Meeting Title: Innovation Strategy Coaching Kickoff Date: 2025-10-02 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Ayanna
WEBVTT
1 00:00:17.730 ⇒ 00:00:24.320 Robert Tseng: That’s fantastic.
2 00:00:25.450 ⇒ 00:00:26.230 Robert Tseng: Okay.
3 00:00:29.620 ⇒ 00:00:31.720 Robert Tseng: So… Okay.
4 00:00:32.350 ⇒ 00:00:33.850 Robert Tseng: Hopefully this works.
5 00:00:35.770 ⇒ 00:00:36.550 Robert Tseng: Jesus.
6 00:00:42.320 ⇒ 00:00:49.370 Robert Tseng: Sorry about that.
7 00:01:28.150 ⇒ 00:01:32.400 Robert Tseng: Hey, Ayanna.
8 00:01:32.940 ⇒ 00:01:41.719 Robert Tseng: I’m good. Sorry, like, I didn’t bring my headphones with me, so I’m gonna just use my phone as my headphones.
9 00:01:41.900 ⇒ 00:01:43.460 Ayanna: Oh, no worries. Yeah.
10 00:01:44.720 ⇒ 00:01:50.600 Robert Tseng: Let me know if you have trouble hearing me or something, and I can try to make something… I can do something different.
11 00:01:51.260 ⇒ 00:01:53.349 Ayanna: Okay, sounds good. So far, so good.
12 00:01:53.350 ⇒ 00:01:54.770 Robert Tseng: Okay, great.
13 00:01:56.680 ⇒ 00:02:04.829 Robert Tseng: Well, yeah, thanks for putting together the… the outline. I think that was… that was helpful for me. I was able to kind of look through it and kind of prep some…
14 00:02:05.190 ⇒ 00:02:16.010 Robert Tseng: some answers, and also things I wanted to show you as we kind of get through it. But yeah, I mean, the time is yours, and I want to make sure we kind of have a good kickoff and, you know,
15 00:02:16.940 ⇒ 00:02:20.950 Robert Tseng: Yeah, at least by the end of this call, like, to figure out, you know, what…
16 00:02:21.240 ⇒ 00:02:26.809 Robert Tseng: How… what direction we’re gonna be taking, kind of, this… this coaching,
17 00:02:28.240 ⇒ 00:02:33.289 Robert Tseng: series through. Yeah, and I think, you know, things that would be helpful to know would be, like.
18 00:02:33.620 ⇒ 00:02:35.220 Robert Tseng: Maybe we’re…
19 00:02:35.550 ⇒ 00:02:47.289 Robert Tseng: number of sessions that we want to schedule in, whether it’s, like, 4 or 10 or whatever it is, and then we can kind of, like, work backwards from there so I can do more planning for, for the next ones.
20 00:02:47.310 ⇒ 00:02:54.790 Robert Tseng: But obviously, last time we met, we kind of did brief intros, so, you know, if you’ve had any more thoughts on kind of your
21 00:02:54.790 ⇒ 00:03:07.390 Robert Tseng: expectations, and kind of, if you want to introduce more of, like, what you’re trying to develop at your firm, I’d love to kind of hear your perspective on that, and how you’d like to structure the time before I kind of jump into things from my side.
22 00:03:08.640 ⇒ 00:03:13.159 Ayanna: Okay, that sounds good. So, I think I’ll try to…
23 00:03:13.650 ⇒ 00:03:24.020 Ayanna: like, I want to try to provide more context without, like, repeating too much, so let me know if I’m, like, covering something, and you’re like, oh, we already talked about all of this. Okay.
24 00:03:24.450 ⇒ 00:03:40.619 Ayanna: So, in general, I’m kind of jumping into this, role from a completely different background, like, from a, a research, like, scientific, academic research background, so I feel like I’m trying to play, catch up a lot.
25 00:03:40.800 ⇒ 00:03:49.710 Ayanna: But I also want to see if there’s ways to, like, leverage that background at all. So that’s the, I guess, the main…
26 00:03:50.130 ⇒ 00:03:52.740 Robert Tseng: Like, different aspect of my background.
27 00:03:53.940 ⇒ 00:03:58.999 Ayanna: And so I put my goals, at the bottom, so I don’t know if I…
28 00:03:59.310 ⇒ 00:04:07.039 Ayanna: should go over those, but just in general, I want to kind of improve my leadership skills. So I’ve been…
29 00:04:07.980 ⇒ 00:04:10.750 Ayanna: Kind of in the past, mostly on…
30 00:04:11.070 ⇒ 00:04:18.679 Ayanna: Like, sometimes I would, lead some projects, but it was with a lot of oversight, and now I’m in a position with.
31 00:04:19.089 ⇒ 00:04:19.769 Robert Tseng: No, of course.
32 00:04:19.769 ⇒ 00:04:32.079 Ayanna: oversight, so trying to build my, kind of, skills in that sense. And then, related to that, our, CEO is hoping to retire soon, so if I want to…
33 00:04:32.080 ⇒ 00:04:32.440 Robert Tseng: Hmm.
34 00:04:32.440 ⇒ 00:04:33.380 Ayanna: blah, blah, blah.
35 00:04:33.550 ⇒ 00:04:36.219 Ayanna: Now is the time to kind of develop these skills.
36 00:04:38.110 ⇒ 00:04:40.450 Robert Tseng: Okay.
37 00:04:40.450 ⇒ 00:04:47.649 Ayanna: learning practical, kind of venture building. So this is… I know your, your background is with,
38 00:04:48.030 ⇒ 00:04:52.790 Ayanna: a startup, right? Like, learning how to kind of build a venture from the ground up.
39 00:04:52.790 ⇒ 00:04:53.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
40 00:04:53.930 ⇒ 00:05:13.569 Ayanna: So I’m trying to do something similar, but within a consulting firm. So I think, like, learning from you and, kind of what you’ve developed and the things that you’ve struggled through and found to work, could be very, like, beneficial. And then, like, gaining perspective on how to position myself
41 00:05:13.660 ⇒ 00:05:28.180 Ayanna: I wouldn’t say mostly in my work, but in external settings, maybe as it relates to my work, so, like, general, like, networking that’s maybe less personal-related, more, like, even if it’s, like, a conference for fun, like, how to.
42 00:05:28.180 ⇒ 00:05:28.680 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
43 00:05:28.680 ⇒ 00:05:36.170 Ayanna: present, yeah, so that’s generally… I’m just trying to get to a…
44 00:05:36.370 ⇒ 00:05:41.849 Ayanna: potent… I don’t want to say, like, CEO level, but, like, maybe get on the path to that.
45 00:05:42.090 ⇒ 00:05:48.079 Robert Tseng: Sure, yeah, I think those are great goals that work backwards from, and I’ll definitely speak to those specifically.
46 00:05:48.230 ⇒ 00:05:55.619 Robert Tseng: I think, you know, you mentioned… I mean, I’d like to kind of get a better overview of, like, kind of your… I know you mentioned your…
47 00:05:57.080 ⇒ 00:05:59.520 Robert Tseng: This new,
48 00:05:59.900 ⇒ 00:06:10.380 Robert Tseng: kind of domain that you’re overseeing in your firm right now, but I don’t know if you have more to kind of add on, like, what you’re developing, there, so I could kind of, like, tie in
49 00:06:10.770 ⇒ 00:06:15.120 Robert Tseng: You know, whatever we’re covering to the specific,
50 00:06:15.710 ⇒ 00:06:18.749 Robert Tseng: Like, funnel that you’re building at your firm?
51 00:06:19.090 ⇒ 00:06:28.219 Ayanna: So we are building, and I’m tasked with building up the Innovation and Digital Strategy Department. It is…
52 00:06:28.220 ⇒ 00:06:28.780 Robert Tseng: Yep.
53 00:06:29.360 ⇒ 00:06:45.900 Ayanna: Right now, it is mostly, like, a data and AI, department, so doing… helping with, like, ERP migrations, which already existed within the firm, but thinking about it from a, perspective of, like, data engineering and data governance.
54 00:06:45.900 ⇒ 00:06:46.380 Robert Tseng: I would have…
55 00:06:46.380 ⇒ 00:06:57.300 Ayanna: That’s being moved under this new umbrella, even though it was pre-existing, so that the AI aspect is very new to the firm in general.
56 00:06:57.300 ⇒ 00:06:57.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
57 00:06:57.910 ⇒ 00:06:58.870 Ayanna: And…
58 00:06:59.190 ⇒ 00:07:16.639 Ayanna: like, that’s our focus right now, but the reason why we have a, like, Innovation Digital umbrella, like, as a term versus, like, data and AI is because there’s this, I think, long-term expectations of including things like innovation services, and other digital services, so I believe…
59 00:07:16.710 ⇒ 00:07:23.479 Ayanna: We have, like, this cybersecurity, lead, but that’s do fall under this new department.
60 00:07:23.710 ⇒ 00:07:30.500 Ayanna: Oh, okay. You’re being, like, moved into this, new umbrella department.
61 00:07:30.500 ⇒ 00:07:37.559 Robert Tseng: Yeah, got it. Okay, that makes sense. So, what I’m hearing is, like, innovation and digital is more of, like, the umbrella, kind of, like.
62 00:07:37.980 ⇒ 00:07:46.589 Robert Tseng: term, then, you know, data and AI is part of that, cybersecurity is going to be part of that, and yeah, anything else that’s gonna come under that, umbrella?
