then, you know, it can turn into a presentation as well.
194 00:28:20.431 ⇒ 00:28:33.779 Uttam Kumaran: So like what will happen is like, let’s say, you know, he’s putting Crm compliance customer, fleet size. Maybe those are related because I’m about to ask him to explain. So like when he does, we’ll combine them.
195 00:28:35.790 ⇒ 00:29:03.819 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, you know, you could, you could easily take the transcript and like, sort of like, help you with this process a little bit, and even even drawing conclusions. I mean, maybe you would have. Yeah, because there’s some degree of like sentiment analysis that happens. And like how people say things that I can’t. Oh, you’re right. You’re right. You’re right. Yeah, okay, so you have about 50 seconds left Troy. So go ahead. And if you need more stickies, feel free to add more. I can make you more, if you need more.
196 00:29:03.820 ⇒ 00:29:07.040 Troy Ottmer: Okay, I’m okay. Right now, I think.
197 00:29:07.040 ⇒ 00:29:07.395 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.
198 00:29:07.750 ⇒ 00:29:13.799 Troy Ottmer: Let’s see, trying to think what else would go into that
199 00:29:17.620 ⇒ 00:29:44.360 Uttam Kumaran: So I think, for the purposes of this one. I won’t ask him to explain all of them, but just so that you know what would happen is that I would ask him to give context for every single one, and then like, explain, so that we both know what it is and maybe pick a couple of the ones like, yeah, definitely, yeah, I guess which ones are you curious about? I’m curious about the most complicated ones, like, I’m curious about yeah. Or I mean, yeah, maybe we can ask for what’s more complicated. Because.
200 00:29:44.360 ⇒ 00:29:51.569 Uttam Kumaran: okay, so Troy, what would happen here like if we were in a big group setting. Right? It’s let’s imagine 5 different people just put all these stickies in
201 00:29:52.280 ⇒ 00:29:55.889 Uttam Kumaran: the challenge here is that twofold. We have to understand
202 00:29:56.040 ⇒ 00:30:07.409 Uttam Kumaran: obviously what they mean individually by each of these, because each person has a different interpretation of each of these. But we also have to understand the relative importance of all of them in a
203 00:30:07.610 ⇒ 00:30:28.620 Uttam Kumaran: in a quick sort of timeframe. If we have the time like, if we do a workshop, that’s longer than an hour, we can have the ability to prioritize these. So we ask the people to prioritize it themselves. In this case. Which one do you think are the like, or which one do you think are the most important? You’ll notice that there’s like a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 on the right side. If I asked you to drag.
204 00:30:28.620 ⇒ 00:30:29.020 Troy Ottmer: Okay.
205 00:30:29.020 ⇒ 00:30:32.380 Uttam Kumaran: Each one of them and reorder them, which would the top 5.
206 00:30:36.590 ⇒ 00:30:46.660 Uttam Kumaran: And so what will happen is that, as you describe the like? Top 5. The question that you’ll usually get is like, well, top 5 based on what? Right? Like. So the the anchoring that.
207 00:30:46.660 ⇒ 00:30:47.120 Troy Ottmer: Right.
208 00:30:47.120 ⇒ 00:30:57.130 Uttam Kumaran: Here collectively do is like, what do we want to achieve? Is it more money? Is it less like more efficiency? Is it more savings like it depends
209 00:30:57.250 ⇒ 00:30:58.800 Uttam Kumaran: right? And so the
210 00:30:59.220 ⇒ 00:31:04.170 Uttam Kumaran: 5 order will change, based on whatever the the outcome that you’re trying to achieve is.
211 00:31:08.150 ⇒ 00:31:10.140 Troy Ottmer: So well
212 00:31:10.140 ⇒ 00:31:19.139 Troy Ottmer: well in terms, and I know we’re kind of going through this quickly. But I like this because I think this would be a useful way.
213 00:31:19.920 ⇒ 00:31:32.200 Troy Ottmer: and I’ll tell you my my crazy idea later. But this, right now, priority one would be departmental alignment. Now, I will note looking at this on my end.
214 00:31:32.420 ⇒ 00:31:51.629 Troy Ottmer: maybe make it. I can. I see I can zoom in, make it bigger, because when you start typing it gets very small, but I can still read it so departmental alignment, if if the the sales department can’t operate properly, if it’s not aligned with the parts and service departments, parts and service departments can’t. Oh, there you go.
215 00:31:51.910 ⇒ 00:31:56.630 Troy Ottmer: That’s a little too large, but had to help.
216 00:31:57.495 ⇒ 00:32:02.379 Troy Ottmer: I’m not. I’m just not happy, David. Okay, I get the software.
217 00:32:03.200 ⇒ 00:32:04.660 Uttam Kumaran: That’s a consultant’s problem.
218 00:32:04.660 ⇒ 00:32:05.240 Troy Ottmer: Anyway?
219 00:32:07.090 ⇒ 00:32:15.650 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, we yeah. Yeah. So so departmental alignment is critical. Because if you do not have the 3 legs of the stool
220 00:32:15.850 ⇒ 00:32:20.070 Troy Ottmer: supporting the operation collectively and equally.
221 00:32:20.580 ⇒ 00:32:41.490 Troy Ottmer: then, that’s difficult to move forward and Crm compliance typically the parts and service and sales department. There are gaps in in the Crm. In almost every organization, even your best organization. They have gaps, they don’t talk, they they load a customer with Detroit’s Construction Company, and then it’s
222 00:32:41.790 ⇒ 00:32:43.890 Troy Ottmer: Troy’s with an apostrophe
223 00:32:44.330 ⇒ 00:32:51.189 Troy Ottmer: on the next one, and so on, and so on, and and it’s hard to find out which customer number. Oh, now you get 6 customers
224 00:32:51.590 ⇒ 00:32:53.749 Troy Ottmer: in the system that are the same customer.
225 00:32:54.080 ⇒ 00:33:12.839 Troy Ottmer: And so when you’re trying to look at what were their past purchase all that stuff, that’s what I mean by Crm compliance. Crm. Compliance could go broad as well. Ucc, which is common in the off-road or Ag business. It’s similar to a title for a licensed vehicle over the road.
226 00:33:12.980 ⇒ 00:33:28.650 Troy Ottmer: So that’s why I put Ucc. Or registrations, because any anything you sell that comes from a manufacturer is going to have a title. So when you hear someone say, Ucc or registration like commercial truck automotive is registration.
227 00:33:28.820 ⇒ 00:33:35.320 Troy Ottmer: John Deere Caterpillar or John Deere, ag dealer construction, whatever that would be Ucc
228 00:33:36.109 ⇒ 00:33:51.609 Troy Ottmer: customer qualification again that one may. It’s it’s less critical because it it ties back in with Number 2 and Number 5. But Number 5 is the credit worthiness, bankruptcy, reporting for sure
229 00:33:51.710 ⇒ 00:34:03.500 Troy Ottmer: and personal credit information. And you need to think well, why do you need personal credit? Well, in the commercial world in today’s credit market. You have to sign personally a lot of times.
230 00:34:04.060 ⇒ 00:34:25.300 Troy Ottmer: That’s it. So those are the 5 things right off top of my head, that, and I think a lot of dealers. They may have given us different ones. But if they would come up and say, Yeah, I agree with all of those, for all of those reasons, and not because Troy said so. I’m populating, not what I see, but what I’ve been consulting on in the last 6 months.
231 00:34:25.480 ⇒ 00:34:33.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And so so what’ll happen from a departmental alignment perspective is that if you think about it, when we do this sort of activity. We’ll have
232 00:34:33.860 ⇒ 00:34:50.420 Uttam Kumaran: 5 different people from 5 different departments. And so the doing this activity has 2 purposes. One is for us to understand the relative importance of these things, obviously, but also for them to understand the relative importance of their own ideas relative to each other.
233 00:34:51.000 ⇒ 00:35:13.980 Uttam Kumaran: Because what will happen a lot is that, like Utah and I may not agree on our ability or on like Number one. So collectively, we may decide that departmental alignment is number one. It’s the most important thing. But that may be a surprising thing for some people, as they’re going through the activity as well like, it’s like a part of the point of the activity is to get everybody aligned on what’s most collectively important.
234 00:35:14.940 ⇒ 00:35:17.130 Troy Ottmer: Correct agreed, agreed.
235 00:35:17.130 ⇒ 00:35:45.949 Uttam Kumaran: Any other thoughts there before we move on. Yeah, I guess 1 point I wanted to make before is I’m actually happy. We’re going through it at this speed, because Troy, actually, this, the earlier version of this David wanted to run was like an hour and 40 min, and I was like dude, probably like, let’s say, for a 30. But the one that we’re we actually have to do for folks is when I met David I was. You know, I had done workshops in my career. But I’m like, Yeah, I’ve done some of them. But you just show up at a thing, and then you leave the next day. Nothing happens.
