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 Cortes. 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 Cortes. I'm your host

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Elise Cortes, joining you from Dallas, Texas, which is home base for

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

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

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

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conversation, and I often draw on
the meeting and work research I've conducted over

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

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developing workforces across the globe. I'll
get to the program in just a MoMA,

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Thanks to our partnership. Last week, if you missed the show live,

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you can always catch it via recorded
podcast. We were on the air

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with doctor Erica Jacobi, the executive
director of LC Global Consulting, a change,

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

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

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innovation. Now with us this week
is Brian Anio, who is an entrepreneur

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who is currently the founder and CEO
of Proposa, a best in class SaaS

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solution for building stunningly beautiful proposals in
half the time. We'll be talking about

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what it takes to be an entrepreneur
today, his own journey of entrepreneurship starting

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at age twenty four, and the
important lessons he's learned from his work as

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an entrepreneur. He joined us today
from Raleigh, North Carolina. Brian,

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Welcome to Working on Purpose. Hey, thank you for having me Alas.

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It's really great to have you,
and I do want to call out and

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thank Don Thompson for bringing you to
me. He is somebody who's been on

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the show a couple of times,
and you know, I have connected in

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terms of our professional lives and enjoy
and appreciate his perspective. So when he

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introduced me to you, I was
delighted and I can't wait to share this

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story with our listeners. Are you
ready? I am indeed. Okay,

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Well, the first thing I want
to start with is you said in our

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initial call something that I found to
be quite arresting. You said I'd rather

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work seventy hours for myself than forty
hours for somebody else. So let's start

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with that. Can you explain that
statement of what's behind that for you?

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You know, I really think that
I heard that statement that is certainly not

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an original of mine, but I
heard someone else say that, and it

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really made me think about my own
journey as an entrepreneur. And I think

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for a lot of folks who find
themselves in the position of working for themselves

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or growing a company or scaling a
company, that really has to ring true

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to you that folks that give up
that nine to five corporate job would rather

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go and work double the amount of
time for themselves than just to give that

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forty hours standard work week to somebody
else. I think that's something that's innate

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to a lot of entrepreneurs and certainly
a statement that really was true for me

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and spoke a lot for me.
And you know what's fascinating about that,

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Brian is somebody who works supporting various
organizations and working with a lot of executives

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who are in those corporate organizations.
They are working well more than forty hours.

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They're working maybe sometimes as many as
seventy hours, and yet and they

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do that for their careers, and
so it's interesting I appreciate the distinction that

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you would do that for yourself.
And since part of the show is really

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designed to be able to educate as
well as inspired, I'm guessing that some

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of the people that have tuned in
are aspiring entrepreneurs. So I'd like to

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be able to tap your brain and
hear what you think. What are the

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top reasons people choose to become an
entrepreneur? You know? I think that

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that if you ask somebody who is
just looking to go out and try and

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see what it's like to be an
entrepreneur, they're probably seeking freedom, some

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semblance of independence or security. Maybe
they're wondering in their minds, do I

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have it? Or are they kind
of tired of that day job. A

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lot of folks maybe they have that
job that they're not passionate about, but

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they see themselves going through the motions
of just doing it because that's what you

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have to do to make ends need. Or you know, just as myself,

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some people may find themselves in kind
of a corporate career track that you

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

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you don't feel like that you have
the means through the corporate life to really

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make that change for yourself. I
think those are all compelling reasons why people

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decide to become entrepreneurs. And certainly
the reason why I did was to kind

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of break those chains of habit I
was fortunate enough to discover when I was

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relatively young, you know, twenty
four years old to realize that then you

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know, of course, where the
risk profile and a young person is much

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different than a risk profile for someone
with a mortgage, a car and a

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couple of children along the way.
And that all comes back home to do

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I feel like I can do this. I'm going to give it a shot.

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And do you have a suitable plan
b for if things don't work out?

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What is that backup plan? You
know? You're also reminding me of

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something else, Brian, that I
want to share as I as I think

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about and reflect on my own research. I've over the years research I guess

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I've interviewed one hundred and forty people
specifically in my research to discover how they

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ascribe meaning to the work that they
do and what does that work mean to

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their sense of self or identity.
And I'm now recalling when I interviewed a

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young man would have been in his
early thirties. He was at the time

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employed in the IT space, and
he had this thing inside of him,

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Brian. He was so bent an
on fire. He was working in a

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corporate job and he said, I
am just he says, I know that

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for me, work is the thing
that I want my life to stand for,

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and I need to know that I
made of the same stuff of my

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that my father was, who was
a very very successful entrepreneur and also a

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surgeon. And so there's I think
there's also something in some people about this

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notion of how you make something of
your life through entrepreneurship. Can you comment

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on that. I think most of
us find meeting through the work that we

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do. It's why we choose to
career paths that we do. And maybe

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folks find themselves in a situation where
they just have to do it to make

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ends meet. But at the end
of the day, we're going to be

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at work for a third to a
half of our lives. You know,

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hopefully you can find meaning and what
you're doing, because I think that's really

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going to be the recipe for what
it means to live a life that you

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can consider fulfilled. A lot of
talk about, you know, work life

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balance in the workplace. You know, for me personally, it's more about

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how does work and life integrate,
how do I make both of those work

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together? As opposed to this oil
and water analogy of their work and then

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there's life. You know, for
me, growing up essentially my professional career

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as an entrepreneur work in life,
there was no difference. It just was.

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And when you find yourself in a
career path being an entrepreneur or you

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know, at your day job,
doing the best that you can at what

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you're doing, I think that finding
meaning in that is going to be something

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that brings people a lot of kind
of mental satisfaction. Absolutely, And of

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course that is a huge reason why
I host to show every single week,

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is to try to help people more
meaningfully and productively connect with their work.

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And I also know that there is
an abundance, there's a spectrum of meaning

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that I discovered in my own research, So there's lots of ways to find

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meaning, which I think I hope
that our listeners find to be encouraging for

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themselves. Absolutely. So one of
the other things I wanted to pick your

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brain on, Brian, I've been
really fascinated with this whole relationship that we

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hear that the unemployment rate in the
United States is currently at like three point

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eight percent, something that hasn't been
in for like years, and I'm really

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interested in your perspective on whether you
think more people start a business when the

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economy and jobs are good versus not
what that number really means to you.

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I'm just curious about your perspective on
that with relation to entrepreneurship and jobs.

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I think it's harder to make the
jump when the unemployment rate is so low,

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when the job market is so wide
open, because the risk is just

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different. You know, you know, you hear the phrase necessity is the

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mother of invention. You know,
that's certainly where a lot of great companies

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were founded, was out of that
need to make something happen. Certainly with

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a more sour economy where the unemployment
rate is higher, maybe this is the

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only alternative is you know, struck
out on a couple of job interviews,

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But you've got to make those ends
meet. So what can you do to

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innovate? What can you do to
bring a service or a product to market?