63 00:07:47.900 ⇒ 00:07:49.520 Ayanna: So we…
64 00:07:49.770 ⇒ 00:08:04.000 Ayanna: right before the AI stuff started kicking off, like, human-centered design. We might do, UX, we haven’t focused on it, but UX is, like, a… an area we could go into. Let me…
65 00:08:04.390 ⇒ 00:08:11.219 Ayanna: Make sure I’m not missing anything. Just gonna check the website real quick to see what else is supposed to be migrated over.
66 00:08:12.950 ⇒ 00:08:22.020 Ayanna: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is going to be the ERP systems, and I think that’s pretty much it. Okay. ERP migrations.
67 00:08:22.240 ⇒ 00:08:29.779 Ayanna: data, AI, cybersecurity… Design and innovation services.
68 00:08:30.040 ⇒ 00:08:30.620 Robert Tseng: Great.
69 00:08:30.760 ⇒ 00:08:44.159 Robert Tseng: Okay, and then I think kind of moving on from, like, the domain area, like, I want to kind of just talk about, like, functionally… I mean, maybe what’s helpful is because I run my own consultancy, I kind of, like, know the different stages, you know, of all, you know, if you’re…
70 00:08:44.320 ⇒ 00:08:58.740 Robert Tseng: there’s, you know, client… client acquisition, or kind of proposal, like, kind of RFP, I guess, is… is maybe what… what you… what your firm focuses on more, because you’re kind of soliciting contracts from, you know, government agencies, or…
71 00:08:58.750 ⇒ 00:09:14.619 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, the deal cycles may be longer if you’re working with enterprise, so… I don’t know if you’re more on the commercial side and sourcing deals, or you’re going to be leading delivery, or kind of… I don’t know how your firm kind of structures that currently, and where you see yourself, in that.
72 00:09:14.620 ⇒ 00:09:20.800 Robert Tseng: like, client, you know, client life cycle. Are you pre-sales, or post-sales, or both, or…
73 00:09:20.850 ⇒ 00:09:22.529 Robert Tseng: I don’t know if you could speak more to that.
74 00:09:23.040 ⇒ 00:09:30.259 Ayanna: Right now, on both. I think, long-term, the… the vision is to more be pre-sale.
75 00:09:30.380 ⇒ 00:09:31.030 Robert Tseng: Okay.
76 00:09:31.030 ⇒ 00:09:38.900 Ayanna: But I do… I don’t know, this is something that I’m, like, figuring out as well. I do like the idea of being in the post-sell world, just from… Yeah.
77 00:09:39.140 ⇒ 00:09:43.250 Ayanna: Like, having a background of actually, like, doing projects.
78 00:09:43.250 ⇒ 00:09:43.650 Robert Tseng: out.
79 00:09:43.650 ⇒ 00:09:48.930 Ayanna: But that’s something I’m… I’m willing to kind of shift in, like, just career-wise.
80 00:09:48.930 ⇒ 00:09:49.490 Robert Tseng: Sure.
81 00:09:50.190 ⇒ 00:10:05.719 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think, for many of us who came from… I mean, I was in an in-house role before, or I mean, I guess if you were in academia, I’m sure you’re good at doing the work. Actually, like, learning how to sell is probably the hardest, hardest part of this journey, because, yeah, you’re just not used to…
82 00:10:06.190 ⇒ 00:10:14.189 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, it seems like you’re making promises and, you know, basically trying to convince someone of what you’re going to accomplish before the work is actually done.
83 00:10:14.390 ⇒ 00:10:19.770 Robert Tseng: And, like, knowing how to position the… kind of your work as…
84 00:10:19.910 ⇒ 00:10:34.030 Robert Tseng: Like, we are going to accomplish this, and letting that be very… that messaging be very clear up front, is just not something that most of us are really trained in, if we were, you know, more focused on actually doing the work before.
85 00:10:34.030 ⇒ 00:10:43.559 Robert Tseng: So, definitely feel like that’s something that I can speak to a lot, especially as I’ve been building my… my firm on, like, what has helped me be able to, kind of.
86 00:10:43.630 ⇒ 00:10:49.059 Robert Tseng: transitioned to… I mean, now I lead sales at my… at my, at my company, so, like, I…
87 00:10:49.470 ⇒ 00:11:00.579 Robert Tseng: you know, I lead our go-to-market team, so we… marketing and sales are both under me. You know, I’m closing… my business partner and I are mostly closing… are closing all the deals, pretty much.
88 00:11:00.640 ⇒ 00:11:12.060 Robert Tseng: So yeah, like, definitely, have a lot of thoughts on how consultancies, like, can, can go to market, and some of the challenges that we face there.
89 00:11:13.080 ⇒ 00:11:18.679 Ayanna: Awesome. Great, because I think probably 50% of my challenges now is the…
90 00:11:18.800 ⇒ 00:11:26.909 Ayanna: our CEO calls it, she wants us all to be seller doers. 50% of my challenge is, in general, is just the seller part.
91 00:11:26.910 ⇒ 00:11:27.340 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
92 00:11:27.340 ⇒ 00:11:28.080 Ayanna: Yes.
93 00:11:28.350 ⇒ 00:11:36.060 Ayanna: the doer part is like, I’m okay. There’s some other aspects where I’m like, okay, I could train in this area, I could train in that area, but with selling, it’s like, man, this is…
94 00:11:36.170 ⇒ 00:11:39.410 Ayanna: Completely new, or it feels completely new to me.
95 00:11:39.410 ⇒ 00:11:53.610 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. I mean, that’s great. That’s great, feedback for me, because I feel like that means I can kind of lean more heavily on the selling side, and being able to kind of spend more of the coaching there.
96 00:11:54.260 ⇒ 00:11:56.449 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and then, I guess…
97 00:11:56.630 ⇒ 00:12:06.470 Robert Tseng: you know, you’ve been in your role not too long, I know it was, like, a recent transition, you were in and out of it before, kind of coming back, obviously, with new scope, and, you know, you have this upcoming transition ahead.
98 00:12:06.570 ⇒ 00:12:08.950 Robert Tseng: I’m curious, like, day-to-day.
99 00:12:09.330 ⇒ 00:12:19.849 Robert Tseng: like, what are the most urgent challenges you’re facing? Like, you know, if you were to kind of prioritize, like, what you want to focus on, like, what do you, what would you, like, what would you, like, how would you,
100 00:12:20.420 ⇒ 00:12:21.850 Robert Tseng: How would you arrange that?
101 00:12:23.000 ⇒ 00:12:35.440 Ayanna: So, from the doer side of things, I think because we have, like, leads in some aspects of the department, so, like, cybersecurity, we have, experts there,
102 00:12:36.670 ⇒ 00:12:42.120 Ayanna: the ERP migrations, we have several, a lot of experts there. When it comes to…
103 00:12:42.240 ⇒ 00:12:56.710 Ayanna: the data engineering and AI side is where I can potentially fill the gap if I, like, build up my skills, quickly. So that’s, I think, one area. Like, I’d like to… like, I’m doing.
104 00:12:56.770 ⇒ 00:12:58.470 Robert Tseng: I’m trying to remember the…
105 00:12:59.900 ⇒ 00:13:04.839 Ayanna: like, I’m doing a program, like a data engineering program now. I’m trying to remember the brand of it, but…
106 00:13:04.840 ⇒ 00:13:05.310 Robert Tseng: Okay.
107 00:13:05.310 ⇒ 00:13:13.690 Ayanna: it’s on Carissa, but that’s, like, an example of, like, things that I’m focusing in terms of, like.
108 00:13:13.770 ⇒ 00:13:32.029 Ayanna: on the domain knowledge side, trying to, like, get… be in a good position with the department, and then the other main thing is gonna be kind of all things, like sales, networking, BD, like, trying to get more comfortable in that space.
109 00:13:32.030 ⇒ 00:13:32.680 Robert Tseng: Okay.
110 00:13:33.380 ⇒ 00:13:50.190 Robert Tseng: Okay, so that sounds good. So, I mean, we already talked about the sales side, so I just consider that, kind of go-to-market business, BD, sales, all kind of part of that, and then on the domain side, maybe we spend some time on… I don’t know how much you want to lean on me for the technical.
111 00:13:50.190 ⇒ 00:13:58.840 Robert Tseng: guidance as well, so… I don’t know if it ends up being, like, 50, 50%, like, go-to-market, 50% data engineering specific, like, technical coaching.
112 00:13:58.890 ⇒ 00:14:09.060 Robert Tseng: But we can… we can… I mean, that’s what I’m hearing from kind of this initial, from these first few minutes, but we can kind of shift that around. But does that seem like…
113 00:14:09.270 ⇒ 00:14:12.860 Robert Tseng: Those are the areas, the bigger areas that you would want to tackle?
114 00:14:13.390 ⇒ 00:14:14.380 Ayanna: Yep, yeah, definitely.
115 00:14:14.760 ⇒ 00:14:15.550 Robert Tseng: Okay.
116 00:14:15.930 ⇒ 00:14:28.779 Robert Tseng: Cool. Well then, yeah, I guess we can kind of transition to, like, I know we talked about, we just roadmap out what some of this stuff would look like. So, maybe I’ll start from…
117 00:14:29.480 ⇒ 00:14:38.900 Robert Tseng: like, before we talk about those two focus areas, some things that I’ll send over to you, probably today or tomorrow, that you can kind of, you know, look at in your own time. I think if you haven’t already.
