Say YES to Beautiful Business Proposals

WEBVTT

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There are some people that make their
work just another thing they have to do,

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and there are those that make their
work something that they want to do.

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Welcome to Working on Purpose with your
host Elise Cortez. In our program,

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we provide guidance and inspiration from those
people who have found deeper meaning and

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personal connection to their work life.
It's beyond nine to five. It's working

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on purpose. Now Here is your
host, Elise Cortez. I'm your host,

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Elise Cortez, joining you from Dallas, Texas, which is home base

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for me. This program is all
about helping people more meaningfully and productively connect

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with their work and equipping organizations to
do the same for their employees. So

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I bring on guests to have a
particular perspective or experience that I think expands

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that conversation, and I often draw
on the meaning and work research I've conducted

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over the last fifteen years, as
well as my own experience consulting, speaking

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and developing workforces across the globe.
I'll get to the program in US,

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fifty short for Working on Purpose of fifty

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percent off. Thanks to our partnership. Last week, if you missed the

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show live, you can always catch
it via recorded podcast. We were on

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the air with doctor Erica Jacoby,
the executive director of LC Global Consulting,

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a change, growth and innovation consulting
firm with offices in New York City and

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Munich, Germany. We talked about
her fresh dissertation research on the topic of

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cognition of innovation. Now with us
this week is Brian and Orio, who

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is an entrepreneur who is current of
a founder and CEO of Proposa, a

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best in class sas solution for building
stunningly beautiful proposals in half the time.

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We'll be talking about what it takes
to be an entrepreneur today, his own

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journey of entrepreneurship starting at age twenty
four, and the important lessons he's learned

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from his work as an entrepreneur.
He joins us today from Raleigh, North

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Carolina. Brian, Welcome to Working
on Purpose. Hey, thank you for

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having me, Alas. It's really
great to have you, and I do

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want to call out and thank Don
Thompson for bringing you to me. He

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is somebody who's been on the show
a couple of times, and you know,

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I have connected in terms of our
professional lives and enjoy and appreciate his

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perspective. So when he introduced me
to you, I was delighted and I

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can't wait to share this story with
our listeners. So you're ready, I

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am indeed. Okay, Well,
the first thing I want to start with

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is you said in our initial call
something that I found to be quite arresting.

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You said, I'd rather work seventy
hours for myself than forty hours for

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somebody else. So let's start with
that. Can you explain that statement and

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what's behind that for you? You
know, I really think that I heard

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that statement that is certainly not an
original of mine, but I heard someone

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else say that, and it really
made me think about my own journey as

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an entrepreneur. And I think for
a lot of folks who find themselves in

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the position of working for themselves or
growing a company or scaling a company,

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that really has to ring true to
you that folks that give up that nine

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to five corporate job would rather go
and work double the amount of time for

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themselves than just to give that forty
hour standard work a week to somebody else.

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I think that's something that's innate to
a lot of entrepreneurs, and certainly

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a statement that really was true for
me and spoke a lot for me.

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And you know what's fascinating about that, Brian, as somebody who works supporting

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various organizations and working with a lot
of executives who are in those corporate organizations,

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they are working well more than forty
hours. They're working maybe sometimes as

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many as seventy hours, and yet
and they do that for their careers,

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and so it's interesting, I appreciate
the distinction that you would do that for

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yourself. And since part of the
show was really designed to be able to

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educate as well as inspired, I'm
guessing that some of the people that have

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tuned in are aspiring entrepreneurs. So
I'd like to be able to tap your

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brain and hear what you think.
What are the top reasons people choose to

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become an entrepreneur? You know?
I think that that if you ask somebody

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who is just looking to go out
and try and see what it's like to

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be an entrepreneur, they're probably seeking
freedom, some semblance of independence or security.

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Maybe they're wondering in their minds,
do I have it? Or are

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they kind of tired of that day
job. A lot of folks maybe they

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have that job that they're not passionate
about, but they see themselves going through

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the motions of just doing it because
that's what you have to do to make

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ends needed. Or you know,
just as myself, some people may find

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themselves in kind of a corporate career
track that you just don't like and you

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don't feel like that you can change
it, and you don't feel like that

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you have the means through the corporate
life to really make that change for yourself.

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I think those are all compelling reasons
why people decide to become entrepreneurs.

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And certainly the reason why I did
was to kind of break those chains of

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habit I was fortunate enough to discover
when I was relatively young, you know,

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twenty four years old to realize that
then you know, of course where

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the risk profile and a young person
is much different than a risk profile for

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someone with a mortgage, a car
and a couple of children along the way.

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And that all comes back home to
do I feel like I can do

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this. I'm going to give it
a shot, and you have a suitable

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plan B. Where things don't work
out, what does that backup plan?

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You know? You're also reminding me
of something else, Bryant, that I

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want to share as as I think
about and reflect on my own research.

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I've over the year's research, I
guess I've interviewed one hundred and forty people

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specifically in my research to discover how
they ascribe meaning to the work that they

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do and what does that work mean
to their sense of self or identity.

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And I'm now recalling when I interviewed
a young man would have been in his

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early thirties. He was at the
time employed in the IT space, and

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he had this thing inside of him, Brian. He was so bent on

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fire. He was working in a
corporate job and he said, I am

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just he says, I know that
for me, work is the thing that

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I want my life to stand for, and I need to know that I

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made of the same stuff of that
my father was, who was a very

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very successful entrepreneur and also a surgeon. And so there's I think there's also

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something in some people about this notion
of how you make something of your life

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through entrepreneurship. Can you comment on
that. I think most of us find

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meeting through the work that we do. It's why we choose the queer paths

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that we do. And maybe folks
find themselves in a situation where they just

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have to do it to make ends
meet. But at the end of the

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day, we're going to be at
work for a third to a half of

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our lives. You know, hopefully
you can find meaning in what you're doing,

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because I think that's really going to
be the recipe for what it means

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to live a life that you can
consider fulfilled. A lot of talk about,

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you know, work life balance in
the workplace. You know, for

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me personally, it's more about how
does work in life integrate, how do

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I make both of those work together, as opposed to this oil and water

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analogy of their work. And then
there's life. You know, for me

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growing up essentially my professional career as
an entrepreneur, work in life, there

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was no difference. It just wash. And when you find yourself in a

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career path being an entrepreneur or you
know, at your your day job,

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doing the best that you can at
what you're doing, I think that finding

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meaning in that is going to be
something that brings people a lot of that

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kind of mental satisfaction. Absolutely,
And of course that isn't a huge reason

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why I host to show every single
week, is to travel people more meaningfully

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and productively connect with their work.
And I also know that there are there's

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an abundance, there's a spectrum of
meaning that I discovered in my own research,

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So there's lots of ways to find
meaning, which I think I hope

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that our listeners find to be encouraging
for themselves. Absolutely. So one of

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the other things I wanted to pick
your brain on, Brian, I've been

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really fascinated with this whole relationship that
we hear that the unemployment rate in the

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United States is currently at like three
point eight percent, something it hasn't been

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in for like years, and I'm
really interested in your perspective on whether you

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think more people start a business when
the economy and jobs are good versus not

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what that number really means to you. I'm just curious about your your perspective

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on that with relation to entrepreneurship and
jobs. I think it's harder to make

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the jump when the unemployment rate is
so low, when the job market is

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so wide open, because the risk
is just different. You know, you

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know, you hear the phrase necessity
is the mother of invention. You know,

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that's certainly where a lot of great
companies were founded, was out of

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that need to make something happen.
Certainly with a more sour economy where the

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unemployment rate is higher, maybe this
is the only alternative. As you know,

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I've struck out on a couple of
job interviews, but you've got to

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make those ends meet. So what
can you do to innovate? What can

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you do to bring a service or
a product to market? Certainly services or

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easier than products. You know,
we all we're all innovators in our own

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way, making small, meaningful changes
in our lives that are different from anybody

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else. That's we all innovate.
So how do you take that cannon,

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put in a presentation and start a
company out of it. But with the

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relative economy the way that it is
right now, I think that it's much

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easier or I'm sorry, much harder
to to go out and give up the

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maybe cushy corporate job with the great
benefits for a zero dollars salary and no

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benefits. M Yeah, I think
it really takes. It takes a real

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leap of faith and or or this
maybe the notion that somehow they've got something

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that they can provide fairly soon that's
a value or needed or necessary in the

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marketplace. Again though, you know, such a perspective. I was chatting

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earlier this week with a gentleman who
just he just out of the gate.