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Certainly services are easier than products.
You know, we all we're all

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innovators in our own way, making
small, meaningful changes in our lives that

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that are different from anybody else.
That's we all innovate. So how do

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you take that? Can it put
in a presentation and start company out of

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it? But with the relative economy
the way that it is right now,

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I think that it's much easier or
sorry, much harder to go out and

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give up the maybe cushy corporate job
with the great benefits for a zero dollars

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salary and no benefits. Yeah,
I think it really takes. It takes

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

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

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

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chatting 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,

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

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healthcare 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 then

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

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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 said,

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

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

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how do you bring it to market? What do you do? Who

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

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customer discovery? Have you evalidated that
idea, and what are the meaningful steps

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that you can take that may be
small, but point you in that direction

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

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

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

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you, there certainly is an element
of leadership. So before I got really

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involved in coaching executives as I do
today, I spent a lot of years

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coaching men and women at the individual
contributor level who are really just starting to

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maybe go into a manager role or
wanted to, and they were really wondering

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is there a leader in me?
And if so, how can I develop

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that leader? So it gets to
that age old question of leaders being born

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or made, And I'm wondering,
you in your own world of entrepreneurship and

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experience. Can first do you what's
your what's your take on you know,

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are leaders born or made? And
then I want to bring that over to

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to entrepreneurs as well. It's a
really good question. I think it kind

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of it goes back to is it
nature or is it nurture? And it's

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actually above my pay grade to kind
of say definitively one or the other,

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Whereas maybe it's more born than made, or made than born. I'm not

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exactly sure, but I think it's
possible given the right circumstances that regardless of

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

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

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for some than it is for others. M h my take on it.

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

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

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to believe from the vantage point that
of the services that that that I offer

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over the years, that that leaders
can be made now to a certain you

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know, to what degree, we
don't know, but I think they certainly

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can be developed. Now I'm not
so sure. Maybe about what that might

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be for entrepreneurship. Do you think
entrepreneurs are born or made? You know?

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Again, it kind of goes back
the same thing. But I do

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want to share a quick story on
things that we all can do for the

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next generation. Is that at home, I've got a couple of children,

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an eight and a four year old, and my eight year old approached me

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and he sees both his mom and
his dad are entrepreneurs. We work a

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lot of hours, and he said, Dad, I want to get a

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job. And this is quite satisfaction
that he's asking this question. He certainly

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doesn't need to work or anything like
that, but he wanted to make money.

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And I said to him, I
said, Ethan, this is the

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first lesson I'm going to give that
I really hope you remember, is that

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you don't have to wait for somebody
else to pay you. You can make

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money. Now. Growing up in
a relatively you know, lower middle class

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family in the East Coast North Carolina, and I, at the age of

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twelve, had a couple of full
time jobs during summers to pay for,

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you know, leisure time activities that
I wanted to undertake. It was up

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to me to provide those things and
I got I think the federal minimum wage

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

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

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

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

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then return it after the trash 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 the 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 as

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adults for the next generation. So
we can instill some principles where they can

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

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

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

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question directly, is it nature or
nurture? Are they born or are 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
partner. 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
called Hermas, and I'm the oldest of

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four kids. And 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 we would go

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

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

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

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like? The sales doctor, It
was fantastic, and we would be out

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there regularaves. I'm sure it was
ridiculous. I'm sure I probably charged something

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

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

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I needed for him. It really
wasn't about the money he's paid. He's

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getting paid five dollars per month per
house, which isn't a lot of money

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

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

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about that exercise, going through the
motions, really putting together a sales pitch

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and making that sale. And for
him, he was ecstatic he got those

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

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

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

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facilitate that if he so chooses that
career path, that's awesome. Well,

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speaking of what you said, your
presence, the whole notion of socialization here,

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so associating with people like the Donald
Thompsons of the world that we talked

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about before, who I know has
been in some way helpful to your own

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journey. Absolutely, I'm interested in
also understanding and sharing with our listeners what

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kind of a profile of a person
might you recommend to consider avoiding entrepreneurship and

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why so. First, there's the
association piece of who you're hanging out with.

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That's one part of the question,
and The second piece is you know

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who might actually avoid entrepreneurship. You
know, I think it's someone you have

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to be really tolerant of extremes,
and you've got to be a pretty level

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person throughout extremes because good things happen, bad things happen, You yourself have

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got to be kind of in between, you know. Certainly risk is one

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thing. People who are too risk
averse they may find it more difficult,

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but it's also in the flip end. The gambler is they got their work

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cut out for them too, those
who just go and throw caution to the

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wind. It's more about calculated risk. You know, what's in between there

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and are you making the right decisions? Are you gambling in the right places?

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Are you investing in the right places? You know, But aside from

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having quote unquote it, does your
idea have it? Have you validated that?

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Because certainly it's personality driven when it's
a one person show, two person

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show, but as you grow in
scale, it's really going to have some

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more substance outside of personality to make
that work. Got that. I want

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to talk more about the association piece, but let's take a quick break first.

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I'm your host, Alis Cortez.
We've went on the year with Brian

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

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

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Brian started his first company, walk
West, in marketing and advertising agency,

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at the age of twenty four.
After scaling walk West to thirty five

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people, Brian created Proposa based on
intellectual property that walk West had created.

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He joins us today from Raleigh,
North Carolina. We've been talking a bit

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about his perspective of entrepreneurship. Now
we can cultivate it. After the break,

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we'll hear more about his own journey. Stay with us, We'll be

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right back. Alis Cortes is a
speaker and engagement and development catalyst. She

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00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:18.200
designs and delivers professional development, leadership
and engagement workshops and can bring her expertise

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

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

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to speak to your organization, please
visit her at www dot Elisecortes dot com.

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She would welcome the opportunity to help
get your employees working on purpose.

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This is working on Purpose with Elise
Cortes. To reach our program today,

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00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:55.440
send an email to a lease Alic
at a Lasecortes dot com. Now back

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to working on Purpose if you're just
joining us. My guest is Brian,

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00:18:00.519 --> 00:18:03.160
an entrepreneur who is currently the founder
and CEO of Proposa, a best in

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00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:07.519
class SaaS solution for building stunningly beautiful
proposals in half the time. We've been

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talking a bit about his perspective on
entrepreneurship and how to nurture it. Now

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we want to get into his own
journey. I'm Alice Cortes, your host.