118 00:14:39.090 ⇒ 00:14:58.299 Robert Tseng: You know, there’s, like, a few, just assessments that, you know, if you’ve never done, like, a skill audit, you know, force five horses, or strength assessment, you know, things like that. I have, like, a couple in mind that I think would be good for me to learn as… from you, as, you know, if you could fill it out in your own time, just so I can know, like.
119 00:14:58.640 ⇒ 00:15:14.920 Robert Tseng: as far as your working style, kind of personality, and, like, just your, you know, what are your working strengths and weaknesses, like, I… I think that would be helpful context for me, just kind of, like, moving forward to get to know how to coach you professionally.
120 00:15:14.920 ⇒ 00:15:20.470 Robert Tseng: So, I don’t know if you’ve ever taken any of those types of assessments, before.
121 00:15:21.670 ⇒ 00:15:24.809 Ayanna: If I have, it’s been a long time, because I haven’t.
122 00:15:24.810 ⇒ 00:15:25.250 Robert Tseng: Okay.
123 00:15:25.250 ⇒ 00:15:27.199 Ayanna: Remember any, like, results?
124 00:15:27.200 ⇒ 00:15:46.050 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I mean, most of it will be free, or whatever, or if it’s a small budget or whatever, I’ll just send… I’ll just send it to you, and yeah, so it’s something that I… every… every leader on my team kind of has… when they onboard, I ask them to… ask them to take it as well, just because it helps me to better understand how to work with them quickly.
125 00:15:46.050 ⇒ 00:15:49.680 Robert Tseng: So, that’s just, like, maybe a little bit of homework that I’ll kind of send your way.
126 00:15:49.740 ⇒ 00:16:02.899 Robert Tseng: But yeah, we’re not… and we’ll just spend… it’s a good icebreaker activity. We can spend, like, the beginning part of our sessions kind of, like, going through some of this and some of those things in more detail. I mean, obviously, I’m not, like, a…
127 00:16:03.710 ⇒ 00:16:14.389 Robert Tseng: you know, I’m not a licensed psychologist or whatever, so I’m not gonna, like, spend too much time on it, I just want to get really practical about, okay, like, if we have overlapping strengths, like.
128 00:16:14.390 ⇒ 00:16:28.950 Robert Tseng: then that might be something that I can, like, speak to more closely, because maybe the way that I approach a problem may be similar to you, or if you’re, you know, very different than me in some ways, and I feel like, you know, I have someone else in my network that could be helpful to
129 00:16:28.950 ⇒ 00:16:44.069 Robert Tseng: kind of show you, like, somebody who’s further along in their career, with the same strengths, then I can make that connection very comfortably as well. So, I think that’s really just the purpose of that. So, does that sound like something that you would want to spend time doing?
130 00:16:44.070 ⇒ 00:16:49.740 Robert Tseng: I mean, obviously, it’s just kind of on your own time, so it’s not really something we would, like, we would be billing for or anything.
131 00:16:50.140 ⇒ 00:16:51.890 Ayanna: Yep, no, that sounds great.
132 00:16:51.890 ⇒ 00:17:11.750 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. So I will make sure to send you that, after this call. But yeah, so let’s kind of talk about, you know, some of these kind of, like, key lessons, for each of these areas on the… first on the go-to-market side, and then we’ll talk about, like, the technical side. So, and I’m just kind of…
133 00:17:11.990 ⇒ 00:17:18.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think on the go-to-market side, maybe, like, a few things that I would emphasize.
134 00:17:19.599 ⇒ 00:17:22.929 Robert Tseng: One is, like,
135 00:17:23.569 ⇒ 00:17:38.079 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think one… a valuable lesson is, like, figuring out, like, how to get to a yes or no, like, as fast as you can. I think that’s kind of the way that I think about, biz… business development.
136 00:17:38.560 ⇒ 00:17:49.090 Robert Tseng: Yeah, obviously, like, there’s different ways of approaching it. I don’t know if you’ve heard of sales terms like, top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel. Have you heard of that before?
137 00:17:49.590 ⇒ 00:17:50.320 Ayanna: Yes.
138 00:17:50.320 ⇒ 00:18:03.230 Robert Tseng: Okay, great. Yeah, so, you know, top of funnel is typically, you know, you’re focused on, like, awareness, so you’re, you’re generating, kind of, awareness for, I guess it would be your firm, and specifically.
139 00:18:03.230 ⇒ 00:18:12.439 Robert Tseng: And, you know, I don’t know what, you know, what campaigns do you feel like your team currently runs to raise top of funnel awareness right now?
140 00:18:14.090 ⇒ 00:18:17.140 Ayanna: So I think things that we’ve tried,
141 00:18:17.270 ⇒ 00:18:25.870 Ayanna: In general for the firm is attending conferences, sometimes doing events at the conference, like, presenting.
142 00:18:25.950 ⇒ 00:18:27.920 Robert Tseng: Yeah. And then…
143 00:18:27.940 ⇒ 00:18:31.110 Ayanna: We don’t have a great social media presence.
144 00:18:33.000 ⇒ 00:18:40.730 Ayanna: definitely things we could expand into. And then for our department specifically, I think the biggest thing we’ve tried is,
145 00:18:40.810 ⇒ 00:18:54.370 Ayanna: like, idea-thons, so kind of, like, hackathons, but focused on the idea side, and, like, walking firms through, like, a problem and a, like, potential solution that could be on the AI side.
146 00:18:54.370 ⇒ 00:18:54.780 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
147 00:18:54.780 ⇒ 00:18:59.970 Ayanna: had, like, moderate slash, I’d say, low success. We’ve got, like, a couple…
148 00:19:00.130 ⇒ 00:19:02.710 Ayanna: I think one project out of that.
149 00:19:03.120 ⇒ 00:19:07.339 Robert Tseng: So that’s, like, a workshop that you do at a conference, or, like…
150 00:19:07.670 ⇒ 00:19:11.949 Robert Tseng: Is this something that you run internally? Like, I… yeah, tell me more about that.
151 00:19:12.290 ⇒ 00:19:22.379 Ayanna: Yep, externally, so we… we’ve run it about, I want to say, 3 times, and it’s been a mix of at a conference and…
152 00:19:22.690 ⇒ 00:19:26.239 Ayanna: Before, but, like, in affiliation to the conference.
153 00:19:26.240 ⇒ 00:19:26.570 Robert Tseng: Okay.
154 00:19:26.570 ⇒ 00:19:33.340 Ayanna: When it is in person, everything, the materials is kind of printed out. We walk,
155 00:19:33.550 ⇒ 00:19:40.990 Ayanna: prospects through, you know, like, how to identify a problem that might fit within the space of AI, and then
156 00:19:41.320 ⇒ 00:19:52.820 Ayanna: Like, from there, like, what are the… how do we break down that problem into understanding, like, how you could plug in, like, certain systems, and then once they get to the end, that’s when we’re,
157 00:19:53.230 ⇒ 00:20:04.780 Ayanna: I think most of the time, there’s some type of prize involved. I can’t really recall, like, the specifics of it, but that’s to the point where we, like, follow up with each group and say.
158 00:20:04.780 ⇒ 00:20:05.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
159 00:20:05.390 ⇒ 00:20:07.900 Ayanna: This is something that we could assist with.
160 00:20:08.180 ⇒ 00:20:18.870 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, no, I think, we run an AI workshop offering that’s actually really effective for us, when we go to conferences, or even just, like.
161 00:20:19.210 ⇒ 00:20:24.719 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we run it, like, ad hoc, we do it virtually as well. So, like, we’ve gone on-site to, like, work with
162 00:20:24.790 ⇒ 00:20:36.940 Robert Tseng: I would say, like, a VC firm wants to, like, basically assess the AI readiness of their portfolio, and so they would maybe… they would maybe ask to come on site while they’re doing
163 00:20:37.000 ⇒ 00:20:45.440 Robert Tseng: like, an off-site with the founders there in their portfolio, and we pretty much just, like, put on this workshop, helped them identify AI use cases, and then…
164 00:20:45.440 ⇒ 00:21:00.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it kind of, like, leads into, like, a follow-up, like you were saying as well. And, you know, it’s really much like, can we help you with this or not? So, yeah, now we kind of just offer it as, like, it’s a one-hour free AI workshop that we do. It’s kind of a lead magnet,
165 00:21:00.520 ⇒ 00:21:16.050 Robert Tseng: Especially when we’re, you know, partnering with, events or conferences and stuff like that. So, yeah, definitely, you know, it sounds like you have something similar running already. I don’t know if it would be helpful for us to, we could…
166 00:21:16.110 ⇒ 00:21:27.639 Robert Tseng: We could do the same thing for your firm, and you can kind of compare notes, see if that’s, you know, if there’s anything that you can learn from the way that we run it, for how your team runs it currently.
167 00:21:27.690 ⇒ 00:21:37.790 Robert Tseng: Because, like, I feel like it’s quite effective for us, but yeah, I don’t… yeah, I’m not exactly sure what, you know, what the differences are between what you do and what we do.