236 00:35:45.950 ⇒ 00:35:55.019 Uttam Kumaran: But one thing he told me was like, no, there’s actually quite a significant amount of pre work understanding the roles and everybody that’s coming to the meeting. What are the company? So we come
237 00:35:55.470 ⇒ 00:36:09.219 Uttam Kumaran: actually with a lot of questions beforehand. And then this can take anywhere from a week to 3 or 4 weeks. But really, that’s more about scheduling and making sure we can get all the right people versus like
238 00:36:09.220 ⇒ 00:36:33.900 Uttam Kumaran: whoever’s available on that day. Oh, but like Joe Schmo isn’t here. Can’t talk about sales, you know. Like, if you if you think about the workshop being effective, there’s like logistical challenges to it. And then there’s like subject matter. Expertise challenges to it, too, the logistical one being as correct getting the right decision makers in the room, such that you can come up with a solution that moves the needle for the org.
239 00:36:33.900 ⇒ 00:36:41.210 Uttam Kumaran: And then the the subject matter expertise is like making sure that whoever’s attending knows what they’re talking about that like, that’s what we need to do the Pre. Work for.
240 00:36:42.370 ⇒ 00:36:56.619 Troy Ottmer: Well, and and I’m doing I’m doing that with the private equity or investment bank consultation. Right? I I’m technically not being paid until we actually get in the middle of one of these calls. That may be 3 or 4 back to that call.
241 00:36:56.800 ⇒ 00:36:59.380 Troy Ottmer: but they will send me a list of questions
242 00:36:59.730 ⇒ 00:37:02.410 Troy Ottmer: that they want to talk about. I will
243 00:37:02.600 ⇒ 00:37:21.770 Troy Ottmer: provide. I will start formulating that there’s a bit of pre work, and as I’m talking to some dealer groups. It’s the same way, I said, look, I’m gonna have basic questions. So that list I sent you on the word, Doc would be exactly where those questions would come from. You need to send me X data because I want to just show up.
244 00:37:21.910 ⇒ 00:37:28.749 Troy Ottmer: charge you X dollars per day per hour and then figure it out from there. I want to do pre work.
245 00:37:29.400 ⇒ 00:37:35.099 Troy Ottmer: part of the rate fee and and all those things, and and with the virtual world we live in today.
246 00:37:35.320 ⇒ 00:37:53.850 Troy Ottmer: I would want to do zoom calls or teams calls, or some people are using Google as well. Whatever the method is and get in front of people and have these these type of conversations. I’m not a fan of the old school, traditional speaking because they’re messy, but I do like this, because this is cool.
247 00:37:54.360 ⇒ 00:37:59.810 Uttam Kumaran: Well, what happens a lot is that as we go through that process of defining the particulars and doing the pre work.
248 00:38:00.925 ⇒ 00:38:01.670 Uttam Kumaran: the
249 00:38:01.970 ⇒ 00:38:21.059 Uttam Kumaran: the like expertise. And the input also serves to structure the activities themselves. So what you’re seeing here, it’s not like we can take this structure that I’m showing that we’re showing today, and we just copy paste it into whoever we actually customize it very bespoke for every single client depending on what they need. Every client’s different.
250 00:38:21.060 ⇒ 00:38:39.289 Uttam Kumaran: So they they might need the activities to achieve a slightly different purpose. That’s why they take time to build is because it takes conversation, both amongst us to define what the the purpose and what we’re trying to hit on and what we want the activities to do, and most importantly, to rehearse, because a lot of this is like a performance.
251 00:38:39.330 ⇒ 00:38:58.329 Uttam Kumaran: and then like for for them to or for us to talk to them and get them to buy in into what we’re doing. Like when we do the workshops. We it’s not like we show up, and we do the workshop for a client without them having seen it before. They already know what’s gonna happen. It’s just an application of a structure that they agreed to beforehand.
252 00:39:00.810 ⇒ 00:39:17.450 Troy Ottmer: Well, and and I think that is, I think that’s the right approach. Because and I wouldn’t, even though, Tom, you said earlier. His 1st version was like an hour and 45 min. Yeah, that may be a little bit strong, but I wouldn’t be too concerned. About an hour.
253 00:39:17.910 ⇒ 00:39:21.879 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, I was saying more for this meeting today, cause it was Friday afternoon.
254 00:39:21.880 ⇒ 00:39:22.580 Troy Ottmer: Oh, okay.
255 00:39:23.066 ⇒ 00:39:23.553 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
256 00:39:24.040 ⇒ 00:39:26.579 Troy Ottmer: Well, that, too, and I do. I do appreciate that.
257 00:39:26.580 ⇒ 00:39:43.792 Uttam Kumaran: In the in the interest of time. Let’s go to the next activity. So you can kind of see the rest. So the next activity is actually here on the bottom left. So what it is is if we flip the script right? And we start thinking from problems to let’s call them opportunities.
258 00:39:44.220 ⇒ 00:40:04.909 Uttam Kumaran: What I want to do is again using that that persona that you’re acting as what are the the things that they’re thinking of, that they want to capitalize on. What are the things that they want to bring to reality, that they see as let’s call it, reachable. But they need help. Right? So what are the opportunities for growth? Especially thinking about on the AI front? So I’ll set another timer here and let you download there.
259 00:40:05.480 ⇒ 00:40:08.070 Troy Ottmer: Okay, then that would be over here with the blue squares.
260 00:40:08.070 ⇒ 00:40:09.770 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. On the blue stickies. Correct?
261 00:40:09.770 ⇒ 00:40:11.139 Troy Ottmer: So got it.
262 00:40:16.440 ⇒ 00:40:20.231 Uttam Kumaran: Have different music choices, too.
263 00:40:21.500 ⇒ 00:40:46.419 Uttam Kumaran: It’s non copyrighted, I guess in some people you’re almost trying. You’re like trying to manufacture the moment. So when I, when I say it’s a performance. That’s actually what I mean is that us collectively play a role of like almost
264 00:40:46.720 ⇒ 00:41:10.089 Uttam Kumaran: inciting conflict to some degree, like, positively speaking, like, not like getting people to fight each other. But, like, you know, often what happens is that and our clients don’t talk to each other across the different departments. So when you get when you get them in the same room, what happens is that they all realize they don’t agree with each other. And our role is to facilitate understanding these opportunities in the context of the problem.
265 00:41:10.090 ⇒ 00:41:21.590 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s why the that’s why we start with the problems and then move to the opportunities. So we can connect those dots for them to say like you, you said, your opportunity is like
266 00:41:21.910 ⇒ 00:41:24.490 Uttam Kumaran: government and municipal business, and
267 00:41:24.540 ⇒ 00:41:33.145 Uttam Kumaran: where, you know, David called out that like, there’s a problem related to that. You see how you’re actually on the same page like that
268 00:41:33.610 ⇒ 00:41:36.386 Uttam Kumaran: group therapy. Yeah. Yeah.
269 00:41:47.100 ⇒ 00:42:02.680 Uttam Kumaran: So also, what happens in the background. Normally as he’s, the the final user is inputting the answers is, there’s a lot of sort of behind the scenes work that happens so that you, I or Troy, or whomever can then
270 00:42:03.060 ⇒ 00:42:26.650 Uttam Kumaran: pre select the answers or questions that we want to ask next, because, basically like a lot of this is organization between us to be able to understand where we want to highlight the focus. Like, if we’re doing 2 h of work. We don’t necessarily want to ask every question. So I so, as you know, as the AI expert, quote unquote.
271 00:42:26.650 ⇒ 00:42:51.419 Uttam Kumaran: it would be like, What do you want to highlight here, like, what do you actually care about? Yeah. And the rest? We it doesn’t matter. And for me the things are like the highest impact, highest feasibility. Sure, that’s the top right quadrant of all this stuff. And I think I’ve shown you that like another activity where I showed you like. So if we wanted to. So if we had 2 h, what I would actually do is add an activity that has literally a quadrant, that I would then ask them
272 00:42:51.420 ⇒ 00:42:57.115 Uttam Kumaran: to map those into. And sorry, Troy. I’ll explain all this again in a second. I know you’re downloading stuff.
273 00:42:58.000 ⇒ 00:43:01.740 Troy Ottmer: No, you’re you’re good. I’m you’re just making me think extra hard on Friday.
274 00:43:02.616 ⇒ 00:43:03.493 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry.
275 00:43:04.370 ⇒ 00:43:07.740 Troy Ottmer: Okay, I I added some extra boxes by accident.
276 00:43:08.020 ⇒ 00:43:09.759 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, let’s go.