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Like you, he was very very
very young in his early twenties, and

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he hit the jackpot on being able
to find a niche offering in the healthcare

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space. And you know, he
gave me a perspective about you know,

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it's all about your lens on how
you see things or you know, and

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then that includes how you look at
risk, how you look at opportunity,

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how you look at positioning into the
marketplace. Any perspective on that. Yeah,

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I think that I don't have much
of a perspective above what you just

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said, because I think it's really
spot on. It's really about execution at

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that point in time. If you've
got an idea, you've got an innovative

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solution, how do you bring it
to market? What do you do?

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Who are those first customers? And
have you gone through the appropriate routes of

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doing customer discovery? Have you validated
that idea, and what are the meaningful

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steps that you can take that may
be small, but points you in that

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direction where you have your compass aligned
with what those goals are. Great.

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So I want to talk a little
bit about leadership because certainly with regard to

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being an entrepreneur, whether you're you're
going completely solo or whether you bring a

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team with you, there certainly is
an element of leadership. So before I

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got really involved in coaching executives as
I do today, I spent a lot

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of years coaching men and women at
the individual contributor level who are really just

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starting to me to go into a
manager role or wanted to, and they

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were really wondering is there a leader
in me? And if so, how

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can I develop that leader? So
it gets to that age old question of

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leaders being born or made, And
I'm wondering, you know, in your

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own world of entrepreneurship and experience,
can first do what's your what's your take

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on you know, our leaders born
or made? And then I want to

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bring that over to to entrepreneurs as
well. It's a really good question.

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I think it kind of it goes
back to is it nature or is it

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nurture? And it's definitely above my
pay grade to kind of say definitively one

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or the other, Whereas maybe it's
more born than made or made than born.

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I'm not exactly sure, but I
think it's possible given the right circumstances

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that regardless of what the answer that
question is, there's there's ways to achieve

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that become a leader, become an
entrepreneur. Uh. It just may be

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more difficult for some than it is
for others my take on it, And

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maybe this is just simply because this
is the space I work in. I

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work in the space of development and
consulting, right, so I gotta believe

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from the vantage point that of the
services that that that I offer over the

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years, that that leaders can be
made now to a certain to what degree,

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we don't know, but I think
they certainly can be developed. Now

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I'm not so sure maybe I about
what that might be for entrepreneurship. Do

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you think entrepreneurs are born or made? You know? Again, it kind

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of goes back the same thing.
But I do want to share a quick

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story on things that we all can
do for the next generation. Is that

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at home, I've got a couple
of children and eight and a four year

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old, and my eight year old
approached me and he sees both his mom

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and his dad are entrepreneurs. We
work a lot of hours. And he

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said, Dad, I want to
get a job. And this is quite

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satisfaction that he's asking this question.
He certainly doesn't need to work or anything

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like that, but he wanted to
make money. And I said to him,

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I said, Ethan, this is
the first lesson I'm going to give

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that I really hope you remember,
is that you don't have to wait for

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somebody else to pay you. You
can make money. Now. Growing up

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in a relatively you know, lower
middle class family and East Coast North Carolina,

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at the age of twelve, had
a couple of full time jobs during

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summers to pay for leisure time activities
that I wanted to undertake. It was

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up to me to provide those things, and I got I think the federal

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minimum wage back then was four fifteen
or four twenty five or something like that.

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What I told him was like,
you can make your own money.

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And so he came up with the
idea to do a little trash valet service

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around our neighborhood where he would take
the trash from the house to the road

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and then return it after the trucks
have come. And he had a little

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sales pitch and he went door to
door and there's no experience like going door

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to door, no matter how young
or old, basically saying I'm going to

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provide this service, but you're going
to pay me this. And he got

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ten or eleven customers and he makes
his routes, you know, once a

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week. But it's had experience right
there. That I think we can do

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as adults for the next generation is
so we can instill some principles where they

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can learn early on. And it
doesn't have to be a father or a

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parent a child relationship. It can
be really any sort of mentoring relationship.

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But plant those seats because you really
don't know how they'll grow. To answer

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your question directly, is that nature
or nurture. Are they born or they

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made? I'm not sure, but
I'm going to make sure that they can

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be made, that I do my
part. You're reminding me fondly, just

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quickly, Brian. When I was
in sixth and seventh grade, I was

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in a small northeastern town in Oregon
could hermus And I'm the oldest of four

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kids, and I whenever I wanted
I wanted to either amuse myself or I

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wanted money, I would gather at
the gang of whatever kids I could find

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in the neighborhood, and then I
would grab them all and I would we

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would go door to door. I
would be the person knocking in the door,

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making the pitch, saying, we
can do one of two things for

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you. We can rake your leaves
or we can wash your car. Which

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would you like? The old Chinese
It was fantastic, and we would be

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out there raking leaves. I'm sure
it was ridiculous. I'm sure I probably

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charged something ridiculously small in some and
so they said, sure, what the

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heck, I've got nothing to lose, go for it, right. That's

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the thing I e for him eating. It really wasn't about the money he's

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paid He's getting paid five dollars per
month per house, which isn't a lot

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of money to make eight separate trips. But it really wasn't about the money,

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because he doesn't need the money,
of course, But for me,

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it was about that exercise, going
through the motions, really putting together a

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sales pitch and making that sale.
And for him, he was ecstatic he

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got those first couple of customers.
He was beaming ear to ear. Now,

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whether he'll become an entrepreneur or not, I don't know, but I

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do want to make sure that I
as a parent, certainly I'm doing those

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things to facilitate that if he so
chooses that career path. That's awesome.

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Well, speaking of what you what
you've said, your presence, the whole

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emotion of socialization here, so associating
with people like the Donald Thompson's of the

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world that we talked about before,
who I know has been in some way

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helpful to your own journey. Solutely, I'm interested in also understanding and sharing

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with our listeners what kind of a
profile of a person might you recommend to

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consider avoiding entrepreneurship and why. So, First, you know, there's the

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association piece of who you're hanging out
with. That's one part of the question.

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And the second piece is you know
who might actually avoid entrepreneurship. You

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know, I think it's someone you
have to be really tolerant of extremes,

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and you've got to be a pretty
level person throughout extremes because good things happen,

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bad things happen. You yourself have
got to be kind of in between,

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you know. Certainly risk is one
thing. People who are too risk

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averse they may find it more difficult. But it's also on the flip end,

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is the gamblers they got their work
cut out for them too. Those

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who just go and throw caution to
the wind. It's more about calculated risk.