168 00:21:38.660 ⇒ 00:21:46.790 Ayanna: I think that would be great, and I think one of the main differences already is that it’s one hour, so it’s something that can be done
169 00:21:47.060 ⇒ 00:21:52.740 Ayanna: I imagine, like, pretty kind of quickly, and with, like, a lot of turnover. Ours…
170 00:21:52.860 ⇒ 00:21:55.589 Ayanna: I want to say I’ve been between, like, two…
171 00:21:55.680 ⇒ 00:22:14.579 Ayanna: hours and 3 hours, and so usually, like, always at a conference, which limits the amount of participants. It’s usually very, like, hands-on, also limiting participants, so if we could maybe still do something like that, but have something similar, to what you’re describing, that we can kind of run, like, all year.
172 00:22:14.860 ⇒ 00:22:25.019 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, when we do it in person, it’s a bit longer. We can… we’ve run it, like, done it, like, almost, like, half a day, I guess. So, like, you know, 2 or 3 hours, kind of like you were describing.
173 00:22:25.020 ⇒ 00:22:35.879 Robert Tseng: But yeah, the always-on, anytime kind of offering is really just, like, the one-hour one that we can… version that we can run. So, yeah, maybe that’s good to be able to help you think about how you can develop two versions.
174 00:22:37.460 ⇒ 00:22:43.130 Robert Tseng: So yeah, okay, that might be a good follow-up on my side already, on something that I can kind of reach out with.
175 00:22:43.190 ⇒ 00:22:57.930 Robert Tseng: My co-founder runs those workshops, so I’m happy to kind of introduce him and, like, see if we want to schedule some time for our team to basically, you know, run… run it with you, with your team internally.
176 00:22:59.030 ⇒ 00:23:18.289 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, okay, great. So I’m hearing events, conferences, big top of funnel for you, and when you’re there, how you generate awareness as you’re putting on these workshops, or you’re speaking. Maybe tell me a bit more about your speaking strategy, kind of like, how do you pick topics, and like, kind of
177 00:23:18.370 ⇒ 00:23:20.769 Robert Tseng: You know, how do you structure your speaking engagements?
178 00:23:21.510 ⇒ 00:23:23.770 Ayanna: So it’s been mostly…
179 00:23:23.880 ⇒ 00:23:30.780 Ayanna: on my side, at least, entirely the ideathons, so usually we’ll structure it with,
180 00:23:31.420 ⇒ 00:23:38.170 Ayanna: There will be maybe 30 minutes in the beginning of it that is informative, so less…
181 00:23:38.320 ⇒ 00:23:56.660 Ayanna: I guess it depends on, like, each Ideathon’s been a little bit different, but sometimes it’s less, like, hands-on the first 30 minutes, and more of, like, here’s what you might have missed this year in AI, or, like, here’s, like, different terminology that you might need to know, and then here’s a set of examples that will help, like, bring up some inspiration. And so that’s been the…
182 00:23:56.810 ⇒ 00:24:10.420 Ayanna: more, like, speaker-oriented aspect of what I’ve done. We have had, like, coming out of the Ideathons, our last business development, lead
183 00:24:10.760 ⇒ 00:24:28.169 Ayanna: would sometimes get invited to do, like, speaking engagements, kind of based off of that, so he’s done… or been on, like, panels, been on, given talks kind of about the ideathons and, like, things that came out of them. Yeah. And that’s it. So I haven’t, like, personally done just, like, a talk.
184 00:24:28.350 ⇒ 00:24:34.590 Ayanna: Okay. Within this job, I had to do them for, like, conferences, academic conferences, but…
185 00:24:34.770 ⇒ 00:24:35.120 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
186 00:24:35.120 ⇒ 00:24:37.179 Ayanna: Done it yet for this, which…
187 00:24:38.250 ⇒ 00:24:47.859 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, I think that’s… that’s helpful to know. Yeah, I think the Ideathon, is an interesting example. Yeah, I think there are different ways to present at conferences, so…
188 00:24:47.990 ⇒ 00:25:03.079 Robert Tseng: you know, things that we’ve done, so if you can’t, like, kind of get a speaker slot, I think, you know, sometimes it’s harder to get those. You know, we’ve done it, and we’ve… I pretty much put together, like, an event kit, so that, like, when I apply to a conference.
189 00:25:03.090 ⇒ 00:25:20.949 Robert Tseng: I’m always asking, well, how can I participate? Is there, like, a speaking slot that I can get in on? If not, can I be a moderator on a panel? If not, is there, like, a lightning talk, or kind of… it’s like the idea-a-thon kind of version that you’re talking about, where they just have, like, a bunch of quick talks on specific topics that they
190 00:25:20.950 ⇒ 00:25:24.669 Robert Tseng: That they may want to just fill. These are, like, you know, 15-minute.
191 00:25:24.670 ⇒ 00:25:27.380 Robert Tseng: Kind of, like, you know,
192 00:25:27.750 ⇒ 00:25:41.010 Robert Tseng: 15-minute talks. I wouldn’t even necessarily call it a talk, it’s more like a 15-minute speech. And then, yeah, I… yes, or if they… or different conferences have different,
193 00:25:43.730 ⇒ 00:25:53.370 Robert Tseng: they just, like, have different ways of, bringing their community together. So, like, the one that I went to in Chicago two weeks ago, for example.
194 00:25:53.460 ⇒ 00:26:04.219 Robert Tseng: It’s a big conference, one of the biggest CPG conferences in the States. I couldn’t get a speaker slot, there was no lightning talk available, their moderator lineup was already filled.
195 00:26:04.230 ⇒ 00:26:14.589 Robert Tseng: But what they had was, they were hosting these, like, lunchtime, they called them table talks, where they would focus on particular topic areas, and, you know, you’re pretty much just, like.
196 00:26:14.590 ⇒ 00:26:26.640 Robert Tseng: sitting there hosting, like, a meal, and people, like, if they’re interested in your topic, they’ll come and talk, kind of sit down and discuss. And that was actually super helpful for us. There were about, like, 10 people that came to my table.
197 00:26:26.640 ⇒ 00:26:35.289 Robert Tseng: And then I was able to just kind of… like, I didn’t even have to really prepare a speech, I just had, like, a few questions, and people were, you know, really engaged in talking to one another.
198 00:26:35.290 ⇒ 00:26:39.539 Robert Tseng: You know, all of those just ended up becoming leads for us,
199 00:26:39.540 ⇒ 00:26:58.619 Robert Tseng: one of them… one of them signed, we’re doing work with them, and then there’s, like, two more that we’re kind of negotiating proposal for. So, I think it’s just… I thought it was a really great lead generation for us, and through, you know, just trying to be creative about, like, how we can participate in a… in a conference. So, that’s definitely something
200 00:26:58.660 ⇒ 00:27:00.260 Robert Tseng: Especially…
201 00:27:00.640 ⇒ 00:27:05.200 Robert Tseng: You know, at least for us, since we’re, you know, a smaller consultancy, like, trying to figure out
202 00:27:05.340 ⇒ 00:27:21.590 Robert Tseng: whenever we attend an event, like, how can we, be more than just an attendee? Like, is there something that we can actively participate in? And organizers, I think, are very enthusiastic, typically, about, you know, trying to help out in some way. Sometimes they’re…
203 00:27:21.860 ⇒ 00:27:27.199 Robert Tseng: They’ll gatekeep, and, like, you have to be a sponsor in order to be able to, like.
204 00:27:27.630 ⇒ 00:27:45.249 Robert Tseng: be a speaker or, like, whatever, like, have a booth or something. So, I mean, there may be some upfront costs involved, and, you know, maybe your team just has to kind of budget and figure out how much you’re willing to spend, you know, on these events, which, you know, is a separate conversation, and I’m happy to help with that as well.
205 00:27:45.250 ⇒ 00:27:52.429 Robert Tseng: But, like, for us, we’ve kind of figured out, when we go to conferences, I kind of know, like, what our customer acquisition cost is.
206 00:27:52.540 ⇒ 00:28:02.680 Robert Tseng: So I have a ballpark number, like, if… if the… if I have to pay, like, up to a certain amount, like, I’m willing to pay it in order to, like, get… to get in
207 00:28:02.780 ⇒ 00:28:13.199 Robert Tseng: you know, just, you know, just pay… I kind of just, you know, pay your dues, get the booth, or get the speaker a slot, or whatever, because if I’m able to get… bring in, you know.
208 00:28:13.990 ⇒ 00:28:26.309 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, X number of, like, leads into the pipeline, and I know I’m able to close, you know, a few of them, then it ends up kind of being, like, a net positive ROI for us. And, so yeah, just being able to have, like, a…
209 00:28:26.480 ⇒ 00:28:38.230 Robert Tseng: have some sense of, like, what the, yeah, what the payout is for you to be able to, like, justify your expenses for a conference. I think that’s, like, a pretty important exercise to figure out.
210 00:28:38.430 ⇒ 00:28:42.280 Robert Tseng: Do you… does your team have something like that in place already?
211 00:28:43.150 ⇒ 00:29:02.090 Ayanna: So the way it’s structured for us is we have to propose, essentially, like, conferences and different events, and then they’ll, like, sign off on it or not sign off on it, versus, like, kind of having a budget where they share it with us. It’s like we do the reverse.
212 00:29:02.090 ⇒ 00:29:15.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so it’s, like, very, like, case-by-case. You just… you just try to… you go with one event at a time, and kind of just see which ones that you are able to get budget for. Is that kind of how it is?