277 00:43:10.100 ⇒ 00:43:32.079 Uttam Kumaran: So the context here, right is that as you thinking as you’re thinking through the opportunities, is to flip the script from a slightly let’s call it negative flat framing of the problem, which is like the what is the problem itself to like now? A more positive framing, which is, what are the opportunities for us to engage with AI. So the this is like a wish list effectively for the things that you want to do
278 00:43:32.080 ⇒ 00:43:43.449 Uttam Kumaran: the the same thing that I asked you before. I’ll ask you here right. But instead of picking 5, I’d ask you to pick 3, so if you could only pick the top 3 opportunities that you see for capturing value.
279 00:43:43.530 ⇒ 00:43:45.440 Uttam Kumaran: What are the 3 that you would pick?
280 00:43:45.980 ⇒ 00:43:48.719 Uttam Kumaran: So just move them down to like where it says, 1, 2, 3.
281 00:43:52.820 ⇒ 00:43:53.650 Troy Ottmer: Okay.
282 00:44:03.430 ⇒ 00:44:04.500 Troy Ottmer: and.
283 00:44:12.080 ⇒ 00:44:22.389 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so let’s talk about why, for each of them. So the 1st one says, largest commercial truck market in the Us. Outside of Southern Cal. So what do you mean by that.
284 00:44:24.180 ⇒ 00:44:33.540 Troy Ottmer: Well, it’s it’s roughly 39,000 transportation or logistics. Businesses exist in the greater Houston Metro area alone.
285 00:44:34.050 ⇒ 00:44:36.559 Troy Ottmer: And you think, Wow, that’s crazy
286 00:44:37.020 ⇒ 00:44:44.340 Troy Ottmer: fold that over into include Dallas, San Antonio Austin, that triangle and the number nearly doubles
287 00:44:45.050 ⇒ 00:44:49.200 Troy Ottmer: not slightly more than doubles. So when, when when
288 00:44:49.350 ⇒ 00:44:57.480 Troy Ottmer: so as A. J. As a general manager looking to grow my market share, which would be unit count one truck, 2 truck, 3 truck.
289 00:44:57.870 ⇒ 00:45:19.860 Troy Ottmer: You know that that’s a huge opportunity, and we go back up to the things the top 5 that we put up above in pink. That’s how I go to those customers qualifying them understanding the Cm. Dynamics. So those why, that is that important? That’s huge volume for my business. The second one.
290 00:45:20.060 ⇒ 00:45:27.179 Troy Ottmer: you know, the largest aftermarket sales market in the Us. Again, outside of Southern Cal.
291 00:45:27.735 ⇒ 00:45:54.370 Troy Ottmer: For greater Houston, Metro, and or Dallas San Antonio. The why behind that one is simple instead of market share, though we would talk about that in context of wallet share. Once you and and wallet share is the amount of dollars you a you’re getting from a customer in a particular market, and that can include the new truck sale. But traditionally, the in the industry truck, track equipment are
292 00:45:54.770 ⇒ 00:46:15.439 Troy Ottmer: they? They keep the new unit count separate of the wallet wallet share comes after the sale. So when you’re selling parts and service maintenance contracts, telematic extended warranties, what percentage of that that wallet share are you getting? So you know, if there’s a hundred customers in the market.
293 00:46:15.440 ⇒ 00:46:28.689 Troy Ottmer: and you know you’re selling a million dollars to them collectively, or or they’re spending a million dollars. And you’re only doing, you know, 300. That’s your percentage of the wallet share.
294 00:46:28.690 ⇒ 00:46:35.829 Uttam Kumaran: And the can you dollars is the total amount that they spend on those services that you’re offering collectively.
295 00:46:36.350 ⇒ 00:46:43.029 Troy Ottmer: That that’s correct. It’s the after the sale. Aspect does not include any of the dollars on buying new trucks.
296 00:46:43.260 ⇒ 00:46:51.129 Troy Ottmer: for example, or equipment. And then the construction and infrastructure market, every everything.
297 00:46:51.490 ⇒ 00:47:09.499 Troy Ottmer: The more construction and infrastructure we have, like you guys in Austin Dallas here, there, and we’re in a state of construction all the time, man, and it’s like you scratch your head. When will this end? It will never end? And honestly, we don’t want it to end, because that’s a bad thing.
298 00:47:10.280 ⇒ 00:47:13.799 Troy Ottmer: you know. Yes, other traffic to be better. So.
299 00:47:13.800 ⇒ 00:47:21.869 Uttam Kumaran: So the you know, to kind of bring it together for you, though, Troy, that like so you you set it yourself.
300 00:47:21.900 ⇒ 00:47:43.800 Uttam Kumaran: But the point is of doing this activity is to connect to the previous section so that you can see that, like the problem, are solved via the opportunities. And then, from the opportunities we can talk about the specific sort of opportunities for automation or for AI use in enabling them. So like, here is where the AI expertise would come in. So if we add more time.
301 00:47:43.800 ⇒ 00:47:55.190 Uttam Kumaran: this would be the part where we do significant follow up on the items that we want to hit on so it wouldn’t just be 3. I would just hit 3, because we have 30 min. But like we would do maybe 10, and we would talk about them
302 00:47:55.280 ⇒ 00:48:10.980 Uttam Kumaran: at like 2, 3 min each. So that you understand from a automation perspective. Okay, if we’re talking about you know, the largest aftermarket sales market in the Us. Where can we bring AI into that? How does what does that look like? And we do a very, very high level.
303 00:48:10.980 ⇒ 00:48:11.380 Troy Ottmer: Correct.
304 00:48:11.380 ⇒ 00:48:30.470 Uttam Kumaran: That can then lead into breakout sessions after the fact. If that’s something we want to focus on, because the the order kind of goes like this. It’s challenge prioritization of the challenge opportunity, prioritization of the opportunities and then breakdown of the opportunities. If we have the time, it would also include prioritization
305 00:48:30.600 ⇒ 00:48:46.440 Uttam Kumaran: and then value. So like value to the the organization that we’re working with, because the last part that we talk about usually to some degree is the challenges that we’re facing to enabling those opportunities in the 1st place. So it’s like this one with the little boat on the in the middle.
306 00:48:48.600 ⇒ 00:48:55.880 Uttam Kumaran: the point being that if you think about the challenges, if you think about the opportunities you’re thinking about them in a vacuum.
307 00:48:56.070 ⇒ 00:49:01.930 Uttam Kumaran: what happens when you enable all all these via data, or via AI via anything really
308 00:49:02.380 ⇒ 00:49:23.759 Uttam Kumaran: is that is that there’s factors, both external and internal, to making them real. There’s, you know human things that happen just in the way that like organizations work. And there’s market factors that enable your ability to make them real like if we’re talking the largest commercial truck market in the Us. Outside of Southern Cal. There are things that happen that may change that.
309 00:49:23.860 ⇒ 00:49:45.400 Uttam Kumaran: But there’s also internal factors that may enable your ability to capture that that opportunity. So like. If I again, from the perspective of the person you’re play acting as, what do you think are the anchors or the challenges that would keep a person like, or a group like the one you’re representing from being able to capture those opportunities, and you can put them in the green stickies there if you want.
310 00:49:46.220 ⇒ 00:49:53.120 Troy Ottmer: So so an anchor would not be a positive would be something that’s holding you back. That.
311 00:49:53.120 ⇒ 00:49:56.800 Uttam Kumaran: Correct. So it’s an obstacle to being able to achieve the opportunity.
312 00:49:58.900 ⇒ 00:49:59.740 Troy Ottmer: Got it.
313 00:49:59.740 ⇒ 00:50:07.010 Uttam Kumaran: And again, it can be. It can be both a human problem or a technological problem or anything in between. So
314 00:50:10.610 ⇒ 00:50:12.390 Uttam Kumaran: so the can you talk about.
315 00:50:12.390 ⇒ 00:50:13.330 Troy Ottmer: Got it. Got it.
316 00:50:13.330 ⇒ 00:50:34.769 Uttam Kumaran: You mentioned you mentioned like, you’re putting the opportunities with the problems like, what is that? So it’ll make more sense. I’ll explain that to you again at the end. So what happens is that like in the longer session? It’s easier to tie the like. Basically, what opportunity ties to what problem? Oh, so you’re like, okay for us to target.
317 00:50:34.770 ⇒ 00:50:53.739 Uttam Kumaran: Like all of these people in construction, we need great customer segmentation which requires solving for so it’s like, basically, there’s an there’s an activity after that helps you tie. So you, you’re sort of like, we have all these problems.
318 00:50:54.950 ⇒ 00:51:18.230 Uttam Kumaran: You have all these opportunities in order to get the opportunity in order to solve in order to get the opportunity you have to solve this problem. And then here’s what’s preventing us from solving. All 3 of it goes into like what? What? We’re gonna because there’s some problems where, like, yeah, we just want money to do this. And you’re like, mix it.
319 00:51:18.230 ⇒ 00:51:42.579 Uttam Kumaran: But there’s some things where you’re like. Actually, there doesn’t seem like there’s much in the way of this, or maybe a few meetings away. And that’s why the priority aspect is important. So that’s an activity we’re not going to do. But when we talk about priority, there’s actually 2 axes to it. One is the impact of the project, and then one is the complexity. But when we say complexity, we typically people think of like the literal difficulty of doing something.