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So before we get into your journey, Brian, as I mentioned before

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the break, I wanted to have
you say more about the socialization aspect of

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being an entrepreneur. We talked about
Donald Thompson being in your space. I've

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

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

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of people that they rely on to
be able to bounce ideas off and gain

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ideas from that they don't have their
own expertise in Can you comment on the

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importance of socialization as an entrepreneur,
Oh, I think it's critical. I

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think that certainly my journey too illustrate
that that. You know, when I

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started walk West, the marketing and
advertising agency, I had spent seven years

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trying to grow and scale this company
with some success. You know, we

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

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But I met my mentor and now, you know, certainly good personal

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friend, Donald Thompson, back in
twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen, and when

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you put two and two together,
where we're able to feed off of each

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other and I'm able to get some
insight onto the roads I haven't traveled yet,

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where I can actually mitigate my risk
a little bit just by learning from

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the approaches of those around me.
We were able to triple revenue in twenty

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fifteen alone, that we doubled it
in twenty sixteen and doubled it again in

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twenty seventeen. And it's that kind
of explosive growth that's very very difficult to

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do in a silo because there's questions
that I would have, you know,

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I put myself back in the situation
of being twenty four. None of my

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peers had gone through this experience.
You know, certainly maybe a few of

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them had an MBA or so,
but living that experience and going through the

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motions of what does it mean to
cut payroll to make payroll? What do

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you have to do to make sure
that you're able to, you know,

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maintain your business and grow your business
and scale your business. These aren't things

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that I could get from my natural
friend base. Just do them to age

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and time. So as I got
a bit older, we grew the company

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a little bit, you know,
finding that those set of people to make

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sure that they can fill in your
blind spots. Everybody has them, and

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it's important that you find an advisor
or a partner that can fill yours and

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vice versa, because again, you
know, it's living in the silos bad

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and when you can open that up, I think that's when you really start

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to experience some positive growth. I
can't imagine any other way to do it.

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And I appreciate how you presence that
for our listeners. That was incredibly

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crisp. Okay, So next I
want to talk about your journey, Brian.

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So you know we already said that
you started your first company at age

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twenty four. But beyond that,
I think it's important to let our listeners

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understand a bit more about where you
came from. So did you for school?

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Did you go to college? Well, obviously, what did you do

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before you started your company in age
twenty four? Yeah, it's a great

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question. I did. I went
to NC State University and I graduated with

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a degree in computer science back in
two thousand and four. And after that,

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I, having very little financial resources
coming from home, I couldn't wait

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to get out and find the first
job that would pay me a suitable amount

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of money, just because I was
seeking financial independence and freedom, which is

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something I'd never had throughout the course
of my young adulthood and certainly childhood.

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That moved me out to Kansas City, Missouri, where I found myself working

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as a systems engineer for a healthcare
company. I traveled a lot for that

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job, and traveled to a young
twenty one or twenty two year old sounds

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great until you find out that you're
going to Fond de Lac, Wisconsin and

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the dead of winter. You know, certainly fond of Loac is a charming

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place, but it was December and
it's cold. And I grew up on

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the beach of North Carolina. I
had never felt windshiels that cold before.

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But I was living out of an
airport, living out of a suitcase.

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And after some time that gets to
anybody that burn out kind of kicks in

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the Midwest, I really didn't find
it was for me. So I moved

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back to North Carolina and worked a
couple more years as a software developer for

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a hospital here in Durham, North
Carolina, before starting what turned out to

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

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

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you know, bid farewell to my
full time day job. And I won't

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

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was the last day that I was
employed by someone else. Okay, So

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what made you actually take the leap? You know, it's another good question

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there, And given that I grew
up in my nature itself was kind of

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risk verse. I had to have
enough money in the bank just to make

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me feel comfortable that if I didn't
have any sales that I could still eat

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

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

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

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

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earlier in my last day of the
full time job was August first, two

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

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

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

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

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I called the old boss man and
I said, hey, boss Man,

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

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together. And he met me with
the news of we filled that job.

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Good luck and I won't forget it. But I had went home that evening

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told my wife, I said,
we've jumped at sink or swim and there's

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no other option. Wow, that
can be incredibly powerful motiv motivation for you.

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So what did you do to make
it work? I won't lie.

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There were times where you know,
I'd get a gig, you know,

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

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twenty one or thirty days, and
I would go through the motion of updating

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the resume, thinking that the whole
journey had to come to an end.

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

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

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my life was admitting to my friends
that I had failed. But I gave

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it a shot and failed, and
that kept me going because I didn't want

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to have that conversation with anybody else
that I couldn't make it work. So

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somehow, some way, you know, where there's a will, there's a

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way. You find yourself in a
financial pinch, you go out and you

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make it happen. And that literally
is calling as many people as you can,

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getting as many references or referrals as
you can, and you make that

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next gig happen, and you try
to make that snowball effect happen from there.

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Brian, I want to thank you
and acknowledge you for just really being

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real with us, because you know
this journey is not for the faint of

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heart and for the listeners to recognize
that, Wow, somebody who has been

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as successful as you are went through
that some of those troughs. Is really

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important to be able for them to
be able to recognize and evaluate whether this

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is something they can do and want
to do. I've never met an entrepreneur

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that hasn't had those pinches, those
troughs, And there they can be low

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moments, you know, where even
things such a self doubt can kind of

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creep in to those who can take
that little bit of self doubt and turn

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it into a motivator as an inspirator
to kind of push harder and go further.

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You asked a question earlier about what
does it take to be an on

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00:25:00.039 --> 00:25:03.559
entrepreneur, and that's certainly if you're
the type of personality that can do that,

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00:25:03.240 --> 00:25:07.839
you've got a great chance of success. The word that comes to mind

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is what Angela Dougworth put out there, which is grit. It's a great

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word, That's what it is.
You've got to get your hands thirty.

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You know, you may call yourself
CEO, and certainly you are, and

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there's no taking that away. If
you've went out and started your own thing,

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00:25:19.799 --> 00:25:22.680
you are the CEO. But you're
also the janitor and everything in the

402
00:25:22.759 --> 00:25:26.799
twy and that means getting in the
trenches. That means, you know,

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

404
00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:36.359
Wow. Now stepping back then,
we were actually in the trenches of

405
00:25:36.440 --> 00:25:40.200
starting this business. Now, if
we can kind of step back as looking

406
00:25:40.279 --> 00:25:45.839
backwards from it being successful, I'm
interested in hearing how what was your strategy

407
00:25:45.839 --> 00:25:48.000
to actually develop that agency such that
you've scaled it to thirty five people.