213 00:29:15.430 ⇒ 00:29:24.169 Ayanna: Yeah, that, or in the, usually at the beginning of the year, they’ll ask for a master list, but we can… throughout the year, they’ll kind of ask for other events.
214 00:29:24.440 ⇒ 00:29:25.139 Robert Tseng: Got it.
215 00:29:25.510 ⇒ 00:29:32.060 Robert Tseng: Okay, that’s helpful to know. I’m curious then, from, like, a budgeting perspective, like.
216 00:29:32.350 ⇒ 00:29:39.210 Robert Tseng: So we talked about events and conferences, but, you know, what other, you know, top of funnel, kind of,
217 00:29:39.330 ⇒ 00:29:59.020 Robert Tseng: campaigns are you running? Like, what… what’s your… what’s your split on your budget? Like, are you 60% events and conferences, and then, you know, other budget goes elsewhere, maybe ads, maybe, like, outbound campaigns, cold calling, I’m not really sure what else, what other activities that your team is engaged in.
218 00:29:59.540 ⇒ 00:30:04.680 Ayanna: Right now, I’d say we’re probably, like, 100% conferences.
219 00:30:05.090 ⇒ 00:30:06.070 Robert Tseng: Wow, okay.
220 00:30:06.070 ⇒ 00:30:14.820 Ayanna: But this is, in general, like, BD and marketing is something we’re really trying to improve. Like, that’s our… probably our weakest link at the moment.
221 00:30:14.820 ⇒ 00:30:15.440 Robert Tseng: Okay.
222 00:30:15.440 ⇒ 00:30:16.710 Ayanna: And…
223 00:30:17.170 ⇒ 00:30:34.010 Ayanna: pretty much everything you’ve mentioned, we… is, like, open to discussion right now. So we’re, like, trying to get a marketing strategy in place, but right now, like, how it’s kind of played out is we’re trying to find a marketing firm, because there’s no really, like, in-house right now that can…
224 00:30:34.010 ⇒ 00:30:49.329 Ayanna: take this on. We have, like, a new consultant that we hired that is mostly doing, like, project management, but they’ve been kind of tasked with marketing stuff, but the goal is mostly for them to find a marketing firm, or a marketing consultant that we could work with.
225 00:30:49.790 ⇒ 00:30:55.539 Robert Tseng: Got it. Okay. But that’s not really something that you feel like you will actively,
226 00:30:55.640 ⇒ 00:30:59.289 Robert Tseng: be involved in. It sounds like you… your team’s just looking to…
227 00:30:59.650 ⇒ 00:31:09.480 Robert Tseng: try to find a firm that’ll be able to run that for you, and you just… you still want to just focus on events and conferences and getting ready for those. Because, like, you know, we could also talk about
228 00:31:09.610 ⇒ 00:31:22.459 Robert Tseng: how do you run a campaign? Like, you know, when you’re running ad, like, ad strategy, or, like, outbound, like, you know, creating, creating email, email lists, or phone, phone, you know, phone lists, like, there’s a lot of…
229 00:31:22.540 ⇒ 00:31:30.570 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m just trying to wonder, like, what should I, like, you know, if that’s something that I should even mention, or, you know, if that’s not really within focus, we just don’t even talk about it.
230 00:31:30.570 ⇒ 00:31:34.879 Ayanna: I think it could be, good to mention, so any aspect where…
231 00:31:35.200 ⇒ 00:31:44.980 Ayanna: like, domain knowledge or, like, thought leadership would play in, I think would be helpful. Okay. So, in terms of, like, email lists, I probably do need to contribute to…
232 00:31:44.980 ⇒ 00:31:47.910 Robert Tseng: That conversation, and, like, just the types of…
233 00:31:47.910 ⇒ 00:31:51.620 Ayanna: Potential, like, clientele,
234 00:31:51.640 ⇒ 00:32:08.890 Ayanna: give an example with, like, what we’re doing now, I probably should provide, like, a list to our person that looks out for RFPs of things that they should be looking out for. We right now, just kind of tag along with, like, any ERP-related proposals, but.
235 00:32:08.890 ⇒ 00:32:09.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
236 00:32:09.240 ⇒ 00:32:14.749 Ayanna: able to hand them something that’s like, okay, can you also look out for this, this, and this? I see.
237 00:32:15.140 ⇒ 00:32:25.599 Ayanna: once, like, let’s say the marketing team has a schedule for… I don’t know, when we’re doing certain, like, social media posts, I’ll probably need to be involved for, like, okay, what’s…
238 00:32:25.740 ⇒ 00:32:36.509 Ayanna: some of the different topics that we’ll do, what are my deadlines to contribute that, and if you have to write something up and it gets passed along to an editor. So there’s some aspects of this where, like, I…
239 00:32:36.630 ⇒ 00:32:41.069 Ayanna: can imagine I will, like, have to play a role. Or, like, should play a role.
240 00:32:41.070 ⇒ 00:32:41.740 Robert Tseng: Got it.
241 00:32:42.570 ⇒ 00:32:52.609 Robert Tseng: So, like, for example, that, ER… that… so that, like, that RFP that you sent… that you sent over, that was just, like, an ERP partner, kind of, like, passing the lead, and then…
242 00:32:52.730 ⇒ 00:33:12.219 Robert Tseng: There wasn’t necessarily so much filtering on it, you’re just, like, you get that… you get that proposal, then you’re asking, like, your partner network, pretty much, like, hey, do we have anybody in here that can help us service and contribute to this RFP? But, like, and then that, you know, maybe that’s, like, is that kind of pretty representative of, like, how you’re able to kind of get
243 00:33:12.500 ⇒ 00:33:16.770 Robert Tseng: leads outside of events right now? Is that… is that pretty standard? Yeah.
244 00:33:16.770 ⇒ 00:33:31.999 Ayanna: We have someone internally that, their job is just to look for the RFPs. Okay. And then, typically, because we have, MBE and W… I think it’s WBE status, we’ll… we tend to…
245 00:33:32.000 ⇒ 00:33:42.089 Ayanna: look for a Prime, and then if there’s something that, like, between us and the Prime is missing or we could use assistance with, then we’ll look for our partner network.
246 00:33:42.850 ⇒ 00:33:45.230 Robert Tseng: Got it. Okay. That makes sense.
247 00:33:46.290 ⇒ 00:33:47.270 Robert Tseng: Alright.
248 00:33:47.270 ⇒ 00:33:54.110 Ayanna: Sometimes the reverse will happen. So, like, sometimes people that we’ve, or firms that we’ve partnered with, and they were the prime, though.
249 00:33:54.110 ⇒ 00:33:56.189 Robert Tseng: Yeah, they’ll recommend, yeah.
250 00:33:56.340 ⇒ 00:33:57.320 Ayanna: Yeah.
251 00:33:58.050 ⇒ 00:34:01.180 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay, that makes sense.
252 00:34:02.420 ⇒ 00:34:05.879 Robert Tseng: Cool, so it sounds like you have, like, partner-driven
253 00:34:06.550 ⇒ 00:34:22.000 Robert Tseng: like, top of funnel as well, so, like, your partner network is part of the way that you get leads. I don’t know if we… how much time we want to spend on partners as well along this journey, but yeah, I mean, we have a pretty extensive partner network, different types of vendors, like.
254 00:34:22.000 ⇒ 00:34:36.149 Robert Tseng: We have vendor partners, we have services partners, obviously, you know, we’re… we’re, like, kind of exploring, like, what a services partnership would look like with your firm as well. And then we have, like, advisory partners, so these are just, like.
255 00:34:37.510 ⇒ 00:34:51.550 Robert Tseng: You know, usually just, like, very well-connected folks that are able to make intros that, that, you know, into rooms that we don’t necessarily have privileged access into, or that may come in to help us, like, kind of close a deal.
256 00:34:51.570 ⇒ 00:34:59.640 Robert Tseng: But yeah, those are typically individuals, and we also have, like, platform partners, so, whether it’s…
257 00:35:01.160 ⇒ 00:35:20.609 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, like, specific funds, like venture capital or private equity, these net… these, like, very closed-door networks that maybe leverage us, to service, like, a… their particular portfolio. So, I mean, we can, you know, I’m happy to kind of also include
258 00:35:20.830 ⇒ 00:35:33.740 Robert Tseng: partner, like, how we think about partnerships on our side. Is that something that you spend a lot of time on? Or, like, does your team really heavily lean on partners like that?
259 00:35:34.610 ⇒ 00:35:39.510 Ayanna: We… not to the, depth that you’re describing it, but that would be of interest.
260 00:35:39.870 ⇒ 00:35:40.520 Robert Tseng: Okay.
261 00:35:40.690 ⇒ 00:35:46.230 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. So then I think that’s… that’s maybe, you know, half a session in itself, just to talk through partners.
262 00:35:46.400 ⇒ 00:35:57.420 Robert Tseng: Cool. So, I know we’re kind of just, like, going through… that was all just top of funnel. I have to kind of keep pushing it through. So, middle of funnel, I don’t know what… what… what efforts…
263 00:35:57.820 ⇒ 00:36:01.390 Robert Tseng: Do you feel like your team is kind of making a middle-of-funnel,
264 00:36:01.810 ⇒ 00:36:07.209 Robert Tseng: Yeah, or like, what does that even… what does that even look like for… from your perspective right now?