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You know what's in between there?
Are you making the right decisions?

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Are you gambling in the right places? Are you investing in the right places?

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You know, But aside from having
a quote unquote it does your idea

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have it? Have you validated that? Because certainly it's personality driven when it's

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a one person show to person show, but as you grow in scale,

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it's really going to have some more
substance outside of personality to make that work.

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Got that, I want to talk
more about the association piece, But

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let's take a quick break first.
I'm your host, Elie Cortez. We've

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went on the air with Brian and
Orio, an entrepreneur who is currently the

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founder and CEO of Proposal, the
best in class sas solution for building stundingly

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beautiful proposals in half the time.
Brian started dispers company walk West in marketing

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and advertising agency at the age of
twenty four. After scaling walk West or

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thirty five people, Brian created Proposal
based on intellectual property that walk West had

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created. He joins it today from
Raleigh, North Carolina. We've been talking

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a bit about his perspective of entrepreneurship
how we can cultivate it. After the

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break, will hear more about his
own journey. Stay with us, We'll

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be right back. Elise Cortez is
a speaker and engagement and development catalyst.

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She designs and delivers professional development,
leadership and engagement workshops and can bring her

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expertise to your organization. She will
help ignite meaningful development within your workforce that

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will increase employee engagement, performance and
retention. To learn more or to invite

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00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:33.039
Elise to speak to your organization,
please visit her at www dot Elise Cortez

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00:17:33.160 --> 00:17:37.920
dot com. She would welcome the
opportunity to help get your employees working on

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purpose. This is working on Purpose
with Elise Cortez. To reach our program

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00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:53.200
today, send an email to Elise
AOI se at Elise Cortez dot com.

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Now back to working on Purpose if
you're just joining us. My guest is

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Brian Orio, an entrepreneur who is
currently the founder and CEO of Proposal,

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the best in class sas solution for
building stunningly beautiful proposals in half the time.

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We've been talking a bit about his
perspective on entrepreneurship and how to nurture

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it. Now we want to get
into his own journey. I'm at least

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critizr host. So before we get
into your journey, Brian, as I

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mentioned before the break, I wanted
to have you say more about the socialization

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aspect of being an entrepreneur. We
talked about Donald Thompson being in your space.

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I've talked with enough people on the
show even who talk about maybe they've

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got an informal board, or they've
got an actual board, or they've got

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a cadrect of people that they rely
on to be able to balance ideas off

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and gain ideas from that they don't
have their own expertise in. Can you

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comment on the importance of socialization as
an entrepreneur, Oh, I think it's

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critical. I think that certainly my
journey would illustrate that that. You know,

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when I started to walk West the
marketing advertising agency, I had spent

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seven years trying to grow and scaleless
company with some excess. You know,

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we had a couple of employees.
Certainly I was proud of what we were

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doing. But I met my mentor
and certainly good personal friend, Donald Thompson

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back in twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen, And when you put two and two

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together, where we're able to feed
off of each other and I'm able to

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get some insight onto the roads I
haven't traveled yet, where I can actually

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mitigate my risk a little bit just
by learning from the approaches of those around

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me. We were able to triple
revenue in twenty fifteen alone, that we

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doubled it in twenty sixteen and doubled
it again in twenty seventeen. And it's

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that kind of explosive growth that's very, very difficult to do in a silo

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because there's questions that I would have
you know, I put myself back in

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the situation of being twenty four.
None of my peers had gone through this

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experience, you know, certainly maybe
a few of them had an MBA or

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so, but living that experience and
going through the motions of what does it

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mean to cut payroll to make payroll? What do you have to do to

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make sure that you're able to maintain
your business and grow your business and scale

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your business. These aren't things that
I could get from my natural friends base,

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just due them to age and time. So as I got a bit

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older, we grew the company a
little bit, you know, finding that

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those set of people to make sure
that they can fill in your blind spots.

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Everybody has them, and it's important
that you find an advisor or a

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partner that can fill yours and vice
versa, because again, you know,

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it's living in the silos bad and
when you can open that up, I

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think that's when you really start to
experience some positive growth. I can't imagine

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any other way to do it,
and I appreciate how you presence that for

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our listeners. That was incredibly crisp. Okay. So next, I want

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to talk about your journey Brian.
So, you know, we already said

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that you started your first company at
age twenty four, but beyond that,

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I think it's important to let our
listeners understand a bit more about where you

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came from. So what did you
for school? Did you go to college?

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Did? Obviously what did you do
before you started your company at age

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twenty four? Yeah, it's a
it's a great question. I did.

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I went to NC State University and
I graduate with a degree in computer science

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back in two thousand and four.
And after that, I, having very

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little financial resources coming from home,
I couldn't wait to get out and find

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the first job that would pay me
a suitable amount of money, just because

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I was seeking financial independence and freedom, which is something I'd never had throughout

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the course of my young adulthood,
in certainly childhood. That moved me out

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to Kansas City, Missouri, where
I found myself working as a systems engineer

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for a healthcare company. I traveled
a lot for that job, and you

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know, traveled to a young twenty
one or twenty two year old sounds great

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until you find out that you're going
to fond Alac, Wisconsin in the dead

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of winter. You know, certainly
fond a lack as a charming place.

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But it was December and it's cold, and I grew up on the beach

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of North Carolina. I had never
felt windshills that cold before. But I

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was living out of an airport,
living out of a suitcase. And after

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some time that gets to anybody that
burnout kind of kicks in the Midwest.

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It really didn't find it was for
me. So I moved back to North

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Carolina and worked a couple more years
as a software developer for a hospital here

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and and Durham, North Carolina,
before starting what turned out to be a

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freelance gig. I took a couple
of freelance jobs developing some websites. Through

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the money in the bank, saved
up about twenty thousand dollars and you know,

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bid farewell to my full time day
job. And I won't forget that

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date. It was August first,
two thousand and eight. That was the

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last day that I was employed by
someone else. Okay, so what made

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you actually take the leap? You
know, it's another good question there.

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And given that I grew up in
my nature itself was kind of risk verse.

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I had to have enough money in
the bank just to make me feel

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comfortable that if I didn't have any
sales, that I could still eat and

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maintain. But you know, overall, my life was relatively simple. You

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know. I had was newly wed, we were renting a small house.