320 00:51:42.580 ⇒ 00:51:52.669 Uttam Kumaran: But we actually mean across, like both human money, time, effort factors. How complex is it to do something? So if you think about it like
321 00:51:52.830 ⇒ 00:52:13.610 Uttam Kumaran: that. Activity in and of itself will kind of force. People, yeah, like, in engineering and estimate is isn’t like, how if it’s ambiguous? Yeah? Or does it really? Do you realize, like, how many days is it going to take versus? Yeah, okay, yeah. So all right. So you’re you’re putting in a couple here, Troy. So let’s sit on like 2 or 3, because we’re running short on time.
322 00:52:13.610 ⇒ 00:52:24.220 Uttam Kumaran: But the the main thing that we would do here is obviously ask you to explain all of them. Do you want to pick just 2 or 3 that call you that kind of come up that you want to talk about.
323 00:52:25.700 ⇒ 00:52:31.399 Troy Ottmer: Well, the it, the shortage of qualified staff companies are running leaner today.
324 00:52:32.280 ⇒ 00:52:34.960 Troy Ottmer: You know clunky processes.
325 00:52:35.715 ⇒ 00:52:43.604 Troy Ottmer: You know, when when you’re ultra lean, having clunky processes doesn’t make that issue better.
326 00:52:45.350 ⇒ 00:53:09.039 Troy Ottmer: you know, we’re we’re credit worthy clients, that’s a that’s another one. I mean, just, you know, going back to qualifying the customers as we started out with, you know. Who are they? You know. It’s not that you don’t wanna spend time chasing clients that are credit challenge. You want you. You want to chase the ones 1st that have no issue with capital or credit.
327 00:53:09.636 ⇒ 00:53:15.660 Troy Ottmer: Yeah. And the other ones you chase. You know you’re it’s no secret, typically the one
328 00:53:15.810 ⇒ 00:53:28.290 Troy Ottmer: that have credit challenges. You’re you’re gonna make more margin on them, anyway. And that’s why people chase them because there’s higher margin potential all the way around credit and or from the sale, the transactionary state.
329 00:53:28.560 ⇒ 00:53:40.410 Troy Ottmer: But the reality of it is, you’re, you know I’d rather sell 6 more units at moderate margins compared to one unit at high margin, because I’m gonna make a lot more money as a salesperson.
330 00:53:40.680 ⇒ 00:53:55.800 Troy Ottmer: So but for you know that some of what we just mentioned are people problems and a little bit of non people problems older business system. This is where I think AI can take data out of any business system
331 00:53:56.000 ⇒ 00:54:03.650 Troy Ottmer: and make it look like, it’s a fresh new business system. It’s like augmented reality. Yeah, yeah.
332 00:54:03.810 ⇒ 00:54:10.939 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think both of those seem like to really hit the quote shortage, which I don’t think is changing in any sort of retail.
333 00:54:11.060 ⇒ 00:54:12.999 Uttam Kumaran: focused business, even in any.
334 00:54:13.000 ⇒ 00:54:13.690 Troy Ottmer: No.
335 00:54:13.690 ⇒ 00:54:39.849 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, it’s like, Yeah, it’s just getting harder and harder to hire qualified folks. This. And and the business systems part is what we do in data where you know, our main pitch is a lot of executives or teams are like they have all these inherited or clunky systems. They don’t know how they talk to each other. There takes weeks, if not, if they get it at all to get data out, and then when they get it. No one is sort of willing to put their weight behind it.
336 00:54:40.412 ⇒ 00:55:06.419 Uttam Kumaran: And so you can’t make it’s a tax on all your decisions, you know. Yeah. So so what would happen here right again if we had a little more time to go through. This is that we would then take these. Take the full picture of what we’ve built so far. So thinking about the challenge, thinking about the opportunity and the anchors that prevent us from achieving that opportunity and do kind of an ideation activity where we make the the sort of
337 00:55:06.420 ⇒ 00:55:21.159 Uttam Kumaran: collect a picture of all that real like we actually ask, or we would ask the the end users to come up with an idea to create a tangible product or a tangible thing with AI that would solve some of these problems challenges or the opportunities.
338 00:55:21.630 ⇒ 00:55:28.130 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So it might be like, how do we modernize X business system such that we can reduce?
339 00:55:28.310 ⇒ 00:55:45.979 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know usage usage time by like 10%, or whatever, or increase profits by 20% and serve X person in A, B and C way. So we make it very tactical, so that when we do the final activity, which is next steps.
340 00:55:45.980 ⇒ 00:56:11.349 Uttam Kumaran: the the sort of tactical aspect of the work of the workshop becomes very clear, like the whole point of doing the workshop this way is that you walk away with something that is actionable after. So that’s why the final activity is next steps is because it targets. For, like, you know, we end with an idea of what we of the concrete thing that we want to build. And then we transition to finish into how? Okay, what’s next? How do we actually build that?
341 00:56:11.350 ⇒ 00:56:32.006 Uttam Kumaran: So in this case, it might be like, we need to go talk to the person that talked about tariffs specifically, or we need to go talk to the person that knows all about construction. I don’t know. Sometimes somebody specific that attended the workshop that needs to be followed up on such that the plan to make that idea or the set of ideas. Real is, is
342 00:56:32.510 ⇒ 00:56:37.740 Uttam Kumaran: is right in your face, as opposed to like, you know you walk away and.
343 00:56:37.740 ⇒ 00:56:44.710 Troy Ottmer: Example, when you talk to any organization about their business system that they’re on, whatever it is.
344 00:56:45.100 ⇒ 00:57:12.210 Troy Ottmer: you’re gonna instantaneously get pushed back, because that’s generally a multi 1 million dollar developmental process and transitionary process, not to mention all the training that has to go with it right? And that so you’re not gonna gain any traction. But what, where I’ve been successful is not focusing on how bad it really is, but how we can improve whatever
345 00:57:12.390 ⇒ 00:57:24.629 Troy Ottmer: hold on like like brush enterprise, has a whole fleet of people internally that are square designers, engineers, etc. And there they they build out their own platforms
346 00:57:24.980 ⇒ 00:57:50.579 Troy Ottmer: to use, and I’m not saying they’re the best in the world. They’re not bad, but they’d be better, you know. But but you know, so we need also from from this exercise, as you walk away with things, I guess one question, and you would probably ultimately ask it. What can we truly affect change with versus wasting time and resources on like, Hey, your legacy business system needs to go.
347 00:57:51.180 ⇒ 00:57:51.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you’re from.
348 00:57:51.820 ⇒ 00:57:52.810 Troy Ottmer: Everybody knows that.
349 00:57:53.380 ⇒ 00:57:57.729 Uttam Kumaran: Earlier, I referenced doing a prioritization activity. So what happens?
350 00:57:58.070 ⇒ 00:58:12.559 Uttam Kumaran: More time? We would bake that in into the prioritization front to say what I was telling Utah a second ago from a effort. Perspective effort is not just how difficult something conceptually is. It’s how much time is it going to take.
351 00:58:12.590 ⇒ 00:58:42.490 Uttam Kumaran: How much organizational capital is it going to take? How much of a sunk cost? Is it already? So there’s like a whole aspect of priority that we bake into the activity, such that the the people participating understand that their ideas have relative weight to each other like they’re not all in a vacuum. It’s not like you can think about replacing a system just for replacing it. There’s actually a cost to that. And it’s related to every other idea that’s on the board right like you can’t make all ideas happen.
352 00:58:42.700 ⇒ 00:58:44.120 Uttam Kumaran: So so part of the.
353 00:58:44.120 ⇒ 00:58:45.950 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, no, that’s that’s true.
354 00:58:46.210 ⇒ 00:59:04.829 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So part of the exercise is to force them to understand that priority. So the just to to close things out. Because I know we’re almost at time the final activity, as I said, is to keep things actionable. So I guess in the sense this is would be for like. Just think thinking potential clients so kind of putting. But your Troy hat back on versus like the
355 00:59:04.960 ⇒ 00:59:14.860 Uttam Kumaran: the persona that you were playing, what types of clients. Now, having seen that kind of end to end idea or experience, do you think we can talk through this.
356 00:59:16.550 ⇒ 00:59:24.160 Troy Ottmer: Well, you know, I think this is applicable to a lot of different industries, and you know, so different clients, obviously, but not just
357 00:59:24.400 ⇒ 00:59:30.529 Troy Ottmer: not just the dealer world. I think large
358 00:59:31.190 ⇒ 00:59:41.750 Troy Ottmer: large companies that like the the insurance business, big brokerages large underwriters, carriers, etc. I think this
359 00:59:41.880 ⇒ 00:59:57.230 Troy Ottmer: process improvement. And that’s another organization group that I met that that handles lots of data that’s probably very dysfunctional comes from different legacy systems or bolt ons or add ons, or what have you? And
360 00:59:57.340 ⇒ 01:00:04.390 Troy Ottmer: to distill that requires AI, you know a lot of SQL, you know
361 01:00:04.530 ⇒ 01:00:12.569 Troy Ottmer: opportunities that you, you know, you just wanna, I think that the you know.