265 00:36:08.030 ⇒ 00:36:20.420 Ayanna: middle funnel is, I think, an area for our department specifically, of high need, and then for the firm, I think also of high need. I think the…
266 00:36:21.130 ⇒ 00:36:26.089 Ayanna: the RFP process, you know, I think about it, is, like, the major… where the majority of our work.
267 00:36:26.090 ⇒ 00:36:26.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
268 00:36:26.520 ⇒ 00:36:39.619 Ayanna: But there has been talks about, like, okay, how do we… we’re going to these conferences, we’re making connections, we’re getting, I forgot what they’re called, but, like, late leads, like, or cold.
269 00:36:39.620 ⇒ 00:36:40.090 Robert Tseng: the next.
270 00:36:40.090 ⇒ 00:36:43.739 Ayanna: Leads, and we should be, like, making them warm leads.
271 00:36:43.740 ⇒ 00:36:45.399 Robert Tseng: Yep. That’s of.
272 00:36:45.850 ⇒ 00:36:54.910 Ayanna: that’s in discussion, and we’re trying to figure out, like, how to put together some, like, systems and processes to, like, do that efficiently.
273 00:36:55.940 ⇒ 00:37:01.560 Robert Tseng: Do you do newsletter right now, publish content, like white papers, or anything like that? No. Okay.
274 00:37:01.560 ⇒ 00:37:02.310 Ayanna: Yeah.
275 00:37:02.540 ⇒ 00:37:15.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, like, we have a very basic newsletter. We don’t use it that often, to be honest. Like, it is very hard to get it started, because you have to build a big list. You know, our list is, like, probably around, like, a couple thousand right now, so it’s not that big, and…
276 00:37:15.350 ⇒ 00:37:23.870 Robert Tseng: So, we’ve been unsure, like, what to necessarily to do to nurture that. So, you know, just honestly, that’s not really something that I’ve had too much expertise
277 00:37:24.360 ⇒ 00:37:37.129 Robert Tseng: Sure, I guess the irony is that the work that we do to help clients is we do help their lifecycle teams, and we help them to run more efficient email campaigns on their own… on their own customers, but we don’t personally do it necessarily for our leads.
278 00:37:37.180 ⇒ 00:37:52.379 Robert Tseng: But from a content perspective, definitely being active on social media, we’re creating more long-form content, so writing white papers, and then doing, like, SME interviews, so both with, like, existing clients, or…
279 00:37:52.420 ⇒ 00:38:00.059 Robert Tseng: could be partners, or just, like, friends of our network. We’re… we’ve been… we’ve been leaning a lot more into that. So, just, like, having…
280 00:38:00.230 ⇒ 00:38:07.100 Robert Tseng: Like, assets to share with, you know, cold leads that you meet at conferences, to be able to follow up, be like.
281 00:38:07.100 ⇒ 00:38:21.479 Robert Tseng: hey, we had a really good conversation about this topic, we actually wrote a paper on this, like, you know, wanted to share it with you. Or, hey, we actually… I actually did an interview with somebody talking about this specific topic that we discussed at the conference, thought you’d be interested in seeing it.
282 00:38:21.480 ⇒ 00:38:25.160 Robert Tseng: And, yeah, like, the way we think about this is…
283 00:38:25.230 ⇒ 00:38:37.279 Robert Tseng: once somebody… once we get a cold lead, how do we get, like, 3 different assets in front of them, before they end up kind of booking a call with us? Because that… that’s what we found to be
284 00:38:37.690 ⇒ 00:38:51.849 Robert Tseng: like, this… yeah, that’s kind of one of the objectives that I set for my go-to-market team. Like, their goal isn’t just to reduce all these different, like, marketing assets, but, like, to figure out where in our process that we can
285 00:38:51.890 ⇒ 00:39:09.800 Robert Tseng: make sure that a lead has seen, like, a post from us, maybe on social media. Maybe they’ve received, like, a deck from us to explain our services that they were interested in, like, what we were… what we were about. And then also, like, some sort of thought leadership, either a white paper or an interview that they’ve watched that we’ve done.
286 00:39:09.800 ⇒ 00:39:15.560 Robert Tseng: And, you know, once… once a lead has really kind of received all those three
287 00:39:15.720 ⇒ 00:39:32.849 Robert Tseng: all those three things, there’s a much higher likelihood that they’re ready or willing to book… book a… book a call with us. So that’s kind of, like, how I weave in, like, this middle of funnel, work to our sales process.
288 00:39:32.850 ⇒ 00:39:40.459 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess… does that make sense, or do you have anything kind of set up like that similarly in your… within your team?
289 00:39:40.770 ⇒ 00:39:50.039 Ayanna: We don’t, but I think that’s a great strategy to have, or a great, like, objective, like, those three assets in front of each lead, like, as soon as possible.
290 00:39:50.040 ⇒ 00:40:05.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah, exactly. So, obviously, the buyer journey, which is, like, this is going to bottom of funnel now. It’s like, well, even after you get that meeting booked, you know, from the meeting to close, like, I don’t know, it varies quite much.
291 00:40:05.070 ⇒ 00:40:22.500 Robert Tseng: you know, some… some leads need multiple meetings. If it’s a long, complex RFP process, it might take, you know, up to 6 months, you know, there’s… there’s a lot of stuff that you can talk about there. But yeah, I would say for our average lead, we’re going from meeting book… meeting booked to close within a month.
292 00:40:22.550 ⇒ 00:40:36.830 Robert Tseng: And, like, yeah, so that’s typically what we’re optimizing our bottom of the funnel, kind of, like, closing process around, that we’re expecting that after a meeting, we’re trying to push as much as we can to try to get to, a yes or…
293 00:40:36.860 ⇒ 00:40:48.460 Robert Tseng: We’re, yeah, trying to… tying back to my original point, get to a yes or no as fast as you can. And, if it takes more than a month, we pretty much take them out of the… out of the funnel, and we’re, like, kind of having to…
294 00:40:48.960 ⇒ 00:40:58.029 Robert Tseng: you know, maybe they’ll… maybe they’ll come back again later, but we don’t really linger that long on a… on a lead. So, that’s, like, you know, the… the last part of this, like.
295 00:40:58.140 ⇒ 00:41:06.289 Robert Tseng: go-to-market system that, you know, I… I don’t know, that we, that we can, that we can talk about. Do you… do you feel like you have
296 00:41:06.290 ⇒ 00:41:18.960 Robert Tseng: pretty good grasp of, like, how… how your firm closes business, you know, once… once they’ve gotten that first meeting, or you’ve sent out that RFP, kind of, like, what it takes to close, to close that client.
297 00:41:19.680 ⇒ 00:41:24.760 Ayanna: Oh, I do not I think, like, in…
298 00:41:25.390 ⇒ 00:41:37.059 Ayanna: like, I understand it to a, like, high level, but not the details of what kind of goes into it. So I’ve done it once, but I… I don’t know if…
299 00:41:37.310 ⇒ 00:41:54.860 Ayanna: that’s, like, very representative, like, what to expect for… for most… most scenarios. But in general, what I understand is that there’s, like, pre-discovery, then they usually try to close between pre-discovery and discovery, so, like, they try to charge for discovery. And then…
300 00:41:55.390 ⇒ 00:42:00.679 Ayanna: there’s, like, a series of, steps, like a… was it, SOW?
301 00:42:00.840 ⇒ 00:42:04.980 Ayanna: And that’s… that’s pretty much it.
302 00:42:05.250 ⇒ 00:42:05.840 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
303 00:42:06.390 ⇒ 00:42:25.179 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think we’re similar. We typically charge for paid discovery or whatever, and then in that, we kind of build out a more robust SOW for, like, a contract that ends up being 3-plus months or whatever for us, like, and, you know, that’s… yeah, so I think that seems pretty standard. But yeah, maybe we could spend a session on that as well.
304 00:42:25.450 ⇒ 00:42:26.599 Robert Tseng: So, okay.
305 00:42:27.000 ⇒ 00:42:37.309 Robert Tseng: Cool. So I think that’s helpful context. I know we kind of talked through, you know, very high level, like, these three different stages, but it sounds like we could probably,
306 00:42:37.500 ⇒ 00:42:49.140 Robert Tseng: spend, you know, what I’m thinking, maybe for our next session, I know we didn’t talk about technical roadmap yet, and this was purely on the business development side, but we could do, a…
307 00:42:49.280 ⇒ 00:43:02.390 Robert Tseng: A session on top of funnel, a session on middle of funnel, a session on bottom of funnel, and maybe we’ll just kind of chunk it up so it’s, like, half… half a… half a session on each one, and then the other half will be more on the technical… on the technical side.
308 00:43:04.000 ⇒ 00:43:19.609 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I just want to be mindful of our time. So with our remainder, I’m not going to talk about your data engineering roadmap. I think maybe an additional thing that you can send me is, as you’re learning, I’d love to know, like, what you’re learning from your course, just so I can better understand, like.
309 00:43:20.260 ⇒ 00:43:28.780 Robert Tseng: You know, also… Like, what topics you want to learn, Yeah, I feel like… Data engineering.
310 00:43:28.960 ⇒ 00:43:37.380 Robert Tseng: you know, I could… I can send you, yeah, I’ll send you something that we’ve put together. It’s just, like, a document that
311 00:43:37.530 ⇒ 00:43:41.420 Robert Tseng: Describes, like.