408
00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:52.039
You know, I think that the
strategy was, again, it's hard work

409
00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:56.200
finding the right people to surround yourself
with, hiring really really well. And

410
00:25:56.200 --> 00:26:00.799
that's something that I say we at
this point in time because this is 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
00:26:03.599 --> 00:26:07.480
on me, and it became more
of an entity of itself. And that's

413
00:26:07.480 --> 00:26:11.240
a good moment when you can sit
back and think about a company that you'd

414
00:26:11.279 --> 00:26:15.519
started where really your input was five
or ten percent, and the company that

415
00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:19.039
you created around you, the people
that you gave positions to, were doing

416
00:26:19.039 --> 00:26:22.039
their job far better than you could
have, and you kind of take a

417
00:26:25.240 --> 00:26:26.440
step back and you kind of look
at that and you think, wow,

418
00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:30.839
you know, that's when you really
have done it, whatever it may be,

419
00:26:30.279 --> 00:26:33.440
is that when it's kind of its
own little thing that can live and

420
00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:37.079
breed as if it's a person itself
and it's just going along and it's trucking

421
00:26:37.079 --> 00:26:41.960
along. That is so great to
distinguish that, Brian, right, because

422
00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:44.920
there's the notion of what people say, well, just kind of just what

423
00:26:44.960 --> 00:26:48.359
you said. You went out and
you were building websites on your own and

424
00:26:48.440 --> 00:26:52.839
getting gigs. That's very very,
very very different than building a company that

425
00:26:52.519 --> 00:26:56.759
now becomes an entity of itself and
breeds almost as if it was it was

426
00:26:56.799 --> 00:27:00.799
on its own. That's very distinct. Yeah, you know, what we

427
00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:03.640
considered gigs in the early days have
turned into massive contracts. And you know

428
00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:07.839
twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen where we're
doing a lot of work for some government

429
00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:12.599
agencies. We're going through the RFP
processes for educational institutions and healthcare institutions and

430
00:27:12.640 --> 00:27:15.960
we're winning. You know, it's
putting the right team together. And as

431
00:27:17.240 --> 00:27:21.160
you grow in scale, the value
of a great employee is like double their

432
00:27:21.200 --> 00:27:26.920
salary, but the liability of maybe
some that aren't as great is kind of

433
00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:29.720
double their salary as well. So
you've really got to look. You got

434
00:27:29.720 --> 00:27:33.079
to refine who you're working with and
make sure that you surround yourself with the

435
00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:37.799
right people, because it really is
make or break at thirty five person company.

436
00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:40.720
It feels big to me because that's
the biggest company I've ever been a

437
00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:45.440
part of. But you think,
you know, one sour apple or so

438
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:48.480
can certainly spoil the bunch for sure, especially for that for that size.

439
00:27:48.680 --> 00:27:52.839
Now, Walkwist is still completely functioning. Yes, it is still in sie

440
00:27:53.519 --> 00:27:57.559
Okay, walkwest dot com and it's
doing well. And I'm still a part

441
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:02.240
of the board of directors there and
very involved, you know with kind of

442
00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:06.799
corporate governance and some day to day
but not much anymore. Okay, got

443
00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:10.400
it. Well, that brings me
to my next question. So I know

444
00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:14.960
that you launched Proposer early this year. I'm interested in sharing how the idea

445
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:18.160
for the offering came to be and
how did you actually start. You know,

446
00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:22.319
it was building a lot of websites. Going back to that back in

447
00:28:22.359 --> 00:28:26.039
twenty fourteen, I had an idea
that why were we still sending power points

448
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:30.440
like every other company was sending,
you know, certainly our powerpoints looked good,

449
00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:34.160
but they were just another PowerPoint deck
proposal in the middle of a stack

450
00:28:34.200 --> 00:28:37.160
of so many others. So I
had an idea, and we got a

451
00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:41.799
group together every weekend to build that
a prototype that we kind of dubbed the

452
00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:45.799
proposal Engine that would allow us to
put our proposals on a website. And

453
00:28:45.839 --> 00:28:48.519
for me, it was about validating
that we could do what we said we

454
00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:52.680
could do. You know, we
were pitching you web design and development services,

455
00:28:52.680 --> 00:28:56.200
and here we are giving a proposal
on a website. So back in

456
00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:00.400
twenty fourteen is really where the roots
for proposal lie. And again it was

457
00:29:00.440 --> 00:29:03.480
one of those precipitators for scale.
You know, we started winning seven out

458
00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:08.759
of every ten projects that we were
betting on, and it wasn't slowing down

459
00:29:08.799 --> 00:29:12.000
and allow us to grow very very
rapidly over the course of twenty fifteen,

460
00:29:12.079 --> 00:29:15.799
sixteen, and seventeen. You know, it's to the point where our prospects

461
00:29:15.799 --> 00:29:19.640
that we had sent these proposals to
they had turned our clients, and you

462
00:29:19.640 --> 00:29:22.119
know, inevitably three months later they'd
come back and say, hey, that

463
00:29:22.119 --> 00:29:26.359
proposal that you sent us, which
software did you use, because we want

464
00:29:26.359 --> 00:29:27.759
to use it too. You know, I did not explained that it was

465
00:29:27.759 --> 00:29:33.880
a back office tool that we created
for ourselves, but that conversation became increasingly

466
00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:37.400
common to the point where Donald Thompson, you have a business partner of mind

467
00:29:37.400 --> 00:29:40.240
that you mentioned, We got together
in twenty seventeen and said, we've got

468
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:42.480
to do something about this because what
we're hearing this customer demand. There's a

469
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:45.480
hole in the marketplace that we could
fill. We just got to have the

470
00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:49.480
guts to go out there and do
it. What a concept. Listening to

471
00:29:49.680 --> 00:29:53.960
what's out there and floating in terms
of need and answering or solving that problem.

472
00:29:55.039 --> 00:29:57.079
What a concept. You make it
sound so simple, Brian, but

473
00:29:57.160 --> 00:30:02.759
that makes complete sense to me.
It really is. It comes down to

474
00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:06.960
what are your customers saying? You
know, there's opportunities for innovation in everything

475
00:30:06.960 --> 00:30:10.880
that you do being an entrepreneur or
not. You know, what are you

476
00:30:10.960 --> 00:30:12.680
doing? What are your customers,
your people around you saying that you're doing

477
00:30:12.759 --> 00:30:15.079
it's different? What do they want
you to do differently? Those are all

478
00:30:15.160 --> 00:30:19.359
kind of micro concepts of being innovative, and that's certainly where Proposa had its

479
00:30:19.359 --> 00:30:26.720
birthplace. Now I've had a chance
to look at your demo offering on YouTube,

480
00:30:26.720 --> 00:30:30.319
which is great, it's easy to
follow, But I don't know anything

481
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:34.400
about this space. So what different
differentiates you in the marketplace with this product?

482
00:30:34.440 --> 00:30:37.319
What makes what distinguishes you? It's
another way to say that, well,

483
00:30:37.319 --> 00:30:41.000
we've been selling the same way for
two and a half decades. You

484
00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:44.519
know, back in the mid nineties, people were sending PowerPoint dex as proposals,

485
00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:48.599
and here we are in twenty eighteen, we're still sending power points as

486
00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:52.279
proposals. We want to stop that
habit because what happens once you send a

487
00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:56.480
PowerPoint out as an email attachment,
it's kind of gone poof. I have

488
00:30:56.559 --> 00:31:00.759
no information about if that proposal was
even opened, was it read. Now

489
00:31:00.799 --> 00:31:03.519
that we're sending digital links through proposal, of what you can do is I

490
00:31:03.519 --> 00:31:06.880
can find out at least that if
I send you a proposal that you opened

491
00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:08.119
it, and that gives me,
as a salesperson, just a piece of

492
00:31:08.200 --> 00:31:11.559
information knowing that, hey, you
got it, you've opened it. But

493
00:31:11.640 --> 00:31:15.119
also it'll give me kind of a
heat map showing what you're looking at a

494
00:31:15.160 --> 00:31:18.680
lot, what you're looking at a
little maybe skimming over. And the purpose

495
00:31:18.759 --> 00:31:22.240
is to be as relevant as possible
to the person that you're trying to create

496
00:31:22.279 --> 00:31:26.640
a partnership with, is that you
know, if you're a relationship driven you

497
00:31:26.640 --> 00:31:29.440
may be spending a lot of time
on our team section of a proposal.