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I didn't have a lot of debt, so really it was a chance for

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me just to exercise and and give
that whole thing a shot. Now,

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I mentioned earlier in my last day
at the full time job was August first,

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two thousand and eight. And for
those are old enough to remember,

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you know, fast forward a month
and a half. It was the financial

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crisis in mid September, and everything
just came tumbling down around me. Made

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me very nervous, you know,
to the point where I picked up the

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phone. I called the old boss
man and I said, hey, boss

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Man, that job that I quit, just kidding, let's get the band

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back together. And you know,
he met me with the news of we

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filled that job. Good luck and
I won't forget it. But I had

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went home that evening told my wife, I said, we've jumped at sink

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or swim and there's no other option. Wow, that can be incredibly powerful

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motivation for you. So what did
you do to make it work. I

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won't lie. There were times where
you know, I'd get a gig,

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you know, it'd be enough to
to kind of tide me over for the

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next you know, twenty one or
thirty days, and I would go through

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the motion of updating the resume,
thinking that the whole journey had come to

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an end. You know, looking
back, it's it's almost kind of an

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illogical fear. But my biggest fear
at that point in time, being at

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that point in my life, was
admitting to my friends that I had failed,

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that I gave it a shot and
failed, And that kept me going

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because I didn't want to have that
conversation with anybody else that I couldn't make

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it work. So somehow, some
way, you know, where there's a

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will, there's a way, you
find yourself on a financial pinch, you

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go out and you make it happen. And that literally is calling as many

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people as you can, getting as
many references or referrals as you can,

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and you make that next gig happen, and you try to make that snowball

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effect happen from there. Brian,
I want to thank you and acknowledge you

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for just really being real with us, because you know this journey is not

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for the faint of heart, and
for the listeners to recognize that, Wow,

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somebody who has been as successful as
you are went through that some of

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those troughs is really important to be
able for them to be able to recognize

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and evaluate whether this is something they
can do and want to do. I've

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never met an entrepreneur that hasn't had
those pinches, those troughs, and there

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they can be low moments, you
know, where even things such a self

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doubt can kind of creep in to
those who can take that little bit of

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self doubt and turn it into a
motivator, as an inspirator to kind of

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push harder and go further. You
asked a question earlier about what does it

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take to be an entrepreneur, and
that's certainly if you're the type of personality

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that can do that, you've got
a great chance of success. The word

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that comes to mind is what Angela
Dugworth put out there, which is grit.

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It's a great word, That's what
it is. You've got to get

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your hands dirty. You know,
you may call yourself CEO, and certainly

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you are, and there's no taking
that away. If you've went out and

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started your own thing. You are
the CEO, but you're also the janitor

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and everything inventoyings getting into trenches.
That means, you know, there's literally

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no point in a day where you
can say that's not my job. Wow.

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Now stepping back then, we were
actually in the trenches of starting this

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business. Now, if we can
kind of step back as looking backwards from

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it being successful, I'm interested in
hearing how what was your strategy to actually

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develop an agency such that you've scaled
it to thirty five people. You know,

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I think that the strategy was,
again, it's hard work finding the

409
00:25:52.680 --> 00:25:56.319
right people to surround yourself with,
hiring really, really well. And that's

410
00:25:56.359 --> 00:26:00.799
something that that I say we at
this point in time because it's a certainly

411
00:26:00.799 --> 00:26:03.519
after we scaled and as the company
grew, have become less and less dependent

412
00:26:03.559 --> 00:26:07.519
on me and it became more of
an entity of itself. And that's a

413
00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:11.640
good moment when you can sit back
and think about the company that you've started

414
00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:15.599
where really your input was five or
ten percent, and the company that you

415
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:18.799
created around you, the people that
you that you gave positions to, we're

416
00:26:18.799 --> 00:26:22.960
doing their job far better than you
could have. And you kind of take

417
00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:26.400
a step back and you kind of
look at that and you think, wow,

418
00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:30.519
you know, that's when you really
have done it, whatever it may

419
00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:33.359
be. Is that when it's kind
of its own little thing that can live

420
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:37.680
and breed as if it's a person
itself and it's just going along and it's

421
00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:41.640
talking along. That is so great
to distinguish that, Brian, right,

422
00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:44.759
because there's the notion of what people
say, well, just kind of just

423
00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:48.039
what you said, you went out
and you're you're building websites on your own

424
00:26:48.079 --> 00:26:52.200
and getting gigs. That's very,
very, very very different than building a

425
00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:56.119
company that that now becomes an entity
of itself and breathes almost as if it

426
00:26:56.200 --> 00:27:00.519
was it was on its own.
That's very distinct. Yeah, you know,

427
00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:03.039
what we consider gigs in their early
days have turned into massive contracts.

428
00:27:03.039 --> 00:27:07.160
And you know twenty seventeen and twenty
eighteen where we're doing a lot of work

429
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:11.240
for some government agencies. We're going
through the RFP processes for educational institutions and

430
00:27:11.240 --> 00:27:15.880
healthcare institutions and we're winning. Uh. You know, it's it's putting the

431
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:18.440
right team together. And as as
you grow in scale, the value of

432
00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:25.279
a great employee is like double their
salary, but the liability of maybe some

433
00:27:25.400 --> 00:27:27.640
that aren't as great as kind of
double their salary as well. So you've

434
00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:32.319
really got to look. You gotta
refine who you're working with, uh and

435
00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:34.279
and make sure that you surround yourself
with the right people, because it really

436
00:27:34.359 --> 00:27:37.559
is make or break at thirty five
percent company. It feels big to me

437
00:27:37.599 --> 00:27:41.319
because that's the biggest company I've ever
been a part of. But you think,

438
00:27:42.119 --> 00:27:47.599
you know, one sour apple or
so can certainly spoil the bunch for

439
00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:51.640
sure, especially for that for that
size. Now what was to still completely

440
00:27:51.680 --> 00:27:56.119
functioning? Yes, it is still
in the sect Okay, Walkwest dot com

441
00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:59.480
and it's doing well. And I'm
still a part of the board of directors

442
00:27:59.480 --> 00:28:03.000
there and very involved, you know
with kind of corporate governance and some day

443
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:07.119
to day but not much anymore.
Okay, got it. Well, that

444
00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:11.799
brings me to my next question.
So I know that you launched proposal early

445
00:28:11.920 --> 00:28:15.279
this year. I'm interested in sharing
how the idea for the offering came to

446
00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:19.640
be and how did you actually start
you know, it was building a lot

447
00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:23.680
of websites going back to that back
in twenty fourteen, I had an idea

448
00:28:23.799 --> 00:28:27.519
that why are we still sending power
points like every other company was sending.

449
00:28:27.599 --> 00:28:30.799
You know, certainly our power points
look good, but they were just another

450
00:28:30.839 --> 00:28:36.279
power point deck proposal in the middle
of a stack of so many others.

451
00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:38.240
So I had an idea and we
got a group together over a week and

452
00:28:38.359 --> 00:28:42.160
to build that a prototype that we
kind of dubbed the proposal Engine, that

453
00:28:42.160 --> 00:28:47.039
would allow us to put our proposals
on a website. And for me,

454
00:28:47.079 --> 00:28:48.839
it was about validating that we could
do what we said we could do.

455
00:28:48.960 --> 00:28:52.000
You know, we were pitching you
web design and development services, and here

456
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:56.839
we are giving you a proposal on
a website. So back in twenty fourteen

457
00:28:56.920 --> 00:29:00.599
is really where the roots for proposal
lie. And again it was one of

458
00:29:00.599 --> 00:29:03.799
those precipitators for scale. You know, we started winning seven out of every

459
00:29:03.799 --> 00:29:10.119
ten projects that we were betting on, and it wasn't slowing down and allow

460
00:29:10.200 --> 00:29:12.400
us to grow very very rapidly over
the course of twenty fifteen, sixteen,

461
00:29:12.440 --> 00:29:17.119
and seventeen, you know, to
the point where our prospects that we had

462
00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:21.319
sent these proposals to they had turned
our clients, and you know, inevitably

463
00:29:21.359 --> 00:29:22.839
three months later they come back and
say, hey, that proposal that you

464
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:26.920
sent us which software did you use
because we want to use it too,

465
00:29:26.480 --> 00:29:30.160
you know, then not explained it
was a back office tool that we created

466
00:29:30.200 --> 00:29:36.359
for ourselves. But that conversation became
increasingly common to the point where Donald Thompson,

467
00:29:36.359 --> 00:29:38.000
you know business partner mind that you
mentioned, we got together in twenty

468
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:41.880
seventeen and said, we've got to
do something about this because what we're hearing

469
00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:45.240
this customer demand. There's a hole
in the marketplace that we could fill.