362 01:00:15.580 ⇒ 01:00:17.170 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, I I it’s
363 01:00:17.660 ⇒ 01:00:24.070 Troy Ottmer: I would put all automotive commercial truck and commercial equipment dealers, too. I mean, it’s it’s
364 01:00:24.970 ⇒ 01:00:28.482 Troy Ottmer: definitely something to consider.
365 01:00:31.830 ⇒ 01:00:41.200 Troy Ottmer: And you know, that was to that point. What I was. Gonna say, my crazy ideas I’ve been tossing around is, you know it it sometimes
366 01:00:41.570 ⇒ 01:00:53.189 Troy Ottmer: in order to get a client. You almost you said this earlier, Tommy. You have to you, you probably doing it to cheat sometimes right? And I’m not advocating that we do anything for free.
367 01:00:53.340 ⇒ 01:00:59.469 Troy Ottmer: but having a good testimonial from let’s call it an experimental prototype client.
368 01:00:59.470 ⇒ 01:01:00.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
369 01:01:00.230 ⇒ 01:01:01.570 Troy Ottmer: Can go a long way.
370 01:01:01.570 ⇒ 01:01:20.659 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, I’m actually totally with you, in fact, part of for our for our business strategy, like, although the workshops take time and do cost money for me. The benefit is when the client says, Okay, we actually have this problem. This is the solution. Here’s how much time it takes.
371 01:01:20.770 ⇒ 01:01:36.259 Uttam Kumaran: And we don’t have someone to do it. That’s where we make money. And so I’m actually very transparent about like, that’s what we do for people. I do think that in its own this sort of workshop exercise holds a lot of value for us and for Brainforge.
372 01:01:36.260 ⇒ 01:02:02.519 Uttam Kumaran: It’s the opportunity, actually take that task on, move something to a proof of concept and then move something to like, hey, let’s actually do an engagement. Not everybody is gonna do that. A lot of folks will have internal resources, or it may not be the right time. That’s fine. I think the thing I like about this workshop concept, because we have other sort of smaller offerings like we do like a 2 week proof of concept, 2 week audits. Typically, and that’s usually actually how we sell most of our deals.
373 01:02:02.520 ⇒ 01:02:10.840 Uttam Kumaran: because I know that once the clients start working with us, they see our methodical process. If it if they do, have the budget, and if they do have a real problem that’s worth solving.
374 01:02:10.840 ⇒ 01:02:27.639 Uttam Kumaran: I think they will heavily consider us to do that. And if they don’t, that’s also fine, because they can take that plan and go somewhere else first.st So far for folks that actually have the budget. They work with us. And so we, I actually want to offer more bite sized things, especially that for folks
375 01:02:27.640 ⇒ 01:02:50.030 Uttam Kumaran: who don’t, who can’t yet articulate what the opportunities are for clients where, hey? I know I saw something I know, or I have a buddy that works another company. They say they’re automating this. Can you guys come in and do that cool instead of going to them and and saying a big number, I’m like, well, why don’t we just do a small proof of concept? You’ll get a sense of what it’s like to work with us. But for folks that are like, I just need to implement AI
376 01:02:50.030 ⇒ 01:02:59.749 Uttam Kumaran: like like, I know that AI is here. I know we’re sitting on some value there, or Hey, I have a web of systems. I need to talk to each other. I think this is a good way to peel that
377 01:02:59.790 ⇒ 01:03:14.049 Uttam Kumaran: problem wide open. And then for us to say, Okay, does it make sense for you to maybe consider working with us on one or 2 things that’s that’s for me what the goal of this would be. Yeah. And and what I’ll say, go ahead. Sorry.
378 01:03:15.070 ⇒ 01:03:17.150 Troy Ottmer: No, no, you you go ahead. You’re good.
379 01:03:17.150 ⇒ 01:03:32.819 Uttam Kumaran: No. What I was gonna say, just to kind of bring it full circle is at the beginning. I told you that there was a sort of story thread that we’re trying to craft through the beginning of the conversation in the end. And this is just again a 30 min kind of preview of what it is, but
380 01:03:33.220 ⇒ 01:04:02.190 Uttam Kumaran: you can kind of see how the the funnel gets narrower as you go down. It’s like challenges, opportunities, barriers, priority. And then, most importantly, like action. So the idea is to whether they realize it or not, to guide firsthand our clients, to be able to get them to that action without them realizing that they’re getting there, obviously making it all, you know, evident that we are the partners that can help them get there like to point.
381 01:04:03.400 ⇒ 01:04:04.700 Troy Ottmer: Well, it it’s.
382 01:04:05.400 ⇒ 01:04:11.099 Troy Ottmer: I guess. Let me ask a question when you guys go in and you’re doing a 2 week audit. Now.
383 01:04:11.380 ⇒ 01:04:16.880 Troy Ottmer: you’re obviously the clients paying you correct to do this audit and give them a proposal, or you.
384 01:04:16.880 ⇒ 01:04:18.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so typically that.
385 01:04:18.220 ⇒ 01:04:19.070 Troy Ottmer: You’re not.
386 01:04:19.410 ⇒ 01:04:26.629 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, typically the way we do, we we price it now is just enough cause. Like, if you do anything for free, you’re gonna get treated like it’s free. So we.
387 01:04:26.630 ⇒ 01:04:28.820 Troy Ottmer: Oh, yeah. Horrible!
388 01:04:28.820 ⇒ 01:04:50.610 Uttam Kumaran: We, we? We charge enough for it to be like they can get it approved quickly, and it doesn’t hurt. But also there’s some buy in right? So they’re bought in. The second thing is, yeah, it’s usually 2, 4 weeks where they understand what it’s like to work with a real engineering team that listens to requirements that executes, and then you’re left with something tangible at the end. We also produce like a 3 to 6 month roadmap of like.
389 01:04:50.610 ⇒ 01:05:00.369 Uttam Kumaran: Here are the other things we heard that you want to accomplish. Here’s the path to do so, and I’m pretty clear with like you should go shop that around and find out how much it’s gonna cost to do this.
390 01:05:00.370 ⇒ 01:05:10.610 Uttam Kumaran: cause I’m pretty sure we’ll come in lower than that, and I don’t. I think we’re gonna be the best to work with. So at that point, I I just wanna, I think what we found after doing this
391 01:05:10.610 ⇒ 01:05:37.380 Uttam Kumaran: now for 2 years is just getting in the door, and being able to prove yourself, you immediately get put ahead of many people who just never even demonstrate any value after 6 or 9 months. So if we can just show one small way, we’ve proven value and gain that credibility and build at least one fan in the company who can vouch for us when that contract comes up? That’s that’s our goal. So this is another bite sized version of that
392 01:05:37.440 ⇒ 01:05:42.149 Uttam Kumaran: sort of like proving something. And I think for this, just like David said, we’re almost like
393 01:05:42.640 ⇒ 01:05:55.660 Uttam Kumaran: like walking them through through to say like, Oh, my God! I have this problem. And oh, my gosh! We can solve it. And like they come to the realization that for us we played with AI for. And we thought about it every day, and then it happened to us
394 01:05:55.770 ⇒ 01:05:58.780 Uttam Kumaran: for free. I guess we paid. But yeah.
395 01:05:58.780 ⇒ 01:06:09.080 Troy Ottmer: Well, well, and that’s the similar to my approach. And and while I’ve been very careful not to pro bono on anything right, because
396 01:06:09.300 ⇒ 01:06:15.110 Troy Ottmer: what it once you start that it’s hard with the genie back in the bottle, and.
397 01:06:15.416 ⇒ 01:06:16.030 Uttam Kumaran: Oh yes!
398 01:06:16.030 ⇒ 01:06:17.000 Troy Ottmer: Do need
399 01:06:18.330 ⇒ 01:06:30.430 Troy Ottmer: commitment is is buying, hey? You? You paid me, it’s you know, and and and I’ve worked a couple of oem manufacturers as well, and
400 01:06:30.560 ⇒ 01:06:38.560 Troy Ottmer: and I can’t. I have an nda right now, so I can’t go into this one but you once, if once I get over that hump
401 01:06:39.490 ⇒ 01:07:04.769 Troy Ottmer: guys are who I want to talk with about what that looks like. If if I get there because I think and this, then this goes from an oem level to their dealer channel. So, and the Dealer channel is gonna have 8,000 different business systems and all their own unique processes, and not all of them will drink the Kool-aid, so to speak. But at the end of the day
402 01:07:04.850 ⇒ 01:07:17.000 Troy Ottmer: you know this, this opens the door up to a different pro different market for you guys. And and so in closing what I would do, going back to the 3 60 Review, we follow that document. If they?