312 00:43:41.580 ⇒ 00:43:49.689 Robert Tseng: the whole data engineering process, to… it’s really for a buyer prospect that doesn’t know what data engineering is.
313 00:43:49.740 ⇒ 00:43:58.039 Robert Tseng: But I think it might be helpful, at least, to just kind of know, you know, general steps to ETL and, like, where… and…
314 00:43:58.060 ⇒ 00:44:17.329 Robert Tseng: And, where data modeling takes place, like, BI reporting, and just, like, knowing, like, what parts of that… of that whole system that you feel like you want to go deeper in, and maybe that’s, like, kind of how I can, structure a roadmap around… around, some learning objectives for that.
315 00:44:17.950 ⇒ 00:44:20.260 Ayanna: Okay, I’m good. Okay.
316 00:44:20.260 ⇒ 00:44:34.070 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I think just being able to get… I know that… sorry, that was a mouthful, just to, get what you’re specifically learning from your program, and then I think I’ll send you a doc to, like, basically show you, like, what, like, a full
317 00:44:34.410 ⇒ 00:44:47.310 Robert Tseng: a closed-loop data, like, data system looks like, and with all the different pieces, and then you basically tell me, like, which pieces you want Elon go deeper into, and we can talk about… we can bring that into the roadmap as well.
318 00:44:47.800 ⇒ 00:44:58.440 Ayanna: Okay, sounds good. Yeah, I think that would be really helpful, especially in, like, learning how to… like, since the document is for buyers, like, how to communicate these things to, like, business leaders.
319 00:44:58.770 ⇒ 00:45:00.080 Robert Tseng: Yep. Cool.
320 00:45:02.510 ⇒ 00:45:08.989 Robert Tseng: Yeah, and so, I guess with the remaining kind of time here, I… I know that you had some… some stuff on, like.
321 00:45:09.060 ⇒ 00:45:18.450 Robert Tseng: guidance, on leadership, and so I… we kind of talked about some audits that you’re gonna… or, like, some assessments that you’re gonna take on your own time, so maybe I’ll save that for the next one.
322 00:45:18.460 ⇒ 00:45:31.589 Robert Tseng: As far as, like, habits, frameworks, and practices, to adopt, yeah, I think I’ll also kind of punt that for the next one. So, I think there are some… some frameworks that I want to send over to you.
323 00:45:31.630 ⇒ 00:45:32.859 Robert Tseng: Around, like.
324 00:45:33.050 ⇒ 00:45:50.109 Robert Tseng: offer messaging, just wanting to better understand, you know, if you have any docs on, like, how you talk about, you know, your services to a buyer, like, on… on my… for my team, for example, we have, like, a story brand,
325 00:45:50.970 ⇒ 00:45:52.660 Robert Tseng: Actually, I’ll just share my screen.
326 00:45:52.940 ⇒ 00:45:56.049 Robert Tseng: And just to kind of show you some of these resources that I’m talking about.
327 00:45:56.620 ⇒ 00:45:57.570 Robert Tseng: So…
328 00:45:58.520 ⇒ 00:46:09.779 Robert Tseng: Yeah, for my… for my team, I have, like, 3 different versions. I have, like, a why we exist, kind of, like, story brand script, so this is, like, customer-facing, kind of, like, sales copy, pretty much, just, like, kind of…
329 00:46:10.320 ⇒ 00:46:23.380 Robert Tseng: like, speaking to different buyer personas of, like, why we exist and, you know, how we would describe it to a customer. And then this is more for internal, like a deployment, it’s like a… how we actually execute, like, what do we actually do?
330 00:46:23.380 ⇒ 00:46:31.339 Robert Tseng: This is more for, you know, when I talk to my internal team, and I’m helping them to see how their work ties into
331 00:46:31.340 ⇒ 00:46:41.069 Robert Tseng: what we sell, like, that’s… that’s kind of, like, a version that I’ve written here for… for the team. And then this is kind of more for our advisors and,
332 00:46:41.690 ⇒ 00:46:43.080 Robert Tseng: And,
333 00:46:43.190 ⇒ 00:46:59.050 Robert Tseng: I guess, future investors, if we end up taking more investment, like, you know, what, like, how we would communicate, like, what we’ve done and where we’re going to, like, an investor perspective. So, I think it’s always good to have different narratives to
334 00:46:59.200 ⇒ 00:47:10.309 Robert Tseng: you know, what you’re doing, so that you can communicate to all audiences. Yeah, I don’t know, do you… does your firm have anything like this so far?
335 00:47:11.060 ⇒ 00:47:16.739 Ayanna: So, our department… the firm might have done this as well. We have…
336 00:47:17.630 ⇒ 00:47:29.419 Ayanna: done, an ideal customer profile, but not for the whole department. Like, we… like, with very specific things that we were doing, but the general brand stories, we…
337 00:47:29.860 ⇒ 00:47:33.239 Ayanna: we haven’t done. That would be, I think, really good for us as well.
338 00:47:34.390 ⇒ 00:47:38.060 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Okay, cool. So I feel like, you know, as far as,
339 00:47:38.170 ⇒ 00:47:44.840 Robert Tseng: when we’re… when we’re talking about, like, frameworks, I think we can… we can maybe walk through some of…
340 00:47:44.950 ⇒ 00:47:47.389 Robert Tseng: Some… some of that next time as well.
341 00:47:50.200 ⇒ 00:47:58.439 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so that’ll help kind of crystallize your offer messaging, and then I think, you know, if you’re going to be a leader at your team.
342 00:47:58.920 ⇒ 00:48:01.449 Robert Tseng: Just thinking, you know, how…
343 00:48:02.800 ⇒ 00:48:16.380 Robert Tseng: how do you measure, like, team success, right? So, like, for us, we do, like, quarterly OKRs, so Objectives and Key Results. Have you used that framework before? Have you… or, like, have you set OKRs or KPIs before?
344 00:48:16.880 ⇒ 00:48:19.779 Ayanna: We have, and then we didn’t have great follow-up.
345 00:48:20.100 ⇒ 00:48:20.750 Robert Tseng: Okay.
346 00:48:21.640 ⇒ 00:48:26.220 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, so then maybe that’s, like, something I can introduce as well. So for us, like.
347 00:48:26.350 ⇒ 00:48:40.730 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we… we just updated our OKRs for Q4, and I’m actually reading them out to the team tomorrow. So, I think it’ll be good for me to… it’ll be fresh in my mind probably next week on, like, how that went. So once we have… once we share it out.
348 00:48:40.820 ⇒ 00:49:00.290 Robert Tseng: Then on a weekly basis, pretty much on Mondays, I have meetings with every one of my team leads. They know which OKRs that they’re directly owning, and they’re basically going to give me updates that tie back to the progress that we’ve set for, on the OKRs. So it ends up being part of the conversation that we have every week.
349 00:49:00.360 ⇒ 00:49:02.160 Robert Tseng: And then…
350 00:49:02.510 ⇒ 00:49:09.559 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, we’re able to track, like, whether or not it’s going well or not. Sometimes we do have to make some adjustments, because I don’t think
351 00:49:10.300 ⇒ 00:49:13.270 Robert Tseng: You know, at least…
352 00:49:13.530 ⇒ 00:49:27.619 Robert Tseng: certain objectives, like, I’m not… I’m not good at setting, because maybe I don’t actually know what it’ll take for us to get there, and so it’s helpful to get feedback from the bottom up as well, to make adjustments to… to those OKRs so that they’re not something that’s just, like.
353 00:49:28.150 ⇒ 00:49:33.210 Robert Tseng: Wow, this is, like, not really relevant to what we’re doing. Our business is totally not, like.
354 00:49:33.850 ⇒ 00:49:42.630 Robert Tseng: heading in that direction anymore. Like, it feels… I think OKRs can sometimes feel disconnected, especially as, like, you know.
355 00:49:43.130 ⇒ 00:49:48.619 Robert Tseng: Your business makes pivots, like, things get… you know, you change directions, and if you’re not
356 00:49:48.620 ⇒ 00:50:05.309 Robert Tseng: kind of updating it and making it, like, a livable, breathable kind of, system, then it’s not something that people would adhere to. So, can definitely, talk more about how we… how we update this regularly and how I run my teams with that framework.
357 00:50:05.640 ⇒ 00:50:16.439 Ayanna: Okay, yeah, that’d be great. I might even make that, or something related homework for myself for the next session, because we just had our, like, annual strategy, like, leadership strategy, retreat.
358 00:50:16.440 ⇒ 00:50:27.560 Ayanna: Oh, great. We’re at the point of, like, creating our, OKRs for the next year, and I think… I mean, I could just kind of take that on for, like, organizing that.
359 00:50:27.600 ⇒ 00:50:41.989 Ayanna: And so I might, I think for our next session, try to have the homework of, like, alright, how do we design this so we don’t do kind of what we’ve done the past couple years, where we, like, set all this up, and then look at it, like, once throughout the year, and then.
360 00:50:41.990 ⇒ 00:50:42.510 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
361 00:50:42.510 ⇒ 00:50:44.210 Ayanna: Look at it again.
362 00:50:44.210 ⇒ 00:50:48.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that’d be great. So, yeah, I’d be happy to…
363 00:50:49.130 ⇒ 00:50:55.900 Robert Tseng: happy to share, kind of, like, feedback on OKRs once you… once you put together that, you can set it to me, and I can… I can give you some feedback on it.