470
00:29:45.720 --> 00:29:47.599
We just got to have the guts
to go out there and do it.

471
00:29:48.160 --> 00:29:52.839
What a concept listening to what's out
there and floating in terms of need and

472
00:29:52.200 --> 00:29:56.359
answering or solving that problem. What
a concept. You make it sound so

473
00:29:56.440 --> 00:30:00.759
simple, Brian, but that that
makes complete sense to me. It really

474
00:30:00.880 --> 00:30:03.799
is. It comes down to what
are your customers saying, you know,

475
00:30:03.839 --> 00:30:10.039
there's there's opportunities for innovation and everything
that you do being an entrepreneur or not.

476
00:30:10.200 --> 00:30:11.400
You know, what are you doing? What are your customers your people

477
00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:15.039
around you saying that you're doing it's
different? What do they want you to

478
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:18.839
do differently? Those are all kind
of microconcepts of being innovative, and that's

479
00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:23.720
certainly where proposal had its birthplace.
Now I've had a chance to look at

480
00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:29.240
your demo offering on YouTube, which
is great, it's easy to follow,

481
00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:33.079
But I don't know anything about this
space. So what differentiation differentiates you in

482
00:30:33.119 --> 00:30:37.240
the marketplace with this product? What
makes what distinguishes you? It's another way

483
00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:40.160
to say that, well, we've
been selling the same way for two and

484
00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:41.720
a half decades. You know,
back in the mid nineties, people are

485
00:30:41.720 --> 00:30:45.240
sending power point to access proposals,
and here we are in twenty eighteen,

486
00:30:45.279 --> 00:30:49.880
we're still sending power points as proposals. We want to stop that habit because

487
00:30:49.960 --> 00:30:53.279
what happens once you send a power
point out as an email attachment, it's

488
00:30:53.359 --> 00:30:57.920
kind of gone pooh. I have
no information about if that proposal was even

489
00:30:57.960 --> 00:31:02.640
opened, was it read. Now
that we're sending digital links or a proposal

490
00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:03.720
of what you can do is I
can find out at least that if I

491
00:31:03.759 --> 00:31:07.799
send you a proposal, that you
opened it, and that gives me,

492
00:31:07.839 --> 00:31:10.720
as a salesperson, just a piece
of information knowing that hey, you've got

493
00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:14.079
it, you've opened it. But
also it'll give me kind of a heat

494
00:31:14.119 --> 00:31:17.559
map showing what you're looking at a
lot, what you're looking at a little

495
00:31:17.599 --> 00:31:21.359
maybe skimming over, and the purpose
is to be as relevant as possible to

496
00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:25.119
the person that you're trying to create
a partnership with. Is that you know,

497
00:31:25.359 --> 00:31:26.920
if your relationship driven, you may
be spending a lot of time on

498
00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:32.720
our team section of our proposal.
If you're a price conscious buyer, you're

499
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:37.119
probably concentrating a lot on the pricing
table, and those little pieces of information

500
00:31:37.160 --> 00:31:41.519
are actually really really valuable and helping
you really start to sell better and smarter,

501
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:45.160
as opposed to just sending that PowerPoint
deck out again that you did the

502
00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:48.359
previous you know, five or ten
times. That's incredibly exciting, Brian,

503
00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:52.000
that is incredibly exciting. I did
notice that that you do call in the

504
00:31:52.039 --> 00:31:56.240
tutorial or the demo, you do
call that it's and I didn't understood the

505
00:31:56.240 --> 00:31:59.960
importance of it, but the way
you just wrote it to life there is

506
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:04.319
really really add some color for me
well as an executive, as for a

507
00:32:04.400 --> 00:32:07.000
marketing advertising company. For in the
past ten years. You know, there's

508
00:32:07.079 --> 00:32:10.920
no lack of data in the marketing
space, especially digital marketing. I can

509
00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:15.640
tell what click through rates are,
what your engagement rates are, which campaigns

510
00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:19.279
are right side up or upside down
in terms of ROI, but in sales

511
00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:22.880
it's send a power point and weight
and we just knew there had to be

512
00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:25.519
a better answer to that. How
can we apply some good digital marketing techniques,

513
00:32:25.839 --> 00:32:30.160
apply those to sales proposals and start
to really help and enable either sales

514
00:32:30.200 --> 00:32:35.920
individuals or sales teams sell better,
smarter and faster. Sounds good to me.

515
00:32:37.559 --> 00:32:40.720
I think everybody, everybody, whether
they really embrace it or not,

516
00:32:40.880 --> 00:32:44.599
is a salesperson, some of us
more so than others of course, right,

517
00:32:45.599 --> 00:32:50.160
And to that end, I'm really
interested in your strategy to develop and

518
00:32:50.200 --> 00:32:52.720
grow this business. Have you do
you have a plan in place or you're

519
00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:55.519
just peddling your bicycles so fast to
start, but we haven't gotten there yet.

520
00:32:55.559 --> 00:32:59.599
Where are you in that plan?
Yeah, we certainly have a plan

521
00:32:59.680 --> 00:33:01.200
in play. So one of those
things I talked about earlier was filling your

522
00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:05.319
blind spots. You know, for
me, the vast majority of my career

523
00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:07.359
was in the services space, not
the product space. So one of the

524
00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:09.920
first things I did is I got
a board of advisors, and I've got

525
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:14.960
some very good qualified people who lived
in the product space to sit there alongside

526
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:17.880
me to kind of sanity check my
decisions. And you know, one of

527
00:33:17.880 --> 00:33:22.359
the things we found out very early
on was, you know, we're selling

528
00:33:22.359 --> 00:33:24.640
a solution to a problem that people
don't know they have. You know,

529
00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:29.000
they're not looking for the solution.
We get to educate them that there's something

530
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:31.720
else that's out there that you can
do it better and differently. So it's

531
00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:36.960
really changing consumer habits and informing the
world out there that there is a better

532
00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:42.519
alternative than just the same old status
quo. Really sounds great, Brian.

533
00:33:42.559 --> 00:33:45.279
I'm finding this conversation very inspiring.
I think you of that, and I

534
00:33:45.279 --> 00:33:47.960
hope our listeners are as well.
This is a good time for our last

535
00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:51.519
break. I'm Elis Cortez, your
host, who've been on the air with

536
00:33:51.559 --> 00:33:54.960
Brian Anio, who is an entrepreneur
currently the founder and CEO of Proposal,

537
00:33:55.319 --> 00:34:00.599
a best in class SaaS solution for
building stunningly beautiful proposals and half the time.

538
00:34:00.119 --> 00:34:05.200
Brian started his first company at walk
West, a marketing an advertising agency,

539
00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:08.119
at the age of twenty four.
After scaling walk West to thirty five

540
00:34:08.119 --> 00:34:13.559
people, Brian created Proposa based on
intellectual property that walk West had created.