403 01:07:17.310 ⇒ 01:07:22.539 Troy Ottmer: 1520, 30, 40, $50,000 exercise once or twice a year.
404 01:07:23.190 ⇒ 01:07:30.759 Troy Ottmer: and I don’t think it should cost that much, because if I was back in the dealer world. I didn’t. I didn’t feel I got value from these people
405 01:07:30.940 ⇒ 01:07:44.929 Troy Ottmer: there, you know. Instead of doing this, you know the mirror thing that we’re looking at here they overwhelmed us with. And you can’t act on all this data. All these problems they find, and nothing happened. So nothing got used.
406 01:07:44.930 ⇒ 01:07:45.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, save, it.
407 01:07:45.590 ⇒ 01:07:46.249 Troy Ottmer: Whereas we take.
408 01:07:46.250 ⇒ 01:07:51.379 Uttam Kumaran: Even knows all about that from accenture. So, yeah, so the the.
409 01:07:51.380 ⇒ 01:07:57.990 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, you do the 5, it turns into 3, and then you you walk away with your next step right
410 01:07:58.560 ⇒ 01:07:59.040 Troy Ottmer: then.
411 01:07:59.040 ⇒ 01:08:17.570 Troy Ottmer: and that. So I I think these dealer reviews not only they can be done more economically for the dealer principles, the ownership group. And then there’s this tie in where you guys come in and build more complex systems where you know I’m out there acting as a sales agent for Brainforge.
412 01:08:17.710 ⇒ 01:08:28.570 Troy Ottmer: Well, it by, you know, just the natural relationship of this. And likewise, you guys are, say, we know this operational consultant that’s really good. And and he understands XY, and Z. And.
413 01:08:28.910 ⇒ 01:08:42.080 Uttam Kumaran: That’s exactly right, like showing you this exercise today and hearing the validation was mainly so to understand whether this could apply in this industry, and so that we can start going to market.
414 01:08:42.080 ⇒ 01:08:42.550 Troy Ottmer: Day, long.
415 01:08:42.550 ⇒ 01:09:09.780 Uttam Kumaran: If with like, Hey, we, we not only have this AI offering, but we have access to people who have worked in senior operational capacity, who, of course, for you, you can. We? We’re really focused on what I can affect with the AI or data shovel, right? But there’s a world of other things that I don’t I don’t touch, and I don’t know, and I don’t do right. And so this is where, when we go to clients. I’m not a I don’t say no, I say, I say.
416 01:09:09.779 ⇒ 01:09:32.100 Uttam Kumaran: I probably can call someone and bring someone in to help you do that. And so we’re partners with with these clients. And the other thing is, look, there’ll be clients that can’t afford it. That’s okay. There’ll be clients that they already have. People that could do it. That’s okay, because I know that one day they’ll come back around because they’ll they’ll remember what we did. And either way, it’s okay, like we. We don’t need to win every single deal to have win
417 01:09:32.100 ⇒ 01:09:53.150 Uttam Kumaran: our, to get achieve our goals right? So if for that reason, I actually I I would prefer that we think about more bite, sized opportunities to demonstrate value quicker, whether that’s just a week or 2 weeks, and then just do what we do best, which is, be ethical, like, have relationships with people, and then let that sort of
418 01:09:53.200 ⇒ 01:09:59.839 Uttam Kumaran: you know, play its play, its course, and what we find a lot when doing this sort of thing is.
419 01:10:00.460 ⇒ 01:10:21.369 Uttam Kumaran: or you know what I’ve found particularly, and and doing this for a long time is that when you have a workshop, people find that like, it’s the 1st time they’ve listened to them in a in a group setting like in large organizations, especially a lot of people just feel like not heard. So having the workshop setting helps from the perspective of
420 01:10:21.690 ⇒ 01:10:32.050 Uttam Kumaran: like literally buy in, because oh, you finally listened to me. Somebody finally heard what I had to say. That’s crazy. I’m I’m like, Oh, I’m all in so like that’s obviously a nice.
421 01:10:32.050 ⇒ 01:10:33.060 Troy Ottmer: It is.
422 01:10:33.660 ⇒ 01:10:40.170 Troy Ottmer: Yeah. I just came. I just came out of the company, retired 8,000 employees, and
423 01:10:40.780 ⇒ 01:10:44.320 Troy Ottmer: to be heard even, I’ve I’ve been in different
424 01:10:44.490 ⇒ 01:11:11.849 Troy Ottmer: roles, and even at the executive level always remember where I came from at the operational level, right? And stay connected to those people. And that’s how you do effective turnarounds and utilizing technology, whatever that is. And you know this may be dated a little bit before you guys may not have been born yet, or y’all were young. But you know, when you know Dvds and and CD-ROM parts, catalog is the thing after microfish.
425 01:11:12.100 ⇒ 01:11:19.649 Troy Ottmer: you know, you have to always change out the Cds or Dvds to look up, whatever you you know. So
426 01:11:20.180 ⇒ 01:11:46.890 Troy Ottmer: we I went out and we bought bought. I got permission to buy virtual drive software, which was idea I had to beg. But next thing you know, we we put all that on there, and you know it. It was we got it to work. And then, next thing you know, people, we were hit, our customer satisfied process more part sales. And you know it was a significant improvement. So this AI and all these other tools. And and
427 01:11:47.500 ⇒ 01:11:51.349 Troy Ottmer: you know some of this stuff is it’s not even proof of concept to the 3 of us.
428 01:11:51.350 ⇒ 01:11:54.580 Troy Ottmer: Yes, but yeah, be to whoever our audience is.
429 01:11:54.580 ⇒ 01:11:55.070 Uttam Kumaran: Proof of.
430 01:11:55.070 ⇒ 01:11:58.370 Uttam Kumaran: That’s true proof of reality. It’s like proof, all right, but.
431 01:11:58.370 ⇒ 01:11:59.000 Troy Ottmer: Yeah.
432 01:11:59.000 ⇒ 01:12:28.989 Uttam Kumaran: It is the time we’re in where I think maybe in 5 or 10 years some of this will be commonplace, but I also think a lot about. You know, we don’t work with a lot of the most flashy companies. We work with a lot of large and medium sized private businesses because they’re not going to get the love for a while, and their internal teams are not going to have the ability to adopt these. And so for me thinking about the industry that you’re part of. I feel like it’s still. It may be 10 years, you know. It may take a long time.
433 01:12:29.520 ⇒ 01:12:47.659 Uttam Kumaran: Not only they may have people in those companies that have these ideas that are not empowered, or maybe they couldn’t put the words together, get the people in the room. And as 3rd party folks like, we’re coming in to give them this, the second opinion. And you know, I and I again, I, I use this technology in my business every day. So
434 01:12:47.770 ⇒ 01:12:51.350 Uttam Kumaran: believe believer is like understood well, and and one
435 01:12:51.950 ⇒ 01:12:59.080 Uttam Kumaran: I was gonna close out with, sorry Troy. The is that the when when I structure these workshops, if you’re participating.
436 01:12:59.220 ⇒ 01:13:12.440 Uttam Kumaran: it’s because I want you to participate. So what happens a lot is that like people think that we invite them to a workshop, so they can just be part of it. But no like if I if you’re in the workshop, it’s because I want your opinion to be part of the solution.
437 01:13:12.540 ⇒ 01:13:13.570 Uttam Kumaran: So like.
438 01:13:13.570 ⇒ 01:13:14.200 Troy Ottmer: Right.
439 01:13:14.200 ⇒ 01:13:28.470 Uttam Kumaran: In that perspective. Everybody, we all bring different perspectives to. Why we would need AI, why, we would need data. And the challenge is that going back to like the whole being heard thing? The reason people don’t feel that they’re being heard is because they’re in rooms.
440 01:13:28.770 ⇒ 01:13:50.379 Uttam Kumaran: but not participating so like for me and kind of structuring this, it’s so that the activities force you to participate so that you can have a voice. And so what what I what I often end up advocating. Funny enough is that when when I do any of these, the CEO, or like whoever the most senior person is in the room either does not speak at all, or speaks last.
441 01:13:50.510 ⇒ 01:14:02.590 Uttam Kumaran: such that everybody has an opportunity to speak without their opinion or perspective being colored from like a you know, my boss said something versus like, Yeah.
442 01:14:02.590 ⇒ 01:14:13.410 Troy Ottmer: Well, usually in any meeting, whether it’s virtual or in person. If the most senior person or person do all the talking, and give all the opinion
443 01:14:13.550 ⇒ 01:14:15.499 Troy Ottmer: there are other people in the room
444 01:14:15.680 ⇒ 01:14:33.769 Troy Ottmer: didn’t contribute hardly anything right, and I would prefer the opposite as being a senior. A lot of times in in most rooms I would prefer just to be quiet. I want my team to talk, and obviously you supplement where needed. But beyond that I think that’s good. So one quick question before we can.