498
00:31:29.759 --> 00:31:34.079
If you're a price conscious buyer,
you're probably concentrating a lot on the pricing

499
00:31:34.119 --> 00:31:37.960
table. And those little pieces of
information are actually really really valuable and helping

500
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:41.880
you really start to sell better and
smarter, as opposed to just sending that

501
00:31:41.920 --> 00:31:45.200
PowerPoint deck out again that you did
in the previous you know, five or

502
00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:49.759
ten times. That's incredibly exciting,
Brian, that is incredibly exciting. I

503
00:31:49.759 --> 00:31:53.440
did notice that that you do call
that in the tutorial or the demo.

504
00:31:53.559 --> 00:31:56.799
You do call that, and I
didn't, and I understood the importance of

505
00:31:56.839 --> 00:32:00.160
it, but the way you just
brought it to life there is really really

506
00:32:00.200 --> 00:32:05.720
add some color for me well.
As an executive for a marketing advertising company

507
00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:08.440
for in the past ten years.
You know, there's no lack of data

508
00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:13.079
in the marketing space, especially digital
marketing. I can tell what click through

509
00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:15.400
rates are, what your engagement rates
are, which campaigns are right side up

510
00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:21.000
or upside down in terms of ROI, But in sales it's send a PowerPoint

511
00:32:21.039 --> 00:32:22.680
and weight, and we just knew
there had to be a better answer to

512
00:32:22.720 --> 00:32:27.519
that. How can we apply some
good digital marketing techniques, apply those to

513
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:31.559
sales proposals and start to really help
and enable either sales individuals or sales teams

514
00:32:32.279 --> 00:32:38.000
sell better, smarter and faster.
Sounds good to me. I think everybody,

515
00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:42.960
whether they really embrace it or not, is a salesperson, some of

516
00:32:43.039 --> 00:32:45.839
us more so than others, of
course, right, And to that end,

517
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:51.720
I'm really interested in your strategy to
develop and grow this business. Do

518
00:32:51.759 --> 00:32:54.279
you have a plan in place or
you're just peddling your bicycle so fast to

519
00:32:54.319 --> 00:32:57.720
start? We haven't gotten there yet. Where are you in that plan?

520
00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:00.759
Yeah, we certainly have a plan
in play. So one of those things

521
00:33:00.759 --> 00:33:02.400
I talked about earlier was filling your
blind spots. You know, for me,

522
00:33:02.880 --> 00:33:06.920
the vast majority of my career was
in the services space, not the

523
00:33:06.920 --> 00:33:08.640
product space. So one of the
first things I did is I got a

524
00:33:08.720 --> 00:33:13.000
board of advisors, and I got
some very good qualified people who lived in

525
00:33:13.039 --> 00:33:16.240
the product space to sit there alongside
me to kind of sanity check my decisions.

526
00:33:17.319 --> 00:33:20.519
And you know, one of the
things we found out very early on

527
00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:23.480
was you know, we're selling a
solution to a problem that people don't know

528
00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:27.359
they have. You know, they're
not looking for the solution to get to

529
00:33:27.440 --> 00:33:30.079
educate them that there's something else that's
out there that you can do it better

530
00:33:30.119 --> 00:33:36.279
and differently. So it's really changing
consumer habits and informing the world out there

531
00:33:36.279 --> 00:33:40.799
that there is a better alternative than
just the same old status quo. Really

532
00:33:40.839 --> 00:33:44.839
sounds great, Brian. I'm finding
this conversation very inspiring. I thank you

533
00:33:44.839 --> 00:33:46.519
for that, and I hope our
listeners are as well. This is a

534
00:33:46.519 --> 00:33:50.960
good time for our last break.
I'm Alice Cortez, your host. We've

535
00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:53.799
been on the air with Brian Honorio, who is an entrepreneur currently the founder

536
00:33:53.839 --> 00:33:59.279
and CEO of Proposa, a best
in class SaaS solution for building stunningly beautiful

537
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:02.359
proposals and half the time. Brian
started his first company, walk West,

538
00:34:02.640 --> 00:34:07.799
a marketing and advertising agency, at
the age of twenty four. After scaling

539
00:34:07.839 --> 00:34:12.360
walk West to thirty five people,
Brian created Proposa based on intellectual property that

540
00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:15.679
walk West had created. He joined
it today from Raleigh, North Carolina.

541
00:34:15.880 --> 00:34:19.719
We've been talking a bit about his
own entrepreneurial journey and how he started Proposa.

542
00:34:20.119 --> 00:34:22.639
After the break, we're going to
hear about his lessons learned. Stay

543
00:34:22.679 --> 00:34:25.639
with us, We'll be right back. Alice Cortes is a speaker and engagement

544
00:34:25.679 --> 00:34:31.679
and development catalyst. She designs and
delivers professional development, leadership and engagement workshops

545
00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:37.440
and can bring her expertise to your
organization. She will help ignite meaningful development

546
00:34:37.480 --> 00:34:42.639
within your workforce that will increase employee
engagement, performance and retention. To learn

547
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:45.519
more or to invite Elise to speak
to your organization, please visit her at

548
00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:52.239
www dot Elisecortes dot com. She
would welcome the opportunity to help get your

549
00:34:52.320 --> 00:35:02.159
employees working on purpose. This is
working on purpose with Elise Cortes. To

550
00:35:02.280 --> 00:35:08.199
reach our program today, send an
email to a lease Ali at a lascortes

551
00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:15.320
dot com. Now back to working
on purpose. If you're just tuning in,

552
00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:17.360
My guest is Brian Anrio, an
entrepreneur who is currently the founder and

553
00:35:17.440 --> 00:35:22.960
CEO of Proposa, a best in
class SaaS solution for building stunningly beautiful proposals

554
00:35:22.960 --> 00:35:25.280
in half the time. I'm your
host, Atlis Cortes. So for this

555
00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:29.239
last segment, here, Brian,
what I'd love to have a showcase,

556
00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:32.199
and I so appreciate You're already a
very real and accessible, authentic human beings,

557
00:35:32.199 --> 00:35:37.119
so I appreciate whatever it is that
you share. I want to move

558
00:35:37.159 --> 00:35:42.119
on and have you talk about maybe
two or three of the really viable lessons

559
00:35:42.119 --> 00:35:45.480
that you've learned as you've gone through
your entrepreneurial journey and how they've helped you

560
00:35:45.559 --> 00:35:49.920
become more effective in business today.
You know, I've got to and I

561
00:35:49.960 --> 00:35:53.440
hope we're not beating a drum here, but the first one is find a

562
00:35:53.480 --> 00:35:58.920
mentor. I can't tell you the
difference that you know early in my career

563
00:35:58.920 --> 00:36:01.679
as an executive running things solo and
running things with the team. There's such

564
00:36:01.679 --> 00:36:05.800
a big difference, and people are
out there already and willing to help.