541
00:34:13.800 --> 00:34:15.760
He joined it today from Raleigh,
North Carolina, we've been talking a bit

542
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:20.679
about his own entrepreneurial journey and how
he started PROPOSA. After the break,

543
00:34:20.679 --> 00:34:22.280
we're going to hear about his lessons
learned. Stay with us, we'll be

544
00:34:22.360 --> 00:34:28.079
right back. Alise Cortez as a
speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She

545
00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:34.039
designs and delivers professional development, leadership
and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise

546
00:34:34.119 --> 00:34:37.840
to your organization. She will help
ignite meaningful development within your workforce that will

547
00:34:37.880 --> 00:34:43.920
increase employee engagement, performance and retention. To learn more or to invite Elise

548
00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:49.239
to speak to your organization, please
visit her at www dot Elise Cortez dot

549
00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:53.280
com. She would welcome the opportunity
to help get your employees working on purpose.

550
00:34:59.559 --> 00:35:04.679
This is working on Purpose with Elise
Cortez. To reach our program today,

551
00:35:04.840 --> 00:35:09.880
send an email to Elise ali Se
at Elise Cortez dot com. Now

552
00:35:10.360 --> 00:35:15.800
back to working on Purpose. If
you're just tuning in, my guest is

553
00:35:15.800 --> 00:35:19.360
Brian Anrio, an entrepreneur who is
currently the founder and CEO of Proposal,

554
00:35:19.679 --> 00:35:22.719
a best in class sas solution for
building stunningly beautiful proposals in half the time.

555
00:35:23.079 --> 00:35:27.119
I'm your host, Elise Cortez.
So for this last segment here,

556
00:35:27.159 --> 00:35:30.679
Brian, what I'd love to have
a showcase. And I so appreciate You're

557
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:34.760
already a very real and accessible,
authentic human being, so I'll appreciate whatever

558
00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:37.039
it is that you share. I
want to move on and have you talk

559
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:43.800
about maybe two or three of the
really viable lessons that you've learned as you've

560
00:35:43.800 --> 00:35:46.880
gone through your entrepreneurial journey and how
they've helped you become more effective in business

561
00:35:46.920 --> 00:35:52.280
today. I've got to you,
and I hope we're not beating a drum

562
00:35:52.320 --> 00:35:54.760
here, but the first one is
find a mentor. I can't tell you

563
00:35:54.760 --> 00:35:59.880
the difference that you know early my
career is an executive, you know,

564
00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:02.400
running things solo and running things with
a team. There's such a big difference.

565
00:36:02.760 --> 00:36:06.000
And people are out there already and
willing to help. You know,

566
00:36:06.119 --> 00:36:10.400
certainly have gone through the bruises of
general warfare here with starting and growing a

567
00:36:10.480 --> 00:36:15.000
business, and certainly when folks approach
me and ask questions, I am more

568
00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:17.519
than happy to open up like a
book and letting people know, don't do

569
00:36:17.559 --> 00:36:21.159
this, do that instead. If
you have any questions, you know me,

570
00:36:21.280 --> 00:36:23.480
call me, text me, because
really it's kind of that responsibility.

571
00:36:23.480 --> 00:36:28.360
It's it's a close knit community where
they talk about founders courage a lot for

572
00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:30.159
people who go out and they make
that leap and they make that jump,

573
00:36:30.960 --> 00:36:35.840
there's certainly the camaraderie around that,
and I certainly want to help as many

574
00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:38.400
people as I can because I realized
I didn't get here on my own and

575
00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:43.000
I had the help and handle a
lot of people along the way, So

576
00:36:43.119 --> 00:36:45.920
that that really is less than Number
one. Don't try to go it alone.

577
00:36:45.199 --> 00:36:49.679
You probably are special, but you're
not that special. Make sure if

578
00:36:49.679 --> 00:36:52.679
you got back up, planned there
and he finds some qualified people to go

579
00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:58.519
in your corner. But the second
is the lesson that's been a hard one

580
00:36:58.559 --> 00:37:01.199
for me to learn over time,
and really it's been try fail adjust,

581
00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:06.239
try fail adjust. Has been the
concept of running towards problems, not away

582
00:37:06.280 --> 00:37:09.760
from them. And I think that
you know, the idea may creep in

583
00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:13.920
your head that you can sweep this
under the rug. Be a financial issue,

584
00:37:13.960 --> 00:37:16.840
maybe it's a client service issue,
maybe it's something in between, but

585
00:37:17.039 --> 00:37:20.880
you can sweep it under the rug
and it just goes away. And those

586
00:37:20.880 --> 00:37:24.079
things never go away. To really
be a successful entrepreneur, to be a

587
00:37:24.119 --> 00:37:29.039
successful business leader, you've got to
have that personality that you're going to put

588
00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:30.760
on the fire jacket and run towards
the fire, as opposed to or away

589
00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:34.639
from it, which is where everybody
else is running. They're running away.

590
00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:37.800
You've got to run towards. And
you know, when you run towards a

591
00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:40.760
problem early on, all you do
is you buy yourself time to fix it.

592
00:37:40.760 --> 00:37:43.880
It's going to pop back up and
then you're not going to have the

593
00:37:43.920 --> 00:37:45.760
time to fix it, So you
might as well tackle it early, tackle

594
00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:50.159
it often, and tackle it hard. That is great advice, Briant,

595
00:37:50.159 --> 00:37:53.159
That is great advice. That idea
of running to the problem rather than away

596
00:37:53.159 --> 00:37:57.440
from it, I think that's brilliant. Now I have to dig a little

597
00:37:57.440 --> 00:38:00.400
bit deeper on the mentor thing that
you said. So when you mentioned the

598
00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:02.519
importance of mentors, what I wonder
is, did you was there a time

599
00:38:02.519 --> 00:38:07.280
where you wouldn't alone longer than maybe
you could have or should have, or

600
00:38:07.320 --> 00:38:10.440
did you immediately latch on and fine
mentors in your journey? I think the

601
00:38:10.480 --> 00:38:15.360
course of growing walk West, what
it really came down to was was burnout

602
00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:19.119
and I was kind of done.
Certainly, I was making plenty of money,

603
00:38:19.159 --> 00:38:22.039
certainly more money than I'd ever made
before. There was nothing wrong with

604
00:38:22.079 --> 00:38:24.639
the company, but I just could
never go on vacation. I didn't know

605
00:38:24.679 --> 00:38:28.199
how to scale to get over that
next hump. You know, when I

606
00:38:28.199 --> 00:38:30.000
did try to go on vacation,
I spent half my days on the telephone

607
00:38:30.039 --> 00:38:34.519
trying to solve problems, or you
fix issues, or get a proposal out,

608
00:38:34.559 --> 00:38:37.559
or get a contract signed, or
there's always things that you can do.

609
00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:40.000
And there came a point in time
where I could keep doing it.