445 01:14:34.000 ⇒ 01:14:40.090 Troy Ottmer: So these workshops are intended to help grow your your customer base.
446 01:14:40.270 ⇒ 01:14:44.509 Troy Ottmer: So how if I go to a dealer group.
447 01:14:44.940 ⇒ 01:14:48.299 Troy Ottmer: How do you want to present what this opportunity looks like.
448 01:14:48.470 ⇒ 01:14:51.989 Troy Ottmer: you know? And there, there’s no charge for the workshop.
449 01:14:52.590 ⇒ 01:15:03.750 Uttam Kumaran: No, there is a charge workshop. There is a charge for the workshop. I think the probably the minimum, like we would, it would at least again, just to get everyone in the room.
450 01:15:03.850 ⇒ 01:15:16.139 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like I’ve been pushing for it to be at least half day or a day, but I know, David would say for it to be actually effective, it to be at least a week, to have at least couple of sessions to get everybody in the room.
451 01:15:16.270 ⇒ 01:15:30.139 Uttam Kumaran: you know, will be hard to navigate, but again, so like the the workshop itself, like we can do a 1 workshop that’s like a half day or something. But again, the more important thing is the prep that goes into it beforehand. So the.
452 01:15:30.550 ⇒ 01:15:30.990 Troy Ottmer: Gary.
453 01:15:30.990 ⇒ 01:15:59.479 Uttam Kumaran: The the work that has to happen before is obviously between us, and also to some degree with the client, because the there needs to be back and forth in terms of what we’re trying to achieve through the activities. And then the workshop itself. We can define what it is and obviously discuss the pricing and whatever from there. But the the important part is having the access to the people that are gonna participate prior to. So we can discuss what it’s going to be. And then, during so.
454 01:15:59.480 ⇒ 01:16:00.010 Troy Ottmer: Okay.
455 01:16:00.010 ⇒ 01:16:16.209 Uttam Kumaran: Sure that we have access to them, for either, you know, 4, 2 h sessions, or 1 4 h session, or 2 2 day long sessions. It doesn’t matter, but we need to have access to them and for them to be bought into doing it. In the 1st place. Yeah. And and the reason the you know the reason why this was
456 01:16:16.500 ⇒ 01:16:18.940 Uttam Kumaran: more important to me to do
457 01:16:19.050 ⇒ 01:16:34.389 Uttam Kumaran: now was like, I’ve been part of workshops where I just showed up. And yeah, I was like I did about stuff. And then I left like that. Can’t. I can’t offer something like that, so there will be some clients who maybe that’s what they want. And we’re we’re not going to be able to satisfy that right where this has to be something
458 01:16:34.820 ⇒ 01:16:56.470 Uttam Kumaran: I would say, I’m fine with being transparent with folks that like, look we are. We are an engineering company. We hope some of these turn into things where we can help you do them. But I think that just in doing this exercise for people to have this roadmap and take it, it’s worth the money for sure. And so what? What? That’s what I would propose is that it’s at least
459 01:16:56.470 ⇒ 01:17:05.951 Uttam Kumaran: a half day to a day. Workshop split could be one day could be split. I mean we. If they’re if they’re here locally in Texas, we could all we could all be there
460 01:17:06.380 ⇒ 01:17:13.709 Uttam Kumaran: otherwise it’ll be on. It’ll be on zoom in terms of materials for you. I mean, I think we could definitely provide
461 01:17:13.760 ⇒ 01:17:37.459 Uttam Kumaran: these like these like mock ups, or we have some standard templates. In fact, the ones that that David typically runs are like much more comprehensive. So you’ll you’ll get to see the scope. And and then we have materials and stuff we can produce to to help. But I guess even let me know, like what your what your thought process is. And you know, yeah.
462 01:17:38.800 ⇒ 01:17:45.909 Troy Ottmer: I I think I think that the great chance of success in the dealer world would be to go in
463 01:17:46.330 ⇒ 01:18:00.820 Troy Ottmer: and try to do a workshop around a parts department service department or a sales department, and and I did it in that order for a reason. The pain points for a dealer. Well, many like any business
464 01:18:00.870 ⇒ 01:18:17.600 Troy Ottmer: is. You know how much inventory they have in the parts department. That’s not moving any special item. Special order emergency items? Are they ordering daily that they should be stocking, and they can’t stock all of it, because their you know, their their capacity is
465 01:18:17.800 ⇒ 01:18:40.060 Troy Ottmer: with product that’s not moving cash is tied up. Same applies on the new truck or equipment. So I I think, let me let me put some thought into that. But I. This aligns very well with how I want to approach this, and I think it’s the the 1 2 punch for both of us right, and and we can sort out the
466 01:18:40.900 ⇒ 01:18:44.150 Troy Ottmer: for for lack of a better description, with the financial aspect.
467 01:18:44.150 ⇒ 01:18:48.349 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean. And also look, I’m I’m I’m looking to you as the insider on like
468 01:18:48.500 ⇒ 01:18:55.039 Uttam Kumaran: is, there is because I don’t. In this industry? Is there like budget for education or workforce development like, how do they see stuff like
469 01:18:55.550 ⇒ 01:18:56.040 Uttam Kumaran: this?
470 01:18:56.040 ⇒ 01:18:56.900 Troy Ottmer: It is.
471 01:18:56.900 ⇒ 01:19:26.330 Uttam Kumaran: So, you know, I think the budgets again like it’s for. This is where I would rely a little bit on you to say like what would be feasible for folks, or even how to how to articulate the Roi for folks. But then, also, again, even this workshop concept, you know, I part of even the reason I wanted to share this is I. I do think that you can facilitate some of probably the tougher strategic questions in your 360 review through a very similar process, where it’s not just a yes or no. Do you do this? You do this.
472 01:19:26.610 ⇒ 01:19:27.010 Troy Ottmer: Correct.
473 01:19:27.010 ⇒ 01:19:50.949 Uttam Kumaran: Philosophical, or maybe they never considered. You know, things like things like that, where it could totally weave into the process, where it’s very seamless. And at the end you decide, hey, what can be accomplished via technology, what can be accomplished via process organizational changes? You know that the solution is not for me again, like, I want to solve problems where we can solve it through technology.
474 01:19:50.950 ⇒ 01:20:06.509 Uttam Kumaran: But there, there are a lot of problems we can solve. Like, if your product isn’t selling, I can’t help you with that, right? So we don’t go to startups that aren’t making money, because I’m like you’re going to fire us if you fail just because you have data, the data is, gonna say, what you already know is that there’s nothing selling.
475 01:20:06.510 ⇒ 01:20:07.589 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, yeah, right.
476 01:20:07.590 ⇒ 01:20:19.600 Uttam Kumaran: So there is. So for me, I’m pretty clear on like, Hey, we? If if there is a opportunity for a technology solution, then we would love to put it. Put our hat in the ring to propose to that. You do with us, you know, but there will be changes that you’ll
477 01:20:20.200 ⇒ 01:20:29.829 Uttam Kumaran: through the process that are people you know, that are organizational, you know, find like just accounting related or bookkeeping related, or you know, so.
478 01:20:31.400 ⇒ 01:20:49.479 Troy Ottmer: Well. And and so the reason I asked about what the workshop would cost is because that’d be the common question. Well, hey, what what’s a workshop, you know. It’s 1 thing to put on a free webinar to show who you are when you know whatever, and you know an hour long zoom deal, and you’re not really giving out any secret.
479 01:20:49.480 ⇒ 01:20:49.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
480 01:20:50.510 ⇒ 01:21:03.469 Troy Ottmer: Provide me insight. But a a workshop you’re you know what David is proposing here on the Moreau site is the exact same thing that’s on my 3 60 again, old school.
481 01:21:03.919 ⇒ 01:21:06.430 Troy Ottmer: but I have to do all the prep. Work.
482 01:21:06.430 ⇒ 01:21:06.770 Uttam Kumaran: I guess.
483 01:21:06.770 ⇒ 01:21:23.910 Troy Ottmer: Spend time, one on one, the players, same as what you’re describing. So our approach is is to oddly in parallel with each other. It’s just, and I don’t, as you can tell. I do not want to be old school with it, because I think there’s so many inefficiencies.
484 01:21:24.100 ⇒ 01:21:27.939 Troy Ottmer: and that you’re just not gonna get through. So you know.
485 01:21:27.940 ⇒ 01:21:52.940 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s easily 20. It’s gonna be easily 20 to 40 h, all in of work, which you know for us, like we would try to price. I mean, yeah, I thought, it’s 2040 h. So like on the low end, I mean again, it would. It would. It would have to be about the opportunity. So it’d be, but it have to probably start within 5 to 10 K. For a workshop, right? But even then I think.