565
00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:09.639
You know, certainly I have gone
through the bruises of general warfare here with

566
00:36:09.719 --> 00:36:14.480
starting and growing a business, and
certainly when folks approach me and ask questions,

567
00:36:14.519 --> 00:36:16.840
I am more than happy to open
up like a book and letting people

568
00:36:16.880 --> 00:36:20.719
know, don't do this, do
that instead. If you have any questions,

569
00:36:20.760 --> 00:36:22.639
email me, call me, text
me, because really it's kind of

570
00:36:22.639 --> 00:36:28.079
that responsibility. It's a close knit
community where they talk about founder's courage a

571
00:36:28.079 --> 00:36:30.639
lot for people who go out and
they make that leap, and they make

572
00:36:30.679 --> 00:36:35.280
that jump, there's certainly a camaraderie
around that, and I certainly want to

573
00:36:35.320 --> 00:36:38.039
help as many people as I can
because I realized I didn't get here on

574
00:36:38.079 --> 00:36:40.159
my own, and I had the
help and the hand of a lot of

575
00:36:40.159 --> 00:36:45.280
people along the way. So that
really is lesson number one, don't try

576
00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:47.480
to go it alone. You probably
are special, but you're not that special.

577
00:36:49.320 --> 00:36:52.199
Make sure you got back up planned
there, and he finds some qualified

578
00:36:52.199 --> 00:36:58.079
people to go in your corner.
But the second is the lesson that's been

579
00:36:58.079 --> 00:37:00.880
a hard one for me to learn
over time. Really it's been try fail

580
00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:05.880
adjusts. Try fail adjusts has been
the concept of running towards problems, not

581
00:37:05.960 --> 00:37:09.800
away from them. And I think
that you know, the idea may creeping

582
00:37:09.800 --> 00:37:13.599
your head that you can sweep this
under the rug. Be it a financial

583
00:37:13.639 --> 00:37:16.159
issue, maybe it's a client service
issue, maybe it's something in between,

584
00:37:16.760 --> 00:37:20.320
but you can sweep it under the
rug and it just just goes away.

585
00:37:20.480 --> 00:37:23.800
And those things never go away.
To really be a successful entrepreneur, to

586
00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:28.760
be a successful business leader, you've
got to have that personality that you're going

587
00:37:28.800 --> 00:37:30.440
to put on the fire jacket and
run towards the fire, as opposed to

588
00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:34.599
away from it, which is where
everybody else is running. They're running away.

589
00:37:34.840 --> 00:37:37.719
You've got to run towards. And
you know, when you run towards

590
00:37:37.719 --> 00:37:40.119
a problem early on, all you
do is you buy yourself time to fix

591
00:37:40.199 --> 00:37:43.840
it. It's going to pop back
up and then you're not going to have

592
00:37:43.840 --> 00:37:45.199
the time to fix it. So
you might as well tackle it early,

593
00:37:45.480 --> 00:37:50.119
tackle it often, and tackle it
hard. That is great advice, Brian,

594
00:37:50.159 --> 00:37:52.920
That is great advice. That idea
of running to the problem rather than

595
00:37:52.960 --> 00:37:57.239
away from it. I think that's
brilliant. Now I have to dig a

596
00:37:57.239 --> 00:38:00.320
little bit deeper on the mentor thing
that you said. So when you mention

597
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:02.280
the importance of mentors, what I
wonder is, did you was there a

598
00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:06.880
time where you want it alone longer
than maybe you could have or should have,

599
00:38:07.239 --> 00:38:10.199
or did you immediately latch on and
find mentors in your journey? I

600
00:38:10.199 --> 00:38:14.840
think the course of growing walk West, what it really came down to was

601
00:38:14.840 --> 00:38:17.800
was burnout and I was kind of
done. Certainly, I was making plenty

602
00:38:17.800 --> 00:38:21.599
of money, certainly more money than
I'd ever made before. There was nothing

603
00:38:21.639 --> 00:38:24.239
wrong with the company, but I
just could never go on vacation. I

604
00:38:24.280 --> 00:38:27.960
didn't know how to scale to get
over that next hump. You know,

605
00:38:27.960 --> 00:38:30.400
when I did try to go on
vacation, I spent half my days on

606
00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:32.840
the telephone trying to solve problems or
you know, fix issues, or get

607
00:38:32.840 --> 00:38:37.039
a proposal out or get a contract
signed, or there's always things that you

608
00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:39.880
can do. And there came a
point in time where I could keep doing

609
00:38:39.880 --> 00:38:44.079
it. I could keep going,
but I didn't want to because I was

610
00:38:44.119 --> 00:38:49.360
doing it alone. And certainly I
actually found my mentor, Donald Thompson,

611
00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:53.320
because I sent one of his companies
a proposal generated by the proposal Engine,

612
00:38:53.320 --> 00:38:55.039
and he thought, wait, wait
a minute, this is a two or

613
00:38:55.079 --> 00:38:59.440
three person company. They're doing things
way different than anybody else. I've got

614
00:38:59.480 --> 00:39:01.719
to have a converse with them.
And certainly Donald and I had a lot

615
00:39:01.719 --> 00:39:06.480
of conversations in those early days about
how he could help. And at that

616
00:39:06.519 --> 00:39:07.960
point, at that point my career, I just looked at it and said,

617
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:12.719
what do I have to lose by
bringing a partner to help growth grow

618
00:39:12.760 --> 00:39:15.639
and scale? Because he's been there
and done that. I really didn't have

619
00:39:15.760 --> 00:39:17.559
much to lose other than giving it
a shot. And if it didn't work,

620
00:39:17.679 --> 00:39:22.039
you know, I could certainly find
myself gainingtally employed with the experience I

621
00:39:22.039 --> 00:39:23.840
had built over the previous you know, six or seven years at that point

622
00:39:23.880 --> 00:39:27.559
in time. Two things I want
to say about that, Brian. One

623
00:39:27.679 --> 00:39:30.920
is the importance of scaling, finding
a way to scale. I hear so

624
00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:34.920
often, and I've had many people
on the show talking about this. When

625
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:37.760
once you can actually find that way
to scale, your world changes dramatically.