610
00:38:40.079 --> 00:38:44.360
I could keep going, but I
didn't want to because I was doing it

611
00:38:44.400 --> 00:38:49.639
alone. And certainly I actually found
my mentor, Donald Thompson, because I

612
00:38:49.679 --> 00:38:53.480
sent one of his companies a proposal
generated by the proposal Engine, and he

613
00:38:53.559 --> 00:38:55.480
thought, wait, wait a minute, this is a two or three person

614
00:38:55.559 --> 00:38:59.599
company. They're doing things way different
than anybody else. I've got to have

615
00:38:59.599 --> 00:39:02.360
a converse with them. And certainly
Donald and I had a lot of conversations

616
00:39:02.360 --> 00:39:07.079
in those early days about how he
could help. And at that point,

617
00:39:07.119 --> 00:39:07.960
at that point in my career,
I just looked at it and said,

618
00:39:07.960 --> 00:39:12.760
what do I have to lose by
bringing a partner to help growth grow in

619
00:39:12.880 --> 00:39:15.920
scale? Because he's been there and
done that. I really didn't have much

620
00:39:15.920 --> 00:39:17.519
to lose other than giving it a
shot. And if it didn't work,

621
00:39:17.639 --> 00:39:22.119
you know, I could certainly find
myself gainingtully employed with the experience I had

622
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:23.840
built over them the previous you know, six or seven years at that point

623
00:39:23.840 --> 00:39:27.519
in time. Two things I want
to say about that, Bryant. One

624
00:39:27.639 --> 00:39:31.000
is the importance of scaling, finding
a way to scale. I hear so

625
00:39:31.079 --> 00:39:35.159
often and I've had many people on
the show talking about this, when once

626
00:39:35.199 --> 00:39:37.840
you can actually find that way to
scale, your world changes dramatically. If

627
00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:43.960
you're if everything depends on you and
your decision or even your move, or

628
00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:45.559
it's a you know, one to
one ratio between you and time, you're

629
00:39:45.559 --> 00:39:50.719
in big trouble. So I really
appreciate how you distinguish that for us.

630
00:39:51.199 --> 00:39:52.039
Oh, I can go a bit
deeper with that, as I think that

631
00:39:52.119 --> 00:39:55.920
a lot of folks have small companies, they consider them lifestyle companies. I

632
00:39:55.920 --> 00:40:02.000
don't consider small companies lifestyle companies because
or chained to that telephone, it's you

633
00:40:02.039 --> 00:40:07.480
can't break away because you are the
company. And those situations worked fine for

634
00:40:07.480 --> 00:40:08.920
a lot of people, have worked
out great for me for the longest time,

635
00:40:09.199 --> 00:40:12.480
but there came a point in time
where I had to make the decision

636
00:40:12.519 --> 00:40:15.360
do I want to scale? And
if I don't, then how can I

637
00:40:15.400 --> 00:40:19.400
systematize this a bit more so it's
not so dependent on me. But the

638
00:40:19.440 --> 00:40:21.960
answer for me was, you know, still relatively young, I want to

639
00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:23.920
give this whole scale thing a shot, and we certainly did that. We

640
00:40:23.960 --> 00:40:27.760
grew from a couple of employees to
thirty five and two and a half years.

641
00:40:28.239 --> 00:40:31.280
It's so admirable and I wish I
would have met you years ago,

642
00:40:31.760 --> 00:40:36.800
Ryan, when I and a business
partner started a small online feedback portfle the

643
00:40:36.840 --> 00:40:39.920
human resource space. It was called
Improved Experience and we did this in ready,

644
00:40:40.159 --> 00:40:45.440
drum roll please two thousand and six
to two thousand ten, yep,

645
00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:47.840
and let that fall off the edge
of the cliff, shall we? But

646
00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:52.480
if we would, we were in
the process of building a board of advisors

647
00:40:52.480 --> 00:40:54.440
towards the end, and had we
done that much sooner, I think we

648
00:40:54.480 --> 00:40:59.000
would have been in much better shape
and maybe found a way to remain relevant

649
00:40:59.199 --> 00:41:04.039
through that reset and such that because
our product dependent on people getting hired to

650
00:41:04.159 --> 00:41:07.920
use it right in the middle of
the recession. So but there probably were

651
00:41:07.960 --> 00:41:09.599
other things that we could have done
to be able to address the market space

652
00:41:09.599 --> 00:41:14.880
that would have allowed us to remain
viable and handle those sort of things while

653
00:41:14.920 --> 00:41:20.039
the market recovered, and we just
didn't have the wherewithal, or the space

654
00:41:20.159 --> 00:41:23.079
or the forethought to consider that option
until later in the process when by the

655
00:41:23.079 --> 00:41:25.760
time it was too late. Yeah, everybody works hard, you know,

656
00:41:25.800 --> 00:41:29.599
especially when you have your own company, your own product that you're working towards.

657
00:41:29.599 --> 00:41:31.880
It's not a question of work ethic. It's really about working smarter and

658
00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:36.400
can you find people to surround yourself
with. And again, I cannot go

659
00:41:36.480 --> 00:41:39.920
back on it any and you say
it any more than how critical it is

660
00:41:39.960 --> 00:41:43.880
to make sure that you that you
find yourself a person that can be a

661
00:41:43.880 --> 00:41:46.280
competant, that you can talk about
business issues. Just to help you see

662
00:41:47.159 --> 00:41:50.760
over the trees a little bit.
When you're in it, you can't see

663
00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:52.079
the forest because of the trees.
You got to pull back a little bit,

664
00:41:52.119 --> 00:41:59.000
and sometimes it takes another human being
to create that tug. I'm very

665
00:41:59.039 --> 00:42:02.840
interested in hearing what does your work
mean to you and in your overall life.

666
00:42:04.519 --> 00:42:07.800
I think there's a satisfaction certainly that
I'm sitting here now in my mid

667
00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:10.400
thirties, and I've been to this
journey now in my second company. There's

668
00:42:10.519 --> 00:42:15.840
there's a big satisfaction that goes along
with that. But really the meaning is

669
00:42:15.880 --> 00:42:20.320
not in finances or anything else.
It really comes down to the people that

670
00:42:20.360 --> 00:42:23.320
I've surrounded myself with over the past
ten years. I mentioned earlier, this

671
00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:25.519
is not a solo act, you
know, this is this is a band,

672
00:42:25.960 --> 00:42:30.159
and any one piece outside is not
going to create that chorus that you

673
00:42:30.239 --> 00:42:35.239
need. The meaning really has been
the relationships I've developed, the customers that

674
00:42:35.280 --> 00:42:38.719
have trusted me with their business,
those really early ambassadors who did nothing but

675
00:42:38.840 --> 00:42:43.599
speak my name in all the right
places. I didn't get here alone,

676
00:42:43.800 --> 00:42:47.719
and certainly paying homage and thanks to
those folks along the way because it's it's

677
00:42:47.719 --> 00:42:52.559
been an exciting journey, and looking
back, it's it's one that that you

678
00:42:52.599 --> 00:42:55.079
don't want to take a loan because
I think it can be a lonely journey

679
00:42:55.119 --> 00:42:59.559
for a lot of people. So
I heard a couple of things in that

680
00:42:59.599 --> 00:43:06.199
I heard achievement. I heard connection. I heard the privilege of being trusted

681
00:43:06.280 --> 00:43:09.400
by by others, people who helped
you and went out of their way to

682
00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:15.360
help presence you in the marketplace.
And it's interesting that you set aside immediately

683
00:43:15.400 --> 00:43:19.679
to the financial piece. Yeah,
because I think that that's not necessarily meaning,

684
00:43:19.719 --> 00:43:22.039
that doesn't bring meaning to a lot
of people that certainly, the lack

685
00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:27.079
of finances can create strife, it
can create discontent, it can create a

686
00:43:27.079 --> 00:43:30.599
lot of stress, and certainly on
not what you would consider quote unquote rich,

687
00:43:30.679 --> 00:43:35.000
but you know, having enough to
live on helps out that you can

688
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:37.519
start concentrating on the other things around
you. Because I think that when you

689
00:43:37.559 --> 00:43:40.800
find meaning, it's not necessarily in
things, it's in people. You know,

690
00:43:40.800 --> 00:43:44.440
I come to the office every day
and I see people that i've that

691
00:43:44.480 --> 00:43:46.559
have been with me for years,
and those are the those the true trusted

692
00:43:46.599 --> 00:43:52.679
partners that you develop over time.
That that really helped to grow where the

693
00:43:52.719 --> 00:43:55.599
sum of two parts is greater than
the whole, or the whole in the

694
00:43:55.599 --> 00:44:00.400
sum of two parts, I got
that really quick. On the money piece,

695
00:44:00.719 --> 00:44:04.159
what I've learned by interviewing people is
that money means different things to people.