364 00:50:56.140 ⇒ 00:50:58.610 Robert Tseng: Cool.
365 00:50:58.790 ⇒ 00:51:05.220 Robert Tseng: Alright, I think, with the remaining time, yeah, so I think, like, this gave me some clarity on…
366 00:51:05.400 ⇒ 00:51:16.710 Robert Tseng: yeah, like, how we can outline the next sessions. Like, I feel like I see 3 sessions on sales already, and then technical… on the technical side, we could kind of break it out through 5, so…
367 00:51:16.710 ⇒ 00:51:28.919 Robert Tseng: I think, like I mentioned, maybe we’ll do two topics a session, just to kind of be able to go deeper on them. Maybe we’ll always do, like, one… one sales, one technical, and then the beginning will just kind of be more on, like, the…
368 00:51:28.930 ⇒ 00:51:35.150 Robert Tseng: On the, the leadership, or kind of, like, your, your, your personal skills and, and, and,
369 00:51:35.350 ⇒ 00:51:46.359 Robert Tseng: just as, like, the icebreaker when we go through some of those assessments, so I think, that’s how I’m envisioning, kind of, structuring our sessions moving forward. Does that sound helpful?
370 00:51:46.360 ⇒ 00:51:47.530 Ayanna: Yep, that sounds great.
371 00:51:47.530 ⇒ 00:51:48.720 Robert Tseng: Okay, great.
372 00:51:48.950 ⇒ 00:52:03.000 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I know you have some questions about networking and positioning. We have a few minutes, we can talk about it now, or we can kind of just… I can… we can… we can take it offline. Do you have anything specific that you wanted to ask at this moment?
373 00:52:03.730 ⇒ 00:52:08.350 Ayanna: No, I think probably good to move that to another session.
374 00:52:08.350 ⇒ 00:52:08.880 Robert Tseng: Okay.
375 00:52:09.900 ⇒ 00:52:18.329 Ayanna: And then maybe, a session before mid-November, just so I’m, like, ready for the, the conference.
376 00:52:18.870 ⇒ 00:52:22.699 Robert Tseng: Cool. Yeah. Where, where’s the conference?
377 00:52:23.380 ⇒ 00:52:27.200 Ayanna: It’s in Denver. It’s the, the Dell Tech conference.
378 00:52:27.360 ⇒ 00:52:28.520 Robert Tseng: Oh, okay, great.
379 00:52:29.180 ⇒ 00:52:29.980 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
380 00:52:31.010 ⇒ 00:52:38.100 Ayanna: they’re, like, a… well, they have, like, several ERP products they just, like, buy. It seems like they buy as many as they can, but…
381 00:52:38.490 ⇒ 00:52:40.340 Robert Tseng: Oh, really? That’s funny.
382 00:52:40.770 ⇒ 00:52:41.530 Robert Tseng: Okay.
383 00:52:42.230 ⇒ 00:52:49.040 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, I guess I don’t need to introduce anything new at this point.
384 00:52:49.270 ⇒ 00:52:59.430 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, I know that you sent over some details on, like, on the MuleSoft work. Yeah, I mean, we can do… I’ve, I’ve worked with MuleSoft, like, I…
385 00:52:59.430 ⇒ 00:53:00.650 Ayanna: So I, I think…
386 00:53:00.650 ⇒ 00:53:17.330 Robert Tseng: I… some questions I had were, it sounds like they’ve already chosen the vendor, they want to go with MuleSoft, I don’t know if they’re doing a migration from somewhere else, and, like, kind of, how would you envision, kind of, like, my team, like, working with yours? So if we’re, like, contributing to this RFP, like.
387 00:53:17.440 ⇒ 00:53:23.909 Robert Tseng: Sounds like your team is equipped to be able to do the migration itself, and maybe you’re wanting more, kind of, like,
388 00:53:24.350 ⇒ 00:53:35.880 Robert Tseng: data strategy, it seems like, from us, and we’re not really going to be doing as an implementation. I just wanted to have a better understanding of how you envisioned, kind of, like, collaborating on that… on that RFP.
389 00:53:36.750 ⇒ 00:53:52.620 Ayanna: So I’ll go over the, like, collaboration piece, and then I’ll go into, like, the work itself. So, you would likely… I’ll send the, the NDA now, and then my… the RFP, lead.
390 00:53:52.680 ⇒ 00:54:08.700 Ayanna: would… like, if you’re still interested, after I, like, go over the project itself, would want to meet with you, and then I think what would happen is you’ll get folded into, like, a series of meetings that we’re essentially having to, like, prep for the RFP response. Sure.
391 00:54:09.580 ⇒ 00:54:25.799 Ayanna: So that’s in general how it would go. It’s, the deadline is in, I believe, early November. Okay. So it’ll be pretty, kind of, fast-paced until then. It is a really large, detailed RFP, so it might involve, like, a decent amount of work. But the…
392 00:54:26.000 ⇒ 00:54:28.840 Ayanna: Project itself, so it’s not,
393 00:54:29.370 ⇒ 00:54:33.840 Ayanna: The actual execution of the work, it’s just planning, and it is, like.
394 00:54:34.020 ⇒ 00:54:53.930 Ayanna: several years. It’s kind of, interesting, but I think once we have the meeting, they’ll send the documents, and you’ll get, like, a better idea for, like, what it, like, fully is, but it’s just potentially planning for them selecting a vendor, or vendors other than MuleSoft. So MuleSoft, they know, like.
395 00:54:53.930 ⇒ 00:55:05.220 Ayanna: Based on our legacy systems, we want to keep this. We might get rid of some legacy systems, we might keep some of them, but MuleSoft is gonna, like, essentially connect everything, and this is…
396 00:55:05.250 ⇒ 00:55:14.320 Ayanna: kind of a non-negotiable, and we want to, like, go about the future of the infrastructure for our org. And then, so…
397 00:55:14.450 ⇒ 00:55:29.919 Ayanna: It’s mostly gonna be the data management, data governance and management planning. So things that we propose should be in place when they… things that they should be thinking about when they are, actually selecting a vendor and integrating.
398 00:55:29.920 ⇒ 00:55:30.440 Robert Tseng: Great.
399 00:55:30.440 ⇒ 00:55:50.100 Ayanna: Okay. That’s one piece, and that’s the piece that we would likely need the most assistance, with, so I’ll learn more, actually tomorrow. But then there’s other aspects of it that our firm has more, like, expertise in. So, like, change management would be a piece. Yep. There’s a piece that I’m forgetting now that, like, our prime
400 00:55:50.100 ⇒ 00:56:07.379 Ayanna: would mostly take care of. Yeah. And then I think there’s a small piece on, like, innovation, technology assessments, so, like, what could be kind of done in the… or what’s the current state, but what could be kind of done in the future, and how they should be thinking about that when selecting a vendor.
401 00:56:07.830 ⇒ 00:56:08.370 Robert Tseng: Let’s see.
402 00:56:08.610 ⇒ 00:56:15.459 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, no, I think that sounds good. Thanks for the clarity there. So, yeah, understand the timeline, understand kind of the need for the…
403 00:56:15.510 ⇒ 00:56:33.319 Robert Tseng: planning so that they’re ready for the vendor selection. I mean, sounds similar. We’re working with, like, a client right now, that’s… they’re basically standing up a new, like, health, a series of health clinics, in the… in the South… in the southeast states, and, yeah, they’re, you know, they’re not really…
404 00:56:34.740 ⇒ 00:56:52.529 Robert Tseng: like, the first… the first, the first clinic opens, like, end of next year, so it is really just all planning, for now, and we’re actually going to be building out synthetic data for them to push through the systems, like, for, like, a soft launch next summer. But yeah, definitely for, like, the first, like, six, eight months, it’s just all…
405 00:56:52.530 ⇒ 00:56:56.379 Robert Tseng: Kind of just getting the SOPs in order, figuring out, like.
406 00:56:56.380 ⇒ 00:57:12.619 Robert Tseng: from a change management perspective, how they’re going to prioritize, like, getting some of these flows kind of ready in their system, what the data is going to look out… look like afterwards, and then how it’s going to stay compliant from the HIPAA perspective as well. So, I think we’re definitely, you know.
407 00:57:12.730 ⇒ 00:57:15.899 Robert Tseng: Are you used to, kind of, working on projects like that?
408 00:57:16.400 ⇒ 00:57:17.920 Ayanna: Oh, awesome.
409 00:57:17.920 ⇒ 00:57:18.500 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
410 00:57:19.320 ⇒ 00:57:35.820 Ayanna: Okay. Cool. So, if you don’t mind sending, your email via the Upworks chat, and then I’ll send over the NDA, and then we’ll just set up that next meeting with the RFP lead from our side, yeah.
411 00:57:35.820 ⇒ 00:57:39.330 Robert Tseng: Okay, that sounds good. Alright, thanks for your time, Ayanna.
412 00:57:39.330 ⇒ 00:57:44.750 Ayanna: Yeah, thanks, Robert. This has been really great. I’ve learned a lot already, so looking forward to the rest of the sessions.
413 00:57:45.000 ⇒ 00:57:46.190 Robert Tseng: Joel? Alright.
414 00:57:46.330 ⇒ 00:57:47.040 Robert Tseng: Bye-bye.
415 00:57:47.040 ⇒ 00:57:48.200 Ayanna: Thanks, bye.