626
00:39:37.800 --> 00:39:44.199
If everything depends on you and your
decision or even your move, or it's

627
00:39:44.239 --> 00:39:45.679
a you know, one to one
retaro between you and time, you're in

628
00:39:45.719 --> 00:39:51.480
big trouble. So I really appreciate
how you distinguish that for us. I

629
00:39:51.480 --> 00:39:52.440
can go a bit deeper with that, as I think that a lot of

630
00:39:52.440 --> 00:39:57.880
folks that have small companies they consider
them lifestyle companies. I don't consider small

631
00:39:58.079 --> 00:40:04.320
companies lifestyle companies because or chained that
telephone, you can't break away because you

632
00:40:04.519 --> 00:40:07.000
are the company. And those situations
work fine for a lot of people,

633
00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:09.760
have worked out great for me for
the longest time. But there came a

634
00:40:09.800 --> 00:40:13.360
point in time where I had to
make the decision do I want to scale

635
00:40:13.719 --> 00:40:16.239
and if I don't then how can
I systematize this a bit more so it's

636
00:40:16.280 --> 00:40:20.519
not so dependent on me. But
the answer for me was, you know,

637
00:40:20.679 --> 00:40:22.480
still relatively young, I want to
give this whole scale thing a shot,

638
00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:25.320
and we certainly did that. We
grew from a couple of employees to

639
00:40:25.360 --> 00:40:29.760
thirty five and two and a half
years. It's so admirable and and I

640
00:40:29.800 --> 00:40:32.760
wish I would have met you years
ago, Brian, when I and a

641
00:40:32.800 --> 00:40:37.440
business partner started a small online feedback
portal the human resource space. It was

642
00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:43.000
called Improved Experience, and we did
this in ready, drumroll please two thousand

643
00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:46.239
and six to twenty ten, yeap, and let that fall off at the

644
00:40:46.280 --> 00:40:50.440
edge of the cliff, shall we? But if we would have we were

645
00:40:50.440 --> 00:40:52.559
in the process of building a board
of advisors toward the end, and had

646
00:40:52.599 --> 00:40:55.519
we done that much sooner, I
think we would have been in much better

647
00:40:55.519 --> 00:41:00.320
shape and maybe found a way to
remain relevant through that recetsession and such that

648
00:41:00.360 --> 00:41:05.800
because our product dependent on people getting
hired to use it right in the middle

649
00:41:05.800 --> 00:41:07.719
of the recession. So but there
probably were other things that we could have

650
00:41:07.840 --> 00:41:10.480
done to be able to address the
market space that would have allowed us to

651
00:41:10.519 --> 00:41:15.000
remain viable and handle those sort of
things while the market recovered, and we

652
00:41:15.079 --> 00:41:21.920
just didn't have the wherewithal, or
the space or the forethought to consider that

653
00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:23.960
option until later in the process when
by the time it was too late.

654
00:41:24.519 --> 00:41:27.800
Yeah, everybody works hard, you
know, especially when you have your own

655
00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:30.480
company, your own product that you're
working towards. It's not a question of

656
00:41:30.559 --> 00:41:34.280
work ethic. It's really about working
smarter and can you find people to surround

657
00:41:34.320 --> 00:41:37.119
yourself with. And again, I
cannot go back on it any and you

658
00:41:37.480 --> 00:41:40.960
say it any more than how critical
it is to make sure that you that

659
00:41:42.039 --> 00:41:45.559
you find yourself a person that can
be a compidant that you can talk about

660
00:41:45.559 --> 00:41:49.280
business issues, just to help you
see over the trees a little bit.

661
00:41:49.519 --> 00:41:51.920
When you're in it, you can't
see the forest because of the trees.

662
00:41:51.920 --> 00:41:53.639
You got to pull back a little
bit, and sometimes it takes another human

663
00:41:53.679 --> 00:42:00.320
being to create that tug. I'm
very interested in hearing what does your work

664
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:06.400
mean to you in your overall life. I think there's a satisfaction certainly that

665
00:42:06.440 --> 00:42:09.239
I'm sitting here now in my mid
thirties and I've been to this journey now

666
00:42:09.239 --> 00:42:13.519
in my second company, there's a
big satisfaction that goes along with that.

667
00:42:14.440 --> 00:42:19.519
But really the meaning is not in
finances or anything else. It really comes

668
00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:22.719
down to the people that I've surrounded
myself with over the past ten years.

669
00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:25.039
I mentioned earlier, this is not
a solo act. You know, this

670
00:42:25.079 --> 00:42:29.880
is a band, and any one
piece outside is not going to create that

671
00:42:30.559 --> 00:42:34.360
chorus that you need. The meaning
really has been the relationships I developed,

672
00:42:34.400 --> 00:42:38.119
the customers that have trusted me with
their business, those really early ambassadors who

673
00:42:38.119 --> 00:42:43.039
did nothing but speak my name in
all the right places. I didn't get

674
00:42:43.039 --> 00:42:47.000
here alone, and certainly paying homage
and thanks to those folks along the way,

675
00:42:47.119 --> 00:42:52.199
because it's been an exciting journey,
and looking back, it's one that

676
00:42:52.480 --> 00:42:54.519
you don't want to take a loan, because I think it can be a

677
00:42:54.519 --> 00:42:59.320
lonely journey for a lot of people. So I heard a couple of things

678
00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:05.360
in that I heard achievement. I
heard connection. I heard the privilege of

679
00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:08.960
being trusted by others, people who
helped you and went out of their way

680
00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:14.920
to help presence you in the marketplace. And it's interesting that you set aside

681
00:43:14.920 --> 00:43:19.400
immediately to the financial piece. Yeah, because I think that that's not necessarily

682
00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:22.800
meaning, that doesn't bring meaning to
a lot of people that certainly, the

683
00:43:22.880 --> 00:43:27.039
lack of finances can create strife,
it can create discontent, it can create

684
00:43:27.039 --> 00:43:30.360
a lot of stress. And certainly
I'm not what you would consider quote unquote

685
00:43:30.440 --> 00:43:34.880
rich, but you know, having
enough to live on helps out that you

686
00:43:34.920 --> 00:43:37.400
can start concentrating on the other things
around you, because I think that when

687
00:43:37.400 --> 00:43:40.719
you find meaning, it's not necessarily
in things, it's in people. You

688
00:43:40.760 --> 00:43:43.840
know, I come to the office
every day and I see people that i've

689
00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:46.159
that have been with me for years, and those are the there's the true

690
00:43:46.199 --> 00:43:52.599
trusted partners that you develop over time. That that really helped to grow where

691
00:43:52.639 --> 00:43:55.519
the sum of two parts is greater
than the whole, or the whole in

692
00:43:55.559 --> 00:43:59.960
the sum of two parts, I
got that really quick. On the money

693
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:02.840
piece, what I've learned by interviewing
people is that money means different things to

694
00:44:02.880 --> 00:44:07.320
people. For some people who grew
up without very much of it, when

695
00:44:07.320 --> 00:44:10.159
they do have some of it,
it gives them security. For other people,

696
00:44:10.280 --> 00:44:14.840
making a good living whatever that is, gives them a sense of pride

697
00:44:14.840 --> 00:44:19.039
because they're providing for people that they
love. So I've really come and there's

698
00:44:19.119 --> 00:44:21.920
just a whole other spectrum of things
that fall all over the place, and

699
00:44:22.440 --> 00:44:25.320
there's power in that for people.
There's all kinds of stuff. So what

700
00:44:25.360 --> 00:44:30.519
I've learned by researching meaning about money
is really fascinating, really really intense and

701
00:44:30.599 --> 00:44:35.079
deep. You have a specific description
to it, and as do I.