486 01:21:52.940 ⇒ 01:21:55.829 Troy Ottmer: That’s that’s pretty much what I would have thought. Yeah.
487 01:21:55.830 ⇒ 01:22:01.029 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And I also think that is pretty low, like, I think that’s if for folks.
488 01:22:01.530 ⇒ 01:22:17.429 Uttam Kumaran: I want to invest 10 K, and I’m gonna get something that we could have never gone. These people in the everybody in the room. Nobody in the company except the top person has the authority to to ask. Somebody’s like it’s worth it for folks who have millions and millions of dollars on the line, and
489 01:22:17.540 ⇒ 01:22:20.809 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I would say it’s like you could.
490 01:22:21.170 ⇒ 01:22:23.909 Uttam Kumaran: What the value, you know output could be.
491 01:22:24.810 ⇒ 01:22:31.619 Troy Ottmer: Well, you. You’ll run into dealer principles that will not want to spend $10,000, and even though you told them, and you should.
492 01:22:33.850 ⇒ 01:22:40.779 Uttam Kumaran: That, hey? You’re losing 2 million dollars. So you’re not willing to pay me 10 grand to come help you save too many.
493 01:22:40.780 ⇒ 01:22:41.530 Uttam Kumaran: Sure, I think, for.
494 01:22:41.530 ⇒ 01:22:42.100 Troy Ottmer: For me? What.
495 01:22:42.100 ⇒ 01:22:49.340 Uttam Kumaran: Justified. What, when I heard the price, what justified it is is the pre work is how bespoke the
496 01:22:49.890 ⇒ 01:22:57.280 Uttam Kumaran: the activities are, and of course, like the outcome which is like there, there will be actually a bunch of materials
497 01:22:57.470 ⇒ 01:23:00.839 Uttam Kumaran: that folks can go take action on. Yeah. And and the way.
498 01:23:00.840 ⇒ 01:23:04.110 Troy Ottmer: Well, for example, go ahead, David.
499 01:23:04.110 ⇒ 01:23:30.170 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, I was. Gonna say, the the way I’ve structured sort of the the framework for these is that the value isn’t just something that you see at the end. It’s something you see throughout, because that, like those moments of those light bulbs of like you’re doing the challenges conversation. And then you’re like, Oh, I didn’t think about that being a real challenge for me, but you know Troy brought it up, and now that he mentions that it actually is a huge challenge. That moment means something to you.
500 01:23:30.470 ⇒ 01:23:42.300 Uttam Kumaran: and you don’t realize it until it happens like until it’s from front of you. You’re like, I never thought about Troy thinking that was a big problem. He’s right. We really should focus on that, you know, that means something.
501 01:23:42.300 ⇒ 01:23:48.200 Troy Ottmer: Well. And so, if David and I had had done our pre work, for example.
502 01:23:48.620 ⇒ 01:24:09.730 Troy Ottmer: this whole exercise that we just went through of sharing right here would have been far more comprehensive, far more informative. And you know, and at that’s what you have to do. And and for the record, I will not gonna go out into the market and say, Hey, look! We can do this for 5 or 10 grand. What I will say is, look.
503 01:24:10.220 ⇒ 01:24:24.069 Troy Ottmer: I’m working with the team out of Austin here. Here’s what we are collaborating to do. We come at it from 2 angles, right? And and the end goal is essentially the same is to make you more efficient and more profitable.
504 01:24:24.300 ⇒ 01:24:44.299 Troy Ottmer: And you know and and you know, and then, in terms of what a workshop could, would look like. I would need to say, who are the players? You want to include workshop. And then the 3 of us could come back and articulate what that leads to look like in terms of cost. Because, look, if if we’re gonna have to handle
505 01:24:44.840 ⇒ 01:24:47.560 Troy Ottmer: Pre work for 40 people, yes.
506 01:24:47.560 ⇒ 01:24:49.789 Troy Ottmer: that’s very different than for 4 people.
507 01:24:49.790 ⇒ 01:24:54.379 Uttam Kumaran: That’s a conversation he and I had when we 1st talked about this, for sure.
508 01:24:55.940 ⇒ 01:24:58.540 Troy Ottmer: Yeah, so you can’t do that one for 5 grand.
509 01:24:58.540 ⇒ 01:25:00.080 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Because.
510 01:25:00.080 ⇒ 01:25:14.360 Troy Ottmer: It’s gonna take 2 to 3 weeks to do pre work on 40 people at least. Right? So so I I did bigger picture. So rest assured, you know I’m not. I won’t be talking. I wanted to know pricing, because in my mind
511 01:25:14.930 ⇒ 01:25:29.439 Troy Ottmer: telling a dealer 5 or grand to do a basic workshop and look basic. You only get basic. You want the, you want the full tilt thing here. It’s gonna be 4 grand, right? But we’re gonna give you a plan at the end of this
512 01:25:29.480 ⇒ 01:25:58.370 Troy Ottmer: exercise, and if you act on it, then, hey, you’re you know we can help you grow your business and and regain that 3% margin that you keep throwing out the back door. And and that’s where the Roi conversation and or the return on asset conversation comes into play. So but, guys, I like this, David, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I like what you guys are doing, Tom. This is, I know you told me this about a month ago, and I was like, I wonder what it’s gonna look like.
513 01:25:58.370 ⇒ 01:26:06.439 Uttam Kumaran: No, I’m glad you know I didn’t. I’m glad that we could go through the exercise. I’m glad you didn’t. You’re like, Oh, let’s skip it. I know it’s kind of gimmicky. I’m glad, because I
514 01:26:06.980 ⇒ 01:26:18.970 Uttam Kumaran: even for me, I do. We do retros in our team, and it’s really helpful, and I. I do think that for the folks that do value like for the folks that go through with it, and hopefully, you know, we’ll see a couple. They will. I think it’ll
515 01:26:19.110 ⇒ 01:26:22.810 Uttam Kumaran: it’ll blow them out of the water like what the stuff they they find out, you know.
516 01:26:24.340 ⇒ 01:26:31.599 Troy Ottmer: But, for for example, I’m working with if if you, Dave, if you zoomed in back on the next steps and potential
517 01:26:33.640 ⇒ 01:26:35.559 Troy Ottmer: all 3 of those.
518 01:26:36.730 ⇒ 01:26:43.190 Troy Ottmer: I’m I’m working in those spaces right now, trying to secure some deals. And I have access to the 1st one.
519 01:26:44.000 ⇒ 01:27:03.519 Troy Ottmer: Okay, and the and and this the second one applies to the 1st one and the second one applies to the 3rd one. So in those 2 2 specific market segments, I’m working on a handful of things as we speak, that would open the door up for further conversation. And and some of this is the 360 review of.
520 01:27:03.520 ⇒ 01:27:03.940 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
521 01:27:03.940 ⇒ 01:27:15.739 Troy Ottmer: Of dealing with the leadership, aspect, and things like that. But I think with what you guys offer help stick with that anxiety that the human beings go through right? So.
522 01:27:16.184 ⇒ 01:27:18.460 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, definitely.
523 01:27:18.460 ⇒ 01:27:21.297 Troy Ottmer: Well, gentlemen, I appreciate the time.
524 01:27:22.140 ⇒ 01:27:45.049 Troy Ottmer: Let me. I’m gonna sleep on some of this again, David. Good to meet you, Tom. Good to see you. Let’s get together soon, and if when I I will potentially be back in Austin again soon, and then I’ll connect with you guys if they are both there. But if not, Tom, I’ll see you then, but feel free to keep me in the loop. If there’s anything bounce off of me.
525 01:27:45.050 ⇒ 01:28:00.790 Uttam Kumaran: Certainly. And yeah, if if there’s anything I can be helpful with, you know, otherwise like, please let me know. I mean, we now have a little bit of a marketing team, so if we can put, probably the next step for me is I’ll try to put together some sort of one pager collateral, and we can co-brand it or
526 01:28:00.790 ⇒ 01:28:18.069 Uttam Kumaran: branded one way or the other. And that way you have something to reference, and that’s probably what we’ll do. And I think even just talking, learning about different industries. What we do is we try to put together a little deck and a little one pager that way. Anytime we have a conversation. We could leave someone with something that kind of floats around in their computer. And
527 01:28:18.440 ⇒ 01:28:20.440 Uttam Kumaran: that’s probably what I’ll do next. And I’ll.
528 01:28:20.440 ⇒ 01:28:20.800 Troy Ottmer: Wow!
529 01:28:20.800 ⇒ 01:28:24.570 Uttam Kumaran: To you. And then, yeah, think about it. Let me know if anything sort of stands out.
530 01:28:26.160 ⇒ 01:28:31.980 Troy Ottmer: Will do. I’ll look forward to seeing that alright guys. Thank you all again. I gotta I gotta run. Take care.