696
00:44:04.920 --> 00:44:07.440
Where some people who grow up without
very much of it, when they

697
00:44:07.440 --> 00:44:10.679
do have some of it, it
gives them security for other people making a

698
00:44:10.679 --> 00:44:15.800
good living, whatever that is gives
them a sense of pride because they're they're

699
00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:19.280
providing for people that they love.
So I've really come and there's just a

700
00:44:19.280 --> 00:44:22.000
whole other spectrum of things that fall
all over the place, and there's power

701
00:44:22.079 --> 00:44:25.840
in that for people. There's all
kinds of stuff. So what I've learned

702
00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:30.760
by researching meaning about money is really
fascinating, really really intense and deep.

703
00:44:30.880 --> 00:44:35.440
You have a specific description to it, and as do I. But I

704
00:44:35.480 --> 00:44:37.159
just wanted to steam step for our
listeners in case that wasn't quite it for

705
00:44:37.199 --> 00:44:40.679
them. Absolutely, I think that
for me it's always been about security.

706
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:45.599
Is there enough Yeah, certainly not
to go out and have three houses,

707
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:47.119
but is there enough for me to
get by and make sure my kids are

708
00:44:47.119 --> 00:44:51.519
taken care of and make sure payroll
players because that's a pretty important piece.

709
00:44:52.079 --> 00:44:54.159
Absolutely, that goes back to the
trust piece, right and you know right

710
00:44:54.239 --> 00:44:57.800
Okay, So that's why I wanted
to kind of deepen that a little bit,

711
00:44:57.800 --> 00:45:00.280
just because it having been a researcher
for as long as I have,

712
00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:04.480
I just know there's a lot to
it and whore is okay? So I

713
00:45:04.559 --> 00:45:07.719
want to ask you maybe just two
more questions were almost at a time here

714
00:45:07.599 --> 00:45:09.199
you know, and you may have
already gotten to this, but I want

715
00:45:09.239 --> 00:45:13.400
to give you the chance to answer
this specific question. What are you most

716
00:45:13.480 --> 00:45:17.199
proud of in your journey as an
entrepreneur? Self satisfaction that I was able

717
00:45:17.199 --> 00:45:21.559
to do it. You know what
plagued me early on was that self doubt

718
00:45:21.599 --> 00:45:23.400
and that nagging fear that I'd have
to open up to my friends on bar

719
00:45:23.519 --> 00:45:25.800
night, you know, when I'm
twenty five years old, saying hey,

720
00:45:25.800 --> 00:45:28.440
I gave it a shot, but
it didn't work out, and now I'm

721
00:45:28.480 --> 00:45:30.719
going back to work for somebody else. I didn't want that, and it

722
00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:34.800
actually kind of horrified me. I'm
kind of downplaying a little bit. But

723
00:45:34.840 --> 00:45:38.039
those are the things that kept me
up awake at night early on. Now,

724
00:45:38.079 --> 00:45:40.760
certainly there were challenges that kept me
up, you know later in my

725
00:45:40.880 --> 00:45:44.480
career that they kept me up at
night and had me thinking to where I

726
00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:46.840
couldn't sleep. But that was the
early one, and kind of looking back

727
00:45:46.840 --> 00:45:52.400
over the past ten or eleven years, it really has been that satisfaction of

728
00:45:52.920 --> 00:45:58.920
doing it, and certainly the pride
that I have have and building two companies.

729
00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:00.760
It's it's something that not a lot
of people do, and I'm certainly

730
00:46:00.760 --> 00:46:04.639
proud that I am, and I
just want to make sure that when there's

731
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:07.400
an opportunity, that I have an
opportunity to work with younger folks who are

732
00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:12.519
considering the same path, and where
can I play my part in the same

733
00:46:12.559 --> 00:46:15.360
way that some other folks have played
that part for me. That's great,

734
00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:19.559
Brian, that's really beautiful, and
I really appreciate that what you shared about

735
00:46:19.760 --> 00:46:22.480
not want to tell your friends.
Look, I gave it my best shot,

736
00:46:22.519 --> 00:46:27.280
but it didn't quite work out.
And then motivation that comes from wanting

737
00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:30.920
to avoid having to say that I've
really got that. So in our last

738
00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:32.239
little bit of time here, I
like to be able to give you the

739
00:46:32.320 --> 00:46:36.440
last word here. You know,
the show is about helping listeners across the

740
00:46:36.440 --> 00:46:38.960
globe or meaningfully connect with their work. What would you like to leave them

741
00:46:38.960 --> 00:46:43.440
with and say about thirty seconds.
In thirty seconds, I'd say, read

742
00:46:43.480 --> 00:46:45.519
as much as you can, read
anything and everything that you can that relates

743
00:46:45.559 --> 00:46:50.440
to either you personally, professionally or
professionally. And I'm going to say it

744
00:46:50.480 --> 00:46:52.519
once more, even though I've done
it three times here, but really seek

745
00:46:52.559 --> 00:46:58.000
out networks of people within your hometowns, even online or digitally. Folks are

746
00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:00.360
out there, they want to share
their experience, they want to help and

747
00:47:00.400 --> 00:47:02.400
get help at the same time.
They're out there and they're available, and

748
00:47:02.440 --> 00:47:05.920
it's I wish it was the thing
that I've done earlier in my career.

749
00:47:06.199 --> 00:47:08.079
Beautiful way to finish, Brian,
and thank you so much for sharing your

750
00:47:08.960 --> 00:47:13.840
wisdom, your experience, and absolutely
your passion. You let us into your

751
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:15.519
space in a way that I like
to share with my listeners, and I

752
00:47:15.599 --> 00:47:19.519
really appreciate that. Brian. Thank
you, at least that's my pleasure.

753
00:47:19.639 --> 00:47:22.119
If you want to learn more about
Brian and his team at Proposa and what

754
00:47:22.199 --> 00:47:25.199
they're up to, go visit their
website. It's get proposa dot com,

755
00:47:25.199 --> 00:47:32.119
So get pr Posa, Get proposa
dot com. Join us next week when

756
00:47:32.119 --> 00:47:37.039
we talk with Lauren Midsley, and
she has just released another book on productivity,

757
00:47:37.119 --> 00:47:38.880
something I think most of us need
more of. I'll look forward to

758
00:47:38.920 --> 00:47:43.039
the conversation. Join us in Remember
that work is at least one third of

759
00:47:43.039 --> 00:47:46.599
our life, so let's work on
purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's

760
00:47:46.639 --> 00:47:52.599
program. Be sure to tune in
to Working on Purpose featuring your host Alice

761
00:47:52.679 --> 00:47:58.320
Cortez each week on the Voice America
empowerment channel. This week, find your

762
00:47:58.360 --> 00:48:00.239
life's purpose. Add work,