702
00:44:35.320 --> 00:44:37.840
But I just wanted to STEMIs that
for our listeners in case that wasn't quite

703
00:44:37.880 --> 00:44:40.239
it for them? Absolutely? I
think that for me it's always been about

704
00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:44.920
security. Is there enough? Yeah, certainly not to go out and have

705
00:44:45.039 --> 00:44:46.239
three houses, but is there enough
for me to get by and make sure

706
00:44:46.280 --> 00:44:50.639
my kids are taken care of and
make sure payroll cleayers, Because that's a

707
00:44:50.639 --> 00:44:53.039
pretty important piece. Absolutely, that
goes back to the trust piece, right

708
00:44:53.079 --> 00:44:57.400
and right. Okay, So that's
why I wanted to kind of deepen that

709
00:44:57.440 --> 00:45:00.199
little bit, just because it Having
been a researcher for as long as I

710
00:45:00.199 --> 00:45:02.480
have, I just know there's a
lot to it. No, there is,

711
00:45:02.800 --> 00:45:06.400
Okay. So I want to ask
you maybe just two more questions.

712
00:45:06.519 --> 00:45:08.880
Were almost out of time here and
you may have already gotten to this,

713
00:45:08.920 --> 00:45:12.599
but I want to give you the
chance to answer this specific question. What

714
00:45:12.760 --> 00:45:16.639
are you most proud of in your
journey as an entrepreneur? Self? Satisfaction

715
00:45:16.679 --> 00:45:20.280
that I was able to do it. You know, what plagued me early

716
00:45:20.320 --> 00:45:22.519
on was that self doubt and that
nagging fear that I'd have to open up

717
00:45:22.559 --> 00:45:25.480
to my friends on barnight, you
know, when I'm twenty five years old,

718
00:45:25.519 --> 00:45:28.159
saying hey, I gave it a
shop, but it didn't work out,

719
00:45:28.159 --> 00:45:30.679
and now I'm going back to work
for somebody else. I didn't want

720
00:45:30.719 --> 00:45:34.320
that, and it actually kind of
horrified me. I'm kind of downplaying a

721
00:45:34.360 --> 00:45:37.719
little bit, but those are the
things that kept me up awake at night

722
00:45:37.960 --> 00:45:40.199
early on. Now, certainly there
were challenges that kept me up, you

723
00:45:40.199 --> 00:45:43.880
know later in my career that they
kept me up at night and had me

724
00:45:43.920 --> 00:45:46.159
thinking where I couldn't sleep, But
that was the early one and kind of

725
00:45:46.239 --> 00:45:51.559
looking back over the past ten or
eleven years, it really has been that

726
00:45:51.639 --> 00:45:58.280
satisfaction of doing it, and certainly
the pride that I have have and building

727
00:45:58.280 --> 00:46:00.320
two companies. It's it's something that
not a lot of people do, and

728
00:46:00.320 --> 00:46:04.239
I'm certainly proud that I am,
and I just want to make sure that

729
00:46:04.320 --> 00:46:07.920
when there's an opportunity, that I
have an opportunity to work with younger folks

730
00:46:07.119 --> 00:46:12.320
who are considering the same path and
where can I play my part in the

731
00:46:12.320 --> 00:46:15.360
same way that some other folks have
played that part for me. That's great,

732
00:46:15.400 --> 00:46:19.320
Brian, that's really beautiful, and
I really appreciate that what you shared

733
00:46:19.320 --> 00:46:22.280
about not want to tell your friends. Look, I gave it my best

734
00:46:22.280 --> 00:46:27.079
shot, but it didn't quite work
out. And then motivation that comes from

735
00:46:27.119 --> 00:46:30.679
wanting to avoid having to say that
I really got that. So in our

736
00:46:30.760 --> 00:46:32.199
last little bit of time here,
I like to be able to give you

737
00:46:32.199 --> 00:46:36.360
the last word here. You know, the show is about helping listeners across

738
00:46:36.400 --> 00:46:38.800
the globe more meaningfully connect with their
work. What would you like to leave

739
00:46:38.840 --> 00:46:43.280
them with and say about thirty seconds. In thirty seconds, I'd say,

740
00:46:43.320 --> 00:46:45.559
read as much as you can read
anything and everything that you can that relates

741
00:46:45.599 --> 00:46:50.639
to either you personally professional or professionally. And I'm going to say it once

742
00:46:50.719 --> 00:46:52.800
more, even though I've done it
three times here, but really seek out

743
00:46:52.960 --> 00:46:58.320
networks people within your hometowns, even
online or digitally. Folks are out there,

744
00:46:58.480 --> 00:47:00.760
they want to share their experience,
they want to help and get help

745
00:47:00.800 --> 00:47:04.039
at the same time. They're out
there and they're available, And I wish

746
00:47:04.119 --> 00:47:06.880
it was the thing that I'd done
earlier in my career. Beautiful way to

747
00:47:06.880 --> 00:47:09.719
finish, Brian, and thank you
so much for sharing your wisdom, your

748
00:47:09.760 --> 00:47:14.360
experience, and absolutely your passion.
You let us into your space in a

749
00:47:14.360 --> 00:47:16.440
way that I like to share with
my listeners, and I really appreciate that.

750
00:47:16.480 --> 00:47:20.280
Brian, Thank you. Aliso's my
pleasure. If you want to learn

751
00:47:20.280 --> 00:47:22.960
more about Brian and his team at
Proposa and what they're up to, go

752
00:47:22.039 --> 00:47:28.199
visit their website. It's getproposa dot
com. So g E T P R

753
00:47:29.119 --> 00:47:32.599
PO s A getproposa dot com.
Join us next week when we talk with

754
00:47:32.679 --> 00:47:37.639
Lauren Middley, and she has just
released another book on productivity, something I

755
00:47:37.639 --> 00:47:39.480
think most of us need more of. I'll look forward to the conversation.

756
00:47:39.599 --> 00:47:43.400
Join us in Remember that work is
at least one third of our life,

757
00:47:43.440 --> 00:47:47.199
so let's work on purpose. Well
you hope you've enjoyed this week's program.

758
00:47:47.599 --> 00:47:52.360
Be sure to tune in to Working
on Purpose, featuring your host Alis Cortes,

759
00:47:52.639 --> 00:47:58.360
each week on the Voice America Empowerment
Channel. This week, find your

760
00:47:58.400 --> 00:48:00.239
life's purpose at work